Top Most Popular Niches in Affiliate Marketing

Ranking the Top Niches in Affiliate Marketing for Maximum Potential

Are you looking for a new channel of promotion and wondering whether affiliate marketing is a good fit for your product? If you’ve been thinking about dipping your toes into the world of affiliate marketing, you’ve probably already researched which niches and products are the most demanded. After all, who wants to spend time and energy on something that won’t pay off in the long run? Exploring affiliate programs from different affiliate verticals will help you understand how to manage and market your product.

This article is all about the most popular industries in affiliate marketing and why they are so popular among marketers. 

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by their efforts. It is often referred to as “performance marketing”, “referral marketing”, or “partner marketing”. In this type of marketing, publishers (also called “affiliates”) earn commissions by referring traffic or customers to a company’s (“advertiser’s”) website, and if a visitor or customer purchases something, the affiliate receives a percentage from the profit. This is often done in combination with a lead generation campaign where an affiliate supplies a coupon code to a potential customer who can redeem the coupon by clicking on a link that takes them to the seller’s website.

Why So Many People Are Interested in Affiliate Marketing?

For a moment let’s leave the interest of advertisers aside and think about why affiliate marketing is so popular among publishers. The answer is a no-brainer.

The world of affiliate marketing offers publishers the opportunity to monetize their knowledge and interests by promoting third-party products. The market is teeming with potential customers, with whom the product owners are not always in touch, but hundreds of publishers are. Publishers know their audience and which products people might be interested in. In this sense, it can make them effective promoters of your products to a wider audience that you can’t cover yourself. 

For some affiliates, it can work so well that promoting other products becomes their main source of income. When choosing a niche to work in, affiliates take into account their interests and what is a good fit for their audience. However, there are some pointers in terms of niche performance that may make affiliates reconsider their involvement. Behind the scenes, some niches could be easier than others.

For advertisers, however, it doesn’t mean that they should give up the idea if their product is outside an “easy list”. On the contrary, it may turn into an advantage. What you need to do is just to make thorough research to understand what works and what doesn’t. Many factors build up the reputation of a popular affiliate product that affiliates would compete to promote: communication and policies, commissions, product quality, the way an affiliate program is managed, etc.

9 Top Evergreen Affiliate Niches

Lifestyle, Wellness & Fitness

Today health and wellness-related products are more popular than ever and will continue to grow as the population ages, medical costs go up and the matter of self-care continues to rise in importance. From fitness trackers and smart scales to supplements, health-related shoes, apparel, and more. Marketers in this niche have plenty of options to choose from. Some other lifestyle-related products that fall into this category include home goods, household items, books, etc.

SaaS & Technology

This is one of these super broad niches that can encompass anything from productivity apps, web design tools, SEO tools, marketing tools, analytics, and more. Many SaaS companies have an affiliate program meaning that companies could get many leads and sales from this channel. 

One of the most popular ways affiliates promote SaaS products are video reviews, comparison & review articles, product guides, etc. If you google “Product name review” or “Product name alternatives” you are likely to find articles and listicles with different products. Many, if not all these products, will have affiliate links. 

Usually, affiliates would not advertise competitors as it may weaken their recommendations and, thus, decrease the chance of conversions driven by their efforts. Should some affiliates be working with competing companies, they would promote them separately and more carefully. One of the ways affiliates can do that is by writing an article “Must-have apps for a healthy lifestyle”, which list non-competing tools that are grouped under “Health & Wellness”, but still serve different functions. For example, it can consist of a fitness tracker, calorie counter app, daily drink tracker, meditation app, sleep cycle alarm, habit tracker, etc.

Due to the high price of many, especially B2B SaaS & technology products, publishers are eager to work in this niche as it can bring them significantly high revenue. However, as with everything there is a disadvantage of partnering with the B2B SaaS product — a long sales cycle. And as more and more companies prefer to pay only for the final result, it can decrease the number of potential affiliates. However, It is important to remember that commissions for the final sales could bring your affiliate partners more cash rather than commissions for leads. Thus, if you promote your program properly and ensure transparency in tracking leads and sales, your affiliates wouldn’t mind waiting. Quite the opposite, they will get more attached to your product and will promote it more actively and organically. You can review commissions and set them based on the lead quality – in this way, affiliates are also more interested in bringing customers that will stay long with you.

To ensure the most accurate compatibility of traffic and offers – try IREV Lead Distribution.

Finance

Business, finance, and legal services are always in demand. These niches are often on the top of the list when it comes to the most profitable industries. Thus, they are rather popular among affiliates. Finance programs are also known for a relatively high commission percentage. As an advertiser, you need to keep it in mind – the desire to cut down on commissions might leave you without well-performing affiliates. If you want your finance affiliate program to do well, do not skimp on commissions.

At the same time affiliate are very careful in choosing finance programs, because once in a while they can come across fraudsters. That’s why it is very important to have a credible website and useful content to avoid being deemed “spammy”. By properly presenting your program and choosing the right partners, you can successfully grow your finance partner program and make a good profit from it. 

Travel

Travel niches are always popular, but what makes them so special? Well, people love to travel. In fact, many people wish they could travel more. To make that dream a reality, many people are always looking for ways to save money, and affiliate marketers can help people to achieve that by publishing useful content and travel tips. Successful affiliate marketing in travel niches is all about targeting the right audience. Travel bloggers and travel apps successfully connect with like-minded people who are interested in travel deals. These publishers are a gold mine for travel advertisers.

Gaming

A huge part of people love playing online games, and gamers love spending money. In fact, many avid gamers spend thousands of dollars every year on gaming accessories and products. 

The key to success in this niche is finding the right affiliate partners. It is important to only partner with gaming blogs and websites that have similar audiences. This will help you to attract the type of person who is likely to purchase the products that you recommend. Not all, but most gaming affiliates are gamers themselves. 

Gambling

Gambling is a term used to describe online gambling websites that allow players to access their favorite casino games from their smartphones or computers. Some of the most popular gambling niches include casino games, sports betting, eSports, and live casino games. If you own anything of the previously mentioned and don’t have an affiliate program yet, it is a high time you think about it as affiliate marketing is considered the biggest promotion channel for online casinos and such. As a gambling advertiser, you could expect traffic from mainly Facebook and Google, though there is a bit of restriction you need to take into account; as well as pop and push notification traffic. 

Gambling is one of a few niches that often provide either CPA/CPI or RevShare commissions. To attract experienced affiliates you need to have competitive payouts because the Gambling affiliate niche is well-known for its high rewards.

Additionally, in the gambling niche, you must have a solid tracking platform that besides clicks and conversions can also track first-time deposits.

Fashion & Beauty

The fashion and beauty niche is one of the most popular in affiliate marketing. There are several different products that affiliates and influencers can recommend to their readers and make a good profit in this niche. But just like with everything else, affiliates are searching for products of high quality that are very likely to be purchased fast. 

Fashion & beauty can be a tricky niche because it is so image-based. Therefore, for advertisers, it is vital to have a modern website and produce high-quality, attractive content. The content might turn a deciding factor here, thus advertisers should make an effort to create their program marketing collateral. 

Dating & Adult 

Dating affiliate niches are some of the most lucrative niches in affiliate marketing. Dating affiliate programs are used by dating websites such as Eharmony, Match, and many others. Some of the most popular dating affiliate niches include dating apps, dating websites, matchmaking sites, and sex-related products.

Similar to gambling, affiliate marketing for dating apps and other dating & adult websites is the best promotional strategy. Being very geo sensitive and having different geo tiers for promotion, the dating niche needs a wide coverage that is very expensive to achieve with traditional marketing. Having niched affiliates all over the world significantly increases the chances of getting a dating product to different markets. 

Additionally, due to the sometimes “spammy” ad image of dating and adult services, third-party promotion is exactly what companies need. There is whole different psychology over how to advertise dating and adult content successfully. Spammy-looking ads such as “discover hot singles near you now” work surprisingly well in this industry. But it is not something that brands themselves would publish.

Running a dating affiliate program will allow you to save costs on paid advertising, reach a wider audience and track the performance of all your publishers and the traffic they bring. If you are looking for ways to ensure high ROI, it is a way to go.

Pet Care

Last but not least, we have pets. And we love them! For some people, pets are like children, and pet owners are willing to spend a fortune on their four-legged friends. The popularity of pet care products makes it attractive for affiliates to step in and promote these products to their audience. Some of the most popular affiliate marketing niches in this category include pet food, pet products, pet health and wellness, pet adoption, dog training, and dog boarding services.

Do you sell pet care products? Launch an affiliate program without hesitation!

Instead of Conclusion

Which industry do you work in? Have you found it on the list? If your industry is not listed, it doesn’t mean that you should give up the idea of starting an affiliate program. We listed the top nine niches, but in fact, there are much more. There are niches not that saturated meaning that there is no competition and a higher chance to scale at a fast pace. 

No matter the niche, starting an affiliate or partner program is a wise thing to do. With the paid ads continuing to rise, all advertisers are looking for a possibility to minimize expenses without a loss in the number of leads. We hardly could think of any other promotion strategy that can make it real, besides affiliate and partner marketing.

Intrigued to try? Read our guide on how to start a partner program.