WP Engine Affiliate Program – Overview, Pros, Cons and Tips…
- By
- Last updated:
- Leave your thoughts
When it comes to making money online, there are several ways of doing it. One of the most obvious is, of course, via affiliate marketing — and in the world of affiliate marketing, there are few products and services as lucrative as web hosting… and in the world of web hosting, there are few companies that pay out as much as WP Engine.
WP Engine (one of the early pioneers of specialist WordPress hosting) has enjoyed unparalleled levels of growth. This is no small part thanks to their continually striving to offer customers levels of service well over and above those previously expected of a web host. Coupled with great marketing, substantial early investment, and a seemingly neverending flow of people looking to offload the hassles of fussing about with maintaining their hosting, WP Engine has enabled more and more people to enjoy the benefits of their services.
All this has also allowed them to boost the commissions for their affiliate program to an absolutely staggering $200+ per signup!
Let’s take a look at the official WP Engine affiliate program to see both what it offers and what sets it apart:
WP Engine Affiliate Program Commissions
Unlike most standard shared web hosting affiliate programs, WP Engine interestingly offers different commissions depending on which level of service the customer you sign up chooses. Their standard payout is $200 (as mentioned above), but this isn’t the limit of the commissions you can earn. Should customers signup for anything other than WP Engine’s most basic plan, you’ll receive 100% of the first month’s payment — this means that as an affiliate you stand to make considerably more than $200 per signup. What’s more, at the time of writing WP Engine will also pay certain bonus commissions to affiliates who refer multiple customers per month (more on this below).
Pros and Cons
Most of these — but certainly not all of them — will be relatively obvious, but here’s a quick summary of the main pros and cons of the program:
Pros:
- You’ll be recommending a service that’s genuinely pretty darn awesome. Done right, your audience will love you for it, which is the way affiliate marketing should be! Win-win!
- Large payouts — As already mentioned, WP Engine pays standard commissions from $200 to $249, which are some of the highest in the industry. What’s more, I’ve personally recommended WP Engine’s services to a very large enterprise-level company and consequently received an absolutely whopping (and extremely surprising) $1200 commission. I know… Wowzers. I’m not sure if these kinds of monster commissions are open to all, but let’s face it — it’s not every day that such opportunities present themselves.
- Monthly payments and great customer retention rates — With a minimum payout limit of $50, you’ll be paid even if you only ever manage to generate a single sale!
- You’ll be using a trustworthy, reliable and well-established third-party affiliate system via ShareASale, with plenty of statistics and information on which pages are actually generating your commissions. This is really invaluable information!
- Although the details usually aren’t overly publicized by them, WP Engine occasionally pays additional — and potentially very large — bonuses to affiliates who signup multiple customers per month. See their ShareASale merchant listing page for the details.
- One of the biggest pros of all is that WP Engine’s affiliate program operates a two-tier system. This gives you a further $50 payout for every signup attributed to someone who initially signed up to WP Engine via one of your links. (More info)
- Cookies that don’t expire — You’ll still be able to get commissions even if the customers you refer take months to decide!
- WP Engine will often offer certain affiliates their own custom landing pages — A small touch perhaps, but one that could potentially make quite a big difference when it comes to conversions!
- Occasional seasonal promotions — Come Christmas, New Year or Black Friday (plus also a few other holidays here and there), WP Engine will offer some incredible discount coupons and general deals. If you have the capacity to reach a lot of their potential customers in one swoop (via an email newsletter, for example), there are a few extra opportunities to make those all-important commissions throughout the year!
- WP Engine offers a large number of beautifully designed, split-tested banners (like the ones you’ll often see in the sidebar of this very site) in all the usual sizes!
Cons:
- Limited audience — WP Engine hosting isn’t cheap. The majority of people with small personal or non-business sites just won’t appreciate paying so much for hosting — and neither should they have to! The only people you should be recommending WP Engine to are the people who will really benefit from it. Note: if you’re not yet sure of the benefits of managed WordPress hosting or when it’s appropriate to the website, check out an earlier article we’ve written on exactly that topic).
How Easy Is It to Promote?
As with any product or service that you’re affiliated with, exactly how easy it is to promote depends on the relevancy of the product or service to your audience, the size of our audience, and how much effort you put into promoting it! That said, if much of your audience uses WordPress and could be looking to upgrade their hosting, then you’ll likely find WP Engine to be one of the highest-conversion programs around!
How to Get Started
Take some time to evaluate whether WP Engine is a service your audience will appreciate; if so, read their terms of service, sign up, and give it a whirl. Hopefully now you have a good understanding of what’s involved and where to start, but if you’re still not sure where to begin, feel free to contact WP Engine directly and ask. In my experience, they’re almost always happy to help and will often be kind enough to give you some excellent new promotional ideas!
Had any experience with WP Engine’s affiliate program yet? Thoughts?
Related Posts:
All comments are held for moderation. We'll only publish comments that are on topic and adhere to our Commenting Policy.