So you’re searching for the best email marketing affiliate programs? Look no further, AWeber Affiliates rock it with their awesome affiliate program! Don’t believe me? Check it out in this review of the AWeber Affiliate Program, allow me to share why they deserve to rank as one of the best email marketing affiliate programs around.
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AWeber Free Plan
AWeber is competitive and they look for ways to give their competitors a run for their money. Not only that, they offer opportunities for potential clients to become brand advocates by enabling them to experience AWeber with the free plan.
As an affiliate for AWeber, this is a game-changer.
We get to offer the AWeber tools for absolutely no cost to the customer!
And … no matter how long it takes for your referral to upgrade from the free plan to a pro (paid) plan, you will receive the affiliate commission as soon as they upgrade.
This is a no-brainer for me and should be for you too.
Let’s have a look at what is included in the AWeber Free Plan, just so you can see why I am so confident promoting it:
- Email Automation (no restrictions on the email automation capabilities)
- Content Creation and Landing Pages (there is no limit to accessing the creation tools for anyone. All users get to use the message editor, landing page builder, sign up form builder, and smart designer technology
- Unlimited users – this means more than one person (or everyone) in the team is able to access and make use of all the tools in AWeber Free
- Integrations – full access to the AWeber Integrations library is available to all users
PLUS: Customers get started with AWeber for free without sharing their credit card information, without any time restriction, and no trial needed!
Here is how AWeber themselves describe AWeber Free Plan:
“Unlike other “free” email marketing solutions that limit the essential features you can access, AWeber Free gives you access to all the powerfully-simple key features you’ll need to build awesome, long-term relationships with your audience of up to 500 subscribers. It also includes full access to our award-winning, industry-leading Customer Solutions team – available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week – to help you to be more successful, more quickly with your email marketing”
As can be seen above, there is a restriction with the number of subscribers on the AWeber Free Plan – so there are some limits. Overall though, the offer is extremely sound.
To back up AWeber’s words above, I am an AWeber client, in addition to being an affiliate and as a non-tech person, I can happily tell you that their claim to award-winning, industry-leading Customer Solutions team is 100% true in my experience.
They have efficiently, professionally, and very patiently guided me through the learning curve I have experienced with building my own email automation systems at AWeber.
Are you wary of signing on as an affiliate for a product you’ve never tried yourself? No problem, you can sign up for your own AWeber Free Plan and become an affiliate for them at the same time!
Why did AWeber Launch AWeber Free Plan?
- The AWeber mission is to help small businesses grow (they have done that for over a million small businesses over the last 20 years!)
- That said, it is not only for small businesses, AWeber offers all the email and online business marketing tools a large business could need too.
- AWeber wanted to make powerful email marketing opportunities to companies so that they could build their businesses and create long-term relationships with their customers
- AWeber Free Plan makes email marketing affordable for small businesses and creators who are looking to start a new project
- Everyone from hobbyists to solopreneurs, content creators, and social media influencers can access the tools and training offered by AWeber
Does The AWeber Free Plan Work In Favour Of Their Affiliate Marketers?
Yes, it does, let me show you how:
Prior to the launch of AWeber Free Plan there was a 30-day trial period offer. What this meant was:
- A new customer (your referral) only had 30 days to try out everything AWeber offers and make a decision.
- This is not enough time, especially when you consider how long it takes to build a list from the ground up
- The free plan really is a tool affiliates can leverage to encourage potential customers to sign up and stay with AWeber to really test the system out completely.
- As an AWeber Free plan customer, there is no reason for your referral to wait to sign up. When they are ready to upgrade, they can go ahead. This could happen in a shorter time than if they were making the most of a 30-day trial period.
- No matter how long it takes for your referral to upgrade to AWeber Pro, you will earn affiliate commission – for as long as that referral remains a customer with AWeber.
- The AWeber free plan positions the offer competitively. That means you can market to potential customers who may previously have opted for another free service provider.
- The conversion rate from free account to pro is extremely high.
- A simplified signup process with AWeber makes it very easy for your referrals to join
- As mentioned below, AWeber’s educationals and ideas are really great. This in itself is very enticing for new customers – if they follow the training, there is no reason they won’t excel and meet all their targets
- Your referral will receive communications from AWeber telling them all about the advantages of upgrading from free to pro. These are done via blog posts, webinars, newsletters, and so on.
- Plus, AWeber equips you with all the information you need to educate your potential customers.
Educationals & Ideas Galore!
AWeber has an awesome digital team themselves. Once you sign up you will receive really great emails regularly (without overwhelming your inbox). These emails deliver loads of really valuable content and quick reads, have a look at the screenshot from their latest email below, it was a 5-minute read:
These emails offer the opportunity to have a speed-read of the content and then you can decide whether to click through for more information or to move along swiftly.
Here is a quick look at the above email, I am certain you will agree that there are loads of value-added right here:
The above email clicked through to one of the AWeber blogs called “Guide to Successful Email Marketing Campaigns: 7 Best Practices”.
As an affiliate marketer the information that AWeber shares in their emails and blogs is gold! That particular article discussed the stats, that is people send 306 billion emails each day and that will probably hit 361 billion by 2024!
If the expression “the money is in the list” is true, don’t you think we should be doing everything we can to learn how to not only build our lists but also how to communicate with them – in light of how many emails are being sent out each day?
Fortunately, Aweber goes on to say “but marketers report that email marketing is their leading method for acquisition and retention”. So, if this is the case, best we learn the best practices as soon as possible. AWeber assists us with that as part of either a Free Plan or a Paid For Plan.
The Power of Email Marketing
These are stats shared by AWeber, and are really valuable to us as online businesses:
- 40% of Millennials and 33% of Gen Z prefer promotions via email
- 80% of Americans check their email at least once a day and a quarter check their emails multiple times per day
- 62% are more likely to check emails on a smartphone – which means mobile responsive designs are extremely important
Email marketing allows us to track our emails and gain insight and information on each of our email campaigns.
There are also many different types of email marketing campaign approaches, typically these are what should be included:
- Welcome Emails – these are your first introductions and AWeber discourages any kind of sales here
- Nurture Email Campaigns or Drip Campaigns – they are often tied to a lead magnet, like a free guide or ebook.
- Promotional Email Campaigns – these are emails that promote your products, sales, events, webinars etc., and are really crucial for boosting engagement.
- Customer Support Campaigns – you get to support your existing customers this way. It’s all about retention.
AWeber offers such great advice, you can expect to learn the following for example:
- how to run successful email marketing campaigns,
- how to identify your marketing goals;
- segment your audience;
- set campaign timelines;
- map your email content;
- create a content calendar for different segments:
- Branding
- Promotional
- Nurture
- customer Support
- Automated Response
- Personalized content etc
These may all seem obvious but let’s face it, we are all guilty of becoming so close to our work that we don’t see the wood for the trees. Getting back to basics is a good reminder for all of us from time to time.
There are so many valuable insights offered to us as AWeber customers and promoters, I really cannot speak highly enough of them.
AWeber Pro (Paid For Plans)
The AWeber paid plans start from $16.15 per month (billed annually) or $19.99 per month (billed monthly). The price of the plan increases as the number of subscribers increases – and as you can see, there is the opportunity for a 19.2% saving for customers who switch to a yearly payment.
How Much Do AWeber Affiliates Make?
I am so glad you asked. Seriously, I shared the pricing plans as our starting point because they are important to us as affiliates for AWeber.
As AWeber affiliates, we are paid a 30% referral payment on AWeber Pro invoices for the entire time our referral remains a paying AWeber customer.
Let’s do a little calculation on this. Say we refer a customer to AWeber with our referral link (NB your link is important) and they sign up for a monthly billing cycle at $29.99. We earn $8.997 (rounded up to $9.00 I would guess) per month from that one customer.
Let’s add some more to the calculation. Say we refer 5 customers to AWeber with our referral link (I’m like a dog with a bone on this, it’s that important, of course) and we earn $9.00 per month for each customer, that is $45 per month so long as they all remain paying customers.
Let’s look at the top end, we have a customer sign up on the 10,0001-25,000 subscribers level on the annual payment of $1753.80. That would be $526.14 to us an affiliate.
I cannot answer the question “how much do AWeber affiliates make” exactly because there are variables involved. It would depend on how much work you put into promotions, which level of the market you target, and so on.
Suffice to say though, the earning potential is excellent. 30% commission for an affiliate offer truly is the upper end.
How and When Are AWeber Affiliates Paid?
AWeber pays via PayPal and payments are generated on the 1st of every month. Each payment is for referrals up until 15 days before the payment is made.
Affiliates are paid once the minimum amount of $30.00 (for US affiliates) or $50.00 (for non-US affiliates) has been accumulated. You can increase the minimum amount should you choose to.
Can A Paying Customer Downgrade From Paid to AWeber Free Plan?
I am happy to tell you that this option is not available. Once a paid customer, always a paid customer.
This is great news for us as affiliates and something to keep in mind when we sign up on paid-for membership ourselves. Choose wisely when you are selecting the paid plan you decide on.
AWeber Promotions Rock!
AWeber creates the most amazing promotions for their affiliates to.
Here is the latest: AWeber launched a promotion on August 23 and it runs until September 30th, 2021. This is called the “Sell Something Challenge” and offers us an awesome opportunity to promote AWeber.
Here are the details, in a nutshell, or you can pop over to the AWeber site and read it firsthand:
AWeber are offering a free month of AWeber Pro (up to 500 subscribers) when you sell one thing, just one. it could be a course, an ebook, some printables, a physical product – anything you can think of!
Let’s have a closer look:
You do not need to have an existing business, this could be a brand new business – or an existing business. i love inclusivity, don’t you?
You can sign up for a Free Plan with AWeber, and learn about Ecommerce from AWeber themselves. Yes, they will teach you how to sell online.
If you already are a member of AWeber, you will also be included. All you need to do is set up a landing page using the AWeber Ecommerce element and make one sale. Once you have done that, AWeber will send you a special promo code for a free month of AWeber Pro.
There is no need to opt in or sign up, AWeber will send you the code within one week of you getting your first sale.
Not only that, they have a Facebook community where you can share your plans and contribute in the community.
The challenge ends 30 September and your promo code will expire on 31 October, so be sure to make use of it asap.
Plus, you could help a friend out by telling them about your experience with AWeber Ecommerce. That may be the opportunity they need to help them launch their own successful online business.
AWeber offers three compelling reasons for us to sell with them. Simplicity, control and low cost.
The simplicity referred to is: dozens of page templates ready for use, an easy integration with Strip (an online payment processing company) and a really easy-to-use landing page builder (as I mentioned earlier, you do not need to be a tech boffin to win with AWeber – anyone can put a sales page together in one day because of their offering)
With AWeber, your landing page, product and promotion is 100% in your control.
Low cost – you can create a sales page with any of the AWeber plans, this means that starting up is completely free.
Online listing sites charge up to 20% from you sale. Quite a hefty cut. AWeber has the lowest fee in the industry, only 1% or a mere 0.6% if you have a Pro account. (Stripe’s fees are 2.9% + $.3)
Calculate that out on an ebook that you sell for $15 – your take would be $14.12. Sold on another platform could mean $12 for you. It may not sound like much when you’re looking at one sale. Let’s take the same book and sell it 6 times. Your income would be $86.19 elsewhere compared to $72 with AWeber – $14 difference!
What could you sell on the Sell Something Challenge?
AWeber’s primary focus with the sell something challenge is so we can learn how to sell online – easily and affordably, without making use of marketplaces or listing site.
AWeber even offers ideas of what to sell to inspire us, check them out:
A physical product:
- Something from your home that you no longer use – perhaps there is a tool in your garage collecting dust?
- Your preloved books
- Artworks – sketches, paintings, photography, etc.
- Preloved clothing or furniture from a thrift shop
Please be aware: If you do sell something physical, be sure to remove it from your page when the item is sold. This process does not happen automatically.
Create and Sell something digital
- An online course sharing your expert advice
- A short story or digital book
- Expert content given via your blog or email
Sell services
Sell Your Services (or become an agent for skill sets offered by others)
- Freelance writing, editing, or design
- Offer consulting in your area of expertise
- Driving or manual labor offered in your area
AWeber even shows us how to sell:
The guidance offered is invaluable, the really beauty of it is that they help you to keep it simple. This means you can start selling in a very short space of time.
What does this involve?
Creating a Sales Page & Marketing your product your service.
AWeber will help you to create your sales page, it takes on 5 simple steps to set your sales page up in AWeber and it can be done in your free account!
There is step by step guidance to create your Sales Page, Landing Page – there are even great ecommerce templates for your to choose from. Not that you are restricted to the ecommerce templates, you have loads of options!
AWeber will guide you by sharing how th make the relevant choices, like “Simple Product Sale.” All you need to do is click “Choose” on the template to copy the page into your drafts. No need to do any designing or tech work. AWeber has done all the “heavy lifting” for you.
So this is how it goes:
1. Select the template
2. Add the details of your products for sale
3. Type in the name, an enticing description and some attractive images
You get to benefit from the guidance AWeber offers all the way through this process – remember it is a short one.
Connect to Stripe
In order to charge for your product or service, you’ll need to connect to a Stripe account. AWeber walks you through this process too, they estimate it takes about 5 minutes in total.
Configure sale button settings
The next step is to add your product to your button (whether it’s a digital product, service or physical product or service, it is still called a product).
Once it has been named, price the offer – the capability to offer a once off price or a subscription payment plan is also available. Yippee – ongoing income!.
There is also a “Tag automation” option which will tag anyone who purchases and you can track and market to your customers later on too. The process to do this is also made very easy by AWeber.
After the sale is done you can choose whether to issue a receipt or redirect your buyer to another page.
On the redirect you can show a thank you page, or even send your customers to another landing page that contains the content that they have bought (a digital book or course for example.
A Quick Review and Go Live
Once you have double-checked your page and made sure it contains everything it should and looks the way it should, you get to “save and exit” and then “publish” – and presto, your online business has gone live!
AWeber also offers the opportunity for you to purchase your own domain. I have bought mine through my Number 1 Recommendation. You are welcome to join me there or go ahead with AWeber’s option, of course.
Everything I am sharing with you here really is a summary of what AWeber has to offer, we have touched on physical products and digital products only so far.
Once you have signed in to your AWeber account you will see that they offer guidance and templates for online courses, ebook offers, product sales, subscriptions and even crowd funding.
And its not even over yet – AWeber also covers marketing by taking you through three free and easy ways to market your new page!
There is huge value available to you – for free, on your AWeber Free Plan. This article has truly only scratched the surface.
It is highly possible for you to make sales through this process (and make money too!).
Better than that though, you will be building your own online business, your email list (very important to all online marketers, if you don’t already know the expression “the money is in the list” you are sure to learn about it soon).
I hope that you can see why I rate AWeber as one of the best email marketing Affiliate Programs, I will be researching and writing about their competitor Affiliate Programs, for now however, I can say with absolute certainty that AWeber Affiliates Rock It, because I am not only an AWeber client but also an affiliate for AWeber.
I do hope you will join me, especially in light of the “Sell Something Challenge”.
You are welcome to leave any questions or comments you have below, I promise to reply.
Blessings as always
This is very interesting. I have heard about email marketing programs but didn’t quite understand how they worked. Your explanation is very thorough. I started a blog back in February of 2021 and have approximately 45 articles on the site. I was wondering, how will this type of marketing help a blog that is mainly informational with some possible purchases scattered throughout the posts? It seems very complicated to me, especially since I am not a techie. But it sounds like AWeber may be a good fix.
Thanks for the post. I’ll consider signing up.
Nina
Hi Nina
Email marketing is a bit of a learning curve, the training offered at AWeber really helps. As far as how email marketing will help your site is concerned, there is an expression “the money is in the list”. The list is your email list. When you build a list of email addresses you can communicate with your readers and build a relationship with them off your website. Not only that, when you email your readers, you can share links back to your website, creating a higher “returning visitor” stat, which Google loves to see. When you write a new blog or have new products and promotions, you can communicate this to your readers via email too. Having an email list reduces the impact algorithms have on your online business.
As far as I understand it, building your email list is imperative. Plus, with AWeber, you have access to their Free Plan so it will only cost you time, not money – give it a shot and let me know how you go.
Blessings
Louise
I read your article. It is very important. As a newcomer to this program I greatly appreciate the value of your article. Most people in Sri Lanka do not have a great understanding of this. But I got a good understanding from your article. Thank you for posting this valuable article.
Saminda.
Hi Saminda
You are fortunate to be getting ahead of the game in your home country. Perhaps you could start up a local online college and teach your peers. After all, an international business will greatly benefit people in Sri Lanka, I see the Sri Lankan Rupee is not as strong as the US Dollar or Pound, just like we have in South Africa with the Rand.
I wish you every success with your online business, Saminda.
Blessings
Louise
Hello Louise,
I am using a different email marketing for my blog and I have to admit, I haven’t given it much time and still a bit of a learning curve. I do have automated welcome and new articles emails though. I am still slowly building my list.
I really like how you presented this article. It is very thorough that I don’t even have any questions in the meantime. You have covered everything that I can think of. Thank you for sharing this.
Hi Lemuel
Great to see you here – thanks so much for your visit and comment.
Yeah, learning email marketing is a learning curve for sure. AWeber are amazing with the way they keep their clients informed about the latest email successes and suggestions, I hope you have the same from your service provider.
Blessings always
Louise
Hi Louise,
Email marketing has been a trend now, and I was searching a lot online for more information about email marketing and this article is everything anyone could ask for! Full detailed and straightforward information in this article! AWeber is a great pocket friendly package with lot of benefits in it which is just amazing! Best thing is that if you don’t want to buy the AWeber plan even the free plan is available which will help you develop more trust and interest towards that plan! Great article I must say! Got to learn so much, This is definitely worth sharing.
Thanks
Cheer!
Thank you for stopping by and leaving a comment, Samantha.
Much appreciated.
Blessings
Louise