Updated 7 May 2019. If you are a  blogger or online marketer, how happy would you be to see this email, and I was too when I received that email from microsoft.

Not only  have I been using  – the useful Microsoft  programs for years  like windows  Office ( word , excel , publisher , one note, office 360 ), but now I also have the opportunity  to promote them as an affiliate and make some money.

Microsoft is  a Big brand that sells itself and so I just need to position myself  to the right audience. This is what affiliate marketing and internet marketing is all about- selling online and making money.

If you run a blog then you will need to know how to make money and if you want to make money you will first >> need to make a blog.

Doing blogging for a passion is all right, but earning some money on the side could always be a bonus. There are top bloggers who make a passive income  of upto $40,000 a year (some in a month) just by promoting affiliate programs( Pat Flynn is an example) and then there are some who make even more.

If you have a blog or website or then planning to start a new blog/website –  Why not take advantage of some good established big brands to make yourself some money as well.

I have written a detailed comparison  of website hosting providers who make it easy to create a blog easily over here, if you are a beginner looking to start a blog or website. I have also listed  some great hosting options and  word press resources below if your want to get started with a website.

But first lets go ahead and check out some  Australian affiliate programs that can make you money.

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Why big brands?

Because its Easy to sell, Big brands are well known and already earned that good will so why not take advantage of it . All you need to do, is provide the information that the customer is seeking  and a little bit more  to stand out from your competition and then add a decent call to action (purchase) and you could get a sale soon.

Off course it it is an unknown brand, then it makes  this job  a little bit harder to sell a product on your blog-website.

In this post I am going to list some top brands that can help you make money from your blog and also some tips on how to earn some money with these established brands.

You don’t need to be a professional affiliate marketer or internet marketer today to make some money from your website. All you need is a good blog with some decent traffic.

How to join these affiliate programs

There are many affiliate program companies that bring together lots of top brand companies to promote under their one program and so you can sign up with this company  to promote many rather than signing up individually with every top brand.

Some top affiliate program companies  that represent top brands are Commission Junction (CJ), Share a sale (www.shareasale.com), Maxbounty , Amazon associates, Ebay Network and Peerfly.

There are also smaller companies like Clickbank and Neverblue and Offer vault that offer digital downloads and CPA programs.

The advantage of signing up with aggregated publisher/seller program like commission junction is that –  it becomes easier to sign up with just one account with them  to get approval to promote multiple big brand products on their list. Otherwise you would have to sign up individually with each individual top brand website to promote them.

There are some top brands that still decide to run their own affiliate programs via their own website and so you might still need to sign up directly with the company reseller/partner/affiliate program.

I have had some success with promoting some products via an Australian affiliate program website, however I find the US based Commission junction and some other direct affiliate programs much more beneficial and also professional in their customer support.

Below are some Australian affiliate programs and below are also some US based affiliate companies. As this list is about affiliate networks, you will find some of my affiliate links in this post as well as direct links to affiliate programs or direct product websites.

2019 Australian Partner Affiliate and Reseller programs

1	GrowthOps.com.au

“GrowthOps use the Impact platform to run affiliate campaigns for some huge retailers like Dell, Kogan, Agoda and Rebel Sports.  There’s a wide range of creatives available to help you promote and almost infinite reporting options to help you analysis what’s working.”

Commission monster was acquired years back by APD, who last year were acquired by GrowthOps.

Join Here – > https://www.growthops.com.au

2	Clixgalore.com

They have gadgets, finance, websites, e-commerce stores and many more products to promote . Their user interface is not very user friendly and feels out-dated.

Join Here – > https://www.clixgalore.com/

3	Commissionfactory.com

They have a good wide range of brands to promote in many niches and have a good user friendly interface for affiliates. I have joined them  2 years ago  and their member  interface is very slick  and  functional  and  they have a very organised  support page for wordpress plugins , Data feeder software automated plugins and much more  to support you posting their offers and deals on your website.

Join Here – > https://www.commissionfactory.com/

Individual Affiliate programs

4. Dealsdirect.com.au – Don’t know if this exists anymore. I don’t like companies that discontinue their affiliate program suddenly. We now have  to spend time  to change all the links and if we dont they get traffic and sales for free and we get nothing $$ with their  discontinuation.

5. Digitalpacific.com.au

https://www.digitalpacific.com.au/hosting/partner-programs/affiliates/

6. Theiconic.com.au

They sell Fashion, Footwear & Accessories.  The default commission up to 16% (average basket value $120). Individual commission and special rates are available for top sellers.

http://www.theiconic.com.au/affiliates/

7. Wotif.com

This is a travel company and so you can promote hotel accommodation, flight, car hire, package holidays and local activity products around the globe

https://www.wotif.com/affiliates

8. Crazydomains.com.au

This is an Australian website hosting and domain name company and so you can promote website related products. Get Paid Commission on Referrals. Make up to 40% commission on every sale for 60 days from your referrals.

https://www.crazydomains.com.au/affiliates/

9. Groupon.com.au

Groupon runs a different deal every day from vouchers for spas and restaurants to deals on leisure, travel, beauty and sport. Each day they apparently feature a great deal at an unbeatable price up to 70% off!

· 8% commission rates

· Cookie-Lifetime: 30 days

http://www.groupon.com.au/partnerprogram

10. Ladbrokes

Their Standard Partner program allows you to promote a global brand which has all the latest technology and features. Ladbrokes.com.au is 100% licensed and regulated and covers all Australian racing and sporting events. The commission is

From 25% rev share to $75 CPA

https://www.ladbrokesaffiliates.com.au/

US BASED AND INTERNATIONAL AFFILIATE PROGRAMS

Many US based affiliate networks are widely used by Australian bloggers as they have a wider range of products and also tend to cover sellers from Australian markets.

CJ and Peerfly are a good example.

11. Apple Affiliate & ITUNES program

Apple is a well-known computer and gadget company and they also have a affiliate program which pays you money for selling for them

12. Itunes Affiliate

www.apple.com/au/itunes/affiliates/

Itunes is one of the most popular stores for buying music online. They also feature apps and much more.  You can feature their links on your website or app to link to millions of songs and thousands of apps — as well as books, movies; TV shows and makes money for apple and for yourself.

Using their reporting data on their website you can drill down to all sales in a specific country and then download the report to find out which campaigns performed the best during that time and promote them for commission.

13. Norton Anti-Virus Software & McAfee Security software

Everyone needs to keep their computer secure and Norton antivirus is quite a popular brand, make some money reviewing this product on your blog. You can sign up with CJ for this. There are also other top antivirus and security products vendors like Mcafee and more popular products to promote in CJ.

15. Udemy.com

Education is a billion dollar sector and has some of the highest CPC keywords on google.Online education has become popular with the launch of online learning websites like UDEMY, Linda and many more.

Promote Udemy with affiliate links and discount coupons to learn cooking, SEO, website building courses, languages etc or promote Linda to learn online marketing, Photography, Video editing, Word ,Excel.

https://www.udemy.com/affiliate/

16. Google Apps for work Affiliate

IF you promote Google apps for work you also get a partner discount. But you need to be approved to promote theme as a partner and it is a bit more involved that most affiliate programs, as it is handled by Google directly. With this program you can promote Professional email, online storage, shared calendars, video meetings and more.

https://apps.google.com/landing/partners/resellers/

17. Google Cloud Platform Partner Program

With this Google partner program you can sell storage in the cloud, App engine, big data, networking. With this program you can get customers for sell, build, deliver, support and maintain applications and implement solutions for clients on Google’s Cloud Platform products, based on your partner level classification.

https://cloud.google.com/partners/program-guide/

18. Xero .com

This is an accounting software website that you can promote to small businesses that want an easy solution for accounting to do it themselves. You can pretty much do your accounting online and on the go with their website built to support most smart devices. Promo Material available at CJ

https://www.xero.com/

19. Microsoft affiliate program

You can earn generous commissions on Office 365, Surface, Xbox, PCs and Windows Store content including, apps, games, music, movies and TV shows by promoting Microsoft products. Not too hard to do if they are offering competitive prices in your country (not AUS)

Only problem, its only 10% commission on qualifying sales

http://www.microsoftaffiliates.com/

20. Hotels.com

Work hard, Play hard. Travelling will always be there and there is a huge market to be tapped. Promote to this market and make money.

If you travel a lot this should be easy with just writing honest reviews of places you stayed in or then just promote about the area you live in. Make money promoting hotel bookings.

Some other providers apart from hotels.com are booking.com, Agoda, Expedia (CJ) and more.

21. Amazon.com

If there is a product that you are interested in promoting online, probably Amazon has it listed on their website. They have the widest range of products listed on the internet and often ship to multiple countries unlike other smaller websites.

They also have a good collection of books to sell which is how they  started in the first place.

The good thing about promoting amazon is, if a person buys something from your promo link and they happen to purchase another item that same day while they are online you get a commission for that other product that they bought as well.

Products on this website start from as low as $1 to $$$ thousands of dollars for the higher end luxury items

Sign up here – https://affiliate-program.amazon.com/gp/associates/join/landing/main.html

Amazon Australia Has just launched – https://www.amazon.com.au/ ( watch out for the Australian affiliate program)

22. Fiverr.com

Want a Job just done in $5. Its possible. On this site fiverr.com there are the most amazing things that you won’t believe you can get done in $5 to some of the weirdest things that people will do for you for just $5.

Once you try this, you will get hooked, so beware.

23. Bluehost Hosting

If you want to have a have a business online or a blog you need a website and if you want a website, you need Website hosting.

With high popularity of ecommerce and blogs, website hosting is a hot product to promote. Make money promoting hosting. Bluehost is well known for web-hosting.

24. Go daddy hosting

If you want to start a website or blog you will first need a domain name and then website-hosting and possibly other things like SSL certificate, website builder etc at Godaddy.com.

They are one of top most sellers of domain names on the internet. Godaddy used to run their own affiliate program, but now they have other affiliate programs including CJ running it for them.

25. Elegant Word press themes Program

As wordpress is one of the most popular website software in the world, it is but natural for many wordpress website designers and companies to be present in this niche. They are premium top end WP designs and templates  and also low cost designs companies.

If you want a wide variety of wordpress designs and plugin in one place you can use themeforest.net. If you want affordably priced wordpress themes then you can promote Elegant themes who has the most professional and reasonably priced membership for wp design prices in this niche. Buy a theme from elegant or browse membership options here.

26. Template Monster

This website www.templatemonster.com used to be one of the popular providers of website themes and word press designs. But with heavy competition in this niche they are not so visible online today, however they still do have a very large collection of website templates, designs and add ons.

It’s got good products to promote if you are into blogging or website building

This list is not extensive and there will be affiliate programs that I have not covered here and I will most probably add on more to it as we go, but do let me know if you have had some good experience with any affiliate networks – Australian or US/UK based

5 Tips for success with top brands affiliate programs

1. Target your niche. Even if you are promoting top brands, you won’t have as much success unless your website is also related to  the niche you are promoting. Say you are promoting Itunes mp3s – you would have a better chance earning commissions if your blog is about music and entertainment .

I would recommend Rosalind Gardner  who is a super affiliate and has helped many into  their online affiliate marketing careers, she has two guides that she sells – one is called the “Affiliate Blogger Pro” and the other one is an in depth  affiliate guide called – “Super Affiliate: How I Made $436,797 In One Year which covers how to start Your Own Home-based Affiliate Marketing Business.

These guides will surely teach  you how to go about and start earning  with affiliate marketing or  increase your existing blog income

2. Your blog posts need to be helpful to your target audience and stand out or reach out to your audience.

3.You need targeted traffic to the products you are promoting , say if you are writing about songs and new albums , people should be searching google, bing, yahoo for new songs, new release albums and landing on your blog.

4. Your blog should look professional or presentable. The design of your blog  or the theme should suit your niche. Say it’s a recipe blog, get a professional looking recipe theme or design. Looks  do matter.

5. Create a personal rapport with your audience and speak to them directly, use (you) , (I ) and (them – affiliates) in your blog articles and posts.

6. Use similar web to see what keywords your top brands are ranking for and try to get similar but not same keywords to rank for in search engines. A good paid program for spying on other people’s websites and keywords is also SEMRUSH, which is a premium program

7. Bonus -Don’t ever forget your call to action, even in a blog post

Tools to promote affiliate Links :

Often many top affiliate programs provide tools for you to promote their products like an affiliate Link Maker, a Widget Builder to make widgets for your blog, RSS Feed Generator and a API for data feeds.

They also provide ready-made Banners in different sizes and linking codes that you can just copy and paste onto your website or blog.

Coupons are a great way for promotion and businesses now are providing discount coupons which make it easier to promote some products to the consumers. There are also custom plugins that make the inserting links into blog  process easy on your blog.

How to link out to affiliate program links from your blog

Most top bloggers use wordpress plugins to link to affiliate products, while this is a good tactic it can often backfire  as some affiliate programs do not allow this.

Make sure you read the terms and conditions or  check with affiliate network before you do this, otherwise you could make sales and lose that commission. I would suggest that you actually take a online course from Affilorama.  Mark Ling  who started this, is a great Internet marketer and if you want to do  affiliate marketing , the affilorama course will give you a solid training.

Some popular wordpress plugins for managing affiliate links are:

1. Prettylink – lite Free and premium versions https://wordpress.org/plugins/pretty-link/

2. Thirsty affiliates – http://www.wpbeginner.com/plugins/how-to-add-affiliate-links-in-wordpress-with-thirstyaffiliates/

3. Seo ultimate plugin – It has a nice affiliate linking module in thier seo plugin

You can also use php redirects or add some code to redirect affiliate links on your website yourself, check out this blog post by Rosalind and check out another tutorial here and a video tutorial below .

Google advices to use No follow for your affiliate links , so you can do that easily. Below is a no follow example

No follow example :

<a href="https://www.digitalgrog.com.au/mysaleaffilaitelink.html" rel="nofollow">sign in</a>

Or

<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.functravel.com/">Cheap Flights</a>

Many top bloggers earn a full time income from passive income earned from affiliate networks and you can too with your own blog . The basic principle is increase your targeted traffic for the product your are promoting and make unique and helpful content in that niche  and you will be successful.

If you think I have missed out on any good affiliate networks in this list, do email  me or comment below. Cheers/jeff