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20 Of The Best Recurring Affiliate Programs To Promote
The Best Recurring Affiliate Programs To Promote: Back in 2010, I started to use a popular email service provider called Aweber.
At the time, every marketer was using Aweber to send out their email newsletters.
But what really caught my eye was that Aweber offered a 30% recurring affiliate program.
That meant that if anyone signed up through my affiliate link, I would get 30% affiliate commissions for as long as a customer stayed on with them.
So that’s what I did.
I wrote a couple of Aweber reviews and comparison posts on a couple of sites I owned, and I started sending traffic to these pages.
Since Aweber was a good service, and very popular, my referrals tended to stay on for a very long time.
And as their email list size grew I would get bigger and bigger commission checks.
All this, without ever having to do anything besides getting that initial click through.
And this is the power of recurring affiliate programs.
My Aweber affiliate checks peaked at $1,200 a month. But unfortunately, Aweber has since been surpassed by some better email marketing software products.
So I am no longer actively promoting them since I’ve found better alternatives since then.
But even so, I still earn $400-600 commission checks every month from them so many years later. That’s because many of the people who I have referred to in the past are still paying customers.
What are the best recurring affiliate programs?
In this post, I’m going to share with you the best recurring affiliate programs I’ve personally had success with.
All these programs pay out affiliate commissions month after month (or sometimes yearly), for as long as your referral stays on with them.
This means your affiliate commissions can really grow after time.
I’ve also used each of these products listed, promoted them, and have actually received commissions from them as an affiliate.
Here’s what I’m going to cover in this post:
- Best Email Marketing Recurring Affiliate Programs
- Best Landing Pages/Sales Funnels/Shopping Cart Recurring Affiliate Programs
- Best Web Hosting Recurring Affiliate Programs
- Best of the Rest Recurring Affiliate Programs
- How to promote these affiliate programs
Looking for a more exhaustive list of available lifetime recurring affiliate programs? I’ve got you covered too.
Just join my free Affiliate Profits Mastermind FB Group and you’ll find an always-updated list of 120+ affiliate programs that offer lifetime commissions.
Best Email Marketing Recurring Affiliate Programs
Email marketing software services are my favorite type of company to promote. Most of them offer free trials and pretty much every business needs one.
Plus, they’re very sticky. So once you choose one, you’re likely to stay subscribed for a while. That means you’ll be getting those juicy commissions month after month.
ActiveCampaign is the email service I currently use and I love it. It has probably the best marketing automation capabilities out there, and lots of other great features. Plus price-wise, it’s very reasonable and you get a full 14-day free trial without having to pull out a credit card.
While affiliates are limited to current customers only, new affiliates can earn 20% recurring commissions, with the potential to earn 30% if you can bring in $500 worth of new business every month.
Aweber is not as popular as it once was for bloggers and marketers, as its slow pace of updates has caused it to fall behind the competition. However, it’s still very reliable, the price is reasonable and it’s probably your best option if you want to do direct affiliate marketing via email
They offer a free 30-day free trial, and you’ll earn 30% recurring commissions promoting them.
It’s free to sign up to become an Aweber affiliate and start earning 30% commission for every sale.
ConvertKit has the nicest interface of any email service. It’s targeted towards bloggers and content creators so it’s not quite as powerful as saying ActiveCampaign or Drip.
ConvertKit doesn’t offer a free trial, but they do have a money-back guarantee. You can earn 30% recurring commissions with them.
Drip is an email service really focused on marketing automation. You can argue that its automation capabilities might even surpass ActiveCampaign’s. It’s a fairly pricey service though, especially if you’re small.
Drip has a free account for 100 subscribers or less, and the paid plans come with a 14-day free trial. It also offers 30% recurring commissions.
GetResponse – I consider GetResponse the jack of all trades email service. It can do a ton of stuff, although it’s not the best at any one thing. It’s solid though, and the price is right. It’s also a good choice for affiliate marketers.
GetResponse has a full 30 day trial with no credit card required. And it offers the best affiliate commissions at 33% recurring commissions.
MailerLite is a good choice, for those on a budget. They have a really nice free plan if you have under 1,000 subscribers. They also offer marketing automation as well, albeit not as powerful as some others.
MailerLite lets affiliates earn 30% recurring commissions for every referral, although unlike other affiliate programs they don’t send automatic payments. As long as they’ve earned over $120 affiliates can request a payout through PayPal anytime.
ONTRAPORT is a powerful email marketing platform to consider if you have said a sales team that uses email to close sales. However, it’s pricey and not for anyone on a budget.
They have a 90-day money-back guarantee and offer 25% recurring commissions. This adds up fast since it’s at a higher price point than other email marketing services.
But you do have to wait longer to get paid due to their long refund period.
Best Landing Pages/Sales Funnels/Shopping Cart Recurring Affiliate Programs
Products that help you collect more leads and sell products online are also great for promoting as an affiliate.
The churn rate is probably a little higher than email, but each product has its own devoted fans that will stick with their favorites for a long time.
ClickFunnels has probably the best affiliate program I’ve seen overall. At its core, ClickFunnels help you build sales funnels and sell your products online.
As an affiliate, you earn 40% recurring commissions across all their products, not just ClickFunnels. Every product in the ClickFunnels ecosystem has its own sales funnel, and you earn 40% recurring commissions for everything your leads buy.
So even promoting lower-cost items like DotComSecrets or ExpertSecrets can be extremely profitable.
LeadPages also has a great affiliate program to promote. It’s a service for making it easy to create landing pages and opt-in popups, and it has great brand recognition.
It fills a need for non-techy people who just want to throw something up that’s very simple. You will earn 30% recurring commissions as an affiliate promoting them.
Instapage is not as well known as LeadPages, but I would say it’s even more powerful. What I like most is their drag and drop builder which allows you to place elements anywhere on the page.
Their affiliate program offers you 50% commissions on your referral’s first payment, and 30% lifetime recurring commissions after that.
Wishpond is another landing page builder. What makes it different from saying LeadPages is that it has some extra features like helping you create different Social media contests.
The Wishpond affiliate program offers 30% recurring commissions.
SamCart is one of the more popular shopping carts out there. It allows you to easily create checkout pages to sell stuff and you can easily add upsells, downsells, order bumps, and other sales value boosters.
You’ll earn 40% recurring commissions for promoting SamCart.
PayKickStart is another shopping cart software. It’s similar to SamCart and can do pretty much the same things.
It offers 30% recurring commissions.
Best Web Hosting Recurring Affiliate Programs
There are not a ton of web hosting services that offer recurring affiliate commissions. Most web hosting affiliate programs offer large upfront commissions instead.
Web hosting though is also very sticky, and people will stay will with their web hosts for years.
LiquidWeb is a premium web hosting service that I’ve been using for several years. They’re fast, reliable and they have fantastic support. Their plans are not cheap, but you get what you pay for.
LiquidWeb has a nice affiliate program that gets you 100% first-month commissions and then 5% recurring commissions after that. This can definitely add up if you get to promote their more expensive dedicated server plans.
Kinsta is probably the best WordPress managed host I’ve seen. It’s super fast and you get features like automatic backups and 1-click staging.
Their affiliate program is also really great. You’ll earn $50-$500 depending on the plan, and 10% recurring commissions for as long as your referrals stay on.
Best of the Rest Recurring Affiliate Programs
Below are some other good products that I’ve also been promoting that offer lifetime recurring commissions as well. I use all of them in various ways, and they are an important part of my daily business.
Thrive Themes is definitely an affiliate program you should look into promoting. Although it sounds like a Worpress theme, it’s actually a really useful membership site.
The Thrive Themes membership gives you access to a collection of great products including Thrive Leads, Thrive Architect, and many more.
Their affiliate program gives you 50% commissions upfront, and then 25% recurring commissions on the yearly renewals.
SEMRush is one of the better-known SEO and keyword research tools. One of my favorite features is that it allows you to see what keywords you’re ranking for in Google.
The SEMRush affiliate program offers 40% recurring commissions.
ClickMagick is a link tracking software that I currently use and love. It allows me to track all my link clicks across all my websites in a single dashboard.
It helps improve my ROI by showing me my conversions and blocking fraudulent clicks among other features.
With ClickMagick, you’ll earn 100% on your referral’s 1st payment, and 35% recurring commissions after that.
Udimi is the best marketplace for purchasing solo ads. Solo ads are a really effective traffic source for promoting certain niches including making money online.
With the Udimi affiliate program, you’ll earn 20-50% recurring for all Prime memberships you refer to. Plus, you’ll earn 15% on all solo ad purchases that your referrals make for life.
Clicky is my favorite web analytics software and I’ve been using them for years. Although it’s a paid product, I think it’s much easier to use than Google analytics.
You’ll earn 20% recurring commissions by promoting the Clicky affiliate program.
How to promote these recurring affiliate programs
What’s great about all the programs listed here is that they are all reputable programs to promote. There’s nothing scammy about them and you can feel good about recommending them to your followers.
However, nobody is going to follow your recommendations unless you’ve actually used the product yourself.
So it’s important that you signup and use the products before you try promoting them as an affiliate.
Here are some ideas that have worked for me to promote these, or any affiliate program.
Product Reviews
As you can see, all the products I’ve listed in this post have reviews written about them on the site. People are searching every day for reviews of these products, and if you can get in front of these searchers, you will definitely be able to earn commissions from them.
Make sure that your reviews are honest, and be sure to point out both the pros and cons of the product. Being overly positive makes you look like a shill and you’ll lose credibility.
But a well-written review helps your reader understand the value of the product and they’ll appreciate it by clicking through your links.
For example, I first published my ConvertKit review back in November 2015. It took a couple of months to start earning commissions and about eight months to hit $1k a month in recurring commissions. Now it earns me between $1500 and $2500 every month since then.
Case Studies
It takes a little longer to put together a case study since you have to get some results before you can start writing anything.
However, case studies can be even more effective than product reviews to drive affiliate commissions since they actually show how a product actually works.
An example of this was my Udimi case study where I showed how I used the service to promote my ClickFunnels affiliate in a box offer.
In it, I was able to promote three different recurring affiliate programs, Udimi, ClickMagick, and ClickFunnels and I’m already starting to see good results from this post.
Resources Page
If you have any following at all, then make sure to include a Favorite Tools/Resources page on your site.
Ideally, you’ve built enough trust in your audience, that they will be interested in seeing what products you use and recommend.
You can see an example of this on my Favorite Marketing Tools page.
Email Series
Promoting affiliate products in your email series can also be a very effective strategy if done right.
That’s because if you’ve nurtured your email list to provide value, then your subscribers will trust you.
This makes them more receptive to your offers, as long as you are promoting GOOD affiliate products like the ones in this post.
How-To Videos and Tutorials
Youtube is an awesome way to make affiliate commissions. Especially when you provide value by making how-to videos or tutorials around specific products.
This will help people understand the value of each product, and you don’t even have to be sales at all to get people to click on your affiliate links.
FB Messenger chatbots
I’m seeing Facebook Messenger chatbots being used more and more by marketers. That’s because they’re getting super high open rates in many markets.
It works similar to email marketing, where you create some sort of Lead Magnet to get people subscribed to your chatbot. Once subscribed, you can deliver your lead magnet and then start building your relationship through your chatbot automation.
I’m seeing ClickFunnels being promoting very successfully using this method. People are delivering their share funnels through the chatbot as a lead magnet, and then marketing to them from there.
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