Is Affiliate Marketing Saturated In 2024? (Full Guide)
Affiliate marketing is a great way of earning some extra income on the side. That is why the business model attracts so many people. If you were to start affiliate marketing, would the competition be too hard? Is the affiliate marketing space saturated?
There is no secret that people all over the internet, regardless of industry, are using affiliate marketing to make money online. Even though the competition is high, it also means there is money to be made.
According to Truelist, Affiliate marketing is responsible for 16% of global eCommerce sales, which is a huge number. Even if you were to make a tiny, tiny percentage of that, you would be able to make a living off of affiliate marketing.
All-in-all, I would say that affiliate marketing is NOT saturated, you can still make money even if you’re just starting out. You just need to find a way to go around the competition.
Why Is Affiliate Marketing Not Saturated?
The only thing affiliate marketing is saturated with, are bad affiliates. Even though there is a lot of competition, you’re still able to make money. You just need to work your way around your competitors, you need to be creative.
The part you’ll face most competition is in generating traffic to your affiliate offer. What do you do to work around that? You simply choose to promote your affiliate product on another platform, to a different audience.
The reason affiliate marketing is not saturated is the fact that new affiliates make money online all the time. As long as people shop online, you’ll always be able to take a piece of the cake.
Your only task is to help people make a purchase decision, and take them to the sales page. That’s what marketing is all about. You don’t need to overcomplicate the process.
When starting affiliate marketing it’s important you have a plan to follow, so you have a chance to beat your competition. Down below I’ve listed 4 actionable steps that will help you beat your affiliate marketing competition.
How To Beat Your Affiliate Marketing Competition
Affiliate marketing can be a tough space to make money in, even if it’s not saturated. If there is money to be made, you will have competition. But how do you beat your competition as an affiliate marketer? Here are some tips.
1. Find Your Niche & Audience
you’ve probably heard this before, but it’s super important, and it will reflect on your earnings later on.
You need to choose a niche and a specific audience to serve. You can’t do affiliate marketing and be promoting all kinds of products, you must dive deep into a specific industry and target a specific audience.
This will massively reduce your competition.
NOTE: Unlike what many other ”gurus” say, you do not need to choose a niche you love, and you also don’t need to be an expert. Find a niche that pays the bills.
When you know what industry you want to be in, you should also take a look at your competition and find out what you’re up against.
You also want to find affiliate programs and networks in your niche, that pay out a decent affiliate commission.
Amazon associates could be an option, but they pay terrible commissions. You can also find affiliate products to promote on Clickbank, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Rakuten Marketing, and Awin.
When you’ve chosen a niche, audience to serve, and affiliate products to promote, it’s time to choose the platform you’ll generate traffic to.
2. Choose Your Platform To Get Traffic
The hardest and most important part of affiliate marketing is to generate quality traffic. This is where you need to beat your competition.
Even though affiliate marketing is not saturated, you’ll need to work like it is.
When generating traffic to your affiliate products, it isn’t good enough to just put your links out there. That’s not going to work. You need to pick and focus on ONE platform until you get it right, then you can diversify.
What platform should you choose? Here are some examples of where and how to generate traffic:
- Google SEO – Blogging
- YouTube – Create videos
- Medium – Write Articles
- Quora – Answer questions
- Facebook – Join groups and add value
- Instagram – Post Images
- TikTok – Create Short Videos
- Forums – Answer Questions
- Pinterest – Post Images
- Solo ads – Email Advertising
- Podcast – Share your Voice
- Facebook, Google, Youtube & Instagram ads.
That are some platforms where you can generate traffic to your affiliate product.
After all, it comes down to where your targeted audience is located on the internet. Some platforms are better for specific industries.
I would recommend you start generating traffic from Google or YouTube. These two platforms are two of the best. No matter what niche you’re in, your audience will be on Google and YouTube.
By choosing a search engine, you also have the ability to generate organic traffic which is most likely to convert into customers.
When you’ve chosen a platform to generate traffic, it’s time to create quality content.
3. Create Better Content Than Your Competition
This is the most important step in beating your affiliate marketing competition, create better content than they do.
If you chose YouTube as your platform to generate traffic, create longer, better and more videos than your competitors.
If you decided to create a website, write better, longer and more articles than your competition.
The same goes for any other platform. Create better content, give more value and genuinely care about your audience. Become their go-to source of information in your niche.
Don’t worry if you don’t see any instant results, it takes time to build an empire. Remember affiliate marketing is won in the long run.
The only thing you should be focusing on at this point is to create quality content. If you don’t know how to do it, take a look at your competition and module what works. Then make it just a bit better.
When you’ve published 40-50 quality pieces of content (articles or videos) it’s time to share your work. Get your name out there and start building authority in your niche. This is how you beat your competition.
4. Share Your Work
When you have chosen a niche, platform and created 40-50 pieces of quality content, it’s time to share it with the world.
To be honest with you, you probably won’t see huge results right after publishing the content, even though it is of high quality. That is because no one knows it’s there, but that’s about to change.
When people find you they will know you are an expert because of the quality and quantity of your content.
So how do you share your work? Here are some examples:
- Go to forums and answer questions, then link back to your content.
- Do interviews on podcasts and youtube, then say where they can find you.
- Write guest posts on quality sites, and link back to your content.
- Use paid advertising (only if you know how to do it).
By doing this you’ll reach a broader audience, and get authority links and mentions to your content. This is what the search engines like.
When you increase your authority, it will also be easier for you to rank the content you publish which leads to more traffic and more sales.
Final Words
Even though affiliate marketing is far from saturated, the competition is still there. By following the steps I’ve listed above you’ll have a better chance to beat your competition.
What makes affiliate marketing so competitive, is the fact that it’s very easy to start, you can get started with no money, and there are huge opportunities to make money.
The most difficult part about affiliate marketing is to get traffic. This is where you need to beat your competition. If you’re able to generate traffic, you’re able to get sales.
