There’s no universal manual for how to become a successful affiliate marketer, but enrolling in a reputable affiliate marketing training course can be the next best thing.
Well executed training can provide you with valuable skills and knowledge that can greatly increase your chances of finding success and generating sustained earnings. We’ve seen this happen first-hand with many of MaxBounty’s affiliates, from beginners to experienced veterans.
However, finding the right training course for you can be difficult. There’s so many different variables in affiliate marketing, from verticals to commission structures to traffic sources. This means it’s impossible to design one-size-fits-all training that applies to every type of affiliate marketing.
To make things easier for you, we’ve compiled our own list of diverse CPA affiliate marketing training courses and provided you with the important course details to help you determine which is the best fit for you.
What is CPA Affiliate Marketing?
CPA stands for cost-per-action, which is a commission structure where brands pay affiliates each time they entice a user to performs a specific action on their campaign.
Where CPS (cost-per-sale) affiliate marketing programs like Amazon pay affiliates only on sales, CPA campaigns will pay affiliates for submitting their email, downloading an app, etc. These actions are more likely to be performed by a user because they require less commitment, therefore, conversions can be more frequent than CPS campaigns.
Although the courses we’ve featured are best used for promoting CPA campaigns, most of the material will also apply to CPS and revenue sharing—campaign types that we also offer at MaxBounty.
What Makes a Good CPA Affiliate Marketing Training Course?
Which training course makes sense for you will depend on several factors, including:
- Your budget
- Your experience level
- How you plan to send traffic to campaigns (your traffic source)
We’ve included a variety of courses that cover the spectrum on all three of those categories, from free courses for beginners to paid courses for more advanced affiliates.
By personally exploring and interacting with the actual educational content of several courses, we were able to identify which ones provide affiliates with the most real, actionable value. That’s important, as we want you to feel like you learned useful strategies that you can immediately begin applying once you’ve completed a course.
So let’s get to it. Here are our five best CPA affiliate marketing training courses in 2025!
1. Revenue Tactics – Native Ads Master Class
Course Runner(s): Tom Bell
Price: $897
Traffic Source(s) Covered: Native Ads
Experience Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Why we recommend it:
The Native Ads Master Class is a fully comprehensive guide to running successful affiliate campaigns with native ads.
This course was built and is taught by Tom Bell – a trusted, former MaxBounty affiliate who has found tremendous success with the same techniques taught in his course.
By enrolling in this program you’ll discover Tom’s own personal blueprint to generating in excess of seven figures with native advertising. You’ll learn how he’s dominated affiliate campaigns with long-term sustainability and how you can do the same.
The highlight of this course is that Tom reveals his own specific testing, optimization and scaling strategies, as well as follow-along campaigns and case studies. Students will feel like they’re truly getting a step-by-step ‘how to’ guide on building their own affiliate business.
Tom himself is also an extremely approachable and helpful individual who is always happy to assist his students if needed. That can sometimes be a difference maker for these often complex affiliate courses.
We highly recommend this one for any affiliates who want to use native ads as their traffic source.
Notable Features:
- Step-by-step how-to modules
- In-depth examination of native ads and the psychology behind them
- Features a helpful module on what creatives to use and how to make them
- Emphasis placed on the importance of optimization and how to optimize
- Effectively avoids the disingenuous “get rich quick!” messaging
- Multiple landing page templates provided
Sign-up to Revenue Tactics – Native Ads Master Class
2. CPA Evolution 3.0
Course Runner(s): William Souza
Cost: $997
Traffic Source(s) Covered: Media buying, native ads, paid ads (Facebook and Instagram)
Experience Level: Beginner to Intermediate
Why we recommend it:
CPA Evolution 3.0 is the latest version of one of the most popular and positively-reviewed CPA affiliate marketing training courses available.
Created and taught by affiliate marketing veteran William Souza, this course provides its students with comprehensive material on all things CPA/affiliate marketing.
You’ll gain access to a wide range of resources immediately after enrolling. These include step-by-step video tutorials, live webinars, and detailed case studies that showcase real-world examples of successful campaigns.
You’ll also learn how to choose the right offers, set up effective landing pages, drive traffic to your site, and convert visitors into paying customers. These lessons primarily focus on media buying and paid advertising like native ads or Meta ads.
The primary reason we recommend CPA Evolution 3.0 is because it not only provides you with fundamental knowledge, it also teaches you how to actually apply that knowledge to find success.
You should definitely take a closer look at William’s course especially if you’re interested in acquiring traffic through paid ads.
Notable Features:
- Over-the-shoulder video lessons showing exactly how to find offers and create campaigns
- Detailed case studies showing real campaigns and examples
- Professional software suite for creating landing pages and banners using tested and proven templates
- One-on-one support for creating, optimizing and scaling campaigns
- Bi-weekly live training sessions and Q&A
- Multiple traffic strategies and ad platforms with more to be added soon
- Separate advanced module available for experienced affiliates
3. Powerhouse Affiliate
Course Runner(s): Joey Babineau
Price: $29/monthly
Traffic Source(s) Covered: Monetization / Google Ads (PPC) / Email / Native
Experience Level: All levels from beginner to expert – includes expert community support.
Why we recommend it:
Powerhouse Affiliate is a leading affiliate marketing training platform & community that covers a wide array of essential affiliate marketing and CPA marketing topics.
This course’s material is somewhat unique in that it covers a multitude of traffic sources ranging from Google Ads to email marketing to native.
You might think that packing so many traffic sources into one course could be a detriment, but Joey’s program succeeds at ensuring each is given adequate focus and attention. This is one of the course’s strengths and it’s an attractive benefit to affiliates who have yet to settle on a traffic source or want to test a new one.
The fully active forum included with this program is also helpful for discussing course topics and getting feedback from like-minded affiliate marketers.
If you’re looking to expand your CPA marketing knowledge through more of a community experience as opposed to a singular, straight-forward course, Powerhouse Affiliate might be for you.
Notable Features:
- Offers a unique blend of a training platform and an online community/forum
- 100+ different lessons and case studies
- Over-the-shoulder webinar training
- Live case studies
- Landing page library featuring examples of top-converting LPs
- 24/7 support
- A 30 Day Google Ads Challenge for maximizing conversions
Sign up to Powerhouse Affiliate
4. Ahrefs Affiliate Marketing Course for Beginners
Course Runner(s): Sam Oh VP of Marketing at Ahrefs
Price: Free
Traffic Source(s) Covered: General/Search
Experience Level: Beginner
Why we recommend it:
Out of our five options, this beginner course by SEO platform Ahrefs might be the best at teaching important affiliate marketing fundamentals. It also does so in a remarkably short amount of time.
This alone makes it a great option for the novice affiliate who has big ambitions but a short attention span.
Another area where it excels is its module on choosing an affiliate niche—a crucial and sometimes overlooked component of creating a successful affiliate marketing strategy. The course gives you some helpful and specific tips on what to do to find a profitable niche using keyword research and SEO tools (where they understandably plug their platform).
The latter half of the course focuses on how to create content sites and link-building, which can be helpful to learn even if you’re planning on taking more of a media-buying approach for acquiring traffic.
Don’t expect a deep, step-by-step guide in only an hour and 49 minutes, but if you’re looking for a great affiliate marketing crash course, you’ve found it.
Notable Features:
- No sign-up or account required
- Straightforward-lessons with minimal fluff
- Entire course can be completed in under two hours
- Simple, easy-to-use interface
- Easily accessible and rewatchable video content
- Good introduction to other helpful Ahrefs course (SEO, blogging, etc.)
5. Voluum Affiliate Academy
Course Runner(s): Voluum Ad Tracker Professionals
Price: Free for Voluum users
Traffic Source(s) Covered: Native Ads
Experience Level: Beginner
Why we recommend it:
Voluum is one of the most popular ad trackers in affiliate marketing. Having their finger on the pulse of the industry has allowed them to create a pragmatic affiliate marketing training course that excels at teaching you important fundamentals.
Their Affiliate Academy contains three distinct courses that excel at propelling beginner-level affiliates to the next level.
Each course consists of several modules, with each module containing video lessons, quizzes, and practical exercises to help students apply what they’ve learned. These courses are led by experienced affiliate marketers who will provide you with guidance and support throughout the program.
Although this course isn’t as expansive as some of the other options on our list, its content presentation and user interface are stellar. We think it’s one of the best available in that regard which makes it even more beginner-friendly.
Voluum’s Affiliate Academy is a great option if you’re already using Voluum for tracking traffic, or you’re a newer affiliate looking for some straight-forward content to propel you out of that beginner affiliate stage.
Notable Features:
- All three courses are entirely free
- Practical exercises that allow students to apply what they’ve learned in real-world scenarios and gain hands-on experience
- Unique video lessons, quizzes, and discussions that encourage active participation and learning
- Over-the-shoulder video lessons showing exactly how to find offers and create campaigns
- A great playbook for beginner affiliates who are literally just getting started
- Clean, intuitive interface
- Receive special discounts on Voluum and other platforms like propeller ads upon completing the course
Conclusion
Becoming a successful affiliate requires time, work, a little bit of money and whole lot of patience. The affiliate marketing training courses above won’t change any of that, but they can equip you with essential knowledge and tools to make you more efficient and adaptable. Add in a little bit of luck and you’ll be well on your way to achieving and hopefully exceeding your earnings goals.
can i do affiliate without a website
Yes! It is recommended by not mandatory.
You can learn more here: https://blog.maxbounty.com/how-to-affiliate-marketing-without-website/
That last one number 5 has lots of reviews on Udemy saying it is well out of date and some of the tools it recommends are now no longer online. It makes me question the rest of this post. Is it up to date? Are you recommending courses based on how good they are? Or based on how much commission you receive? Are these still the best 5 courses for 2024?
Hey!
We are currenly in the process of updating this post for 2024. Thank you for your feedback!