I applied to ConvertKit’s affiliate program and got rejected. No long explanation, just a no. And honestly it stung a bit because ConvertKit is one of those tools you see recommended everywhere in the affiliate marketing space, so you assume it’s just a matter of filling in a form and waiting a day or two.
It’s not. At least not if your site is newer.
Looking back it makes sense. ConvertKit’s affiliate program pays 30% recurring commission, which is genuinely good money per referral. That kind of program attracts a lot of applicants and they can afford to be selective. What they seem to want is someone with an existing audience, meaningful traffic, and some track record of actually driving signups. A newer site with a handful of posts and modest traffic isn’t going to tick those boxes, even if the content is good and the intent is honest.
That’s not a personal rejection. It’s just a numbers game on their end. If you want to understand the broader affiliate landscape before reapplying, my post on affiliate marketing in Australia for beginners covers the full picture of what networks and programs are actually worth your time.
MailerLite I applied to as the alternative and it’s now been over 48 hours with no response. Still pending. Which is its own kind of frustrating because the whole point of switching was to get things moving. Pending for two days starts to feel like a slow rejection even when it might just be a busy queue.
Here’s what I think is actually happening with both of these. Email marketing platforms as a category are more cautious about who they let into their affiliate programs because the cost per acquisition in email is high and they want affiliates who can actually convert people, not just drop links around. A WordPress plugin like Rank Math or WP Rocket is a one-time or annual purchase. An email platform is a subscription and they care more about the quality of referrals. According to MailerLite’s own data, email marketing delivers one of the highest ROIs of any digital channel, which explains exactly why they are selective about who promotes them.
The hope with MailerLite is real though. 48 hours is not a rejection. Their approval process is manual and some applications sit in the queue for three to five days. I’ve seen people get approved after a week. The things that tend to help are having a clear niche, a real website that looks legitimate, and content that shows you’re writing for an actual audience rather than just collecting affiliate links.
If MailerLite does come back with a no as well, the honest answer is that the site just needs a few more months of content and traffic before email platform programs start saying yes. That’s not a dead end. It’s a timeline.
In the meantime there are programs with solid commissions that don’t require a big audience to get approved. Rank Math, WP Rocket, Hostinger, and WordPress.com are all live and tracking. Those four alone cover hosting, site speed, SEO and a whole network of advertisers. That’s enough to build real income from while the site grows into the kind of platform that email programs want to partner with.
The rejection from ConvertKit and the wait from MailerLite are annoying. But they’re also just part of the process. Every affiliate marketer has a list of programs that said no before they said yes.
Dewi