When most people think about affiliate marketing, they think about getting a one-time commission. About one year ago, I thought so too, until I discovered that there are better alternatives.
You can create recurring, passive income from affiliate marketing, if you can find the right companies.
Now, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t promote companies or products that only give you a one-time sale.
If that product helps your readers, by all means promote it. Your priority should always be towards helping your readers and making their lives better.
If you can position yourself and work on growing passive income, while at the same time helping people, wouldn’t you want to do that? I know I would.
I think every company should offer lifetime commissions to their affiliates. You should be getting a piece of every customer you recruit for the rest of that customer’s life.
It took me a few years to even realize that these kind of affiliate programs existed. I hope I can spare you that by writing this article.
One-Time vs. Lifetime
All in all, one-time and lifetime affiliate programs work in the same way, except when customers come back, the lifetime affiliate programs give you more money.
This is a long-term strategy and if you work hard, lifetime income opportunities can really start to snowball. I’m already seeing this in my article marketing and my affiliate commissions. They are growing by themselves without me having to do anything.
Imagine if you were making one sale a day with a commission of $20. That means you’d be making somewhere around $600 a month, which is a nice sum, but that income never grows, unless you make an effort to increase your sales.
With a lifetime affiliate program you might start off at $600, but after a year that number might’ve doubled or even tripled. This, of course, depends widely on how many new customers you bring in, but I think you see my point?
Even if you left everything and were making one sale a day, your income would keep growing.
This Isn’t Rocket Science
This doesn’t have to be hard. The reason I like article marketing is because it’s easy and you start getting sales almost instantly after you start submitting articles. This is assuming that everything else is working, such as your presell, the product you’re promoting and so on.
You don’t have to have a lot of traffic to grow a nice income stream with a lifetime affiliate program. It all builds up. But what you do need is patience and persistence. If you’re writing and submitting a few articles a day, it can feel discouraging to not see huge checks coming your way in the first 6-12 months, but that’s how things are.
You have to work hard to make things happen. Most people give up and claim that making money online is impossible. I sincerely believe I can teach anyone to make money online if they are willing to work hard.
Lifetime Income Programs
With all that said, how can you actually find these affiliate programs? Well, sometimes they are hard to spot and require some detective work.
You should also try out the products you’re promoting and preferably love them. Don’t start promoting something because of the money. It will usually back-fire on you. Believe me, I’ve been there and done that.
To get you started, below are four companies that offer a lifetime affiliate program. I am an affiliate most of these companies, so if you sign-up through my link, I make some money as well. Just thought I’d let you know. This in no way affects your commissions. It just gives me some money to support my rent and food habit 😉
1. Xtend-Life is a New Zealand Company that focuses on making the best natural supplements and skin care products. This is the company that I promote the most at this moment in time. I use their supplements myself on a daily basis. Ingela uses their skin care products and supplements. I have even recommended them to my mother, who also uses them now. She likes them so much she’s raving about them to her friends. The only bad thing is that their affiliate program is closed right now.
2. DreamHost is a hosting company that offers hosting at a very competitive price. I used them for almost two years before I moved onto a more expensive company. They are a good starting point and a lot of people love them. They offer 10% revenue share on people you recommend and 5% revenue share on people your people recommend.
3. Market Health is a company that sells health related products. They have very aggressive sales pages, which can put off many people, but they do convert. They offer big recurring commissions on their products, so if people come back for more, you’ll get paid. The only thing I’d say is to test their products out for yourself before you start promoting them, if you don’t like them, don’t recommend them.
4. Aquasana is a company that produces water filters. They are very affordable. I have used their water filters myself and they are excellent, so I can recommend them from personal experience. I think they offer 20-30% commission on their sales and 10% on second tier sales.
As you can see, I’m a huge believer in knowing what you’re promoting. The more you believe in the product you’re recommending, the better you’ll do.
This is just a taste of the affiliate programs I am involved in at the moment. I’m sure there are plenty more great affiliate programs out there. I am going to keep an eye out for them and see if I can find enough to create a big list for you to pick from.
Important Update
I first wrote this article back in 2010, and while I have kept it up to date, you may be interested in learning more about what truly works today. If so, check out the Lifestyle Liberation Academy (free training + goodies included).
Keep rocking!
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Nathalie Lussier says
February 8, 2010 at 7:31 pmHey Henri! I loved reading your interview with Ingela! I think it’s great that you’re writing more about your personal experience with making money online. Even though there are a lot of resources about this topic, it’s awesome to get a first hand experience from someone who does it themselves… as opposed to possibly only teaching about it. 🙂
Henri says
February 8, 2010 at 7:42 pmThanks Nathalie!
I agree. There are soo many resource on how to make money online it’s sickening. That’s the main reason why I didn’t start a blog about making money right off the bat.
But after a while something didn’t feel quite right, so I asked my readers what they wanted and that clarified things and put me on this path. Cool how just asking can make such a big difference!
Jen says
February 8, 2010 at 7:31 pmThanks again Henri. I am learning a lot through these posts and it is really helping to demystify the process of making money online.
One question I have is had you already used these products and then decided to be an affiliate or would you also look for products to try that have affiliate programs? Also if I went down this road would you put the ads on your blog (if associated topics) or is a separate site better?
Cheers,
Jen
Henri says
February 8, 2010 at 7:42 pmI’m glad you’re liking them, Jen! It’s weird how things can seem hard until you actually do them. Then you go “huh, why didn’t I see this before?”
As for your questions, that’s a tough one to answer and comes down to your individual preferences.
The way I found Xtend-Life products was that I first heard about their affiliate program. I then started reading about their products and discovered that they were actually high-quality and effective, which surprised me, because I instantly thought they were low-quality with such a good affiliate program.
If your readers would benefit from the products then go ahead and put them on your blog. I can’t see any harm in that. You can always make a separate site later on. The upside is that your traffic may be more targeted and conversions better
Diggy says
February 8, 2010 at 7:45 pmHey Henri!
I’m still very much learning about affiliate marketing and the key is too indeed create a source of income that is recurring or that will at least stick around for a while.
Some of those affiliate programs are ones like poker or forex affiliate programs where you can get a percentage of the commision for life that the client you signed makes. If you sign up a very good trader or player then it’s big $$ for many years to come.
Another way is to just build up your blog and create your own successful products and let other people be affiliates for your products. Some people create products that stick around for years and still bring in steady income.
The trick is to get a site ranking well in search engines to get a lot of targeted natural traffic. Seo and linkbuilding skills are very important there if you want to create just affiliate sites. Otherwise like I said you can go the blog option, it just takes longer!
Thanks for sharing!
Peace
Diggy
Henri says
February 8, 2010 at 7:50 pmHow could I forget about the poker affiliate programs, doh. Those are definitely good if you can get good players under you.
I agree that creating your own products is the way to go. That is something that I plan on learning very soon, and besides, it’s fun to create your own stuff and see what happens.
Excellent thoughts, Diggy!
Oleg Mokhov says
February 8, 2010 at 8:37 pmHey Henri,
Very refreshing having a first-person account on making money online. Like you mentioned in response to Nathalie, there are WAY too many “make money” sites. And the majority focus on theoretical tactics and pimping out products for money only. Result is untested crap peddled non-stop.
Awesome that you keep it genuine and put the focus on actually liking and using something first. No-compromise affiliate marketing, basically.
This field is something I have absolutely zero experience in, so I’m glad to be learning all this from the Cloud 😉
Congrats on launching your coaching service. I feel you’re gonna get a lot of interested people.
Best,
Oleg
Henri says
February 9, 2010 at 9:00 amThanks Oleg 😀
I’m sure everything will work out as it should. You’re rocking pretty awesomely lately yourself!
Olusegun says
February 8, 2010 at 11:53 pmHmm,
I’m off to check out Aquasana. There is a water company here in Nigeria called Aquadana so it naturally strikes a cord.
Thanks for this post man.
Eric says
February 9, 2010 at 12:15 amI agree here Henri. If you’re readers will benefit from what you’re promoting and you’re promoting things that will benefit your readers, there’s nothing wrong with doing so. If you’re just in it for the money and not being considerate of what your reader’s will value then you’re going to fall flat on your face.
Great article, man! 🙂
Julius Kuhn-Regnier says
February 9, 2010 at 7:58 amHey Henri, I enjoyed reading your post. I actually never thought much about the different type of affiliate programs. But now it seems to that I do need to promote more of the affiliate programs that earn you a lifetime passive income.
Btw. it’s nice to see the plugin working on your site. Do you think it’s worth it?
Henri says
February 9, 2010 at 9:02 amJulius is talking about the Ninja Affiliate plugin, which keeps track of your affiliate links. I can’t say yet if it’s worth it, but I really like it so far!
Shelly Rayedeane says
February 10, 2010 at 9:03 pmVery inspiring Henri.
Timo Kiander says
February 14, 2010 at 9:09 pmHi Henri!
Thanks for the extra resources. Some of them were new to me, some of them I already knew.
When promoting a product, I follow this pattern: Ethics, honesty, passion and added value.
I’d rather promote something that I have my own experiences rather than promoting something just for the money. I want to purchase and test the product first and then give an honest opinion about it. Also, when promoting a product, I try to add some value to the promotion in the first place (quality content). And last but not least, I try to center my promotions around my passions. It’s so much easier to work in those niches that you already have some experiences and that you really care about.
scheng1 says
February 15, 2010 at 3:31 pmI only use Clickbank and Amazon. Anyway I’m still in the first year of affiliate marketing, will definitely venture out once I gain more experience.