If you have a website or a blog about digital marketing and generally making the most of a business through online advertising and unconventional means of promoting it, you’re probably looking for the right earning opportunities. 

For today’s article, we have prepared a Zoho affiliate program review where we will look at everything you should know about this option — from the Zoho affiliate commission to how easy it is to join the program. We’ll also give you some alternatives in case Zoho doesn’t seem to be right up your alley. 

Zoho Affiliate Program Review

What is Zoho?

Zoho is a corporation that was initially started in India and that now has offices across the world. Ever since 1996, its main headquarters have been in Chennai, India, and Pleasanton, California. It was founded by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas. 

Although their website looks like it came straight out of the 1990s, Zoho is a pretty effective CRM platform. It can be used for anything from sending out secure business emails to managing finances through their Books feature. 

It’s a bit more complex compared to any other email marketing services in the sense that it can also be utilized for team management. There’s a lot of functions to the so-called Workplace feature, especially since it makes it possible for people not just to keep in touch, but also to have online meetings, sprints, and even help each other with various tasks. 

There’s truly an immense variety when it comes to the apps that Zoho can integrate with and there are also Zoho apps available, too, such as Forms, Social, Survey, Backstage, Bookings, Commerce, and anything else you might want in terms of sales and marketing. 

They even have features for customer service and IT management, along with human resources perks. 

What services can you promote to your audience?

We’ve already mentioned some of the features that Zoho can offer to prospective users, so let’s look at the plans that you will be able to recommend to your followers. 

First of all, there is a free trial available, which means that your blog or website readers are going to be able to give Zoho a shot before making a financial commitment. The first plan is called Standard and costs 14 euros per user per month. With this one, you can automate and optimize your sales cycle. 

The next one is known as the Professional and is billed at 23 euros per user per month and it includes the features of the previously mentioned one. With its assistance, you can accelerate growth and improve customer acquisition. 

The Enterprise plan costs 40 euros per user per month and incomes with some extra perks such as the ability to manage global operations and access to the Zoho complete CRM.

Finally, the so-called Ultimate plan costs 52 euros per month and comes with absolutely any feature you might ever need, whether that be email insights and multiple currencies, assignment rules, multiple pipelines, or tasks, calls, and events. 

In a nutshell, these are the plans that you will perhaps have to mention in your content when you recommend Zoho to your audience. 

Joining the Zoho CRM affiliate program

The first thing that we have to mention if you want to become a Zoho affiliate is that this is a self-managed program. In other words, you are not going to encounter it on any other separate affiliate network, whether that be FlexOffers, Impact Radius, CJ Affiliate, or anything else. 

This can be a bit of a pain for seasoned affiliates who have dozens and dozens of niche websites, but we wouldn’t consider it a complete disadvantage. 

There’s a fairly simple form that you need to fill out in order to become an affiliate of this brand. They will ask for your first and last name, phone number, email, the country you are based in, the organization type you are affiliated with, your data center, as well as your industry. 

You’re also supposed to select your main promotional method and some of the options range from email marketing to mobile marketing, search engine marketing, and content. 

In any case, joining the Zoho affiliate program is very easy and straightforward, so you should not worry about anything in that sense. 

How much can you make with the Zoho mail affiliate program?

This is one of the most important sections in this article, so here’s what you should know when it comes to the Zoho affiliate commission – you get paid a 15% rate each time someone makes a purchase through your referral link. This is a rate that you can expect for actual sales, so cold leads are not considered. 

The good thing about the program is that the cookie lasts for 90 whole days, which makes it three times longer than the industry standard, which is now at 30 days. 

It’s also worth noting that you get the 15% commission for any purchases made over a period of 12 months, so it’s basically a recurring rate — but if someone cancels their subscription, you are obviously going to lose your commission. 

Additionally, all of your referrals get $100 in credits when they get a paid plan, which they can use for upgrading their accounts and getting access to additional features. 

There’s no limit in terms of how much you can earn, so if you think your performance is going to be stellar, you can make as much money as you want. 

Payment thresholds and methods

The only payment method available with this program, at least from what we have noticed on the brand’s official website, is PayPal. As you can expect, there are both good and bad things to say about PayPal, a good one being the fact that it is so widely available. 

On the other hand, PayPal does have a pretty bad reputation when it comes to deleting accounts without any specific explanation, and it is also not available in certain countries. 

As for the threshold, you need to have made at least $100 in commissions before being able to withdraw your earnings. In terms of frequency, you do not have to worry about anything since payments are made every month. 

Pros and cons of being a Zoho affiliate

While the commission rate of this affiliate program might not seem like something worth writing home about, the plans are billed annually, which means that you’ll make a chunk of money at one time. 

Of course, your referrals have the option of trying the free trial, but given the 90-day cookie, you can at least be reassured that if they do decide to get a paid subscription, you’ll be able to score that commission. 

We would have liked it more if the Zoho program hadn’t been self-managed, but this can’t really be a dealbreaker, so it’s something that can easily be managed. 

The payment methods could have been a little more varied, in the sense that Zoho could have at least allowed payments through both PayPal and Payoneer, if not bank transfers and cheques. 

Affiliate marketing for Zoho CRM – Best practices

Since you are going to be waiting for up to five working days in order for an affiliate manager to get back to you with regard to your application review, you might as well think of some nice ways of promoting Zoho to your audience. 

Apparently, the brand does like the idea of associating its name with industry advocates and influencers, as well as businesses in more or less similar niches. But if you’re in the wrong space, in the sense that you’re a fashion blogger or whatever else, you might get your application rejected as a result of that. 

Creating content is by far the best way of recommending Zoho services to your followership. You may be able to promote Zoho through PPC too, but we would like to advise against mentioning the brand’s name in your ads, in that case. You might as well promote your content so that it seems a little more indirect. 

There’s a pretty nifty calculator on the Zoho website that you can use to try and estimate your earnings with the program. You get several boxes that you are supposed to fill out with information such as your number of monthly visitors or email subscribers, your average signup rate, your projected conversion rate, along with your average transaction value.  

Zoho affiliate program alternatives

If for any reason you feel like the Zoho program isn’t a match for what you are expecting, here are some other choices you might like a little better. 

HubSpot

As one of the most effective and also well-known CRMs and more, HubSpot might make a good option for you if you have a B2B audience. The downside is that HubSpot is not cheap at all, so it most definitely does not address regular people who want to just manage their email list or improve the performance of their very small ecommerce websites, for example

There are two ways of earning when it comes to this affiliate program — you can either be paid a $100 flat rate for every customer you send out their way or you can choose the recurring model and get 15% out of the value of every subscription every single month for a period lasting for 12 months. 

ActiveCampaign

We’ve written a separate review about the ActiveCampaign affiliate program, so if you have some time on your hands, we definitely suggest checking it out. As an ActiveCampaign affiliate, you will make 20% on all of the purchases made through your referral link. 

This is the same you will earn for the lifetime of any of your referrals’ subscription, so it’s a recurring rate. You can earn all sorts of bonuses, too, and if your performance is very good, your commission can be upgraded to 30%. The cookie lasts for 90 days, so it’s pretty much identical to what you can expect from Zoho. 

Read more: Affiliate programs & networks available in Australia

Pipedrive

This one is a pretty nifty alternative in that you can make a 20% commission. There are no fees related to joining the program or promoting it whatsoever, and you also get the benefit of a 90-day cookie window. 

Moreover, this program is managed through PartnerStack, a separate affiliate platform, which makes it possible for you to have access to a very detailed dashboard that can give you all the info you need to up your performance. 

MailTag

This one is a bit different in that it’s not a separate web service at all. Instead, MailTag is a chrome extension that can be used as a CRM and for tasks such as email tracking, auto follow-ups, and scheduling. It’s probably not as complex as Zoho, but it could be worth recommending it to your followers. 

As for the affiliate program, MailTag gives you a 50% recurring rate on all subscriptions purchased through your links. The duration of the cookie is 90 days, so pretty much what Zoho also has to offer. 

You might also like: Duda affiliate program

Gist

While this one is also self-managed, when it comes to how much you can make, it’s pretty good. You can expect to earn 40% in recurring commissions with the Gist affiliate program. There’s a wide variety of marketing materials inside the platform, and you can definitely take advantage of them. 

Migrating your referrals from other tools is also made easy since the platform comes with a feature called one-click help desk migration. 

Need help with your SEO or digital marketing efforts? We have lots of plans and courses available. Get in touch to find out how we can be of assistance!