Affiliate programs or affiliate marketing is a trendy marketing strategy of e-commerce.

It has been successful in generating sales of products and services much more than direct

sales methods in real world markets. Sellers or merchants benefit from the affiliate

generated sales at very low overheads as compared to direct sales. Buyers on the other hand, can get their desired products/services without wasting time, money and effort involved

in a conventional purchase system. Affiliates earn handsome revenue by acting as an agent

between the former two. Today’s top affiliate programs have been found very successful in

promoting a product or service through well built affiliate system targeting a wider range

of customers.

Top affiliate programs adopt the most appropriate technique basing on an affiliate’s potential. Generating traffic to affiliate websites/blogs remains at the core of top affiliate programs. The success of top affiliate programs depends mostly on how all three players (merchant, affiliate and customer) interact on the affiliate network.

Top affiliate programs are divided into many different categories. You may not be interested

to subscribe to all these categories. Affiliate programs demand an affiliate’s continued

interest and enthusiasm. In order to benefit from the top affiliate programs, you need to

identify the appropriate programs first with which you will feel comfortable to perform your

affiliate responsibilities. Signing up with the top affiliate programs are usually free and

commissions earned through affiliate marketing are of higher rates.

Top affiliate programs use a combination of all the affiliate marketing techniques namely- Pay per click (PPC), Pay per mille (PPM), Pay per Review (PPR), Ad Syndication, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Article Redirect etc. Before you sign up with any of the top affiliate programs, you need to have a fair idea on all these techniques. Your potential as an affiliate or publisher needs to be evaluated against the various requirements of the programs.

All top affiliate programs essentially require you to be a powerful publisher. Your network

i.e. the website or blog should be attractive and potent enough to bring more visitors. You

should therefore be conversant with techniques like Search Engine Optimization. Contents in

your website should be lucid, comprehensive, persuasive and well arranged.

There are many affiliate programs available in different product/service categories. Some

of the top affiliate programs are appended below:

• Google AdSense: Merchants sign-up with Google AdWords to post their ads. You as an affiliate

host the ad through Google AdSense. As visitors click on these ads, you earn revenue on cost-per-click (CPC) basis.

• Bidvertiser: Based on each-click earning potential, Bidvertiser allows merchants to bid for your web space. The highest bidder’s ad is displayed in your website.

• ReviewMe: Ranking within the top affiliate programs, ReviewMe allows affiliates to earn

money by writing reviews of products/services. Appropriate reviews are then sold to merchants for compensation.

• AdBrite: AdBrite works mostly like Google AdSense. You earn revenue by publishing ad banners, text links, ad images etc.

• Amazon: The greatest sales portal Amazon allows you to earn commission for each published sales ad through its one of the top affiliate programs.

• Text Link Ads: Text Link Ads is also one of the top affiliate programs. As evident from the very name, you as a publisher display the text link ads in your blog/website and earn for each click generated.

• BritePic: This program coverts web page images into clickable links to merchant’s web page.

To be a successful ‘super affiliate’ you need to subscribe to only those top affiliate programs

which are free to join, pays higher rate of compensation, has a reliable reputation and feature products/services which are contemporary and trendy.