Forget Amazon Affiliate… Here’s all You’ll Ever Need to Monetize your Blog

Forget Amazon Affiliate... this StephanieCristi article provides three better affiliate programs for bloggers and influencers to join.

So, why am I hating on the Amazon Affiliate program for bloggers so hard? The truth is that they’re not as easy to make a sale with as you would think!

The Amazon Affiliate program requires you to make three sales within the first 90 days or else they shut down your account. The problem is that when you’re a new blogger with minimal traffic, this may be too difficult for your site to achieve.

There are so many other amazing affiliate programs beyond Amazon Affiliate and today I want to tell you about my favorite ones. As I find out about more, this list will continue to grow so be sure to pin it for future reference!

Disclosure: This post about my experience with Amazon Affiliate contains affiliate links. This mean that, if you sign up through my links below, I will earn a small commission. This is at no extra charge to you. Keep in mind though, that I only post affiliate links to products and services I personally love and use myself! Signing up through my page ensures that I am able to keep writing useful content for all of you.

Instead of Amazon Affiliate, Try: Shopstyle Collective

Why I love it

I love Shopstyle Collective because it’s so easy to integrate with Pinterest: they have a Pin it button built right in!

Types of brands

Shopstyle Collective is home to a wide collection of brands. I mainly link to their clothing and home goods but don’t be fooled… they offer so much more! Shopstyle Collective includes brands such as:

  • Alex and Ani
  • Macy’s
  • Ann Taylor
  • Anthropologie
  • Apple
  • Banana Republic
  • bareMinerals
  • Bebe
  • Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and so many more!

Payment style

I love Shopstyle Collective because even though you can always opt into a commission-based payment plan (CPA), you can also stay in their pay-per-click (PPC) system. I love PPC because it’s easy for me to add them to my Top Recommended Products Pinterest board and get clicks that way. You can check out my Top Recommended Products board here:

This pin, for example, gets clicks every single day, earning me a nice bit of change.

If you join their CPA format, you earn a percentage of the sale, though ShopStyle Collective is vague in just what that percentage might be.

As of now (June 2018) they are announcing that they do plan on phasing out their PPC system, though they have not established a date and promise to give users 90-day notice.

Instead of Amazon Affiliate, Try: Ultimate Bundles

The way it works

Ultimate Bundles is a Flash Sale type program where every month or so, they offer a huge bundle of ebooks, workbooks, and other digital products for 90-97% off! Each bundle has a theme and the themes are varied to ensure many niches are represented. The bundles available now are:

And some upcoming ones relate to blogging, healthy eating, and photography! Some of them are strictly set up as flash sales, where they are only available for purchase for about a week, while others (like the 3 available now) are constantly available but have bonus gifts only available for a limited time.

Why I love it

At a 90-97% discount, your readers will be glad you told them about the amazing opportunity, and since they’re only available for a short period of time, people tend to jump at the deal because they know they have a small window of opportunity to make their purchase.

Payment style

As an affiliate, you make 40% of each sale, which is already a huge deal, but what’s even better is that if you contribute to the bundle you make 70%! Becoming a contributor is awesome because you can get your name in front of thousands of readers. And if your book is fabulous (and I’m sure it is…) word of mouth will get you even more sales beyond the Bundle.

If other influencers and bloggers sign up to become affiliates through your link, you also earn 10% of their sales for their first year as members. Hooray for recurring income!

If you’re a blogger and would like to join Ultimate Bundles, you can sign up through my referral link here.

Instead of Amazon Affiliate, Try: Viglink

Why I love it

I love Viglink because it’s a great way to streamline your affiliate company sales, even beyond what you get with Shopstyle Collective. You just make one account with them and you automatically get access to all the affiliate companies they partner with, including:

  • Ebay
  • Nike
  • Ally fashion
  • Craftsy
  • Enterprise
  • H&R Block, and more, more, more.

Types of brands

Viglink actually also partners with Amazon, so you can still link to all the great Amazon products, without having to go directly through their affiliate program! You can add your affiliate links to your blog, newsletters, and even social media.

Payment style

Viglink is great because you get paid from your affiliate links but also for getting others to join the program as well!

When you’re a member of Viglink, you earn anywhere from 3% up to 25% of sales. However, some merchants don’t disclose their commission rate, and others are a flat amount per sale, rather than a percentage.

Through Viglink, I’ve posted links to StephanieCristi for great products from Amazon and Petco. If you’re interested, you can find them on my Resources page.

As for referring others to the program, if you refer a new user to VigLink they pay you 35% of their commission for the first year! Recurring income FTW!

If you’re interested in joining Viglink, you can sign up through my referral link here.

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Instead of Amazon Affiliate, Try: Shareasale

Why I love it

I love shareasale! My favorite clothing brand, Lulus, is listed through them and thanks to shareasale I’m able to promote all their gorgeous clothes!

And speaking of Lulu’s…Shop Lulus and enjoy $15 off + Free Shipping on US orders over $150 – Use promo code ‘take15 at checkout. Click here!

Types of brands

Anywhoooo… Shareasale is somewhat similar to viglink in the sense that one account gets you access to all the members. However, under shareasale it isn’t automatic. Once you’re signed up with shareasale, you can search through all their members and one-click sign up with each merchant you’re interested in individually.

A cool part of shareasale is that anybody with a product can list it. So you could be a member and make income by selling your own products as well as being an affiliate member for other companies.

Under shareasale, for example, I’m an affiliate for Thinkific Online Course Software and Lulu’s.

Payment style

Since literally anyone can post a product and become a vendor on shareasale, there any tons of different payment styles, from flat rate per sale to some pretty high commission percentages.

If you want to list your products on shareasale, or become an affiliate member, you can sign up through the two referral links in this sentence.

TL;DR

If you want to monetize your blog, forget about Amazon Affiliate and instead check out Shopstyle Collective, Ultimate BundlesViglink, and shareasale.com. Not only will Viglink give you access to the Amazon products, but they provide much higher commission percentages and no time limits before closing your account!

For more blogging resources, be sure to sign up for my membership resource library below!

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StephanieCristi’s Top Recommended Blogging Resources

With all my love,

SC xo

Forget Amazon Affiliate... this StephanieCristi article provides four better affiliate programs for bloggers and influencers to join.
Forget Amazon Affiliate... Here\'s all You\'ll Ever Need to Monetize your Blog

7 thoughts on “Forget Amazon Affiliate… Here’s all You’ll Ever Need to Monetize your Blog

  1. Wow, thanks for sharing! I love these bloggers that are giving out advice to those that need it. I’m still an amateur blogger and I have much to learn, so this is very helpful for me. Hopefully in the future, I’ll be able to monetize my own blog. šŸ™‚

    1. Hi Mary Beth! I’m so glad you found this post helpful. I’m working on building up the Side Hustling category on this blog with tons of information on setting up some side incomes. I’d love to be of help to you in your process so feel free to reach out with any questions you may have šŸ™‚

    1. Hi Shohinee!

      I’m so glad you found my blog post helpful!
      If you decide to use my recommended services for monetizing your blog, please consider using my affiliate links so I can keep creating all this content for you šŸ™‚

      StephanieCristi

  2. how do i get approved for shopstyle collective? what’s the minimum traffic/followers. i signed up for it and they never got back to me :'(

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