To be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to choose and promote the right products on your blog. 76% of new affiliate marketers fail to make money from affiliate marketing simply because they don’t choose the right products to promote.
Affiliate marketing has become a major source of income for many existing content creators. Its methods are tried and proven, and it works great when you choose the best affiliate products.
Being successful in affiliate marketing is not as complicated as you think. You need to be persistent, consistent, and have the right combination of affiliate products and marketing channels to promote.
Marketing channels can be:
- blog
- Comparison of Deals and Discount Sites
- YouTube Channel
- podcast
- Email Newsletter
- Social Media Platforms
- Advertising Platform
In this guide, I will share some tips that I follow when choosing the right affiliate products to promote.
How to Choose the Best Affiliate Marketing Products:
When you start picking affiliate products, you’ll find products in all kinds of categories and payouts. For example, some products pay about $1 per sale, and some pay about $200 per sale. It’s a good idea to choose products that pay out more, even if you only sell 1-2 products, it’s better than selling 100 products that only pay out $1.
Here's some simple math:
- $1 * 100 = $100 commission
- $100 * 4 = $400 commission
Now, think about which is easier to sell: selling your product to 4 people or selling your product to 100 people.
Once you understand this simple math, you will work smarter instead of harder. This is how most of the top affiliate marketers make more money than everyone else.
There is another interesting concept to understand:
- One-time commission: The company pays you a one-time payment for a sale. The commission rate can be 10%-100%.
- Recurring Commission: The company pays you recurring payments. This means that every time a user you refer makes a payment or uses the product again, you get a commission. Most SaaS products offer recurring commissions. Learn more about recurring affiliate programs here .
The number of recurring affiliate products is much less than that of one-time commission products. You should have a healthy mix of both products to build residual income.
Okay, once you know the above two basic but most important secrets, now it’s time to move on to the next part.
1. Start by scouting the affiliate market:
Affiliate networks (also known as marketplaces) are the best places to find affiliate products. On these networks, you’ll find a variety of affiliate products in different categories. They also display important statistics like EPC, average sales, average commission, and ratings to help you understand how well a particular product is doing.
The terminology may vary from network to network, but the basic principles remain the same. Once you are accepted into these top affiliate networks , you will have many affiliate products to choose from.
ShareASale and Commission Junction should be your two starting points.
If you target any geographic location, you should find a network that works for your country.
You can find the most suitable affiliate products to promote based on your market positioning.
Here’s a screenshot of ShareASale, notice the stats like “EPC,” “Per Sale,” and Rank.
If you are using WordPress, you can use a plugin like ThirstyAffiliates to shield your links. For the web hosting space, I recommend reading our previously published guide on getting started with web hosting affiliates .
2. Join the affiliate program separately:
Most online products have an in-house affiliate program. All you need to do is find the best-selling products in your niche and take the opportunity to promote those products. For example, if you run a blog about dogs, you can try looking for affiliate programs related to dog food or dog care. Find companies that sell such products online, and on their website, you will find links to affiliate programs.
Alternatively, you can just search Google for "site:domain.com affiliate" or "(product name) + affiliate program." Of course, these are manual searches, but they work in most cases, especially if you're in a niche where affiliate products are hard to find. (Tattoo designs are an example.)
There is a free Chrome extension called Affilitizer that can help you quickly find markets where a site has an affiliate program. It has helped me discover affiliate programs for products I frequently talk about.
Now, by following the above methods, you should be able to find the best products for affiliate marketing.
Before we move on to the next chapter about promoting affiliate products, let’s first understand a concept.
What are Niche Affiliate Products?
Niche affiliate products are any products that are related to your blog’s topic and therefore of interest to your readers. For example, if you write a blog about topics in the health field, you might want to promote products that are related to your blog’s niche (i.e., health).
3. Launch the best product for [niche market]
This is one of the best strategies for finding new affiliate programs. Simply go to Google.com and search for the best products in [niche].
For example, a simple search for “best dog food products” or “best dog food products” will find some of the best products in that niche. It could be a physical product niche or it could be a digital product niche.
Now, let's take it to the next level.
Click on “Shopping” and it will show you a list of top products in your chosen niche. You can also sort by price to find premium products, which can help you get high-priced affiliate products.
4. Use Google’s “Vs.” autosuggestions
Once you have a list of some good products in your space, you can use Google’s “Vs.” auto-suggest feature to discover competing products. For example, if you know that Binance is a top product in the cryptocurrency space, you can search “Binance vs.” in Google Search and Google will automatically suggest products that are similar to your initial query.
Now visit those product websites or use tip #2 above to find affiliate programs related to those products.
5. Use alternative keywords
Once you have 1-2 good products in a niche, you can use the keyword "alternative" to find more similar affiliate products to promote. For example, Jasper is a popular AI writing tool. By searching "product + alternative" in Google, you can quickly find many similar products.
I recommend you pick the hottest selling products in your niche and start writing articles about them.
This will help you increase your conversion rate. The difference between a successful affiliate marketing campaign and a failed one is the conversion rate . For example, if your affiliate marketing campaign gets 100 clicks but the conversion rate is low, you need to re-evaluate your strategy.
Sometimes, a product may look good, but people won’t buy it quickly or cancel it. In this way, even if you bring in traffic, you won’t make any money. If possible, always try out the product before recommending it.
Not only will this help you gain a better understanding of your product, but it will also save time for both you and your audience.
I often see bloggers recommending high-end products when they haven’t actually used them or don’t know enough about them. I recommend that you don’t do this. This practice can seriously affect your credibility as a reviewer. Honestly reviewing products that you have tried and used will increase your credibility and reliability.
You can sign up for a free trial of the product (if available), or you can ask the product owner to provide you with a review. Worst case scenario, you can buy the product and use it to write an excellent review, whether it's a positive one or a negative one.
NOTE: 90% of affiliate sales come from reviews and tutorials of products I use.
Here are some factors you should consider when you sign up for any affiliate program:
- Available banners
- Promotional matters
- Affiliate Control Panel
- Minimum payment amount
- Payment Methods
- Are tax forms required?
These factors will help you decide if you’re ready to promote the product. For example, let’s say you choose a seasonal product that has a minimum spend of $1,000. Are you sure you can achieve such a high conversion rate during that particular season?
Bonus Tip: Partnering with well-known brands will give your affiliate marketing campaign an extra edge.
Did this article help you choose an affiliate product?
How do you decide which products are a good fit for your blog and which aren’t? Let us know using the comments section below.
If you found the information in this article useful, please share it with your friends and colleagues on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
See also:
Best Affiliate Marketing Tools
Disclosure: Some of the links in this article contain affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you click through to visit us, at no extra cost to you. See how SidelinePlay is funded, why it’s important, and how you can support us.
Was this helpful?