Top 5 Reasons Why You Might Want to Start An Affiliate Program

You’ve built something great. Your product is solid, your customers love it, and growth is steady. But is it enough?

While you’re grinding away at the latest AI SEO hack, your competitors are tapping into something bigger: an army of people selling for them 24/7.

We’re talking affiliate programs – and if you’re not considering one yet, you might be leaving serious money on the table.

TL;DR: Affiliate programs work because loyalty is fostered and financially rewarded between the customer and the affiliate and the affiliate and the company.

What Makes Affiliate Programs So Powerful?

While we’re all getting distracted by the latest Google update or TikTok challenge, affiliate marketing has been sitting there like that reliable friend. It’s not flashy, but it works – and it always has your back.

The idea is simple: instead of doing all the heavy lifting yourself, you recruit partners — bloggers, influencers, industry experts, even your mom — to promote your product. They earn commissions, your customer gets a discount, you get sales, and everyone wins.

The best affiliate programs aren’t just about generating revenue either. They’re like Swiss Army knives for your business – solving SEO, social media, content marketing, and sales problems all at once.

Sounds too good to be true, right? Let’s look at why it actually works.

Quick sidebar: Want to see what the best affiliate programs look like in action? We’ve analyzed the top-performing affiliate programs in the WordPress space – from WP Rocket to WooCommerce’s referral potential.

Check out our breakdown of the top 10 best affiliate programs to monetize your WordPress website to see what’s actually working in 2025.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget about the Affiliate Summit. It’s a great way to meet new super fans, learn from other companies, and gain affiliates.

5 Reasons You Should Be Using an Affiliate Program

Reason 1 – Scale Your Marketing Without Hiring More People

Marketing is expensive. And honestly, it’s exhausting. Every blog post, every ad campaign, every social media strategy requires hours of your team’s attention. And even then, you’re limited by how much content you can create and how many channels you can manage.

Affiliate programs basically flip this whole thing upside down.

Instead of creating all the content yourself, you enable others to create it for you. Product reviews, comparison posts, tutorial videos, social media mentions — all happening without you having to put it in your Trello board and manage it.*

At Rocket.net, we’ve watched our reseller partners create WordPress tutorials and WooCommerce optimization guides that we never would have thought of. They’re targeting audiences we didn’t even know existed. It’s like having a marketing team that grows itself without the payroll headaches.

Here’s a random example: instead of us writing another generic “speed up your WordPress site” post, our affiliates might create something like “Essential WooCommerce Security Plugins for Black Friday Traffic” while naturally recommending Wordfence, or “WordPress Speed Stack for Agency Clients” featuring WP Rocket. They’re adding real value while also earning commission.

See what we did there? Our affiliates become an extension of our marketing team, creating content across multiple channels at the same time. You can do this, too.

“Affiliates compete for traffic, and vendors compete for the affiliates that drive the most traffic. About 69% of affiliate traffic is based on SEO.”
Similiarweb.com

*Be aware that you should monitor user-generated content by affiliates to ensure it complies with your brand guidelines. It’s a good idea to have Google Alerts set up for as-it-happens.

Reason 2 – Tap Into Trust You Can’t Buy

People don’t trust brands like they trust real people. So, when you say your hosting is fast and reliable, that’s just marketing speak.

When a respected WordPress developer mentions it in their newsletter or writes about it on their blog? That’s a recommendation. And recommendations convert at rates that make your paid ads look pretty sad in comparison.

Affiliate marketing is basically borrowing credibility. Your affiliates have spent months or years building trust with their own audiences. When they recommend your product, they’re putting their reputation on the line.

The result? Higher conversion rates, lower customer acquisition costs, lower churn, and sales from people who would normally scroll past your ads without a second thought.

Here’s some numbers: WordPress-focused affiliate programs see conversion rates 2-3x higher than general affiliate programs. Why? WordPress users (customers) are actively searching (SEO) for solutions (products)to specific problems (client issues). When they find a trusted recommendation, they’re way more likely to buy something.

Pro tip: Focus on recruiting partners who already have credibility in your niche, not just someone with a big Instagram following.

Reason 3 – Finally, Marketing That Actually Pays for Itself

Let’s talk about ROI for a second. Traditional advertising feels like gambling sometimes. You pay upfront and cross your fingers. SEO takes forever to show results. Content marketing requires months of consistent investment before you see anything back.

Affiliate marketing? You only pay when you make sales. That’s it.

Here’s some more numbers: if an affiliate generates $10,000 in sales and you pay them a 20% commission, you’re still up $8,000 that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. There’s no risk, no wasted ad spend, no campaigns that completely flop and leave you wondering where your budget went.

This performance-based thing means:

Your customer acquisition costs are actually predictable.

Every dollar you spend on commissions brings in more revenue.

You can scale up or down without worrying about an increase in fixed costs.

Affiliates who aren’t performing well just stop promoting you naturally.

The math is pretty simple: if your product has decent margins, affiliate marketing becomes a profit center instead of another expense.

“Unlike other business ventures that require a lot of investment for website and project development, all you need to start earning money in affiliate marketing is a website or social media platform.”
Backlinko.com

Reason 4 – Test New Markets Without the Guesswork

Expanding into new markets is scary and expensive. Different audiences, different messaging, different channels; there is a lot to figure out, and you might get it completely wrong.

Affiliate programs let you test new markets with basically zero risk.

When affiliates in different niches or regions start promoting your product, they’re doing market research for you. They understand their audiences better than any demographic report could tell you, and they only promote stuff they think will actually sell.

Here’s what this looks like in practice: You might discover that your plugin is really popular with store owners who also need CDN services. Or maybe your SEO tool really resonates with agencies who bundle it with their client packages.

Real examples: WP Rocket discovered their affiliate program worked incredibly well with hosting companies and WordPress maintenance services who could bundle speed optimization with their main offerings. Cloudflare found success partnering with WordPress developers who recommended their CDN alongside hosting solutions.

Each successful affiliate partnership basically gives you a playbook for expanding into that market yourself later.

The bonus here is that you’re making money while you learn, instead of spending money on research that might not lead anywhere.

Reason 5 – Build Something Competitors Can’t Copy

Competition is brutal in every industry. Features get copied, prices get undercut, and marketing tactics become commoditized pretty quickly.

Your competitors can’t steal your relationships with your affiliates.

A strong affiliate program creates switching costs. Your best affiliates have invested serious time and effort into promoting your product. They’ve written content, built landing pages, and optimized their funnels around your offer.

Why would they switch to a competitor? Only if that competitor offers way better commissions or has a dramatically superior product.

This creates a defensive barrier around your business. Every successful affiliate becomes someone who has skin in the game with your success, and they’re motivated to keep promoting you instead of jumping to whatever new shiny object your competition launches.

The network effect is real too: as your program grows, it becomes more attractive to new affiliates. Success really does breed success here.

“The most effective affiliate marketing happens for products you actually like and have used. Or, even if you haven’t used them, you admire them and could market them authentically.”
WooCommerce

Getting Started: Your Affiliate Program Action Plan

Ready to build your affiliate army? Here’s what you need to do:

1. Choose Your Platform

WordPress-focused options: ShareASale (WP Rocket uses this), Impact, or Commission Junction. For WordPress-specific setups, try AffiliateWP or Affiliate for WooCommerce. Another great option is Siren Affiliates with a suite of powerful features!

Decide if it’s a link that gets them the referral, a coupon code, or both. It matters. Links don’t work on Instagram, so if you’re relying on that platform, you’ll need a coupon code.

2. Study What’s Working

Look at WP Rocket (20% per sale), RankMath (30% recurring), or WooCommerce (30%, 10% recurring). See what commission structures actually work for your product.

3. Define Your Niche

Target WordPress developers, agency owners, WooCommerce store owners, or security-focused site builders. Each group needs different messaging.

4. Create Useful Marketing Materials

WordPress security guides, WooCommerce optimization tutorials, CDN setup walkthroughs. Make it easy for affiliates to create and share valuable content. Meaning, you still have to publish articles.

5. Start Recruiting

WordPress Facebook groups, WooCommerce communities, and developer Twitter. Partner with plugin developers, theme creators, and WordPress service providers.

Bonus Tip: The superfans you have posting on X all the time, sharing your content? Those are the ideal first-step affiliate recruits. They’ve already been doing the legwork. Reward them for it.

6. Track the Right Metrics

Monitor which affiliates drive users with the highest lifetime value and lowest churn. WordPress users vary wildly in engagement and retention. Each affiliate has a specific audience that brings in customers. It’s also a cumulative effect.

7. Actually Support Your Partners

Regular communication, performance feedback, and promotional support. Treat them like business partners, because that’s what they are.

Speaking of relaunches, we recently migrated our entire Rocket.net affiliate program to a new platform with better features and commission tracking. The migration unlocked new capabilities that put more money in our affiliates’ pockets while making everything easier to manage.

The Bottom Line: Why Wait?

Every day you don’t have an affiliate program running is potentially a day your competitors are recruiting the exact partners you need.

The best time to start an affiliate program? Six months ago. The second-best time? Right now.

Affiliate marketing isn’t just another channel — it’s a growth multiplier that actually gets stronger over time. The sooner you start, the sooner you can begin building relationships that will drive revenue for years.

And Yet You’re Still Here?

Affiliate programs aren’t magic bullets. They need strategy, management, and ongoing tweaks just like any other marketing channel.

But when you get them right? They’re about as close to a perpetual motion machine as marketing gets. Sales that happen while you sleep, content that creates itself, and growth that compounds month after month.

Your product deserves an army of advocates. Time to start recruiting them.