Golden Goose Marketing

One of the best internet marketing tips I’ve ever received is to look for independent affiliate programs.  Once you get outside the big affiliate networks, you’ll find programs that have fewer competing affiliates, along with better payouts (because they’re not paying a network to take part of your commission).

Of course, the fact that independent affiliate programs aren’t in a big network also makes them harder to find.  It’s  not impossible, but it’s definitely not as easy.

The best place to find independent affiliate programs is in affiliate directories.  These directories lump many independent programs together so you can view quite a few in a short time.

Of course, you may not find what you’re looking for in the directories you check.  If that happens, the next best course of action is to pick your niche, then search relevant keywords until you can find merchants in that market.  From there, do a couple of things to see if they have affiliate programs:

-Check the footer, sidebar, and other on-site links to see if they have details about an affiliate program.

-Google the merchant’s name + “affiliate program” to see if anything comes up.

-If those two options don’t work, just contact the merchant.  Most retailers of any size do have affiliate programs, and even if they don’t, they won’t exactly be unhappy to hear from people who want to promote their website.

Do you have any special tricks for finding juicy independent affiliate programs?  If so, let us know in the comments!