Hi guys welcome to my article on the best affiliate marketing courses for 2020. These courses are targeted to beginners but even intermediate and advanced affiliate marketers will benefit if they choose to pick one of these up.
Disclosure: Drew’s Review is supported by my readers. A purchase from a link may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. Learn more
Before I get into what my picks are, there are some things I need to get out of the way when it comes to affiliate marketing so this is going to be a bit of a rant.
If there is one thing you need to understand with this business model is it is super competitive (in some niches) and can be very cut-throat.
Many marketers will try to out-do each other with varying tactics all to get an edge on their competition.
However, this is to be expected due to the amount of money involved these people make.
If this doesn't scare you, then read on. If you're feeling a little squirmy, then perhaps you should look into a different line of business.
Don't Reinvent the Affiliate Marketing Wheel!
When it comes to being an affiliate marketer one thing you need to understand is that you should NOT reinvent the wheel. It's a known fact that many of the top marketers in the affiliate space basically just "copy" what others are doing and what works.
Now when I say copy, I don't mean literally rip off your competitor. I occasionally find people trying to rip off my sites including images. That doesn't last long once I send them and their host a DMCA takedown.
You're going to want to still stand out and not make it obvious to other people that you just copied someone else's stuff. The public will eventually catch on which is not going to help.
When you are doing your research on a product you want to promote, what you should do is look at their sales copy, page structure, content, page design, etc. Use this as inpiration to come up with your own content.
If you go into this blindly and just "guess" what is the best way to set up your pages, site, etc., then I can guarantee you will most likely fail.
But don't take my word for it. Look at Russel Brunson, the CEO of Clickfunnels who is almost worth 400 million. Have you heard about his "funnel hacking" strategy? Basically what he says is to "copy" what others are doing with their funnels. The look, the message, content, etc, is all "borrowed" or "hacked" in this sense to make them your own.
The premise here is that if you do what others are doing that have succeeded already, you're in a much better position to succeed yourself.
If you model what they are doing rather than going at it alone - you'll accelerate your growth much quicker.
So the same concept needs to be adapted with your approach to affiliate marketing. Look at your competition (the ones that are winning obviously) and just do what they do. You aren't going to copy the content word for word but you're going to write about similar topics.
Your pages should pass Copyscape just to ensure that you aren't ripping off someone elses material. Not only does this make sense but you'll also avoid a potential Panda penalty from Google. Word count, structure, etc. should all have similarities.
When it comes to offers that are being promoted by your competition, you'll want to sell what they sell, provided it is a good product. Don't promote crap - your reputation will be tarnished.
Some things like url's, titles and Htags will be very close because these are the strongest on-page ranking factors but you can be creative with your content.
So for anyone that may have told you to not be a loser and don't copy anyone and just come up with your own stuff - i'd probably question any advice they give you. They are not in your corner.
My advice is to take the approach from someone like multi millionaire Russell Brunson and other top affiliate marketers that adapt a "hacking" strategy with their business - modeling what SUCCESSFUL MARKETERS are doing already. I think they know better.
Anyway, I do hope you understand where I am coming from and what it is that you need to do should you decide to get into affiliate marketing. Yes you may hurt someone's feelings if you "borrow" their ideas online but this is business. Put it this way, if you don't someone else will eventually. No one's gravy train lasts forever. Don't wait at the end of the line for scraps.
With that being said, here are my top picks for affiliate marketing courses and why. I've done individual reviews for all of them already which you can read separately if you like.
My Top 3 Picks for Affiliate Marketing Training
#1 - Savage Affiliates - Franklin Hatchett
Probably my favorite affiliate marketing course and for good reason.
Franklin Hatchett's strategies are excellent and provides a TON of value in a course that is only priced at $197 for the standard course and $297 for the newly updated "Super" version.
When I first got my hands on the course I was expecting much less content and strategies based on the price. The amount of work put into this course is crazy for what you have to pay.
With Savage Affiliates you will learn how to find offers, how to build a website/blog, landing pages and other assets. You'll learn how to make money on Clickbank, Amazon and other affiliate networks. You'll also learn how to drive traffic to your offers with SEO, free traffic and paid traffic.
There's also email marketing and sales funnel training. It comes with a money back guarantee and full support including a Facebook group. It really is a complete course and newbies will especially love it. This course will help you to create a passive income and in my opinion is the best option for someone that is new.
#2 - The Authority Site System - Gael Breton & Mark Webster
A while ago when I was in Thailand I jumped on this free webinar that was hosted by Gael Breton, who is the co-founder of Authority Hacker.
I had some time to kill while I was on the beach and was fully expecting to close it after a few minutes.
To my surprise, the training he had intrigued me. The reason? It's exactly the same way I approach creating a new affiliate site. He was teaching strategies in a webinar that you never hear anywhere else. I related to what he was saying and even picked up a couple pointers here and there.
I bought the course at the discounted price of $599, you can also grab this deal here as long as you act within a few days. It's not a scarcity tactic - it actually will increase!
The training is excellent and helps you build an asset that can not only bring in money in your sleep but for years to come. Building sites like this that bring in passive income are the best way to make money in my opinion and it's what I do as well. This course is excellent in their approach as to how to build them.
I suggest you set aside an hour and check out their webinar if you haven't seen it yet.
#3 - Super Affiliate System 2.0 - John Crestani
The "Super Affiliate System 2.0" is an affiliate marketing course created by John Crestani. You may have heard of his previous course - Internet Jetset.
His newest course focuses on paid traffic to drive targeted customers to your offers.
This is a 6 week intensive course that teaches you everything you need to know about paid advertising, copywriting, salespages and so on, It's focus is to help you build a business around paid traffic strategies and to help you scale it up.
The course is the most expensive of the bunch at $997.
I can only recommend this course if you are not interested in free or organic traffic and have the budget to run ads. Paid traffic can be very profitable if done right.
You're going to become an expert on paid traffic if you pick up this course.
Final Thoughts on the Top Affiliate Marketing Courses for 2020
Thankfully you only have 3 options to choose from. At this time these are the only affiliate marketing courses I can recommend to you.
There's a ton of courses out there and to be honest most of them are crap. Don't even get me started with "push button" type courses that promise you riches overnight. I feel bad for people that invest in that garbage.
If that has happened to you in the past - you can be guaranteed I will never recommend junk like that on my blog. I only recommend courses that are going to prepare you for success.
But... all of them take work and a willingness to succeed. There are no shortcuts here I am afraid.
Affiliate marketing takes a lot of work. Like any business venture if you are not able to sit through the material in these courses, take in the information and put everything into practice, just forget about wasting your money on any course.
The ones that stick to it are the ones that actually will start to see results, scale and quit their day job.
If you can spend at least a couple of hours a day working on your business, you could do quite well. Sure you'll have days off to do other things, you don't need to be a slave to your business but you should always be planning and scheming, writing things down and planning ahead.
Just ask yourself, where do you want to be one year from now? Still in the same position or something completely different?
Take action! Till next time...
Hey,
So I just created a free account on Wealthy Affiliate yesterday. Have you heard of them? I noticed they weren’t on your list. It seems like a great deal & I’m far from an expert but to me it sounds better & cheaper than the options you listed.
I only have about 5 days left before my trial period ends. I’ve seen a few internet marketing blogs like this one review & recommend them. Since you didn’t list them as one of the best programs, I thought maybe you hadn’t heard of them or you didn’t like them enough to recommend them for some reason. So I wanted to explain who they are & what they offer to get your opinion them before my trial week expires & I have to decide whether or not to upgrade.
The Platinum Membership is only $49/mo. However, if I upgrade to Platinum before the week ends, I get the first month for only $19 & a week of 1-on-1 private business coaching with some kind of expert, on top of all the things that automatically come with the Platinum Membership.
Their tools & training seem really impressive so far! They are taking me through step-by-step training on building my own online business. The training showed me how to set up my account, navigate & utilize the platform & its tools, choose my first niche, create a free website, set it up for SEO, add a privacy policy page, construct an about me page, arrange, change & manage my widgets & menus, understand what keywords are, what role they play in my business, & how to use their amazing research tool Jaaxy, all in less than 2 days!
Jaaxy is one of the best & most useful features. It shows me the value of potential keywords by allowing me to do a search for any keyword I might be interested in using & returning results for, not only that keyword, but also an array of related suggestions I could use. So it gives a column of potential keywords, along with stats on the average monthly searches, estimated number of hits I can expect if my site ranks on the first search page, number of competitors, how good it is for SEO, & the quality of each keyword based on those stats.
That’s just what it does for free members, but once I upgrade I’ll also have access to which domain names are available for each keyword, how my site & my competitors are ranked, the Alphebet Soup feature which suggests long-tail keywords, save lists where I can save any keywords I’d like to use in the future- organized by niche, site, topic or any way I choose- search analysis to see vital info about the top 10 sites, the affiliate database where I can search my keywords to find all of the affiliate programs related to it, the brainstorm feature that suggests currently popular niches & more!
On top of all that I’ll also have access to discussions & private messages with the community of over a million other members, many of whom are experts, 24/7 tech support, access to their library of thousands of hours of free training, the ability to create 25 free sites & another 25 sites that I can buy the domain for, & more.
It all sounds really good & I can see how lucrative it could be for me. Before I upgrade though, I wanted to get as many expert opinions as possible. I’d really appreciate your feedback!
Hi Annie, I simply cannot recommend The Wealthy Affiliate for various reasons. You may have missed my review on the Wealthy Affiliate which you should check out. I explain why I don’t recommend it. Regarding price, my recommendations do not have a monthy fee so although slightly more expensive up-front, the Wealthy Affiliate will cost you more just after a few months due to the recurring payment. My recommendations, especially Savage Affiliates and The Site Authority System blow this course away. These are my thoughts and you’re free to join any course you wish, I just can’t recommend a course that to me does not seem effective and focuses mostly on promoting their own course as an affiliate to make money. That’s why you see so many “positive” reviews.
Good Afternoon Drew,
I really like your blog and appreciate your insight. I was seriously looking at John Crestani’s program and also considering Commission Hero (Robby Blanchard). Have you looked at Commission Hero…..I’m not seeing an official review?
Savage Affiliate looks interesting but I don’t see myself consistently blogging. I have a subject that I’m very interested in but it seems it’s pretty competitive and it doesn’t appear there’s a lot of money in related affiliate programs…….And there a lot of Youtube channels pertaining to the subject. It’s feasible I could create a guide and sell it on ClickBank.
I’ve also look at a few courses that are geared more towards high ticket items…..claiming ClickBank will do nothing but drain your wallet.
Frankly, it’s a bit overwhelming. I’ve been on disability for about 3 years and desperately need to generate some income online as I can’t drive. I’ve got money to invest in a course but would likely have to float the paid ads on a credit card.
I know I need the guidance but I can’t afford a mistake in choosing a course.
Hi Jim, thanks for your comment. I did actually review Commission Hero, if you pop it in the search bar on my site you’ll find it. You mentioned you are interested in a certain subject but it lacks affiliate programs. This is one reality that you have to accept if that is the case. I don’t know the niche so can’t analyze it myself but sometimes you just need to move on to something else. You’ll be wasting your time (and money) if you don’t do your research properly. Research is just so crucial. You also mentioned creating your own guide. Please don’t do this without proper research! Chances are if it’s not created already, it’s not something people want. In regards to blogging, Savage Affiliates doesn’t just teach that. Franklin goes over different ways to make money and includes free, organic and paid traffic training. Keep in mind you need to work at affiliate marketing and if writing is something that you don’t like, you should either outsource it or at least try writing a little each day. This business is not for those that want an easy way out or expect instant results. It takes time but when things kick in, it really starts rolling. I hope that helps!