7 Important Things to Consider Before Joining Affiliate Program

When it comes to making money online, affiliate marketing always comes in the list of most popular and profitable ways to make money with your website or blog.

As mentioned on Statista, Annual affiliate marketing spending only in the US reached $10.72 billion in 2024. Companies are spending more on this marketing model to increase their sales and reputation in the market.

If you also want to earn passive income with affiliate marketing, you must choose the affiliate program wisely. In this article, I am going to shed light on important things to consider before joining an affiliate program.

Keep reading!

Affiliate marketing is a process of making money by promoting the products of an affiliate company on your online presence (website or blog). When someone buys something by clicking on the affiliate link added to your blog posts or article, the company pays a specific commission percentage to you in return.

Since affiliate marketing is one of the widespread and reliable ways to make money online, there are vital things to consider before joining an affiliate program in order to get more bucks in return for your efforts.

Here are the things that every affiliate marketer must look for in an affiliate program before signing up:

1- Check for Products You Want to Promote – Niche Selection

In order to become a successful affiliate marketer, you must find out whether there is a specific need, demand and consumer interest for the products or services that you are about to promote.

Check the products for the specific market, price range (in reach of most people or not), and most importantly, whether fulfilling the needs of customers or not, etc.

If the affiliate program has products that you can sell more, be quick to join but after considering these things to check before joining an affiliate program.

2- What is the Payment Method?

It is something most important to you if you are about to start affiliate marketing from a country that doesn’t support PayPal.

Getting started without having information about the payment method, it would be hard for you to get paid by the company if you don’t have access to PayPal.

In such a situation, you must go with an affiliate program which is paying the publishers via different payment methods.

3- Minimum Payout Threshold

When signing up for an affiliate program, checking the minimum payout limit is one of the things to consider before joining an affiliate program.

Since there are different affiliate programs with high payout rates that often try to scam, So, there is no reason to join one with a minimum payout of $500.

You must pick an affiliate program that allows you to get your commission amount when the total reaches $100 (here, $100 is the maximum payout even though most of them allow you to withdraw with a total of $10).

If the payout amount is high, you might lose the motivation before hitting the minimum payout. So make sure that the minimum payout is not more than $100.

4- Check the Cookie Length

All internet savvy people know that cookie is a tiny amount of data stored on the web browser of the user after hitting the affiliate links. And the affiliates use cookies to keep track of sales.

So, here is the need to keep an eye on the cookie duration or length offered by the program in order to get the commission amount for each and every sale made by you.

Because the cookie has an expiry, and when it reaches the expiry date, you will be unable to get the sale credit even after purchases made by the customer.

That is the reason checking for the cookie duration is one of the things to consider before joining an affiliate program.

5- Commission Percentage

Basically, you are doing affiliate marketing to get some commission on every sale made via your blog or website; you must check for the commission percentage of the products you are promoting.

You can get a higher commission percentage upon the sale of digital products than physical products.

Commission rate for digital products varies from 30% to 70% for different affiliate programs. However, you can get 1& to 10% commission by selling physical products.

We recommend using Amazon affiliate program as we are also using it for the Nogentech blog. You can also check out a guide to become an Amazon affiliate.

6- Terms & Conditions

Never ever violate the terms and conditions of the affiliate program that you are about to join because it is a matter of bucks.

Go through the terms and conditions carefully because the chances of getting the account banned are higher due to the violation of the terms.

Every affiliate program has its own T&Cs (some of them might be the same), so read them carefully in order to prevent problems in the future.

7- Reputation & Popularity of the Products/Services

When you are selling something, you are actually helping others to get something done greatly or to resolve some common problems, so always promote well-reputed products in order to enjoy boosted sales.

You can do it greatly by keeping in mind that you are helping others by selling products or services and the customer must get something of use from your blog or website.

Always check the reputation and popularity of the product or service among the public before promoting it on your blog or website.

Since it is the last thing to consider before joining an affiliate program, it can make a huge difference between the success and failure of affiliate marketing.

Joining an affiliate program can be a lucrative idea, but it requires careful consideration. It is important to understand the commission structure and minimum payout, as well as the reputation and reliability of the affiliate brand. One must also consider the compatibility of the affiliate products with their audience and the potential for earnings per click (EPC).