Email marketing is one of the most effective ways in which you can do affiliate marketing. It costs next to nothing, and you can repeatedly promote offers directly in your subscriber’s inbox.
However, it is no secret that many email marketing tools aren’t very supportive of affiliate marketing. Many are outright against it, while others are a bit vague in how they handle affiliate marketing.
But what about MailerLite? Can you use MailerLite for affiliate marketing? Can you put affiliate links in emails?
This post discusses MailerLite’s policies regarding affiliate marketing, and whether or not it’s worth using MailerLite to do affiliate marketing.
MailerLite’s rules: Is affiliate marketing allowed with MailerLite?
MailerLite is a bit vague when it comes to what affiliate marketing practices are allowed and what isn’t allowed.
Through MailerLite you CAN promote affiliate offers if:
- You promote affiliate offers under your branding (you must make it clear that your company and the company you are promoting are two different entities)
- Your affiliate links are clearly offers from another company (you should indicate that your link is a link to a seperate company)
- Your affiliate offers have to be related to your business and your content (basically the affiliate products should be of some interest to your audience)
Of course, you should make sure that whether you are sending affiliate offers to your subscribers or not, you should be following MailerLite’s terms of use.
Through MailerLite you CAN NOT promote affiliate offers if:
- You are pretending to be the company that you are promoting (branding yourself as a different company is unacceptable)
- Your affiliate offers are completely unrelated to your business (irrelevant and spontaneous affiliate links for the sake of making a quick buck is generally unacceptable)
- Your companies you promote are on MailerLites blacklisted URLs
MailerLite also seems to make the case that in general, affiliate marketing is prohibited if you are a business that only does affiliate marketing. MailerLite seems to like companies that primarily have business that has nothing to do with affiliate marketing, that tend to promote affiliate offers just as a source of supplemental income.
An affiliate offer here and there should be fine, but if every email you send pertains to an affiliate offer, MailerLite might not approve.
Related: Using MailerLite and Etsy: A Brief Guide
Why MailerLite has these rules in place
MailerLite generally has these rules in place so that scammers can’t take advantage of MailerLite’s service. In the eyes of MailerLite, it seems as though affiliate marketers who primarily just send emails about affiliate offers are merely interested in generating business for someone else. They don’t have a real obligation to keep an ongoing relationship with their email subscribers. That being said, the way MailerLite sees it, affiliate marketers don’t have the best interest of their email subscribers in mind. They tend to be more along the lines of spammers.
Of course, the value of affiliate marketers is subject to debate, but regardless, this is the stance that MailerLite takes.
Should you do affiliate marketing with MailerLite?
As long as your marketing practices abide by MailerLite’s rules, you should be perfectly fine doing affiliate marketing with this tool.
For instance lets say that you are a blogger that sends out an email with an affiliate link to your sponsors every once in a while. The main purpose of these emails isn’t to promote these affiliate links. In this case you should be fine.
However, if your style of affiliate marketing goes against MailerLite’s rules, then you should probably use a different email marketing tool. MailerLite tends to be unforgiving when it comes to shutting down accounts if you don’t abide by the terms of use.
Email marketing platforms that are affiliate marketing friendly
You have probably gathered that MailerLite isn’t the best tool if you plan on doing lots of affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing can be done with MailerLite, but just not very intensively.
There are a few email marketing tools though that are a bit more affiliate marketing friendly. As their policies reflect, the following platforms are simply more relaxed in regards to this marking practice. That being said, the following are some of the best email marketing tools for affiliate marketing.
1. GetResponse
GetResponse is a marketing platform with a broad range of features. It is equipped with CRM, and landing pages, but it is most well known for its email marketing abilities. GetResponse particularly shines when it comes to its workflow builder which can be used for assigning lead scores, segmentation and other actions. Unlike MailerLite, GetResponse doesn’t come with a free plan. However, if you are interested in putting affiliate offers in your emails, GetResponse might be the better option.
2. AWeber
AWeber is a reasonably priced email marketing tool with all the basic features you would look for in any email marketing tool. Founded in 1998, AWeber is one of the oldest and best-established email marketing tools in its industry. Similar to MailerLite, no matter what price tier you select you will have full access to the premium features. One of AWebers best features is its customer support. The phone support is some of the best in the industry and there is plenty of other educational resources you can take advantage of to figure out the tool.
3. Sendgrid
Sendgrid is an email marketing platform that excels when it comes to email deliverability. It is known to have some of the best email delivery in the industry. If you are looking for an email marketing tools for developers or a more intricate tool capable of sending transactional emails, this might be the one for you. With Sendgrid you have more freedom play around with the code for your emails. Additionally, Sendgrid has an excellent free plan just like MailerLite that you can take advantage of.
