The rise of social media, blogs, and other content marketing services has brought about new services, and it’s bigger than you think. Believe it or not, the affiliate marketing industry is projected to reach nearly $30 billion by 2028.

Well, affiliate marketing can take a lot of forms, niches, and styles, and they can all be just as profitable. Luckily, it’s anybody’s game, including yours! Let’s talk about some lucrative affiliate marketing niches to choose from and how to get started with your new business! 

Best Affiliate Marketing Niches

Very quickly, let’s define what affiliate marketing is. Essentially, brands are constantly looking for new ways to reach their audiences, and when the average consumer sees over 5,000 ads a day, they become desensitized to them and skip over them. This poses a new challenge for brands.

To compensate, they often turn to content marketers with trusted audiences to promote their goods. Essentially, affiliate marketers are content marketers that refer their affiliates’ products to their audiences. Social media influencers, bloggers, YouTubers, and many more will fall into this category.

If that seems like a career that interests you, you can truly make it your own and turn your skills or expertise into a profitable business. Here are some great topics to choose from.

1. Health & Fitness

The health and fitness industry has plenty of high-ticket affiliate products to choose from. Most often, these include:

• Gym gear
• Supplements
• Nutritional services
• Workout/diet plans
• Other websites (online calculators, blogs, etc.)
• Applications (trackers, planners, etc.)

With such a wide range to choose from, all you have to worry about is building an audience. While some believe the health and fitness niche may be oversaturated, that’s not entirely true. New influencers, blogs, and people join the industry all the time and build massive followings.

There’s a strong market available for people who love exercise and nutritional advice. Our best advice would be to try to stand out in the field. If you can find a lane within the industry that needs more content, you’ll have an easier time.

For example, general bodybuilding and powerlifting blogs/vlogs have massive industry giants, but there’s plenty of room for vegan calisthenics advice and other niche topics. In some cases, a positive personality, different style, or entertaining delivery can be all the difference you need.

2. Tech

The tech industry as a whole is too massive to cover on its own, so finding a quality niche within it can really help improve your rates as an affiliate marketer. Computers, manufacturing technology, and more specialized niches could help you stand out.

For example, anyone with a background in audio/video tech, graphic design, web design, or anything else technology-related could start a niche blog about the topic. This will be easier for establishing yourself as an authority in the niche industry rather than competing with general tech giants.

3. Automotive

While you may argue this belongs in “tech”, we’re giving it a category of its own. There are so many niches within the auto industry, so you can choose whatever interests you. Electric vehicles, trucks, old sports cars, you name it.

4. Travel

Travel and tourism content is widely popular. Not everybody has the time or resources to travel the world, but it’s very entertaining and informative to get to see and learn about other areas of the world.

There are many opportunities to find niches within this field. There are plenty of popular travel niches like “goodwill” traveling, minimalist travel, budget travel, and so much more. If you love to travel or if you’re very thorough in your research, then this could be a great option for you!

5. Educational Content

All of your content is likely to be educational to a degree, but there is a high demand for general education. People who love to learn tend to jump around from topic to topic, which will require several websites. However, they often love to find hidden gems that cover a wide variety of topics.

This could include general education like history or science, as well as thousands of niches like geography, new explainers, book analyses, and so much more. This may be the widest topic on the list, but there is a high enough demand for it, and you can choose the topics that you want to discuss.

Unfortunately, this can be one of the more challenging ones to find affiliates for, especially with generalized education. However, once you have an audience, it will be easier.

6. Lifestyle

Do you love hiking, rock climbing, camping, or trying new coffee brands? There are thousands of different lifestyle niches you could write in. If you have particular experience with van life, biking, or anything that motivates you to get up in the morning, why not dedicate content to it?

The best part is that it doesn’t even have to be a full-time topic. It could easily be a side project on something you really enjoy. Thousands of websites offer “lifestyle” sections for all different types of content.

7. DIY How-Tos

This is a big one. People love saving money and learning arts, crafts, and repairs at the same time. Not only that, but it offers endless opportunities to find affiliates. If you’re handy, give it a try!

8. Home Life

Gardening, pet care, DIY home repairs, recipes, and so much more. You can write about all of the things that make you an at-home virtuoso and help others follow in your footsteps!

Best Products to Sell

As you read through this list, remember that there are millions of different products that you could potentially find affiliates to sell for. These are, by no means, the limit. However, here are some good ideas to help pique your interest if you want to start a successful affiliate marketing business.

1. Car Products

We’re not exactly talking about cars or aftermarket parts, although there is a strong market for both. Instead, car products as a whole can sell through affiliates in hundreds of niches.

Rideshare blogs, gig economy blogs, cleaning blogs, car repair, reviews, and so much more can benefit from selling various car products. To clarify, when we say “blogs”, we’re including all other types of content. Also, car products can include a wide range of products, including:

• Air fresheners
• Car vacuums
• Car organizers
• Car repair tools or parts
• Maintenance/Roadside services and plans
• Insurance plans
• Interior/exterior modification parts

The list goes on. If you love cars, this would be a well-rounded and versatile niche to start!

2. Drones

Drones sit at the perfect crossroads for anybody interested in photography (or art as a whole) and technology. This makes it a versatile item for different affiliate marketers. Drones are a great example of this as the technology is still improving and reaching new consumers. While health and fitness may have large crowds of existing followers, there are still large waves of first-time drone enthusiasts pouring into the field.

Well, that gives you an excellent opportunity to get in while the market is hot. No, drones aren’t new, but they’re still making it into households around the world. This means you have an opportunity to get ahead!

3. 3D Printers/CNC Machines

Another tech option is to try selling computerized manufacturing goods. These are becoming more popular for hobbyists and industrial businesses over time, and producers are always looking to market their products to the right audiences. Well, that’s where affiliate marketers come in.

4. Location-Specific Affiliates

Lodging services, book stores, and so much more will need to advertise their services for local traffic. If you write in tourism or travel, you shouldn’t have trouble finding a hotel, tour guide service, or other local affiliate willing to pay for some traffic. This could also work for car repair blogs, tech blogs, and more that want to recommend location-specific products or services.

5. Personal Equipment

Backpacks, camping gear, tools, and so much more. This type of equipment can easily be sold in lifestyle or DIY content, and there are thousands of affiliates looking for new marketing services!

How to Start a Successful Affiliate Marketing Business

Now that we’ve discussed the topics, something may have piqued your interest by now. If that’s the case, then here’s what you need to get started on your new online adventure!

Understand How Search Engines Work

Here’s an industry joke for you; where did the affiliate marketer hide the dead body? On the second page of Google.

If you’ve never heard of search engine optimization (SEO), it’s an important aspect of affiliate marketing, especially if you’re using your own website (instead of social media). It’s the process of optimizing your content for search engines like Google so that you can rank higher for specific keywords. A typical blog can’t last long without it.

While the term may sound intimidating, we promise it’s fairly simple to learn. Honestly, the majority of the entire process comes down to one word; quality. If you build a quality website with quality content, Google will be happy to offer your website to its users.

Also, quality content will help with the last pillar, which is off-page. Building backlinks (links from other sites to yours) is important to establish your authority in your specified niche. They act as a vote in your favor.

The more quality content you put out there, and the better your website, the more likely other people are to link to it. Still, understanding how they work can help improve your chances of ranking, but all of the information is public on Google’s SEO Starter Guide.

Build Your Brand

Your brand is not simply a logo or design on your website. Your brand is the persona that your new business represents. If you’re starting a blog, vlog, or any other type of content marketing endeavor, you’re starting a brand.

Before you launch that brand, you have to decide exactly what it is, who you’re talking to, and how you want to be perceived. This is entirely up to you, your target audience, and your values. Try to stay as consistent as possible with the tone of voice, font, color schemes, messaging, and more to solidify your brand’s identity.

Build Your Audience

Try using a healthy mix of marketing strategies. Relying too heavily on ads will likely cost you more than you earn from affiliate marketing.

Instead, try using social media, email newsletters, and SEO to build an organic audience over time. Of course, feel free to use paid ads as you see fit, but don’t neglect your organic marketing options as well. Again, continue promoting quality content within your needs, be as consistent as possible, and you will eventually develop an audience.

Find the Right Program

Once you have a following, it’s time to start affiliate marketing. There are several affiliate marketing programs to try, and any of them could be a perfect fit for you. Do your research and find a program that matches you within your industry and, congratulations, you’re an affiliate marketer!

We know that’s not a step-by-step guide, but it will certainly get you started. You can read more about affiliate marketing basics to get a better understanding moving forward.

Start Building Today

Now that you know the best affiliate marketing niches and products to sell, why not start building your audience? The sooner you start building quality content, the sooner you can live the dream of running your own affiliate marketing business. Get started today and stay up to date with our latest business tips to help keep your business successful!