Do you have a tech blog? Or a music blog? Or a book reading blog? Have you been struggling to find a suitable affiliate program to work with?
Did you know that Apple has an affiliate program for iTunes, the App Store, iBooks, and the Mac App Store?
It’s true. Keep reading.
Earlier I have talked about VigLink, which is one smart way to monetize all your existing commercial links. If you don’t know about it, you should read this review & also check out an exclusive case-study here. If you are using VigLink to create affiliate links to the Apple App Store, I recommend you directly signup for Apple’s affiliate program and stop paying extra money to VigLink or any other 3rd party affiliate networks.
Let’s take a look at some features of Apple’s affiliate program, and below I will share one trick which you can use right away to “affilitize” all your Apple links.
iTunes Affiliate Program Details & Features:
The iTunes Affiliate program is open for everybody, and you can sign up for free from here.
Once you apply for the program, it takes about five days to get approval. To ensure you get approval, add your working blog link. If you don’t have a blog/website, your application will be rejected.
Once your application is approved, you can log in to your Apple affiliate dashboard.
Here is what the dashboard looks like:
If you are inside your affiliate dashboard for the first time, make sure to click on Settings > Payment Method, and add your payment details. In most countries, Apple makes payment via direct bank transfer.
In Tracked Currency select “All Countries” & in Paid Currency select your country’s currency. Don’t forget to check the box which says “Auto Selfbill/Payment Required.”
Note: In the above screenshot I forgot to add a threshold limit, which you should add. Once your affiliate commission reaches that limit, they will send you payment automatically.
- Related Read: How To Promote Affiliate Products on Your Blog
Creating Affiliate Links for Apple Products:
Click on “Tools” at the top of your dashboard and you will find various options to create affiliate links.
Here is a screenshot:
You can use any of the methods listed to monetize your blog.
Here are my recommendations…
Auto Link Maker:
This is recommended for those blogs which are old and have a few (or tons of) links to the App Store or other Apple products on the official Apple site.
You need to add a few lines of Javascript code to your blog and it will automatically convert them into affiliate links. This saves a lot of time because you don’t have to edit all the links manually. Also, if you use this, you don’t have to manually create affiliate links for future posts.
You can use the Google Tag Manager or edit your theme to add the JS snippet on your blog.
RSS Feed Generator:
This could potentially increase your revenue substantially as you can create an RSS link to Apple’s list of top products, music, books, apps, and more
Simply place it as a widget in your blog’s sidebar and let the money flow in.
This works great on specific niche sites which need to provide readers with the latest information and products.
Link Maker:
This is useful when you need to generate an affiliate link for an individual product.
You can also use this to create affiliate links in bulk.
Tip: If your page is popular, you can use Link Maker to make an affiliate link for an app and promote it on your social media pages.
Widget Builder:
I’m not a personal fan of this, but it could be useful for you.
With Widget Builder, you can create a widget for a single app and embed it within your blog post. Your readers can read the description and click on the widget to install the app.
(App Developers can take advantage of Apple’s search API to show apps with their unique affiliate link.)
Quickest way to create an affiliate link:
At the top of your “Affiliate Dashboard”, you can find your unique affiliate ID. In the above screenshot (“Affiliate Dashboard” top right), note my id is 10lMjr. Similarly, there you will also find your ID. Whenever you want to link to any app or product from App Store, iBooks, and the Mac App Store, suffix it with ?at=XXXX (replace XXXX with your unique affiliate ID).
Example:
- Normal link:
- Affiliate link:
Simple! Right?
Important Facts About Apple’s Affiliate Program:
- Cookie period is 24 hours. That means if a user clicks on your affiliate link & makes a purchase within 24 hours, you will get a commission.
- You get a commission of 7% of iTunes products (apps & other content).
- You should also link to free stuff with your affiliate links. The reason is because you will get paid for ANY purchase a user makes within the 24-hour cookie period.
- Download the Blink app on your iPhone. Use it to generate affiliate links quickly on your iOS device. Highly recommended.
- Payments will be available to cash out after 90 days of the sale.
- Links to the Apple Online Store’s products do not earn commissions on the iTunes affiliate program.
- Links to iTunes Gifts on a desktop or within iOS, however, are eligible for affiliate commission.
- Resource: Advanced Affiliate Linking
Tracking Income from the iOS App:
You can download the ExactView app on your iPhone to keep track of your earnings.
iTunes Shortcode WordPress Plugin:
If you are using the WordPress platform, you should be using the iTunes content plugin.
This plugin lets you add app details in an interactive way, which will get you more clicks & sales. It also supports QR codes which will increase downloads. This plugin only costs $12 & is recommended for any tech blog, which reviews or talks about iOS Apps.
Update: March 2016
It’s been almost half a year since I have started using the iTunes affiliate program & let me quickly share my earnings report with you.
I have received 2 payments so far from the Apple affiliate program. I was surprised to see earnings in all different currencies on my dashboard. Including all currencies, I have earned:
- $8,391
Note: Earlier I made the mistake of adding payment in USD. Today I have rectified this mistake & also updated the article accordingly.
The iTunes affiliate program could be a great addition for you as well, and I suggest you start using it right away. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me via the comments.
Also check out the following affiliate programs:
- List of Best Affiliate Programs for the WordPress Niche
- Best Travel Affiliate Programs For Travel Bloggers
- WPEngine Affiliate Program – $200/Sale
Do consider sharing this information about the iTunes affiliate program with other bloggers on your Facebook page, Facebook group, Twitter friends, and G+ peers. Or if you like, you can send this resource via WhatsApp.
Let me know your experiences with the iTunes affiliate program in the comments below.
Hi Harsh,
I was joined the iTunes Affiliate Program 2 months ago.
I made 835 clicks and 17 ordered items. But I did not see any Revenue, Commission in my account. Till now more than 60 days, there are nothing show.
I do not know how much I have earned !
I try to contact them about this issue. But there are not response also !
Do you have any experience about my issue?
Thanks!
Hey, Harsh, You have replied to many of my comments from this blog and also on Youtube. I’m a huge follower of you. In fact, I spend almost an hour reading your blog.
Further about this post, Could you tell me about your website which is using iTunes affiliate. I would be grateful to have look at it.
Hey Soham,
Thank you for reading ShoutMeLoud. Well, I use iTunes affiliate at ShoutMeLoud itself.
Hi Harsh,
Great piece of information you shared here. I just want to know how can we promote iTunes affiliate products through Facebook page to generate sales. I remember that you mentioned somewhere that you also promote them through Facebook. So can you please guide me too.
Thank you.
@Aitzaz
I will try to write a post on it in the coming days.
Thank you so much. I will wait for it..
Hi Harsh,
I am still waiting for your post on sharing the method for using iTunes affiliate program on Facebook page and about generating sales through it?
Regards,
Aitzaz
Hi Harsh,
Nice article. I have a question that why it is wrong to add payment in USD? Could you please tell me about that?
@Aitzaz
Since you will be earning fro other geo’s you need to accept payment in other currencies also.
I think its a quite slow process affiliating through itunes.but I will definitly give it a try. Thanks
Hi,
thank you for this article!
But, I couldn’t find anywhere an answer for one of my questions:
if I’m choosing one currency on the “tracked currency” field, it means that all sales from all countries (currencies) will be automatically converted to that one currency or it means that sales from other countries other than USA (let’s say I choose only USD on the “tracked currency”) will be ignored and not tracked and I will not be paid for those sales? I saw you also have not tracked all currencies.
Thank you for your answer.
Do you know how it works if I link to an App that offers a free trial week? Do I get the commission if they then pay for the app after the first week?
As a separate question, is it worth it to link to free apps? Does it work like Amazon where as long as they purchase anything, you still get a fee.
Also, I’m not sure if my links are going through. When I first wrote my post, I followed your directions. To be honest, I sort of forgot about my iTunes affiliation. I just re-read your post and my links look correct but I don’t think they are going through. One of the products I link to on Amazon requires you to use an iTunes app. So, I’m pretty sure they are downloading the app. Waiting for Apple to respond and check it out. Is there another way to see if it is working? My numbers all indicate zero sales which is surprising, unless the free week makes it zero. Or, I’m linking wrong.
Hi @HARSH,
Thanks for sharing this info, it is very helpful. I’m starting to apply for the program and maybe you can guide my better and see if I understand correctly.
1- To avoid the rejection, you set that is better to have a blog from the beginning – Right?
a- This blog shall have some traffic?
b- It can do focus only on one niche? like games?
2- The commissions are also for in-app purchases?
3- Do you have any experience with “Enterprise Partner Feed Relational”? – I’ll create some kind of “app store” or “app directory” but using different criteria to rank the apps –
Sorry to make many different questions –
Thanks in advance.
1- To avoid the rejection, you set that is better to have a blog from the beginning – Right? : Yes
a- This blog shall have some traffic? “Should look professional with content”
b- It can do focus only on one niche? like games? “You can focus on any niche”
2- The commissions are also for in-app purchases? “Yes”
3- Do you have any experience with “Enterprise Partner Feed Relational”? – I’ll create some kind of “app store” or “app directory” but using different criteria to rank the apps – “I don’t have experience with is as I haven’t created something like this, but yes you can use it for skyrocketing your earning 🙂
Best of luck!
Comment:Hello sir i want a e-mail account on icloud ! How to create a account on icloud without credit card ?
hey Arman,
Read this:https://support.apple.com/en-in/HT204034
Great article. Thank you. I wonder how to implement the RSS feed. I am using WordPress and the feed looks like this:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/rss/toppaidmacapps/limit=10/xml
If I put that exact code into a widget it displays as blank. If I put the code into a post, it’s still blank. I thought maybe wrapping it with would work, but it doesn’t. Still blank. What should I be doing?
Finally, the RSS feed does not appear to be tied to my affiliate token. If I do get it to work, and someone clicks a link, I don’t see how it’s going to credit me. I must be doing something else wrong too!
Can you help?
Wow!!! This is cool. I will implement it on my blog immediately.
Hi, can you enlighten me if Itunes made an update on their payment system. Earlier i try to update my payment details which i have filled with my country bank account and swift code ect, however when i try to save it, it gave me an error ‘this payment method is no longer active’. Do they not support direct deposit to non-us country anymore? If you could find out anything about this, that would be a great help. Thank You.
Hi Harsh, Great post again, Looking for more quality affiliate programs.
Thanks alot.
are social media only enough to promote my site on itune aflliate program?
@Chinedu
Yes! You can use Social media for promotion!
Hey Harsh,
Thanks for the tip. It was previously not allowed for Indian and Pakistani users. I tried applying for it back in 2009. I am running handful of iOS coverage blogs and surely it will add some great value to my earnings.
Hi harash Keep in mind. If you have commissions in your account for 18 months after you are eligible to be paid and have not provided proper banking information, PHG reserves the right to keep your commissions for their own use.
Hi Harsh,
Do me a favor by clarifying the notion that only tech bloggers will do good at iTune, iBooks , mac App Store affiliate programs while others have bleak chances. How true ? Are’nt there non-tech iBooks/products out there ? (Note: Anybody in comment thread may like to answer)
Hi Harsh,
This is such an awesome article regarding affiliate marketing.
I believe Itune is one of the best affiliate programs to start with. They have almost everything for you can start with.
Overall, a very nice article and thank you for your time sharing tips with us
Hey Rakesh,
Thanks a lot for checking out my post, I’m glad you agreed with my points.
This is great, I have actually been apart of an Apple Affiliate myself for 3 years now, when I first started I saw nothing was thinking this is rubbish, but found out that no one knew of my links (noob) I now successfully run an iOS page (apps, movie, books and music etc across separate different Facebook, Youtube and Twitter and commission has been pouring in by the bucket loads now…
I have around 2000 ios gaming app trailers, some even sent to me from developers themselves since I am now good friends with them all, I also get pre-release codes that I hand out also and other freebies since keeping close contact with them, Developers contact me frequently to feature their game, they even use my links on their website which helps more traffic towards more for more earnings, put it this way, do you hard work interact nicely with developers, support them don’t bug them and you will see how successful you will become, imagine your own link to various games on EA Games website? tell me how many people know EA Games, millions, this alone brings more traffic to you, what about king.com, bulkypix to name a few, this all mounts up for commision, you look after them, they look after you, I also do game testing with them also so we are a good team now. I now for the last few years been working from home, doing just this, I earn enough to work from home, I quite my job as a decent paid manager to staying home dealing with Apple apps and game testing etc, I wake up any time I wish, I can go to the shops any time I like, I hang out with my kids 24/7, they too help with game testing, this is the life, you put in the hard work it will pay off, like I first mentioned, I thought this was rubbish, but now I work at home in my own office and money comes in without lifting a finger most times, I just post about new games in the appstore, and the links do the rest.
I grew up with gaming companies from developers to programmers to graphic artists and musicians, if you ever see my name around Zro Dfects, that is me… So this helped me get in to this quite quickly and earning money where I can work from home and loving it to hell……
I also work with fiverr.com with projects on the side also making great money with, like anything, work hard, more than you think you should and the rest runs itself….
Thank you for your valuable post.
This is what I was missing in my plan. Have started a blog on iPhone apps. Thank you so much, you can give me suggestions how can I populate more traffic to my blog, I’m a kid in this field 😉
Hi Harsh,
Its an awesome work again. A new affiliate programme to work with,
Thank you for sharing!!!!
@Abhilash Happy to help. Looking forward to hearing much more from you.
Thanks for sharing iTune’s affiliate programs Harsh. By the way, how is the response of this program in India?
@Abhishek
So far it seems like one of the aff. program which no tech blogger should ignore.
Itunes has low commision rate but its products are what people are willing to pay. 🙂
Hi Harsh,
Thanks for sharing itunes affiliate program.
@Raaja
Happy to help. Keep me updated on how it all works for you!
Thanks for this insight on itunes affiliate progran. I wish google will also do something similar in near future. 4 hrs cookie period sounds great. I am going to give it a try starting tomorrow.
Hey Harsh, Thanks for sharing this great affiliate program with us. I hope this can be a good way to earn money :).
@Husain glad I could help. Let me know how the tips work out for you. I look forward to hearing more from you!
Harsh,
Click to Tweet shows 8391$ as year earnings ,where as your payment screen shows only two payments 69$ and 45$.
Did you mean to say 8391 rupees?
@Sreenivas
Including all other currencies I have earned $8391.
Earlier I made a mistake of adding payment for USD currency. Today, I have rectified this mistake & also updated the article accordingly.
If you have a popular page, you can create individual app affiliate link, and promote it on your social media property.
@Nitin
That’s a good strategy & I’m sure this would work better when you share link to those app, which matches your target audience.
Just shared with my whatsapp group of bloggers.
They liked a lot as this is an alternative for Amazon Affiliate Marketing Network.
Thanks Harsh
@Mohit
Thanks for sharing, and I’m sure your group will be benefited with this. One correction, it’s not an alternative to Amazon affiliate program, as Amazon offers variety of product, and this one is limited to one niche.
I guess Amazon Affiliate program can help more to tech bloggers. I had recently setup an amazon affiliate site based on tech niche. In couple of months, it has started to generate a decent income stream. Will give a try to iTunes affiliate program as well. Thanks for sharing.
I’m already an affiliate of iTunes, it will only work when you have a decent traffic, the commision is only 7% and as we all know iOS apps hardly cost more than $10, that make our income $0.70 per purchase. Don’t you think thats a bit low.
@Sanj1112
You are missing on Mac softwares, which are costly & pays a lot in commission. After I got to know about iTunes Affiliate program, I just changed all existing links to Mac app store & iTunes app store, and I have made about $70+ in 12 days.
Hi harsh,
I am happy to hear that, now Tech Bloggers can earn money through the “itunes Affiliate program”. Can i know that, how to earn affiliate money through the “Android Apps” as a Tech Blogger. It is possible or not?
Hi Rajkumar You Can Join Cuelink And Vcommission For Cpi Campaign Of Android Apps. flipkart And Snapdeal Also Running CPI Campaign InTheir Affiliate Programme. Also If You Are Targeting Outside Side India You Can Use Bidderplace.
that’s what for i waiting for @Harsh Thanks alot
@Dazzling glad I could help. Let me know how the tips work out for you. I look forward to hearing more from you!