3. Affiliate Programs

Affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online when someone buys a product you recommend.

This screen grab shows how to make money online with VigLink’s affiliate marketing program. There are dozens of similar affiliate programs online.

Affiliate marketing works when you recommend a product, either on your blog, in an email or on social media. Someone clicks the link and buys the product either immediately or within a set period of time. You get a percentage of the sale, often 5-10%.

Affiliate Programs Make Money Online Even With Small Audiences

The beauty of affiliate programs is, the barrier to entry is very, very low. Nobody can go up to a huge Fortune 500 company and say I have a new app or website and hey, Verizon, can you give me a couple hundred dollars a month to go advertise? It’s not even worth it for them to take your call. However, just about anyone with a quality website can sign up for services that will automatically add affiliate links.

You don’t even have to run a huge website. If you’re “that guy” in your circle of friends who knows everything about cell phones or tires, you can even email affiliate links to friends and family. If everyone’s always asking you about cars, tires and brakes, you can sign up for the TireRack. com’s affiliate program and make money on that. You can even use Facebook to make affiliate dollars. Long story short, affiliate marketing is a very direct way and a good way to make money online even if you have a smaller audience.

The video below gives a good intro to affiliate marketing.

A Few Affiliate Aggregators

Affiliate aggregators are ways to bring together affiliate programs from lots of different companies. The aggregators below might pull together affiliate programs from companies that sell shoes, cameras, cars and so on.

Viglink Commission Junction CommissionSoup ClickBank LinkShare FlexOffers Digital River ShareASale Plumes Skimlinks Rakuten Linkshare ProfitRank Blue Moon Digital

Sponsorships are another great way to make an income online. See the margin ads in this screen grab from a paddleboarding blog. Those aren’t your typical Google Ads.