One of the many frustrations as an affiliate marketer is keeping track of all of your affiliate links. Generally you need a username and a password for each company you become an affiliate with, and over time that can add up. Pretty soon you've got a whole notebook or excel spreadsheet full of usernames and passwords, heaven forbid you ever lose it!

This makes it difficult to keep track of your thriving affiliate marketing business commissions, resulting in a headache and possible lost income.

The good news is most companies now days that promote their product or service via affiliate marketing for publishers will go through an affiliate marketing program that manages their affiliate links and commission payments.

Wouldn't it be nice if there was one central location that housed all of your affiliate links, and you received all your commissions from one place? There is! Potentially hundreds of them in fact.

To make things easier for you, I've narrowed down the list of affiliate marketing programs for generating affiliate links. In this post I'm going to show you the best affiliate marketing programs to get affiliate links and why they are the best ones to work with.

The Top Affiliate Marketing Companies

The list below isn't listed in any specific order, each company targets different affiliate marketers and may be more beneficial for some industries than others. My advice, start with one or two that seem to fit your needs, and expand from there as needed.

1 – Flex Offers

Flex offers may be a newer name for some of you out there but offers a large selection of affiliate links for over 11,000 companies. They have both digital and physical retail companies, including some of the top name brands in nearly every industry.

2 – Commission Junction

Commission Junction may be a more popular name you've seen before. They've been around in the business of affiliate marketing since the industry began. The nice thing about CJ.com is they allow you to use links for multiple websites or blogs as long as it's listed on your profile. Some companies will require a new affiliate link for each company to match each blog or website.

3 – Rakuten (aka LinkShare.com)

Rakuten Marketing (aka LinkShare) is similar to Amazon in that it's also a large online retailer for people to sell their products. They are in the top 5 online retailers in the world. With their affiliate program, you get access to millions of retail products and services which opens up a lot of opportunity as an affiliate marketer allowing you to expand your promoted products.

4 – ClickBank

ClickBank is an affiliate marketing program focused just on digital products. The nice thing about ClickBank is that often times digital products are much easier to promote online. Beware of potential scam products, as you may find that many companies listed on ClickBanks product list appear to be “get-rich-quick” scams. Don't let that deter you from using their platform, just be very picky when choosing a product to promote.

5 – VigLink

VigLink is probably the most unique of all the affiliate marketing programs out there. They are newer to the market but saw an opportunity to make things easier for affiliate marketers. Once you set up your free account, all you have to do is copy and paste a snippet of code onto your website, and they scan your entire website regularly to identify websites, products and services that have affiliate programs. They then automatically insert an affiliate link for you and pay you directly from their website as well.

They even have an option to allow them to replace a link if they have a better option with a higher commission for a promoted product. I'd definitely recommend including VigLink in your plan due to their unique approach and ability to make you more money potentially.

6 – Amazon Affiliates

Yup, Amazon seems to have their hand in nearly every industry there is now days. Being an Amazon affiliate allows you to promote any one of their hundreds of millions of products online. You can create an entire website or blog focused on just promoting amazon products in a certain industry.

A unique feature is that if someone clicks on an affiliate link that directs your customer to an Amazon product, you get paid on that product AND any other products that customer purchases within the next 24 hours. The downside is their commission rate is quite a bit lower than the industry, ranging from 6% – 10%.

7 – ShareASale

ShareASale is another old age affiliate marketing program that many may not have heard of. They are very similar to Commission Junction or Rakuten. They have access to thousands of both physical and digital products and retailers to choose from.

Affiliate Marketing 101: The Ultimate Guide

A word of advice concerning affiliate marketing programs

As your website or blog expands, you may find the need to sign up for all the above listed affiliate marketing companies. One thing to keep in mind is there are some big companies out there that provide affiliate links through multiple affiliate marketing programs.

For whatever reason, some companies pay higher commissions through different umbrella companies than others. You may see a product you want to promote offering a 25% commission with Rakuten, but on Flex Offers you can promote the same product from the same company and get a 30% commission.

It's also a good idea to check with the company website directly for specific products. You may find that on the company website you can get a higher commission or even a recurring commission, whereas if you use an affiliate marketing program you may get a one time payment or a smaller commission.

This small gap of differences between affiliate commissions is what founded the affiliate marketing company  VigLinks.  They saw the difference in commissions offered and built their company upon managing all your website affiliate links, guaranteeing to ensure you have the highest paid commission links.

When using VigLinks, you no longer have to worry where the highest paying commission option is, as they will find it for you and automatically insert it into your website. Of all the companies listed above, VigLinks should be a non-negotiable for your affiliate marketing business.

How do you properly place affiliate links within your website?

This is a common question among affiliate marketers, and one of the biggest mistakes made by new affiliate marketing online businesses.  There is a proper way to use these links that will generate higher conversions, as well as gain favor in major search engines.

Want to learn how to maximize your affiliate marketing business so that conversions skyrocket and sales explode?  Here you will learn everything you need to know to accelerate your affiliate marketing company to a full stream of passive income.