Email marketing software is one of the most lucrative products for an affiliate marketer. The added bonus?

Most email marketing affiliate programs pay recurring monthly payments.

It makes sense. Almost every online business can benefit from an active email marketing strategy. As the saying goes, “The money’s in the list.” And almost everyone who has an email marketing strategy uses an email service provider (ESP).

Todays’s email marketing platform is also typically a marketing automation platform. They typically support email marketing campaigns, landing pages, email templates, free promotional materials, and other online advertising solutions.

There are email marketing solutions and platforms for both large enterprises and small business owners.

The advantages of email marketing affiliate programs are  …

  • Large initial commission — many programs have a bounty system where you are getting a one-time fee of 2-3 months commissions.
  • Recurring Commissions — The ones that do not have a bounty will pay a % of the fees they receive every month. Usually 25% -40%
  • CPA — Often the bounty affiliate payers will have a CPA of a few dollars. This is paid on free trials.

Want a quick look at pricing? Jump to the pricing & commission comparison chart

Since everyone needs them, the email marketing service business is huge with a very high customer lifetime value. Almost all of the major providers have an affiliate program.

It is much like the hosting affiliate niche but not quite as competitive. Another benefit is that with so many providers there are many content marketing opportunities. You can look for industry specific solutions offered by email service providers, write comparison articles, offer templates and other bonuses etc.

The commissions are large enough that you can consider strategic long tail Google Adwords and other paid advertising tactics.

Since most email marketing affiliate programs pay a recurring commission there is a passive income stream. Something that few affiliate programs can boast of.

The price points can vary quite a bit. Many have free email marketing plans and almost all have free trials. This makes your affiliate marketing efforts easier as getting started requires no financial commitment.

So to recap what makes email service provider affiliate program so great is …

  • Recurring commissions
  • Used by every on-line niche
  • Not as competitive as hosting
  • Many content marketing opportunities

Go to our page of over 125 recurring affiliate programs for more monthly earners.

Best Email Service Providers Affiliates Programs

There are lots of email service companies out there — most have affiliate programs. We looked at scores of them and put together our big list of ESP affiliate programs. You will almost always get better conversions when you focus on a short-list of services to represent. Build a cluster of content around your target industry’s and audience needs in email marketing.

If you are marketing to bloggers or other content marketers, it is important to know which email marketing providers are “affiliate friendly”. We highlighted those that will allow affiliate links in email campaigns.

There are lots of great affiliate programs in this niche. All of the email marketing service companies below offer at least a 25% recurring commission or generous bounty to affiliates.

1 — Active Campaign Affiliate Program

activecampaign-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing, automation, messaging, and CRM

Commission Rate: 20%-30%

Cookie Length: 90 days

Affiliate Info: Active Campaign in-house affiliate program

Active Campaigns is one of the companies that does much more than just email marketing but where they really shine is automation.

Many email marketing tools have some form of automation. Typically events that trigger an email sequence. A simple version would be an email sent when it is a list members birthday. Active campaign takes this all to the next level with its use of tags.

You can tag members of your list for their interest. For instance on a finance site you may have interests like retirement, equities, crypto etc. You can then have campaigns built with ActiveCampaign’s visual automation editor to create super-targeted email sequences.

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $29/mo, 14-day free trial

Affiliate Details

The ActiveCampaign commission plan is tiered. In this case there are three levels ranging from 20% -30%. They reward high-volume and active affiliates with higher commissions …

  • Silver — 20%  This is the level for new and occasional affiliates. It pays a 20% recurring commission to all affiliates.
  • Gold– 25%  This is the 25% level. You must either generate $100 in new business or have $500 worth of active renewal business. All on a trailing 3 month basis.
  • Platinum — 30% For Platinum you need $500 of new business or $2,000 recurring over 3 months.

ActiveCampaign has some unique features, like its use of tags. This makes for good material to develop a content marketing strategy about. You could even make some sample workflows and do some vlogging.

There in-house affiliate team offers dedicated partner support and lots of marketing assets to promote their marketing and email solution.

They have a 14 day $1 trial. I really like these super low cost, but not free, trials. It weeds out the tire kickers and lets you focus on real buyers.

 

2 — Automizy

automizy-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing with a strong focus on email open rates.

Commission Rate: 90% first month, 40% recurring

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: Automizy managed by Firstpromoter

Automizy is a really interesting product. They are hyper-focused on email marketing and within that world on email open rates.

Open rates can make or break a campaign. You get nothing from sending a email that is not opened. With a mailing of 10,000 emails, every 1% more open rate is another 100 people that saw your message.

Automizy has a strong email marketing feature list…

  • Drag & Drop Editor
  • Lots of Templates
  • Email Scheduling
  • Great Automation Tool
  • Tagging by interest
  • Many  Integrations including Zapier

In addition to the 14-day free trial, Automizy has a 60 cancellation policy. Really a no-risk opportunity for your audience.

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $29/mo, 14-day free trial

Affiliate Program Details

Right off the bat Automize does something great. They give you 90% of the first months service fee. A nice initial bonus and thank you for acquiring the customer.

After the initial month you receive 40% recurring monthly payments for as long as the user is subscribed. This is one of the most pro-affiliate commission schedules.

Automizy allows you to create deep links to any page on their website …

 

automizy-deep-links

3 — Autopilot

autopilot-affiliate-programProduct Features: Full suite of marketing and CRM products

Commission Rate: 30% recurring monthly

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: Autopilot in-house affiliate program

Autopilot is an all-in-one type product. They have features for  …

  • Email Marketing
  • Marketing Automation
  • Lead Management
  • Multi-channel marketing

Pricing 2000 Subscribers — $49/mo, 30-day free trial

Affiliate Program Details

Autopilot is one of the few affiliate partners that makes an effort to educate the affiliates. They start with a Referral Kit with lots of goodies about the product, the affiliate program, sales and marketing resources, plus more. A nice touch.

They pay a 30% recurring monthly commission.

Their is also a partner dashboard where you can review your activity and occasional affiliate only coupons for your marketing efforts. There are a few requirements for the Autopilot affiliate program, the most important one is you must be an Autopilot customer …

  • You need an Autopilot subscription — this will be a showstopper for many.
  • PayPal account
  • Knowledge of Autopilot capabilities allowing you to present the feature benefit proposition.
  • A website or blog.

Go to our affiliate programs page for more program reviews.

4 — AWeber

aweber-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing, SMB newsletters

Commission Rate: 30% recurring monthly

Cookie Length: 365 days

Affiliate Info: AWeber in-house affiliate program

AWeber has been around for a long time and has a solid reputation. They have a great email marketing affiliate program. Particularly with the small medium business (SMB) mark. They are the go to resource for many marketing departments who are sending out newsletters and general marketing communications.

Some of AWebers strongest features include…

  • Automatic emails from your latest posts
  • Lots of templates plus a drag & drop editor
  • Automations that be create drag & drop — no programming
  • Team collaborations

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $29/mo, 30-day free trial

Affiliate Program Details

The AWeber program is a strong and straight forward one — 30% monthly recurring commissions. That’s for a company with broad market acceptance and a great brand. Even at the $49 level that’s $15 per customer per month … $180/yr per customer. Trying doing that as an Amazon affiliate. They offer a dedicated affiliate tracking dashboard to monitor your referral link activity. Other benefits of the affiliate program include …

  • 1-year cookie
  • Affiliate team supported by management
  • Lots of ads, banners and other creatives
  • Monthly payouts

5 — Benchmark

benchmark-affiliate-programProduct Features: Graphic-Rich Content Email Marketing

Commission Rate: 25% recurring monthly

Cookie Length: 60 days

Affiliate Info: Benchmark In-house email marketing affiliate program 

Benchmark is the only email marketing service I know that includes an image editor in the email designer. This can come in really handy if you want to edit and image or add a bit of text to it.

Of course what people like best about benchmark is the free plan. The free plan lets you manage 2000 subscribers and send up to 250 email per month. Affiliates like this too. You can focus on selling free (that should be easy!). Most people will outgrow the 250 emails per month limit.

Some of Benchmarks strongest features are

.

  • 2000 subscribers free for 250 email per month
  • Photo editing
  • Lots of templates including industry specific
  • Low cost Pro plan

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $22/mo, Free 250 emails/mo

Affiliate Program Details

Benchmark provides lots of creatives; custom-designed banners, videos, text and email ads. It is all easy to find in your affiliate dashboard. You can track your free trials and see what percent are converting.

Payouts are monthly though you need a $30 balance or it will roll to the next month.

All and all a good product and affiliate program. The 25% recurring is slightly below average but Benchmark may be less competitive an affiliate market than say GetResponse.

6 — Constant Contact

constantcontact-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email newsletters, event management

Commission Rate: $5 Trial CPA plus $105 per new contract

Cookie Length: 120 days

Affiliate Info: Constant Contact In-house Affiliate Program

Constant Contact has been in the email marketing domain since 1995. They are owned by the same corporation that operates Domain.com, BlueHost and other powerful web brands. Some of their key product features are ..

  • Great deliverability rates
  • Great Templates
  • Image Library
  • Landing pages

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $45/mo, First month free

Affiliate Program Details

Constant Contact structures there affiliate program a bit differently. They have two ways for you to earn from referrals …

  • A $5 free trial signup CPA. Just get someone to signup for a free trial and you earn $5 … what could be easier than that.
  • New orders including converted trial earn a whopping $105. This is a one-time commission.

They also provide a really great set of creatives like ads and banners. I adapt these and use as on-exit popus to send visitors to the free trial.

And finally ConstantContact has a great reputation for support. Both for you as an affiliate and your referred client.

7 — ConvertKit afilliate-friendly-email

convertkit-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email newsletters

Commission Rate: 30%

Cookie Length:90 days

Affiliate Info: ConvertKit affiliate page

ConvertKit’s tagline is  …

“built by creators, for creators”

They define creators as a all marketers and creative types from affiliates & bloggers to YouTube vloggers. Basically you and me and likely your audience.

  • Email and landing page design tools
  • Many integrations
  • Great automations tool
  • WordPress email marketing software plugin

Take a look at their demo to get an idea of the kinds of things your visitors can do with ConvertKit …

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $29/mo, 14-day free trial

Affiliate Program Details

ConvertKit pays a very generous 30% recurring monthly commission. For such an established brand this is great.

They have a number powerful email marketing tools including a WordPress plugin to make you a more successful affiliate …

  • A FREE train course by their brand ambassador Pat Flynn
  • Lots of creatives and artwork to create ads and landing pages
  • Webinars that you can use in your sales funnel
  • A detailed affiliate dashboard

I am a bit concerned about new affiliates and ConvertKit. Now when you request to join the program you sent an application page that states …

Thank you for your interest in ConvertKit’s Affiliate Program! …  we’ll review your application and respond to you within 4-6 weeks due to a high volume of applications.

If they need 4-6 weeks to review new affiliates they are either making changes to the program which are not completed yet or they don’t care that much about affiliates.

8 — Email Octopus afilliate-friendly-email

email-octopus-affiliate-programProduct Features: Low cost email marketing services

Commission Rate: 30%

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: Email Octopus Email Marketing Affiliate Program

EmailOctopus integrates with so many other products through Zapier. This means you can use them with all of your favorite services like Shopify, Salesforce, Eventbrite  — over 500 compatible products.

They have all of the typical features you would want in an email marketing company  …

  • Drag & drop editor
  • Automations
  • Templates
  • Analytics

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $20/mo, 14-day free trial

Affiliate Program Details

Email Octopus pays a nice 30% affiliate commission for your visitors who purchase after arriving with your link. One slight negative is that unlike most email marketing affiliate programs, who provide lifetime commissions, Email Octopus limits you to the first year that the subscriber is with them …

“If a user upgrades or downgrades your commission will change accordingly. Commission is paid for the first 12 months of the subscription.”

They also have dedicated affiliate managers to help make you successful. Email Octopus is fine with you running ads but you can not bid on its company name. You also can use email campaigns but you must have an opt-in list.

9 — GetResponse

getresponse-affiliate-programProduct Features: Full service — email, landing pages, funnels

Commission Rate: 33% recurring or one-time $100 bounty

Cookie Length: 120 days

Affiliate Info: GetResponse in-house affiliate program

I really like the GetResponses email marketing affiliate program. And with such a strong brand name it is a sure winner. GetResponse has been at the email marketing business for a long time. They have great name recognition, particularly among small businesses. They provide much more than just email marketing tool at a bargain price. They let you create landing pages, subscription forms, create pop ups, and provide other online advertising services.

The GetResponse platform gives you so much in one service …

  • Email marketing
  • Landing pages
  • Funnels
  • Webinar software

The best tool for many is the auto-funnel. This is a collection of landing pages that have pre-built sequences for webinar registrations, direct sales, email list subscriptions and more. Really nice tool, check it out below …

With GetResponse you don’t need to buy landing page software or funnel software for basic sales sequences. A really nice touch.

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $15/mo, 30-day free trial

Affiliate Program Details

Well the product is great and a good value but can you make money as an affiliate. Yes!

For some SaaS products like email marketing, affiliates are an afterthought or even worse a cheap way for new vendors to get backlinks. Not GetResponse.

GetResponse’s affiliate program is one of the more flexible programs. They not only pay some of the highest recurring commissions at 33% but the give you the option to take a large one-time bounty of $100 or a 33% recurring commission. It is like two affiliate programs in one. Which which will yield more affiliate income will depend on your audience.

If you are marketing to GetResponses strength — SMB businesses, I would go with the 33%. These types of clients do not change vendors often. If you are prospecting to individuals who likely will stick with the $15 plan or change providers … I would consider the $100 bounty

GetResponse has a very strong email marketing solution and a great affiliate program. A real win:win.

10 — Gist

gist-affiliate-programProduct Features: Chat, Email marketing, Support Tools

Commission Rate: 40%

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: Gist affiliate program

Gist is a lot more than just email. Gist’s organizes its products into three areas …

  • Acquire — Increase marketing conversions with; forms, chat, and meetings
  • Engage — email marketing, marketing automation
  • Support — live chat, knowledge base

If you have prospects that need both CRM and marketing automation in one tool, Gist could be the perfect fit for you.

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $34/mo, 21-day free trial

Affiliate Program Details

Gist pays 40% recurring monthly commissions.

40%!

That’s as good as it gets with email marketing affiliate programs.

They provide banners and other artwork and creatives as well as pre-made email swipes. You can personalize the swipes and have list ready material for your email marketing.

For affiliates with an existing engaged audience the will go even further …

  • Customized webinars for your audience
  • Gist-written review or other content for your blog
  • Join your podcast or other social activities
  • Dedicated account manager

These types of personalized relations between you, your audience and vendor make for the best converting campaigns.

Gist really goes the extra mile as a partner.

11 — Mailchimp

mailchimp-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing and newsletters

Commission Rate: Mailchimp credits

Cookie Length: 60 days

Affiliate Info: Mailchimp partner page

 

Mailerchimp is well known in the blogging and affiliate world. They were one of the first to offer a free program and still do. Mailchimp has all of the needed features for email marketing…

  • Drag & drop email campaigns
  • Event and business templates
  • Landing Pages

Pricing 1500 Subscribers — $19/mo

Affiliate Program Details

The Mailchimp affiliate program is more of a rewards program than an email marketing affiliate program. In fact it is called Monkey Rewards.

The affiliate link is included in all emails as branding when you use the free plan.

12 — Mailer Lite

mailer-lite-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing and newsletters

Commission Rate: 30%

Cookie Length: 60 days

Affiliate Info: Mailer Lite affiliate page

 

Mailer Lite has all of the needed features for email marketing…

  • Drag & drop email campaigns
  • HTML editor for fine tuning
  • Newsletter and other templates
  • Landing Pages
  • Tagging for interests
  • A/B split testing

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $10/mo, free 12000 emails per month

Affiliate Program Details

Mailer Lite is a no-frills, rock solid email marketing service. Sure there are more powerful tools out there but most people don’t use all of a services features. I certainly know people with premium email services that are 10x the price of MailerLite and they just send out newsletters every few weeks. Just like its product the affiliate program is solid.

You are paid a 30% monthly recurring commission. No funny business like you only get paid for the first year etc.

You get graphics and other creatives as well as a nice clean dashboard to track your sales. My only issue with Mailer Lite is that the product cost is so low that even at 30% the commission amounts will not be large. You need to have a larger audience that understands what a great value they are.

13 — MailGen

mailgen-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email newsletters

Commission Rate: $2 CPA for trials, $50 bounty on sales/upgrades

Cookie Length: 120 days

Affiliate Info: Mailgen email marketing affiliate program

Mailgen has a solid feature set aimed squarely at email marketers. There key features are …

  • Behavior-based automation
  • Dynamic web sign-up forms
  • eCommerce integrations
  • API for developers

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $15/mo

Affiliate Program Details

Mailgen has two ways of earning money as an affiliate. They offer a $50 bounty and a $2 CPA for new free trial signups. Email amrking affilaite programs that provide a CPA bonus like this are the exception to the rule and you may want to consider sending direct links to the free trial page. Some other features of its affiliate program include …

  • 20-day cookie
  • Special VIP rates for top performers
  • Strong partner support
  • Constantly updates graphics, ads and creatives

14 — Mailjet

mailjet-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing and newsletters

Commission Rate: $120 bounty

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: Mailjet email marketing affiliate program

Mailjet is a solid product with great email marketing and a strong api environment for developers and power-users. Some of the features of Mailjet…

  • Passport — its intuitive drag & drop editor
  • Role-based collaboration for creating campaigns
  • Email campaign personalization

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $12/mo, free 6,000 email per month.

Affiliate Program Details

Mailjet uses a bounty system not a monthly recurring commission. In this case a nice $120 payment for each paying subscriber.

$120!

How many Amazon sales does it take to earn a $120 worth of commissions? Likely around $2000 worth of product!

What does Mailjet cost your prospect? Only $12/mo.

So which do you think is going to be easier as an affiliate? Many transactions with customers spending a total of $2000 or 1 transaction with a cost of around $12? I am sure you get it. This is a great commission plan for people looking for large commission bounties.

15 — Ontraport

ontraport-affiliate-programProduct Features: CRM with marketing automation

Commission Rate: 25%

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: Ontraport affiliate program

Ontraport is a customer relationship management (CRM) tool first, and email marketing services platform second.

Its coolest feature is Campaign Builder, a visual marketing automation tool. With Campaign Builder you create advanced sequences personalization. Ontraport wants to be an all-in-one tool for all of your marketing needs. They provide …

  • CRM
  • Email Marketing
  • SMS tools
  • Landing Pages
  • Forms
  • Membership sites

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $79/mo

Affiliate Program Details

Ontraport is likely the most feature full product in the article. It is also one of the most expensive.

The high price and value is a good thing.

Ontraort pays a lifetime monthly 25% commission for all of your referrals that purchase. The most basic plan starts at $79 for 1000 users. The typical Ontraport customer is going to have many more than 1000 users and will need more than the basic feature set. Most are going to need the $147 or $297 pricing level. So that’s $37/mo or $50/mo — per user that you sign up.

If you have the right audience Ontraport can be a big money maker for you but this is not the type of program you want to create 1000’s of free trials, get a small CPA and hope for conversions.

16 — Pabbly

pabbly-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing and newsletters

Commission Rate: 30%

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: Pabbly affiliate page

Pabbly has a different twist on email marketing. They have their own email delivery engine or you can use many third party delivery platforms.  There pricing is among the most aggressive out there so if your audience is looking for all the basic email marketing features at the lowest cost Pabbly may be just right for them. Pabbly is more than email though and now has Pabbly Plus which combines all of their products into one low-cost offering. The products include …

  • Email marketing
  • Subscription billing (software, membership sites, etc.)
  • Form Builder
  • Email verification

Plus Pricing 2500 Subscribers — $9/mo

Affiliate Program Details

Pabbly has a solid affiliate program. They may not be the best known but that can work to your advantage. You can develop content around their product and company name. Though the search volume will be low … so will the competition for ranking.

They pay a 30% recurring monthly commission.

Other features of its affiliate program are …

  • Strong affiliate support
  • Custom dashboard and analytics to track your leads and sales
  • Creatives, banners and other ads

17 — RocketResponder

rocketresponder-affiliate-programProduct Features: All in one with lead capture and email marketing

Commission Rate:20% – 75%

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: RocketResponder affiliate page

Rocket Responder does more than email marketing. They have lead capture pages and forms along with autoresponders and email marketing. They have a strong focus on white label clients. Many companies want to control all of their branding and don’t want emails to have any clues what service is being used. …

  • Email marketing
  • Lead capture pages
  • Forms
  • Autoresponder
  • White label services

Pricing unlimited Subscribers — $20/mo, free first month

Affiliate Program Details

Rocket Responder wants the heavy hitting affiliates and they are willing to pay big commissions to reach your audience.

How does 75% monthly recurring sound? Rocketresponder pays between 20% and 75% depending on your performance.

Commission Active Referrals
20% 1-4
25% 5-9
33% 10-24
40% 25-49
50% 50-99
52% 100-199
54% 200-299
56% 300-399
58% 400-499
60% 500-749
68% 750-1249
75% 1250+

The program starts a bit low at 20% so if you are looking for a casual affiliate relationship they may not be the best choice from an earnings standpoint. This is the type of program you want to focus on.

18 — Sendinblue

sendinblue-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing, SMS, Chat

Commission Rate: $6 trial CPA plus $112 bounty on sales

Cookie Length: 90 days

Affiliate Info: Sendinblue affiliate page

Sendinblue is a bit different. First, they don’t price per subscriber. It is simply based on how many emails you want to send, after-all why should the number of names on your list matter — refreshing. Also, are more than just email marketing they also have chat and SMS tools. They segment their features into three areas  …

  • Communicate — email marketing, SMS, chat
  • Personalize — CRM, marketing automation
  • Convert — sign-up forms, transactional emails and landing pages

Pricing: $25/mo 40,000 emails, 300 emails per day free program

Affiliate Program Details

Sendinblue affiliate program uses the CPA payment for free-trials and a bounty for converted trials and purchases. In Sendinblue’s case it is $6 for free trials and $112 for sales and conversions — nice.

Everyone should have one of these programs in their bag of tricks. If you have a big enough list or another inexpensive way to reach huge numbers of prospects those $6 free trial CPA payments can add up. And of course many will hopefully convert to sales.

19 — Sendlane

sendlane-affiliate-programProduct Features: Email marketing, SMS, popups

Commission Rate: 30%

Cookie Length: 30 days

Affiliate Info: Sendlane affiliate program

Sendlane is another strong company with more than just email marketing capabilities. They focus on marketing tools to improve your ROI — who wouldn’t like that. Sendlane’s tools include …

  • Email marketing
  • Marketing automation funnels
  • Sendlane Beacon (tracks your prospects actions)
  • Intelligent Popups

Pricing 1000 Subscribers — $35/mo, 14-day free trial

Affiliate Program Details

Sendlane pays a 30% lifetime monthly recurring commission for sales. This is a good commission rate for email marketing tools. But with Sendlane offering much more than email marketing the costs are higher … so are your commissions.

Marketing Email Services Platforms

Everyone that wants SEO traffic is a publisher and content marketer. There is just too much competition to just throw up content and hope for the best.

Content marketing needs to be a multi-channel effort. The most successful marketers reach their customers via websites, video channels, social channels AND email.

One of the primary reasons that email marketing is used so widely is that it works. The ROI of email is better than other marketing channels.

email-marketing-roi

This all means that almost every website needs email marketing products. A great opportunity for affiliates for sure.

There are a number of ways for affiliates to market these products …

  • email
  • content marketing
  • ads
  • video and social channels

Email

Well you are trying to refer your audience to an email marketing service of course you should use email to reach them. This is particularly effective with the email provider you use. Many affiliates will include a small “powered by GetResponse” , etc. link in the email footer. These don’t convert particularly well but with the laws of large numbers even a .01 % conversion will get some sales. Better to have a link like “ask me about GetResponse” that goes to a landing page. That way you get a chance to inform and build more trust about the product.

Content Marketing

This is the backbone of most affiliates efforts for these types of SaaS products. You want to do your keyword research and find the terms with high volume and low competition. It is best to start out with lower competition terms even if the volumes are very low. Better to be on page one for a keyword searched 300 times per month than page 3 of a term searched 3000 times per month.

Ads

Email marketing products pay well. So well it may make sense to purchase some low CPC ads. I would only use these in conjunction with a large campaign and send the links to the campaign landing page. Do not buy Google ads or FaceBook ads and have the link be directly to the affiliate offer. These cold ads will not convert at a rate higher than your ad spend. Generally you are also not allowed to bid on the email companies name or product name.

Video and Social

Video can be great for SaaS products. They also don’t necessarily require actors (or you) for onscreen work. If you are charismatic or have a good stage presence by all means be in the videos. If you have more of a “radio look”, like me,  just go with screenflows and narrated product demonstrations. 

There are lots of options for social media and promoting these offers. Certainly flash info about new features, promos etc. can go out to your Instagram followers. 

I tend to use social as part of a multi-channel effort to promote content. I want to drive all my traffic back to my landing pages and money page articles. This also gives me the opportunity to try to engage them as an email subscribers and to pixel them for  retargeting campaigns.

 

Pricing & Commission Comparison Table

# of Subscribers Commission 500 1,000 10,000
All prices on per month basis at entry service level.
ActiveCampaign free trial  20% – 30% $9 $17 $111
Automizy free trial  40% $18 $29 $119
Autopilot free trial  30% $49 $49 $249
Aweber free trial  30% $19 $29 $69
Benchmark 2,000 contacts free   30% $14 $22 $82
Constant Contact free trial  30% $20 $45 $65
ConvertKit free trial  30% $29 $29 quote
Email Octopus free trial  30% $20 $20 $30
GetResponse free trial  30% $15 $15 $65
Gist free trial  30% $20 $20 $30
Mailer Lite free trial  30% free $10 $50
Mailgen free trial  30% $10 $15 $60
Mailjet free trial  30% $10 $15 $60
Omnisend free trial  30% $21 $21 $149
Ontraport free trial  30% $79 $79 $297
Pabbly free trial  30% $21 $21 $149
Rocket Responder free trial  30% $21 $21 $149
SendinBlue free trial  30% $25/40K $39/60K quote
Sendlane free trial  30% $35 $35 $249

Wrapping Up

Email marketing platforms are among the best programs for affiliate marketers and a great way to make money online. Everyone using an email marketing solution form brick and mortar stores to another online business like yours ecommerce businesses.

Multi-channel promotions are the way to go for email marketing platforms just sending cold traffic to the product’s landing page is not going to convert well.  The most successful marketers reach their customers via websites, video channels, social channels AND email. The good news is that there is an embarrassment of riches when it comes to Email Service Providers. You can find many service levels, complete CRM suites or companies laser focused on email. The best part is that there are many free options to get you started.

FAQ

Why are email marketing tools good affiliate products?

Email marketing tools are ubiquitous and evergreen. All sites need them.

What kind of commissions do email marketing tools pay?

Generally they are on of two program types. A small CPA payment for the free trial plus a large one-time bounty or a monthly recurring commission.

What are the typical commission rates?

The monthly recurring commissions range for 20% - 40%

Are email marketing affiliate programs difficult to qualify for?

No. In general these are among the easiest to qualify for.