15 Types of Affiliate Marketing Publishers (Websites, Apps, Influencers)

Do you want to start an affiliate program, and promote it to get affiliates that will drive sales, or you are a publisher and plan to make money as an affiliate? That’s great! You might be confused about which types of affiliate marketers are available and how they navigate the affiliate space. That’s cool, you are not the only one, and we have you covered.

In the following article, we will show you 15 types of affiliate marketers you will meet online. While some just started as bloggers, others are established media companies like Ziff Davis. This information is useful both for affiliate managers who want to attract affiliates and to affiliate marketers because they can get inspired to make money revenue.

Before anything else, keep in mind that “Affiliate refers to a wide range of partner types which includes independent publishers, digital marketing entrepreneurs, major media companies, and in some cases, other brands who promote offers to their customers as an added value.

Here is a list of some of the most common types of affiliates:

1. Content sites

Content partners are website owners that write and publish content online. This is why their name. These websites have editorial teams and often produce large volumes of viral content.

They monetize the content via advertising revenue as part of their business model. These content partners could be significant media companies like BuzzFeed or Business Insider or smaller, independent digital publishing operations.

Solely user-generated content (UGC) sites, such as discussion forums, can fall into this category as a vast majority of the website content is created by users.

Below you can see a screenshot of Addictive Tips, a pretty popular content website. The editorial team creates content about gadgets, PC tips, VPN software, and they monetize the audience through affiliate programs.

Content sites are great money makers. Their audience is willing to try new products as they trust the brand already for their recommendations.

2. Bloggers

Blogs are a subset of content types. The main difference between a typical content website is that bloggers create most of the content of their blogs on their own and have a closer relationship with their readers.

As an affiliate manager, you’ll be able to find a lot of blogs in almost any specific niche. These blog niches range from personal hobbies to consumer product reviews to tips and tricks on everyday-life topics like saving money or parenting.

The screenshot below shows the Daily Money Saving blog where Denise shares tips with her audience on saving money.

The blogger may use different monetization methods like display advertising, sponsored posts, affiliate banners or include affiliate links peppered throughout their blog posts. But be careful. Not all bloggers are created equal. Choose bloggers that speak to your target audience about issues relevant to your products or services.

3. News & Media Sites

Many large media companies monetize content and place native advertising like native articles within articles using affiliate links. Recently, news and media sites are getting into the affiliate game. That’s happening because they are looking for better income streams as ad revenue is declining due to the adblockers and people ignoring ads more and more.

Media giants like Ziff Davis are acquiring online publications regularly while others are diversifying revenue streams to combat dying ad sales. Either way, these are significant players in the game, and they can negotiate better affiliate commissions, etc.

Also, these companies are doing extensive research and A/B testing on affiliate links placements and CTAs, so it’s better to watch these sites and see what works for them. Then implement these methods on your websites and monitor the performance.

IGN Entertainment is one of the leading Internet media companies focused on video games and entertainment. IGN reaches more than 250 million monthly users worldwide and is followed by more than 47MM social followers.

4. Review Sites

These sites review different products, usually in a specific niche. One of the most popular affiliate programs for those is Amazon Associates. Affiliates and partners are told that creating an Amazon review site is one of the best ways to build their business and generate profits every month.

In the picture below, you can see a screenshot of the homepage of such a website – Water Filter Guru. This is an authority website in the nice of water filters.

If you are an affiliate manager, make sure you choose only reputable review websites. Look for those with keyword-rich URLs, clean, uncluttered content without many popups or widgets, and thoughtfully considered reviews geared toward the reader’s needs.

5. Coupon Sites

Coupon or Deal sites are easily the most popular type of affiliate site out there today. And for a good reason: They are eCommerce-friendly websites that consumers turn to when they’re looking for a deal–and that is the majority of online consumers.

Affiliates will offer coupon or discount codes to their users and earn commissions on any sales that result from someone clicking through one of their links to a merchant site. Some even allow users to upload coupon codes of their own.

6. Loyalty or Cashback Sites

Cashback sites are quite popular with users, too. They give back money to members based on purchases they’ve made through the site’s affiliate links. The cashback site would get a commission for every sale, but now they give a percentage of their commission right back to the user who made the actual purchase.

It means a lower profit for the publisher with each sale, but they more than makeup for that by encouraging members to make purchases through various promotions and incentives. eBates is the most popular and widely used.

7. Shopping Comparison Websites

Websites and apps that offer eCommerce tools like comparison shopping rely heavily on data feeds full of products tied to affiliate links. Sites like Shopping.com let users search for millions of products, returning relevant results.

When users click through a product to purchase on a merchant’s page, they use an affiliate link, helping the comparison shopping site earn a commission.

8. Email List

People still use email to communicate despite text messaging or instant notification being super-popular. According to Statista, there are 4 billion daily email users, and this number is expected to climb to 4.6 billion by 2025. Also, the global email marketing market was valued at $7.5 billion in 2020 and is projected to increase to $17.9 billion by 2027.

So you can see that email marketing is a valuable revenue string if it is used right. Large publishers have built email lists to rely less on search engine traffic and penalties from algorithm updates. And many independent affiliate marketers use it to make money.

Email campaigns targeting a specific customer demographic are standard, and multi-merchant email opportunities that feature deals or special promotions are a few examples.

As an affiliate marketer, I suggest grabbing your visitors” emails and emailing your lists with highly targeted affiliate campaigns. For instance, in the image above, you can see how an affiliate that runs a digital marketing blog sent

If you are an affiliate manager, you should remember that working with email affiliates can be risky, especially if they’re not CAN-SPAM compliant. Affiliate fraudsters will sometimes categorize themselves as Email affiliates in the networks because their promotional activities tend to not be as visible to the merchant/advertiser.

9. Mobile apps

Specific sites build in affiliate links to their apps. That goes for coupon or shopping comparison sites with an app, but also standalone apps themselves.

Popular apps like Shazam and Pandora use affiliate links to send users toApple’ss iTunes Store, while free gaming apps monetize via incentivized offers.

10. PPC Affiliates

These affiliate marketers leverage Search engines, Facebook, and other paid advertising sites to drive quality traffic to affiliate programs. They may do it directly to the vendor’s website or through a landing page.

PPC affiliate marketers make a buck by making more from the affiliate commissions than paying for PPC ads to Google, Facebook, and other advertising networks.

The bottom line, merchants need to consider how each affiliate drives traffic to promote their offers to ensure they’re appropriate for the product they’re trying to promote and ultimately sell, compliant and playing by the rules.

11. Sub-Networks

Sub-networks also referred to as sub-affiliate networks, are affiliate marketing companies that build affiliates of their own. They often act as an”affiliate of affiliates,” whereby one relationship with a sub-network can provide access to 100s of other affiliates through their network.

The sub-networks manage all the relationships with the partners in their network. Sub-networks generally sign up through the brand’s SaaS Tracking Platform of Affiliate Network, but in some cases, a sub-network will require a direct integration of their own.

Sub-networks offer high-volume traffic opportunities and can make up a significant portion of affiliate programs” activity. Some example sub-networks include SkimLinks (now a Taboola company) and VigLink.

12. Social Media Influencers

With the rise of Instagram, Tik Tok, and YouTube celebrities, social influencers can make up a significant portion of a brand’s affiliate program.

Social Influencers generally take a little more time to develop a close relationship with, and they prefer to work with brands they believe in or products they use themselves.

If you can establish a close relationship with a small cohort of influencers, it can be a powerful part of your affiliate strategy.

13. Software / Toolbar Affiliates

Affiliates in this category use software, toolbars, and browser extensions to drive sales. Some resort to adware, malware, and other strategies.  Others, however, may be valuable assets to any affiliate program. For example, some software developers have low-priced or free alternatives for their products, monetizing with ads. They could bring your products in front of the right eyes. Think online wallets, video, audio, and graphics editing software, etc.

Others, like Avast SafePrice, have such an excellent reputation that partnering with them would surely inspire confidence and benefit your brand. As usual, it is essential to choose and police your affiliates carefully. You have to protect not only your brand and reputation but also your other affiliates.

14. Pay-Per-Call Affiliates

Marketers in this category drive inbound phone calls in exchange for a commission. Whether or not pay-per-call affiliates can benefit your affiliate program and fit in with your other affiliate types depends heavily on your business-specific.

One thing is sure; if you want to employ this remuneration model, you will need to find a viable solution to track referrals. Generally, pay-per-call works best for service providers (legal, auto service, travel, insurance, etc.). Still, it has proven effective for high-end products, especially when combined with click-per-sale or click-per-lead.

15. Video and Podcast Affiliates

They could easily qualify as content or review affiliates. It seemed fitting to place them in a different category because their marketing methods are more interactive and challenging. They promote products and services through video, audio, or combinations of the two.

Buyers often look up video demonstrations of the products or services they wish to buy. Many also listen to podcasts and will follow recommendations received this way. I’ve seen some talented affiliates who use animations to promote various products and services.

When buyers are more distracted than ever, and competition is tight, video and audio affiliates are worth gold. They can help you draw attention and convert. As with the other affiliate types, though, choose your collaborators carefully and supervise their activity.

Conclusion on types of affiliate marketers

So there you have it: 15 affiliate marketing types and advice for affiliate managers on approaching each category. Also, we have advice for each kind of affiliate on finding the best converting affiliate marketing programs.

It can be challenging to determine which type of affiliate publisher is right for you. There is a lot of information available. Your affiliate program or partner program might only apply to specific partners. Your program may be flexible enough that it can impact all of them. A successful business depends on knowing its audience.

I’ve just launched an affiliate marketing consulting service that will guide you through your journey in starting, launching, promoting an affiliate program, or, if you are on the other side of the fence, to make good money through affiliate marketing. Check it here.

The bottom line is that, nowadays, affiliate sites can cross over to more than one type of site. For instance, here on Monetize.info, we write reviews, have a coupons section, and email our lists with affiliate marketing offers.