Best Affiliate Programs and Networks For Small Streamers [2024]

There are more people nowadays who would love to watch a game being played by the other streamers online nowadays than there are people who actually would like to play a game. Plus, most of the entertainment online has turned into community-based activities, so people would really love to watch a streamer and use their content on a daily basis. In the middle of this whole thing, affiliates, or basically small streamers, have a lot of opportunities for earning money from their audience by promoting affiliate offers. In this article, we will be going through affiliate offers specifically created for streamers and how streamers can benefit from them to make a lot of money.

What are Streamer Affiliate Programs

Streamer affiliate programs are websites or businesses that have a product or service that would appeal to a streamer audience. Because of this, streamers are the perfect affiliates for those businesses to promote them. This is because affiliates can use those products and recommend them to their followers in action and live. Almost nothing beats the promotional value of that.

This is exactly why as a small streamer event, you have a lot of opportunities to earn a lot of money by collaborating with different brands and promoting their offers. There are many different brands and you need to know exactly what to promote.

What Affiliate Programs and Networks Can Small Streamers Promote

Speaking of what you can promote, there are various types of businesses that would collaborate with streamers as their affiliates. For example, electronics and tech programs, streaming platforms, or content creation platforms, tools, VPN services, hardware companies, etc. These are all businesses that would love to collaborate with affiliates with a great audience base on a streaming platform.

Since there are many different businesses, there are also various ways you can get paid by these brands which we will cover in later sections. For now, all you should know is that streaming affiliate programs can be very different from other affiliate programs like e-commerce programs, and that is very important to understand before you begin your journey as a streaming affiliate.

How are Streaming Offers Different from Other Offers

Since other types of affiliate programs provide you with a physical or digital product you can sell on your website or social media and earn, placing their links or marketing materials is super easy and straightforward, and all you have to do is copy a bunch of codes. As a streamer, you are mostly dealing with live audio-visual content, and there is nowhere for people to be constantly checking other than your profiles on various platforms. Therefore, if you want to promote those offers, you have to get creative and benefit from various social media channels, which will be covered in later sections of the article.

Opportunities to Earn as a Small Streamer

There are various opportunities for you to earn as a small streamer, the same way that there are various streaming platforms for you to stream on. Depending on what you do and where you stream and how many followers you have, you can open up the door to various opportunities for earning money with different brands. In this section, we'll go through just a couple of these opportunities.

Affiliate Programs

First and foremost, you have affiliate marketing which is always there and is one of the most effective ways for you to earn passive income without having to do anything special other than getting creative with posting about it or promoting the offers. In affiliate marketing, you are not directly promoting the program, but recommending it to your audience since you are not already paid to promote that program. Plus, since you are almost on your own to decide whether the brand is a good brand or not, you should be very careful with your choices and only promote brands that you really trust and use. Since your audience looks up to you and trust you, as a streamer you don't want to break that trust and destroy your career. Therefore, it's important for you to be careful when promoting certain programs you are not sure about.

Brand Sponsorships

The next type of earning opportunity is brand sponsorships. In order to get a brand to sponsor you you would have to have a large audience base and have proven content that matches their criteria. In many cases, sponsors will come to you and not the other way around. However, if you think that a business would really benefit from collaborating with you and sponsoring your content you can always send them a message. Many of the affiliate programs mentioned in this article will also have brand sponsorship opportunities if your audience space is large. Oh you really have to do is e-mail them and ask.

Brand Collaborations

Brand collaborations are almost like sponsorships except they work with you in marketing and various aspects to make sure they prepare the exact thing your audience wants for them to buy their product. This way, you make sure that the program is not only sponsoring you but also working with you to make sure your audience gets what they want. This way, you will also be able to see the marketing team of the program and our business and brainstorm on various ways to earn money.

Merchandise and Shops

Even after all of these collaboration opportunities, you can have your own merchandise or just promote the merchandise of a certain brand. You can also have a shop in which you sell your own products or your own custom-made solutions for gamers or your audience in whatever niche you have. Emergency stories are something your audience will really love and they would definitely shop from you, so it's an amazing way to earn a lot of passive income.

Donations, Subscriptions, and Memberships

After all of these, you still have some more ways to earn money which include donations and subscriptions. Your audience would always want to support you themselves. So they will donate some money to you or send some money to you on a monthly basis in return free badge as a supporter on your channel. There are many ways to get your audience to subscribe to you or pay for you, and one of them is providing them with features and services that other users will not be using.

Payment Models in Affiliate Programs for Small Streamers

Now that you know what exactly streaming can bring to you, let's break down the payment models available in these affiliate programs. Keep in mind that these payment models might only be for the affiliate programs and not necessarily the other types of partnerships you might have with a brand.

Keep in mind that these payment models are in many different programs, but some programs have their own custom affiliate tiers and payment models, such as Twitch. Even though you can become a Twitch affiliate, you will not necessarily be getting paid revenue but you will be getting paid for placing ads on your streams. So keep in mind that these payment models might be common but these might not be all that there is.

Cost per Lead

The cost per lead model is probably one of the most popular models available in affiliate programs for streamers because it allows them to drive potential customers to the program without actually having to make a sale. The program knows that the audience is coming from you so they must be your loyal fans. Therefore, whoever proves that they are a customer by adding the payment information or activating your free trial of their service, will get approved as a lead and you will get a Commission for it. Keep in mind that these commissions could be anywhere between $1 to $100 depending on what product exactly you are promoting.

Cost per Sale

The cost per sale model is also one of the popular models available in this niche. This is activated when a customer successfully completes the sale. In that case, you will get a flat rate for that sale. So no matter how much the product costs, you will only be getting the amount specified from the very beginning.

Cost per Action

The cost per action model dictates that you will get a flat Commission every time somebody who collects your link completes an action. This can be opening an account, downloading a game, or doing something else that doesn't necessarily make the user considered a customer. In these situations, you might get anywhere between $1 to $100 depending on one action, but you can consider a range closer to the smaller number than the bigger one.

Revenue Share

In revenue share, you will be getting a percentage of the value of the product as your affiliate reward. This percentage could be anywhere from 5% to 100% depending on what exactly you're promoting. For example, if you are promoting subscriptions, you might have the opportunity to earn a 100% commission on the first month. Anyhow, this is probably one of the most profitable payment models, and you just have to make sure that the percentage specified for the revenue share is fair and the value of the products or services is not too low for it to end up as not much money.

Brand Deals

Finally, you have brand deals that work in their own way. You could get a percentage of a product value or a certain amount of money per every promotion. This could start from $50 all the way to thousands of dollars. Therefore, it really depends on what program you're collaborating with and what you are selling.

How to Choose the Best Affiliate Program for Small Streamers

Now that you know what affiliate programs you are dealing with and how you can get paid, you're probably wondering where you should get started. There are many different factors that can help you decide which affiliate program is great for you as a small streamer, and which one will probably not be profitable enough or even good enough for your streaming. Therefore, you can use these factors to make sure you are making the right choice.

Brand Recognition

First and foremost, don't destroy your own reputation just because a brand is willing to pay a lot of money. Do your own research on every single business that you want to get affiliated with. The best way to do this is to search for them on Google and recent reviews about that program. There are many different affiliate communities that are ready to provide you with peer reviews and answers regarding the recognition and reputation of an affiliate program. So, if the program does not meet your own criteria and doesn't get many good reviews, just skip it. It will definitely not be worth it in the long run.

Promotion Method

Each affiliate program requires you to promote them in a different way. Some programs require you to post about them a few times every month. Some other programs require you to post about them on your own blog, if you have any, some others require you to promote them inside your stream. Depending on what you're capable of doing and not just what they want you to do, you should choose a program and stick her out with that one. If you don't have a blog, you obviously cannot work with that program. So there is no point trying to fit it into your promotional channels.

Market

The larger your audience base, the more money you will earn. There are a couple of affiliate programs that limit their affiliates based on the location, or they limit the payout for the audience based on their location. For example, an affiliate program might only accept sales from inside the United States. Therefore, with knowledge about your market, you can approach these programs and work with them if you are 100% sure that your audience is scattered around the globe or the majority of it is exactly where the program is paying for.

Commission Rate

You should know how much you're getting paid because you're doing it for money in the first place. The Commission rate is one of the most important determinants of how fair an affiliate program is in paying its affiliates. You can simply calculate this by knowing the value of the product or service you're promoting, the effort it takes to turn it into revenue, and the percentage of your Commission. So, even though a higher Commission rate is great, a low product or order value would not hope you make a lot of money. On the other hand, a product or service with a high value and a low commission rate could prove much more successful.

Cookie Duration

cookie duration might not be the valley factor in different streaming programs, because most of them don't work with websites or browsers. however, If an affiliate program does provide that, you want to make sure that you get along cookie duration. This is because the longer the duration, the higher your chances of getting a returning user to purchase a product or generate a lead for you. The standard cookie duration time is 30 days, but it can go higher up to 365 days or go down to one day only. Has a lot to do with preference, but we generally agree that affiliate programs with a short cookie duration are going to be harder to make money with.

Payout Frequency and Minimum Payout

Nobody likes to spend their time making a lot of money and promoting the program just for them to tell you that they'll send you your payout a month or two months later. Nobody also likes to hear that they will get the ability to get their money when they make at least $100. But if you have to deal with that, that is not necessarily a bad thing. Unless the minimum payout threshold or payout frequency is too high or too long, you can go with a program.

On many occasions, the minimum affiliates threshold is none and the program actually pays you on a monthly basis. But some programs might be more strict and ask you to earn a certain amount first before you get to cash out your money.

Affiliate Tracking

Affiliate tracking is necessary for marketing purposes because it gives you lots of insight into your marketing efforts. Besides that, it is great for transparency and understanding if your links are being clicked on at all. You can find some affiliate programs that provide you with real-time tracking of your links and some others provide you with basic information and reports on your income. Depending on how exactly you need the tracking data, go for a program with a better tracking tool. If you can't find a good tracking tool but you really want to work with the program, you can still use a third-party affiliate tracker.

Affiliate Bonuses

Some programs provide their affiliates with bonuses and higher commissions based on their performance. Some programs actually have various tiers in place for their affiliates to climb up like a ladder and earn higher commissions if their audience base or sales growth. This is great and many different affiliate programs like Twitch use this to reward their affiliates with higher performance. Bonuses are great and you should definitely opt in for programs that care so much about their affiliates to incentivize them with these bonuses.

Marketing Assets and Resources

If you're just starting out as a streamer or affiliate, you might need a lot of different resources and assets to get you started. This is especially true if you want to promote affiliate offers on a video. In that case, the widgets, the marketing assets, and various resources provided by the program can come in handy for giving you more ways to earn money interactively through streaming. If the affiliate program only gives you a link, it doesn't necessarily mean that it is a bad program, but you should put an extra point on programs that do give you marketing assistance.

Samples

The thing with streaming affiliate programs is that you are dealing with a lot of famous and expensive products. In some cases, people won't believe you when you say you've used them because they are trendy and you cannot simply lie about them. Therefore, it's important for you to have some sort of experience with these products. If you can't buy the products yourself, look at programs that give you a free sample of their product upon request. There are also some programs that give you regular access and updates on their latest product so you can be the first person to get a sneak peek. These are all important details and will help you gain more trust among your followers in the long run.

Promotion Channel

Now it is very important where exactly you are promoting your offers. If you are a Twitch affiliate, you might not be able to become an affiliate of other streaming platforms. The same goes for there he is other tools. For example, if you are playing on a Razer computer, promoting Razer products, you know or might not be able to be an affiliate of other brands that are competitors to Razer.

Target Audience

Your target audience is almost always the most important aspect of your restraining channel you should give them what they want and avoid giving them something they absolutely hate. So you should know your audience and avoid promoting something that will bore them or make them hate your streams. Therefore, you should choose products that interest them, and that they will actually accept. For example, you might be a streamer of chess. It goes without saying that you cannot promote specific gaming offers because your audience would not be interested at all.

Affiliate Support

In the world of streaming, the support team of the platform or affiliate program you're collaborating with is very important because it means that they are ready to get the obstacles out of your way and help you make a higher income. If the affiliate support is not helpful, you will find yourself trying to struggle and find out how something works without anybody to ask your questions. So do yourself a favor and do some research about the affiliate support situation with an affiliate program before working with them.

How to Promote Affiliate Offers as a Small Streamer

As a small streamer, you must have already gotten some ideas about choosing an affiliate program and starting to promote them. Just in case you're wondering how you can promote these offers properly as a streamer and not just as a blogger, here are some suggestions for promoting affiliate offers as a small streamer.

Post on Streamer Profile

The most hassle-free way to drive traffic as a small streamer is to just post the affiliate link on your profile. This is something that other affiliates might not be able to benefit from. Most affiliates find themselves having to write about an affiliate program, while you have the option of just posting about it on your own profile with thousands of different followers ready to click on it. So if you don't have any idea, to begin with, first put the link on your profile and move on to the next methods.

Post on Social Media

The second way to promote these offers is just by posting them on your social media. As a streamer, you probably already have some social media accounts and lots of followers. It is a great way to just leave a promotion quickly on your Instagram story or Twitter. This will get a lot of people in the first few minutes to click on your affiliate link, as most posts are social media will get hyped over a certain period of time.

Promote in Stream

Now, let's say you've already tried posting the link wherever you could, and you're thinking of more methods to utilize your own stream to promote an affiliate program. First of all, just mentioning that you have a link and your profile that allows users to get a product should be enough. You can even create a fake account to ask you in the chat what product you recommend, so you can answer their question and make the whole promotion more natural. There are many different creative ways for you to incorporate these programs inside your stream. So just get creative.

Activate Stream Widgets

Some programs actually provide you with interactive widgets you can place on your streams. This is great because it doesn't necessarily bother anybody with constant reminders to buy something, but it will be in front of their eyes and they work click on it if they get curious. Usually, this is very easy and many programs that provide you with marketing assets will also provide you with widgets for your streams.

Post Links on Social Links

If you have any pages on any social media account or website, be sure to post your affiliate links on the social sections. However, if you're on a platform that doesn't allow for such a thing, make sure you first redirect users to another link such as Linktree, and then have people click on your affiliate links from there.

Benefit from Email Marketing

You can easily get the e-mail address of your subscribers or followers on streams on different platforms and just send them newsletters or emails regularly with all the latest updates and offers they can catch. If you have a website dedicated to streaming, you can also ask people to enter their e-mail for updates about your streaming. Then you can use that to send them newsletters of promotions and affiliate links.

Use Your Own Website

So far we've been saying that you can have your own website as a streamer. This is going to be very beneficial because you get to create an archive of all your collaborations on that website. Usually, it is very easy and you should be able to get a website in a couple of minutes using your website builder. But the benefit it has is that it hooks your audience in to learn more about you and find you in more places, which is really what your audience feeds on. Plus, you can always redirect people to visit your own website if you need to promote something. This will not go against the rules of any affiliate program, but posting direct links to affiliate programs might.

Include Links in the Chat Popups

As a streamer, you will have a chat section where users chat together. You can deploy a chatbot to promote the link of the affiliate program every once in a while and timed manner. This will put the link in front of any user that joins instantly, and there is a good chance they might actually click on it. And if you're thinking that that would make the users frustrated, think again. If you have a large audience enough to collaborate with their program, your chat would not mind the posts made about your affiliate link.

Post under YouTube Videos

If you are a streamer that tends to post videos of their streams on YouTube, you have another promotional channel that is very good for your affiliate links. It is also a great way to generate income through other ways. But besides that, you can always include your affiliate links in the description of your videos or on your profile itself so you can drive traffic easily and for the second time. This might just remind your audience of purchasing the product you promoted to them earlier in the stream.

Conclusion

Streaming has been around for a long time and there is no sign that it will be dying. It is only getting stronger every day, and with the great number of streamers out there, there are also many different opportunities that have been borne over the past couple of years. Therefore, you can make a lot of money just by posting about a certain affiliate program and providing your own opinion on it. So if you already have an audience as a streamer, there's no reason for you not to get started right away.