Over the weekend I learned that my neighbor wants to become an affiliate marketer. He’s a contractor. Though he earns a good living through his work, he’s been learning WordPress and would like to take a shot at building an affiliate site. It got me thinking. There is an ocean of information available for how to do affiliate marketing, but there are not a lot of affiliate trainers I trust enough to recommend to my neighbor.
This mistrust was verified when I was checking for who has the most influential Twitter account for the hashtag #affiliatemarketing. Two of the top five accounts had been suspended by Twitter. Two others were… well, let’s just say they were not really directly related to affiliate marketing.
This is exactly why I came up with only a few names of affiliate marketers I trusted enough to endorse for my neighbor. It’s great to have all this information available, but you’d be wise to take much of it with a grain of salt.
As I thought about it a bit more, a few more names came to mind. All these marketers are people I trust enough to educate someone I know and like, and they’ve all got awesome Twitter feeds. If you aren’t following these people already, start now.
Related more:
1. Affiliate marketing for beginners
2. How to build an email list for affiliate marketing
3. How to create an affiliate marketing funnel
4. How to promote affiliate links like a pro
1) Jeff Bullas @jeffbullas
The owner and creator of one of the best blogs about Internet marketing, Jeff includes affiliate marketing tips in his posts. He also has a regular stream of guest bloggers, and his entire operation is a textbook case study in how to do affiliate marketing right. He’s also, of course, really strong on social media, which can be a little tricky for affiliate marketers sometimes.
2) Jeremy Schoemaker @shoemoney
Shoemoney has been around for so long and helped so many that I couldn’t possibly leave him off this list. Maybe his approach is not for everyone, but he is actually earning a living – and a lavish one – from affiliate marketing. He’s also savvy to how powerful email marketing is.
3) John Chow @JohnChow
Another titan of affiliate marketing, John has been around long enough to see empires rise and fall. He reportedly “took his blog from making zero to over $40,000 per month in just 2 years”. His blog covers basics like outsourcing and how to get more traffic. Then every once in awhile he’ll do a whole post on his latest expensive new car.
4) Shawn Collins @affiliatetip
Shawn Collins is the guy behind AffiliateTip.com, a well-trafficked and well-regarded blog. He’s also one of the co-founders of The Affiliate Summit. You can’t get too deep into affiliate marketing to not run into his name and his work.
5) Missy Ward @MissyWard
Missy is the other co-founder of the Affiliate Summit. She has been an affiliate marketer since 1999 and maintains an active blog about affiliate marketing. It’s good for beginners but also has insights even advanced marketers can benefit from.
6) Darren Rowse @problogger
Darren runs the essential site ProBlogger.com, where he teaches people how to make money blogging. He’s written several great books on the subject, including how to radically improve your blog in 30 days. There’s a lot of focus on creating great, useful content first, then developing an audience, and then selling to them.
7) Scott Fox @Scott_Fox
OK – so Scott Fox doesn’t call it “affiliate marketing” (many gurus don’t). He calls it “Lifestyle Entrepreneurship”. Whatever he calls it, it’s affiliate marketing and he definitely knows how to do it. Fox has a ton of followers on Twitter, earns lots of zeros, and gets hundreds of reviews for his books.
8) Rosalind Gardner @RosalindGardner
“The Queen of Affiliate Marketing” and author of “Make a Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online: How Affiliate Marketing Can Make You Rich”. Rosalind truly is one of the best in affiliate marketing. She was one of the first people to really make a living doing actual, legitimate content-driven affiliate marketing. She’s been teaching people how to follow in her footsteps even since. Rosalind was an air traffic controller before she went into affiliate marketing, so there’s no shrinking from the technical side of things. She explains everything very clearly.
9) Michael Dunlop @IncomeDiary
Michael Dunlop has a smaller following, and it not quite as massive a presence as earlier people on this list, but his site Income Diary gets a lot of readers and goes into the nuts and bolts of making an affiliate marketing business work – from shopping carts and SEO to strategy and partnerships.
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10) Ramsay Taplin @BlogTyrant
Follow for super-smart blogging and online earning (including affiliate marketing) advice. Ramsay writes about list building a fair amount, too, which is one of the secret tricks of surviving as an affiliate.
Take note that he is a blogger, and all blogger. If you’re desperately trying to figure out a way to do affiliate marketing without a website, you may not find much here. Of course, if you are trying to do affiliate marketing without a website, you’ve got about a .3% chance of success.
11) Alexis Grant @alexisgrant
Alexis Grant is an affiliate marketer, but she’s got other business models running too. She runs a content creation company, a site for writers, and has a bunch of training programs and other excellent resources. But she also does a lot of affiliate marketing, and she reveals her earnings, which is extremely interesting. Check out her recent post, Affiliate Sales: A Realistic Guide for Earning Revenue From Your Website.
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12) Steve Scott @stevescott1
Steve Scott is known more for Kindle publishing than for affiliate marketing, but he’s written several books about affiliate marketing, he’s got a whole site about it, and he earns a handsome income doing it. His books are also perfect examples of how to earn affiliate income from publishing Kindle books – a double win.
13) Nick Loper @nloper
Nick is the owner and founder of Side Hustle Nation, an awesome example of how to do a blog right. He includes affiliate marketing as a viable side hustle, but he also writes about alternatives to affiliate marketing like a tiny service business or other ways to earn cash part-time.
14) Pat Flynn @PatFlynn
Pat is one of the current rock stars of affiliate marketing, and for good reason. If you haven’t read his stuff or listened to his podcast, you’re past due.
15) Terry Dean @TerryDean
Terry has been around as long as anyone. He’s got rock-solid experience and has had it for decades, building dozens of “lifestyle businesses” and teaching thousands of others how to do it too. His approach is less brash than some others, but this is absolutely somebody who knows what it really takes to earn a living online. Terry will show you how to build a real business, not just an affiliate click scheme.
16) Eric Nagel @ericnagel
Eric might be a little confusing for beginners, and he has his days of being a little cranky, but his focus on not wasting time is essential to the success of any affiliate marketer. If you do want some diversion, his blog is highly readable. You won’t be wasting your time while you read it, though you might still be procrastinating.
17) Charles Ngo @Dr_Ngo
His Twitter bio says “Legendary affiliate marketer”. And is he legendary? Well, to quite a few people he is. Charles has done rather well with affiliate marketing. As his website says, “Within his first few months of learning affiliate marketing, he was able to turn $4,000 into $1,000,000+ in profit.” Now he offers training to others.
That’s definitely not an exhaustive list of affiliate marketers you could follow on Twitter, but it will get you started. I’m sure you’ve got a few favorites as well. Give a shout out for them (or even for yourself) in the comments below!