Top 15 Affiliate Marketing Blogs to Follow in 2024

Affiliate Marketing

January 9, 2024

20 minutes

The affiliate marketing space is exploding. With that comes an increase in affiliate blog posts. If you are an affiliate program manager or an affiliate looking for information and want to take your efforts to the next level, you might quickly get overloaded with contradictory information.

How do you know whom to trust? And how to tell the difference between outdated advice and gem insights?

To help you out, we curated this list of the best blogs and publications that program managers and professional affiliates should follow in 2024.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Rewarding someone for referring a friend to your business doesn’t sound unusual, and it isn’t. Many businesses have a “refer-a-friend” program to drive extra revenue to their businesses.

Basically, affiliate marketing is like this but on a much larger scale. Brands give monetary rewards to websites, influencers, and others for any sale they are responsible for referring using affiliate links or coupons. Usually, it’s commission-based (a percentage of a sale), but you can also set a price per purchase (or lead), depending on what you sell, and how you want to set your affiliate program up. These websites are known as publishers or affiliates.

Pssst. Tapfiliate offers affiliate marketing tracking software to make it easier for brands to track sales from these affiliates, and we offer a 👉 free 14-day trial

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing

For Advertisers or Brands

For brands affiliate marketing can be a fantastic way to use word of mouth to drive sales, revenue, and brand awareness cost-effectively. 74% of consumers are influenced by word of mouth when it comes to purchasing decisions.

Brands pay on performance, meaning that no commission is paid out if an affiliate doesn’t drive sales. It can be a more effective way to utilize marketing budgets than traditional marketing channels like paid search, where there is more risk.

It can also help increase your conversion rate, as working with affiliates can provide you with an audience already primed to buy because they heavily target their ads to your audience.

For Affiliates

For different affiliate types and influencers, affiliate marketing can be an excellent way to make a secondary income (or primary income) from your website or social media channels. Once you have the content published, it then becomes a passive form of income as people will discover your content and purchase from a brand you promoted, earning you a commission.

Traditionally, affiliate marketing has always had a low bar to entry, meaning that anyone can start doing it. Depending on whether or not you already have an audience, it can have a low-to-no setup cost. If you are an influencer or have your own website already, you can easily start promoting brands to your audience without any costs. If you do not have an audience already, you will need to invest some money at the start to get your site set up and appearing in the SERPS.

The Downsides of Affiliate Marketing

For Brands

Affiliate marketing can be a learning curve when you start. The good news is that plenty of resources online can help you become an effective affiliate program manager. Additionally, there are no guarantees that your affiliate program will perform – this is why it’s essential to work on affiliate recruitment, affiliate campaigns, affiliate activation, and relationship building to drive sales.

For Affiliates

For affiliates, the competition can be intense. Especially if you have a content website – a strong focus on SEO is essential to try and ensure your content appears on the first page of the SERP.

There are no guarantees that you will earn money with affiliate marketing. You have no control over the affiliate program yourself, so if a brand decides to change commission rates, you have no say in it (you could promote another brand in their place, ask for a higher commission rate for your site, or stop promoting them completely.)

With that said, often the benefits outweigh the disadvantages. So what are your next steps?

How Can You Get Started with Affiliate Marketing?

For Brands:

To start your affiliate program, you will need to figure out how to track sales (we recommend signing up for a 👉 free 14-day trial of Tapfiliate to see if it suits your business).

Once you have set up tracking you can start recruiting affiliates and building relationships with them. After a while, you should start to see sales coming in. Congratulations! Your affiliate program is starting to drive growth.

👉 Discover more about automatic tracking in affiliate programs.

For affiliates:

Assuming you already have an audience, the next step is to look for brands that would suit your audience and apply to their affiliate programs.

Once you have been approved you can start promoting them using your affiliate link, coupons, or any other assets they have provided you with (banners, data feeds, social posts, etc.,) You’ll have your own login for your affiliate program or network, so then you can see any sales that come in and how much commission you have earned. It’s a great idea to approach brands to run custom affiliate campaigns to try and maximize their revenue (and yours!)

Why You Should Be Reading Affiliate Blogs

Whether or not you’re a complete newbie to affiliate marketing or a seasoned professional, reading about affiliate marketing is essential.

Why?

Because the industry is always changing and evolving, so there’s always something new to learn. New tools get released and different strategies appear.

Plus, the people writing these blogs have personal experience of what they are writing about, so you can get a better understanding of a topic, whether that’s strategies to find influencers for yout brand, create a Shopify store name, or how to build an email list.

By reading regularly and implementing some of the advice, you could increase your revenue and drive better results. That’s why reading affiliate blogs and learning how to make money with affiliate marketing should be a part of your daily routine.

So now, let’s get to the juicy part – how can you learn more about affiliate marketing?

Affiliate Blogs for Program Managers

If you are a brand and want people to promote your goods and services, these affiliate blogs will help you with strategies and steps to take to grow your business. While there are fewer of these resources, the information they do have is valuable and will help you manage your affiliate program successfully.

AM Navigator

AM Navigator is a publication run by the leading outsourced affiliate management company and its founder — Geno Prussakov.

Geno and his team are responsible for the success of affiliate marketing programs of such companies as Forbes, Nokia, Hallmark, Warner Music, Medifast, and Skype. In other words, these folks sure know a thing or two about building scalable programs and bringing the best affiliate partners aboard.

AM Navigator’s blog is always on top of its game. It contains industry reports, analysis, and detailed tutorials for affiliate program managers and marketers.

Best articles:

Tapfiliate affiliate blog

Are you one of those affiliate program managers who want to take their marketing tactics to the next level? Are you looking for tips on how to attract the best affiliates? Then you’ll love the posts on Tapfiliate’s affiliate blog.

Tapfiliate covers practically every essential you need to manage an affiliate program seamlessly: from boosting revenue and growing email lists to attracting loyal customers, brand promotion, and recruiting affiliates.

And if you’re searching for a tool to run your affiliate marketing program, you are welcome to try Tapfiliate’s software free for 14 days.

Best articles:

Want to start an affiliate program? Try all the features free: 👉 with a 14-day trial here

Affiverse

Affiverse was created in 2018 by Lee-Ann Johnstone, who has almost two decades of experience in the affiliate industry. Since then, it’s become a go-to resource for many affiliate program managers and affiliates in the industry. Their affiliate blog covers news, features, insights, podcasts, and video content on the industry, including iGaming, e-commerce, and retail to help grow affiliate revenue from your program.

Best articles:

Making an affiliate marketing business plan
How to target Q5 in your marketing campaign
Google Cookie Changes and Impact on Affiliates

Affiliate Summit Blog

Affiliate summit homepage — *Image source: Affiliate Summit*

Affiliate Summit was founded by industry veterans Shawn Collins and Missy Ward. Over the past three decades, it’s been at the forefront of the affiliate marketing industry and continues to lead the charge by covering the most relevant industry events and practices.

Affiliate Summit is also so much more than just a blog. Over the years, the founders launched an industry conference, wrote a number of ebooks, and built a massive social media community.

Best articles:

Affiliate Blogs for Affiliates Looking for Strategies to Boost Their Revenue

If you promote other people’s goods and services on your website, these affiliate blogs will help you to nail your strategies and boost your affiliate income and help make money from affiliate marketing.

And if you’re an affiliate program manager, these blogs will aid you in understanding affiliate marketing from the perspective of your affiliates and give you more insights into how they think.

Search Logistic

Matthew Woodward’s blog is a fantastic resource for anyone looking to start a blog and drive traffic using SEO tactics. He has some excellent digital products that can help you grow your online business and create an income with affiliate marketing. This is an invaluable resource if you are an affiliate with a website or want to set one up.

Best articles

Sugarrae Blog

sugarrae homepage — *Image source: SUGARRAE*

Sugarrae is a famous affiliate marketing blog run by Rae Hoffman. Rae is an experienced digital marketer and affiliate marketing expert who’s founded two agencies and worked with major brands.

Although the blog has been retired, there are still valuable resources. Rae shares both 101 guides for those who are new to the industry and advanced tutorials for experienced folks. What makes Sugarrae different is the personable voice and tone of the publication. The author isn’t writing for a broad audience of strangers. Instead, Rae talks to the readers as if they were her close friends or colleagues.

Best articles:

Smart Passive Income Blog (Pat Flynn)

Smart Passive Income blog hpmepage — *Image source: Smart Passive Income*

Pat Flynn is a true guru of affiliate marketing. Years ago, Pat worked as an architect when suddenly he was laid off amid an economic downturn. Someone else might have despaired, but not Pat. Instead, he turned to affiliate marketing and turned this Plan B into a brilliant career.

In the publication “Smart Passive Income”, Pat and his team have created multiple in-depth affiliate blog posts for those interested in affiliate marketing. Each article isn’t just theoretical — all the content is based on Pat’s personal experiences and advice from specially-invited experts.

Pat Flynn also runs two podcasts: “Smart Passive Income” and “AskPat 2.0”. Interestingly, Pat is very smart about recycling the content: most of the written articles are based on the podcast conversations that Pat’s been having with industry experts.

Best articles:

Neil Patel’s Blog

Because affiliate marketing can be time-consuming and challenging, it’s essential to make sure you’re doing it in the right way. And Neil Patel is no stranger to that.

Neil is a seasoned marketer who understands the difficulties of choosing the right niche, growing sites, implementing HTML codes, and other challenges the industry throws at beginners and veterans alike. That’s why he’s here to provide the most effective solutions.

On Neil Patel’s blog, you can also find lessons about establishing authority and credibility, SEO practices, automation, and generating visibility for your website. All the content is presented either as blog posts or YouTube videos, which are often complementary. Everything you need to know about affiliate and digital marketing is here.

Best articles:

Zac Johnson’s Blog

Zac Johnson started blogging and making money online back in 2007. Obviously, the Internet has changed since then, and Zac’s been here to watch — and learn.

Zac creates lots of free educational content for fellow affiliate marketers, bloggers and content creators on his blog. Unlike generic guides that you may find elsewhere, the content on Zac’s blog is down to the point and based on his personal experiences as a marketer.

Best articles:

AuthorityHacker

AuthorityHacker was started by Gael Breton and Mark Webster — digital marketers who’ve been building and growing authoritative niche sites for over a decade.

Although affiliate marketing is one of the core subjects Gael & Mark covers on AuthorityHacker, the publication is much broader. There are plenty of in-depth tutorials and blog posts about choosing the right niche, growing traffic, nailing down SEO, and alternative monetization models.

AuthorityHacker would be a perfect resource for affiliate marketers who are looking to diversify their income streams.

Best articles:

BloggingWizard

Adam Connell, the founder of BloggingWizard, has been building and growing sites for 10+ years. Adam shares valuable content and useful advice based on his experience and industry knowledge in his publication.

Since BloggingWizard mainly focuses on content marketing and SEO, it would be a perfect resource for affiliate marketers who primarily rely on these channels to drive traffic to their sites.

What sets BloggingWizard apart is how selective Adam is with accepting guest contributions to the publication. Although you won’t see a new article pop up every day, the average quality of content is impressively high.

Best articles:

Blog Tyrant

Ramsay Taplin, the founder of Blog Tyrant, has been in the world of online blogging and digital marketing for over a decade. Using his experience and understanding of the digital landscape, Blog Tyrant offers blog posts with actionable insights and strategies.

They primarily focus on providing comprehensive guides and tips on how to start, grow, and monetize blogs effectively. This makes it a fantastic resource for aspiring bloggers and entrepreneurs who want to use blogging as a key aspect of their online business strategy.

Blog Tyrant selects and curates content for the site, ensuring that each article is informative, practical and relevant. This makes Blog Tyrant a go-to resource for serious bloggers.

Best articles:

Semrush’s Blog

Semrush blog page — *Image source: Semrush*

Semrush is a leading SEO (search engine optimization) software that’s become a standard part of any digital marketer’s toolkit. Thanks to its versatility, Semrush is popular among affiliate marketers who use it to grow sites, and affiliate program managers who use it to analyze partners’ traffic.

For years, people have praised Semrush’s blog for its depth of content and unique SEO expertise. The editors frequently invite industry experts to contribute to their niche topics.For those of you who perceive visual information better, Semrush also has a fantastic YouTube channel with plenty of video tutorials.

Best articles:

HubSpot’s Blog

HubSpot blog page — *Image source: HubSpot blog*

Who doesn’t know Hubspot?! Their awesome blog is packed with insights for every affiliate marketer. It doesn’t matter if you’re an advanced marketer or someone starting from scratch — HubSpot’s blog will walk you through the ropes.

This is where you can also get tips on improving your affiliate website or growing your brand’s presence. Hubspot’s blog covers all aspects of marketing, sales, business development, and even soft skills like team management and hiring.

Best articles:

MarketSplash

MarketSplash was once the new kid on the block of popular marketing blogs. Founded in 2020, it’s now read by over 75,000 people every month and is an excellent resource for learning about the latest marketing tactics and digital design.

What sets MarketSplash apart is that the publication itself largely relies on affiliate marketing for monetization, and it does this really well!

By reading through MarketSplash guides and listicles, affiliate marketers can not only learn valuable information but also get inspired by how their sites might look and function so their affiliate income can grow.

On the other hand, affiliate program managers can find plenty of in-depth information about managing affiliate programs, branding, or public relations.

Best articles:

Final thoughts

If you are an affiliate program manager, have just set up your affiliate program, or are an affiliate, you need to know what’s happening in the industry. Above all, to be successful, you need to speak the same language as the webmasters, influencers, and affiliates you are trying to attract.

It helps to understand content marketing strategies, email newsletters, email marketing, guest posting, trends, and digital marketing as a whole whether you are an affiliate business or a dedicated affiliate account manager.

A practical way to stay on top of things is to regularly check the blogs mentioned above and sift through their latest posts. Additionally, it’s also a good idea to subscribe to their newsletters, so all the fresh content will automatically land in your inbox.

And don’t forget that if you want to set up your affiliate program, Tapfiliate has a free 14-day trial.