Affiliate marketing is a performance-based advertising model in which a business rewards another business/individual for leads and/or sales through their own efforts.
According to a forecast by Statista, affiliate marketing in the US alone will reach $8.2B by 2022. Furthermore, a report commissioned by Rakuten Affiliate Network concluded that 81% of advertisers and 84% of publishers use affiliate marketing in the US alone. In the same report, publishers revealed that more than 20% of their annual revenue came from it.
Suffice to say, it is not a coupon-dominated industry anymore, rather, it is a serious marketing channel that provides great opportunities to businesses for rapid growth.
With that being understood, it can be said with certainty that affiliate programs are a great source of revenue for both freelancers and businesses. If you have a WordPress website and want to take advantage of this great marketing opportunity, this article is for you.
In this article, we have listed the top WordPress plugins affiliate programs that you can use to improve your revenue.
Why WordPress Plugin Affiliate Programs?
At this point, there might be a few questions popping up in your mind: why WordPress? Why plugin affiliate programs? What are plugin affiliate programs anyway? Take a look at the points below, which are from a statistical report, and your questions will be answered. WordPress:
- Powers over 37% of all websites.
- Has a 62% market share when it comes to CMS.
- Hosts 455M websites globally.
- Gets 20B pageviews each month.
- Has over 54,000 plugins available, with a total of 1.5 billion downloads between them.
From the data presented above, it is clear that WordPress plugin affiliate programs are a great way to boost revenue.
But before you jump in, we would like to share some helpful tips so that you can get the maximum out of any program you pick.
Best practices while joining a WordPress plugin affiliate program
Like any money-making endeavor, affiliate marketing programs of WordPress plugins come with some advice as well. Make sure you follow these:
- Be ethical: Due to obvious reasons, a lot of affiliate marketers promote products (WordPress plugins in this case) for the sake of commission. Although it works, we would suggest that you promote the plugins that you actually use or consider using the plugin you want to promote.
- Authenticity matters: Honest and genuine reviews go a long way. While promoting a plugin through affiliate marketing, it is important to be truthful since it will determine the longevity of your partnership. Getting new customers to a business in a dishonest way never works in the long run.
- Follow the regulations: While marketing anything on the internet full disclosure is absolutely necessary. Depending on the country you are in and the country of your readers, you have to adhere to the guidelines.
- Hire a professional: Hiring a WordPress developer is a smart choice that you can make. Plugins are a way in which your website can attract malware attacks so make sure you are only installing the legitimate ones, and your website is coded securely.
Now, let’s take a look at the list of the best WordPress plugin affiliate programs.
Top WordPress Plugin Affiliate Programs
We have compiled the following list to bring you the best WordPress plugin affiliate programs in terms of their utility and compensation. Not only the plugins below are easy to market, but also really useful.
CSS Hero
What it does: Helps WordPress site admins make cosmetic tweaks on their website without the knowledge of CSS. It is easy to use and can be used to modify any part of a WordPress website in real-time.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 40% with a minimum payment threshold of $50. The cookie duration is 90 days.
AffiliateWP
What it does: It is a plugin that helps you to run your own affiliate program from scratch. Managing, optimizing, and tracking all your affiliate programs will be a piece of cake with AffiliateWP.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 20% with a minimum payment threshold of $50. The cookie duration is 30 days.
LiveChat
What it does: It is a cloud-based messenger for sales and customer support. LiveChat assists 26000 companies in 150 countries. They are one of the market leaders in that vertical.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 20%(recurring) with a minimum payment threshold of $50. The cookie duration is 120 days.
MonsterInsights
What it does: It is a plugin that sends real-time website data to GA for further analysis. Businesses can track custom parameters and record relevant information to boost their engagement and conversation rates. Yes, you can also track your affiliate programs as well.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 20% and will be paid once a month.
WPForms
What it does: It helps its users build forms on their website. You can build all sorts of forms and can choose from 300+ templates.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 20% with no minimum payment threshold. The cookie duration is 45 days.
RafflePress
What it does: This plugin helps businesses grow their email list, traffic, and social media presence by creating contests and giveaways.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 20% with a minimum payment threshold of $50. The cookie duration is 60 days.
OptinMonster
What it does: OptinMonster helps its users grow their email lists. Features like geological targeting, page-level targeting, and exit intent detection make it a great choice for collecting leads.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 20% with a minimum payment threshold of $50.
ShortPixel
What it does: It improves page speed by optimizing the images on a website. It supports multiple formats.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 30% with a minimum payment threshold of $100. The cookie duration is 30 days.
WP Rocket
What it does: It improves page speed by optimizing your entire website. For instance, you will have the choice to delay JS execution that will improve your page speed.
What you get: Affiliate commissions are 20% with a minimum payment threshold of $50. The cookie duration is 30 days.
New plugin affiliate programs are coming up every day and we suggest you keep an ear on the market to be aware of that.
Wrapping up
The key thing to remember with WordPress plugin affiliate programs is that you must do your research before getting started, and maintain authenticity. Affiliate marketing is a great way to improve your bottom line.
Happy affiliate marketing!
About the Author
Lucy is a creative content writer and strategist at Marketing Digest. She specializes in writing about digital marketing, technology, entrepreneurship, and education. When she is not writing or editing, she spends time reading books, cooking and travelling.