Evaluating Competition When Choosing an Affiliate Program

4 replies
I'm just getting into affiliate marketing and have narrowed my opportunities down to 6 niches. Where I'm struggling is determining which of these 6 is worth my time and effort.


Obviously I need to evaluate potential traffic/revenue and competition. Traffic can be ball-parked with Keyword tools, but are there any useful guides for evaluating the competition in organic search?


Are there hard & fast rules, like don't get into a niche where Amazon listing dominate the top 1-5 slots? Are these easily defeatable with better content?


I purchased an affiliate course but they skipped right over this part and it seems somewhat important.
#affiliate #choosing #competition #evaluating #program
  • Profile picture of the author The Niche Man
    First off congratulations. It's good to see someone actually taking the time to analyze before they ... monitize! Or get involved with an affiliate program. You're in the minority. Most just join because they like the product, others recommended it or the sales letter promised they can make a lot of money fast.

    But be careful not to over analyze. You seem to have the basics down, as far as evaluating potential traffic, revenue and competition.

    But I'd like to encourage you to also find ways to separate yourself from your closest competitors, other marketers in the same program as you are!

    How will you separate yourself from them? That should also go into the mix when deciding which program to choose. After you've analyzed the profit potentials, the final analysis will be which one lights your fire the most or excites you. Then stop analyzing ... and take aggressive actions!
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  • Profile picture of the author jbsmith
    The days of "easy" money with affiliate programs is over. What I mean by that is the days of out SEO'ing, paying for ads or simply beating the big affiliate programs to the easy places in the market are pretty much gone.

    What DOES work today is getting an audience/market to buy into you as someone who provides value to them in that space. That gets them to pay attention to you, to trust you and then buy from you.

    So, I wouldn't worry so much if Amazon or vendor Y is dominating in the search listings - I would focus more on can I make enough money within that niche given that I am going to go out and build a 10,000 person, then 100,000 person following...then break down the math and figure out if you can reach your financial goals with the affiliate program(s) available.

    Jeff
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    • Profile picture of the author bperniciaro
      Originally Posted by jbsmith View Post

      The days of "easy" money with affiliate programs is over. What I mean by that is the days of out SEO'ing, paying for ads or simply beating the big affiliate programs to the easy places in the market are pretty much gone.

      What DOES work today is getting an audience/market to buy into you as someone who provides value to them in that space. That gets them to pay attention to you, to trust you and then buy from you.

      So, I wouldn't worry so much if Amazon or vendor Y is dominating in the search listings - I would focus more on can I make enough money within that niche given that I am going to go out and build a 10,000 person, then 100,000 person following...then break down the math and figure out if you can reach your financial goals with the affiliate program(s) available.

      Jeff
      Any shorthand formulas you might use for this? Newsletter sign-ups times conversion percentage times average sale? Then figure out how many sign-ups you might get by the estimated traffic numbers?
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  • Profile picture of the author Makemoneylol
    When I am choosing the niche. I usually pick the one - that I have most affinity for

    You will have more motivation to work on the niche that resonates with you. I wouldn't worry much about competition - cause there are ways to bring direct traffic.
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