Affiliate marketers can earn anywhere between 1% and 100% in affiliate marketing commissions. Physical products tend to pay lower levels of commissions than digital products. Products which offer 100% commissions will likely have a range of up-sells and require a fee to join.
You can also benefit from recurring commissions as an affiliate too. Recurring commission affiliate programs are usually membership programs or some kind of software product. These are worthwhile for affiliate to promote because each sale can become a long term income, rather than just a single “one time” commission.
The best lifetime commissions affiliate program would offer the kinds of products and services which are life changing. Online business tools and software are typically the kinds of products people will hold on to, if their income comes to depend on them. High ticket affiliate marketing is something to learn about too.
High ticket products pay out much larger commissions to affiliates because of a higher price, a larger commission or both. The highest paying affiliate products offer larger commissions of 30%+ and have a large value. These are often mentorship programs to help people build online businesses.
Affiliate Marketing Commissions – Physical Products
While many affiliate marketers begin their affiliate journey with physical products from the likes of Amazon, these products pay the least. eBay and Amazon both pay between 1% and 12% commission to their affiliates. So to make this model profitable, you’ll need to make a lot of sales.
Amazon is a trusted site though and one people use a lot. So if you have a method of referring traffic to affiliate products on Amazon, it can be a good way to earn money. However, using paid marketing with low value products is pretty tough. Lower commission structures will mean affiliates need to adopt a cheaper or free marketing strategy.
High ticket physical products are a good idea because you can earn considerably more on a sale. A submarine (pictured below), can make a $24,000 commission!
High ticket products mean a single sale can earn you far more than many sales of a cheap product. To earn $24,000 from a cheaper item, such as a video game console, you’ll need to sell thousands of items. Since video game consoles only offer 1% commission on Amazon, you’ll only make £3 on a sale of the £303.99 product listed below.
So, as an affiliate it’s worth knowing which items pay the most and which items pay the least! See affiliate marketing commission rates.
Affiliate Marketing Commissions – Digital Products
Digital products, on the other hand pay much more in terms of commission percentages. A typical physical product might pay only 3% commission but a digital products typically pays 30% or above. One of the first stop shops for new affiliate marketers is often Clickbank.com. Clickbank offers thousands of digital products and you can scroll through a variety of categories from online businesses, to sports, nutrition and hobbies.
Digital products can be more difficult to sell than physical products as they are often less tangible. But if you’re going to learn how to sell something, it’s worth choosing something which can give you a nice pay day. There’s many strategies to promote and sell affiliate products, and many of them involve quite a bit of work or investment. See 22 ways to promote affiliate products.
So if you’re doing all the work, make sure you choose a well paying product first. Often the same work is involved in selling a product to make $1 commission as is involved in making a $1000 commission!
High Ticket & High Commission
What is high ticket affiliate marketing? High ticket physical products pay lower rates of commission than high ticket digital products. Large value digital products are therefore the best payers in terms of affiliate commissions. But ideally, use a combination of products within a sales funnel which pay in multiple ways:
- One Time commissions – single payment for one time sales
- Recurring commissions – from subscription products
- High ticket payouts – from larger valued products
Training and education type products fall into the high ticket digital product category. They are often mentorship type products for online entrepreneurs. Online business tools, coaching and mentorship offer some of the best opportunities for earning from an affiliate product.
Affiliate Marketing Commissions – The Sales Funnel
One of the best ways to promote and sell affiliate products is through email marketing. Sending people to a landing page, affiliates collect their details and send them email messages. This can be done en-mass, and automated. With many subscribers being driven into the funnel, affiliates can “tweak” their business systems to produce the most amount of sales and commissions. Here’s an example of the six figure sales funnel.
With subscription products, one time sales and high ticket products, you can generate the most profit from affiliate marketing.
Summary
Anyone can earn affiliate marketing commissions by joining an affiliate program and learning how to promote affiliate products. To make a living from affiliate marketing can be tough though so it’s a good idea to arm yourself with the knowledge of which affiliate programs pay the most.
Physical products pay the least and typically from 1%-11% commissions. Ideally choose high ticket physical products if you’re going down this route. Your efforts will be rewarded with a larger commission once you learn how to make a sale.
Digital products typically pay more than physical ones – from 20% up to even 100% in some instances. There are “one time” payments for one-off sales, subscription commissions which pay ongoing commissions for each sale you make, and also high ticket commissions which pay the most in one payment.
To benefit the most from being an affiliate use a sales funnel which offers three kinds of commission structure: one time, subscription and high ticket. For more on this topic access the free video series by clicking on the image below.
See also affiliate marketing business models.