Updated: March 6, 2021
What To Expect
This isn’t an exhaustive list of courses as I don’t know every one in existence.
It is, however, a list of of courses I have used myself, so I can vouch for them.
Bear in mind that not all courses, however good they are, will suit all people.
Teaching styles vary.
Some people prefer to absorb information by reading, others through watching video.
What course will suit you will also depend on the affiliate marketing model you prefer to work with:
- Are you a blogger?
- Do you want to make videos for YouTube?
- Are you more interested in direct marketing with sales funnels?
- Is you goal to get involved with email marketing?
And so on.
Being Realistic In Your Expectations
Also keep in mind that affiliate marketing is not a get-rich quick scheme.
It is not a solution to your current financial problems (if this is where you’re at).
It takes time to build a business online and it will require commitment, focus, time and work.
All the people behind the courses on this page truly value their customers and will go out of their way to assist them when necessary.
I can’t stress how unusual this is in the world of affiliate marketing/internet marketing.
So many “gurus” are happy to take your money but leave you high and dry when you need help.
They’ll blame you when you don’t get the results you expect rather than looking at their own training and fixing things that aren’t clear.
You’ll also notice that a number of these courses relate to promoting Clickfunnels (if you don’t know what it is, I have more information on it here).
That’s because it’s one of the best programs you can promote online.
These are my reasons for becoming an affiliate.
Update – March 6, 2021: Since originally writing this post, I’ve also subscribed to Builderall, a competing digital marketing platform.
At the same price-point as Clickfunnels, it offers a huge number of additional tools that are completely missing from Clickfunnels (an inbuilt autoresponder being one of them) and, as far as I’m concerned, it’s much better value for money than Clickfunnels.
Builderall also have a far better affiliate program which I cover in detail in this post.
Things To Keep In Mind When Choosing A Course
None of the courses here are less than a few hundred dollars with the exception of one.
That’s because quality training does not come cheap.
Those low-priced courses you see advertised on the likes of JVZoo and WarriorPlus typically teach one strategy or a loophole to take advantage of, that will eventually be closed.
A $47 or $97 course is not going to teach you lasting strategies and methodologies.
They’re made for a quick sale and then the creator moves onto releasing their next product.
These courses aren’t kept up to date with changing marketing trends either.
Their sales pages do a great job of convincing you that you can make money online by clicking a few buttons and that the internet is a magic ATM that spits out money because you now know the secret code.
Making money online is not like that at all.
A good education is expensive (ask any College student).
So here are my list of the best affiliate marketing training course recommendations, in no particular order…
Courses Worth Considering
One Funnel Away Challenge (OFA) – This is a course offered by Clickfunnels® itself.
You can sign up directly at the link above, or you can sign up to my mentoring program here where you’ll get additional free training and resources if you want a quality free primer on affiliate marketing.
If you then sign up for the One Funnel Away Challenge, you’ll get additional bonuses worth over $11,000 that you can leverage yourself.
OFA teaches students how to create a sales funnel from scratch.
The course is more focused on product creators and service providers building funnels to promote their own goods than funnels used by affiliate marketers.
But the fundamentals are the same for both.
It also teaches fundamental marketing principles and sales techniques that anyone can put into action.
Clickfunnels is used for building the funnels, so a paid Clickfunnels account will be required to complete the course.
There is a 14-day free trial period for the service but the course itself runs over 30 days.
You won’t need to open a trial account until the latter half of the course, so you’re not forced into paying for Clickfunnels to complete the course.
The first couple of weeks of training is about mindset and theory, so you can get the practical elements of the course done within 14 days if do the daily work.
At the end, you can then decide if you want to take up a paid account.
If you don’t stick with the coursework for the 30 days or it takes you longer than that to complete, then it’s pretty certain you’ll need to switch to using a paid account.
The course is taught by Clickfunnels’ founder, Russell Brunson and two of his top trainers.
Price: a bargain at $100
| Click Here To Learn More About One Funnel Away |
Zach Crawford’s Free Affiliate Marketing Webclass – Zach Crawford is a 7-figure earner who made his money promoting other programs before becoming a Clickfunnels affiliate himself.
He’s a marketer who puts his customers and students front and center.
He bends over backwards to help them in any way he can.
To illustrate this, back in late May (2019), Russell Brunson (who created Clickfunnels®) changed the affiliate policy for his service.
Too many affiliates were promoting Clickfunnels as a passive income opportunity rather than promoting it as a business service.
Zach had created a course called Top Earner Mentor (which is where I came across him) that promoted Clickfunnels in this manner.
Following the policy change, Zach took his course down and redesigned and rebuilt it as a more general affiliate marketing training course.
He’s spent, literally, several weeks doing this.
All his existing students get automatic free access to the redesigned course.
He didn’t have to do this.
He could have done what other marketers did which was to say “That’s it folks, the party is over,” and left his students high and dry.
His redesigned course is applicable to any affiliate program you choose to promote and is not focused on Clickfunnels as his earlier course was.
Zach also provides regular live-streaming coaching sessions and he’s in his private Facebook group, answering questions every day.
He’s invested in his students’ success and his students love him for what he does for them.
| Click Here To Watch Zach’s Free Webclass |
Affiliate Secrets 2.0 – This course was created by Spencer Mecham who is Clickfunnels’ top affiliate
In 2018, Spencer made over $1,000,000 just promoting this one tool.
Clickfunnels offer to pay for their affiliates’ dream car to the tune of $500 per month if they refer 100 people to Clickfunnels.
They double that to $1,000 per month if an affiliate brings in 200 referrals.
Spencer brought in over 1,800 referrals.
So he’s won multiple dream cars.
These commissions are in addition to the regular commission he’s earning as an affiliate.
Clickfunnels is a subscription-based service, so affiliates earn recurring commissions month after month.
In his course, he teaches you the exact methods he used to become the top affiliate.
Nothing is held back.
He also provides free training for people to get started with.
But, if you want to be the best, learn from the best.
| Click Here To Watch Spencer’s Free Webclass |
Legendary Marketer – another very highly regarded affiliate marketing training platform.
This platform was created by David Sharpe several years ago and, like all the best courses, has been constantly updated in the meantime to keep pace with the ever-changing digital marketing landscape.
Legendary Marketer’s mission is to help people start an online business or grow an existing business using cutting edge sales, marketing and management strategies
They provide robust digital courses, personalized virtual coaching and highly dynamic and supportive live mastermind events.
They go out and find the top experts and commission them to create world-class training courses for their students to learn from.
And they find the best coaches and trainers money can buy and employ them to guide their students through their business building journey, as well as educate their prospects about their products and programs.
Safe and powerful spaces are hosted and facilitated in their masterminds where members learn, ask, strategize and grow into the best versions of themselves; as entrepreneurs, husbands, wives, moms, dads, friends and family members.
You can get started with their 15-Day Challenge for $7, their 15-Second Free Leads course for $1, the “Insider’s Guide to Affiliate Marketing” ebook ($2) or “The Copywriter’s Playbook” ($1).
| Click Here To Learn About Legendary Marketer |
Wealthy Affiliate – This is THE course on doing affiliate marketing with blogging.
It was created by Kyle Loudoun and Carson Lim in 2005 and has been constantly updated since that time.
It offers the most comprehensive training you will find anywhere on all aspects of affiliate marketing from creating blogs to monetizing your content, from SEO strategies and backlinking strategies to rank your sites highly in the search engines to how to build a list and be successful at email marketing.
Training materials are kept up to date to keep pace with the rapidly changing online world.
And new training is regularly added.
There are now over 1,000,000 members in Wealthy Affiliate, so that speaks volumes in terms of the quality of the course.
Bad courses lose members over time and Wealthy Affiliate has been growing its membership base over the years.
Members are part of a thriving community who help each other out and offer their own expertise, advice and strategies in a friendly atmosphere.
We’re all there to support each other, not to tear each other down.
If you want to know more about Wealthy Affiliate and get an inside look, then check out my review.
Wealthy Affiliate isn’t just a training course, it also provides its members with web hosting as part of their membership (not in addition to it).
Members can build up to 50 WordPress sites on the platform.
This isn’t some second-rate web hosting either.
It’s top-notch with fast servers and server-level security built in.
Daily backups are made of members’ sites each day, so in the very unlikely event that a site is hacked, it can restored and up and running again in a very short time.
You can even build 2 sites completely for free and take the first module of training for free as well to see if this course and platform is right for you.
| Click Here To Learn About Wealthy Affiliate |
Amazon 101 – This is a beginner’s course is for people who are interested in becoming Amazon Sellers.
Affiliate marketing isn’t for everyone and if you prefer retail marketing, this course gives you that option.
It’s a course that will get you started selling on Amazon, starting off with selling things around your house or in your attic that you no longer need or want.
The starting budget for selling is very low, so pretty much anyone can dip a toe in Amazon waters here.
The course comes from Jim Cockrum who’s an established expert in selling on Amazon.
| Click Here To Learn More About Amazon 101 |
Proven Amazon Course – Taking things up several notches, this course – also created by Jim Cockrum – teaches you how to become a professional Amazon seller.
It looks at where you can source products to sell – not low-grade products from the likes of AliExpress but quality products created in the USA and elsewhere.
The course teaches Amazon FBA (Fulfillment By Amazon) where you have products shipped to your local Amazon warehouse and then Amazon looks after the shipping of your items to customers.
People tend to prefer buying products that are shipped directly from Amazon.
It cuts down of shipping charges and reduces the number of packages that are sent out as well as reducing shipping fees.
This course has been around since 2009 and, like the other quality courses here, is constantly updated with new training and strategies as the marketing world changes.
One of the benefits of owning the course is that other courses that are sold separately are regularly added into your membership area for free.
Buying this one course saves you a substantial amount of money on buying the individual courses in Jim Cockrum’s stable of products.
It also includes the Amazon 101 course.
Jim Cockrum is also the guy behind the annual “Proven” conferences.
These events are always sold out in advance and way more people want to attend than can physically be accomodated.
Recordings of 2020’s Virtual Conference are available for those who couldn’t attend.
| Click Here To Learn More About The Proven Amazon Course |
All the best,
Gary Nugent
Check out my Instagram posts and reels here:
Follow me (@garynugentmentoring) on Instagram
P.S.: Don't forget, if you want to create an internet income of your own, here's one of my recommended ways to do that:
Hey Gary,
Is Spencer offering Affiliates the option to sell his course or only for people who have bought it?
Hi Rashhed, you don’t have to buy Spencer’s course to be able to promote it. Anyone can sign up as an affiliate.
Interesting post Gary, a very comprehensive write up on affiliate marketing training courses. I have not heard of all of them but Wealthy Affiliate I have and I found the training very good and I had a website up and running in no time.
As you said different people may like training by reading rather than video. So, they need to choose a course to suit them.
Thanks for the info,
Frank
Thanks for the feedback, Frank. Yes, Wealthy Affiliate is excellent but there is a lot to learn! 🙂 Thankfully, it’s all laid out in an organized fashion and members shouldn’t feel overwhelmed by the amount of information and training available. They have one of the most supportive communities I’ve come across.
I’ve never heard about any of those courses before. I haven’t started my online business just yet and I have read hundreds of reviews of courses that promise to help me make money online but I don’t know which one to choose.
I am so confused.
Which course would you suggest for an absolute beginner like me?
Hi Harry, which course you choose depends on the income model you’re most interested in.
Assuming you’re interested in Affiliate Marketing rather than becoming an Amazon Seller, you can skip the Amazon courses.
There are several ways to earn an income through affiliate marketing:
1. By blogging – this is probably the most work-intensive option. It requires adding content regularly to your blog, answering comments and using a variety of ways to promote your blog and posts.
How your site and pages rank is important to your success as blogs rely on getting a lot of traffic from the search engines. And to do that, they need to be on Page 1 of Google for their keywords.
For this route, I’d recommend Wealthy Affiliate as it is the most comprehensive course available. It will teach you everything you need to know. There is a lot to learn but you can follow the training at your own pace.
2. Using sales funnels – here, instead of sending people directly to your affiliate links, you send them to an opt-in page where you collect their email address in exchange for a free gift. You then offer them a low-priced product on your Thank You For Subscribing page.
There can be additional offers in the funnel though a better approach is to add pages that provide valuable information for your subscribers. You can link out to your main offer from these pages.
How a sales funnel site ranks in the search engines is less important than for blogs. If a funnel does rank, that’s great but most funnels are promoted directly to their potential audience through free or paid ads.
Spencer‘s is the go-to course for this. Rachel’s course is very good too but it’s currently unavailable while she upgrades it. Zach’s new course is excellent (I’ve seen it) but it won’t be available until July 16th.
3. YouTube Marketing – in this model, you regularly create videos and link out to affiliate offers from your video descriptions. Though it is better to send visitors to an opt-in page so that you can collect their email address. Video Hacker Pro provides the training and scripts for this model.
Using the email addresses you collect, you can send your subscribers to these “value” pages while also gently reminding them about your main offer.
How your videos rank will affect the number of viewers they get. That’s why it’s important to add your keywords into the YouTube Tags setting. Google essentially then looks after promoting your video within YouTube and sometimes in the Google search results as well.
4. Email Marketing – this is where you send quality information and offers to your subscribers repeatedly. They’re a captive audience. So long as you don’t abuse them by sending them nothing but offers, they’ll stay with you.
Email Marketing is a component of options 1, 2 and 3 above as well. How to build a mailing list is covered in the courses in these options. But if you want a comprehensive course that shows you various ways to build your list, then Sarah’s list building course is worth considering.
Learning how to attract subscribers will pay dividends in the long run.
Before you buy any course, you need to be sure that whatever business model it teaches is the one you really want to follow.
If you don’t have the commitment and focus to really study a course, follow what it teaches and do the work it tell you to do, then buying a course is just a waste of money.
Remember, knowledge isn’t power; the application of knowledge is.
You can always dip your toes in the training waters by signing up for a free account with Wealthy Affiliate where you get the first training module for free. You can then assess if affiliate marketing with blogging is for you or not.
Likewise with Spencer – check out his free training courses to see if his teaching style and sales funnel business model suit you or not.
No course worth its salt will promise you that you’ll make money. That’s because you, the student, has to put in the work.
There are no push-button solutions to making money online. Courses and software that promise easy money seldom live up to expectation. Their primary goal is to earn their developers some cash at your expense and support is often lacking when it’s really needed.
This is one reason why I listed the above courses as all the course developers care deeply about their customers and they’ll have your back when things get difficult.
Quality courses don’t come cheap (ask any College/University student). It’s a false economy to buy a $47 course and expect to make a ton of money from what it teaches. These low-priced products tend to be built around some loophole that will eventually be plugged, or a single strategy that could have a short lifespan.
When you buy a course, remember that you’re investing in yourself and in you own education.
Gary
Hallo there Gary,
I am a guy who is really interested in succeeding with affiliate marketing but have financial issues at the moment.
I lost over $300 to an affiliate scam last year so I want to be very careful since I also don’t have any more to lose.
My question is, out of the programs you recommend, which is the best for a person like me who like one on one training through reading, following and applying?
Also, since you have mentioned that no good programs come cheap and I’m low on money at the moment, do you have any programs that you know can help me raise the money needed to pay for the high ticket programs that you recommend?
I’d really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
Hi Dave, I know how disheartening it is to lose money on some scammy product. Unfortunately, a lot of us in the internet marketing world are going to come across these products and be burned by them.
In terms of one-on-one training through reading, following and applying, I think Zach Crawford’s course might be the best fit. It’s being relaunched tomorrow (July 16th). Failing that, James Neville-Taylor’s course would be the next best bet.
Zach’s course is about affiliate marketing in general but teaches you how to use specific marketing techniques that can be applied to selling anything online. James’ course is a little more about building affiliate systems that integrate and combine various affiliate programs under one roof but still teaches affiliate marketing principles.
Given the cost of these courses and your financial position, I’d recommend you thoroughly read and digest the sales pages for both before you make a decision on which is a right fit for you.
Both training programs require a single payment.
Wealthy Affiliate is another superb affiliate marketing training course with step-by-step instructions. It’s broader in scope in that it teaches the affiliate marketing through blogging model rather than the sales funnel model taught in
Zack and James’ courses. It is a more affordable $49/mth but you do continue to pay that fee for as long as you’re a member.
As I mentioned in the roundup above, with the blogging model you also have to learn about search engine optimization (SEO), keyword research, how to write your blog posts, how to get backlinks and other skills.
Personally, having gone that route since I started online back in 2004, the sales funnel route is less work. You have to keep publishing new content on a blog, answer comments and always be aware of SEO.
Once a sales funnel is built, it’s done and you move onto building the next one.
I tend to think of a blog as a blunderbuss or shotgun approach to affiliate marketing. You hope you’ll hit something with a widespread shot. Sales funnels are like using a sniper rifle in this analogy.
As to programs to get started with, there’s the free Easy Commission Funnel. This is a sales funnel that can generate commissions from a variety of affiliate programs that you can sign up for (most are free to join). You will still need to promote your opt-in page, but this is something you need to do with any website.
Another one to look at is IG Money Tree (though it’s nowhere as good as the Easy Commission Funnel). This free funnel helps you build your own Instagram following while at the same time, generate commissions from sales of related products through the page.
If you’re more interested in promoting Clickbank products, then download my July PDF Insert which looks at strategies for finding and promoting products.
Facebook doesn’t like posts that contain affiliate links from some of the popular affiliate networks like JVZoo or WarriorPlus. So publishing your offers on a blog post or a landing page becomes necessary and then you can link to that page from Facebook. Same thing with Instagram (since it’s owned by Facebook).
You could look at Multi-Level Marketing programs like GotBackup or LiveGood, but a lot of these are pyramid/ponzi schemes that rely on new members covering the commission payouts to existing members. It’s often hard to get referrals with these programs as they’re over-saturated (GotBackup is nowhere near saturated though)`.
If you want some free traffic, you can send out free emails at these safelists: European Safelist, Herculist and Page Rank Cafe. Don’t expect huge conversion rates though. These lists are mostly for people to market to each other and few actually act on offers they see (if they even read them). But free traffic is free traffic.
I just updated a post that has more detail on using these safelists and being able to send out a lot more emails to them for free, so check that out.
Wow, this is all the info on making money online all in one place, I’ve not heard all of this but I’ve heard of wealthy affiliate and clickfunnels before. For someone who wants to stay up on online business, your site is definitely a great place to come to. The way you have listed everything out is really great. It’s true that when you want to learn, you need to learn from the best and nothing comes cheap. I’ll be sure to try out one of this type of online trainings you have recommended.
Thanks for the feedback, Henderson. Yeah, there are lots of ways to make money online but most people make the mistake of expecting results too fast and hop from course to course looking for that “magic bullet” that will turn the internet into an ATM! 🙂
Whatever course, training, mentor or coach you end up following, you need to stick with it, especially when things don’t seem to be going well. Mindset is so important to success and it’s often an aspect that’s not even mentioned in poorer quality courses.
Hi Gary,
Thanks so much for putting together this list of high quality training all in one place. As I am just beginning with affiliate marketing, I can use all the training I can get my hands on.
I am already a member of Wealthy Affiliate and I have been extremely happy with their platform. I am considering getting some in depth specialized training on list building and sales funnels.
I am especially interested in Sarah Staar’s List Building course. I know affiliate marketing is ever evolving and changing. Do you know if this course is kept up to date with current strategies and techniques? Have you taken this particular course? And if so, did following the techniques provided help you to build out your list? Thanks so much!
Hi Shannon, you’re off to good start with Wealthy Affiliate. 🙂
Yes, Sarah’s course is kept up-to-date. I bought her list building course in early 2018. She talks about a lot of different ways to get people to your opt-in pages.
Having gone through the course, I think the best approach is to pick one or two methods you enjoy doing, and master those before trying other methods.
Otherwise, you’ll get overwhelmed. There’s a fair bit of manual work involved in the free traffic methods, so you have to be prepared for that.
You pay for your leads one way or another – with your time or with your wallet (if you buy traffic).
The important thing when building a list is the quality of your subscribers. A small list with highly-qualified and responsive subscribers will outperform a big list of unresponsive people.
So don’t focus on building a big list. Instead focus on building a quality list. Sarah’s course goes into this in more detail.