Best Niches for Affiliate Marketing
Written by Casey Botticello
Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links, meaning that at no additional cost to you, I will receive a commission if you click through and make a purchase. Read our full affiliate disclosure here.
While finding the right niche for your blog can be a daunting task, choosing a niche that lets you optimize your blog affiliate marketing efforts is essential to making money online. Niche blogging and affiliate marketing are geared towards maximizing profits by allowing bloggers to identify the best markets to speak to while providing the most relevant affiliate opportunities that benefit their partners, the audience, and themselves.
We’ve identified the best niches for affiliate marketing, shortlisting the top sub-niches in each category and giving examples of some of the affiliate programs which are paying bloggers sustainably and well.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a monetization process whereby bloggers and content creators partner with brands and businesses by promoting their products and services to their audiences. Bloggers can include links in their blog content, directing their readers to a partner’s website where cookies are used to track their behavior once there or provide affiliate codes for their readers to redeem.
Then, if a reader takes a desired action by, say, making a purchase or signing up for something, the brand pays the blogger a commission. There are many different affiliate marketing programs around, with traditional companies as well as digital platforms and apps using bloggers to help convert readers into customers.
Why brands use blog affiliate marketing
Bloggers are experts at tapping into specific markets that brands often struggle to reach. While a company has many different things to worry about, bloggers are free to focus all of their energy, time, and resources on one thing – creating high-quality content for their select market.
A brand’s marketing efforts are often seen as having only one goal – convince them to make a purchase or take an action that directly benefits the brand itself. Bloggers, on the other hand, rely on trust and topic authority to attract readers to their sites. This means that people are often more likely to trust a blogger’s opinion than they are a mainstream brand message, making a blogger an excellent marketer and a lucrative conversion driver for the business.
Why bloggers use affiliate marketing
Among the many ways bloggers can make money online, affiliate marketing is one of the most popular and easy to use. Affiliate marketing options can generate long-term, sustainable income for content creators, and many programs exist that pay out lucrative commissions for sales, registrations, and even page views.
Affiliate marketing is widely available and – unlike some top ad networks – often requires specific traffic and performance metrics before a blogger can apply. Brands view bloggers who operate within high-value, unique niches as impossible-to-ignore opportunities and are willing to pay top dollar for access to their audiences.
Niche Blogging
Niche blogging involves creating highly unique content for a particular group of readers. While some niches are incredibly competitive, others are not, providing exciting opportunities for bloggers to exploit sectors and segments by offering valuable resources to readers. If a blogger manages to find a lucrative niche and then generate content that attracts readers to their blog, they stand to make good revenue for doing so.
But niches are constantly changing, with new sub-niches, reflecting shifts in online trends emerging and disappearing almost daily. That’s why niche blogging presents such a lucrative opportunity for bloggers looking to find a space to monetize their content with blog affiliate marketing options.
Finding the right niche for affiliate marketing
Not all niches are suitable for affiliate marketing. Low-profit or slow-traffic market segments are tough to monetize, and some are too narrow or specific for brands to want to operate in. But some niches strike a perfect balance between traffic, profitability, and content potential, and these are the ones that bloggers are looking for.
Niches that contain audiences with money to spend and people with a need for what brands have to offer them are perfect affiliate marketing candidates. Companies are always looking for bloggers who have access to those market segments.
Best Niches for Affiliate Marketing
We’ve picked some of the best niches for affiliate marketing and listed the sub-niches which are most suitable for blog affiliate marketing opportunities. We’ve also listed some of the affiliate programs offered by companies to give you an idea of who is open to partnering with bloggers.
1. Technology
PCs & Laptops ∙ Cloud Computing ∙ Software reviews
Technology is a hot topic online right now. Everywhere you look, people are launching new tools, programs, and hardware that is reshaping the world as we know it. Brands aiming to promote their offerings have realized that blogs are one of the best ways to get the word out and are presenting technology bloggers with many great affiliate opportunities to partner with them.
- Example: Kinsta’s affiliate program pays bloggers between 5% and 10% for referring readers to their hosting service – forever.
See more tech blog affiliate programs for bloggers here.
2. Blogging & Web Design
Monetized blogging ∙ Productivity tools ∙ Website-building tools
Blogging about blogging and web design has been a booming trend for some time now. Since COVID-19 forced many creatives to rediscover their writing talents, more and more people are looking for ways to earn revenue for blogging. Creators are also broadening their horizons, creating and monetizing websites that generate hefty passive incomes.
- Example: ConvertKit offers a great program that pays creators recurring commissions of up to a whopping 30% for sharing their email marketing solutions with friends and associates.
3. Travel
Adventure travel ∙ Eco-travel ∙ Budget-friendly travel
The travel niche is a wide-ranging, highly lucrative market segment where many bloggers already operate. But as borders re-open and more and more people find ways to work remotely, companies and brands who serve the travel sector are turning to bloggers to help them reach their customers.
- Example: Tripadvisor’s partner programs offer their affiliates up to 50% commissions on bookings that originate from their blogs.
For a list of the best affiliate programs for travel bloggers, click here.
4. Food & Cooking
Home cooking ∙ Grocery delivery services ∙ Kitchen appliances
The food blog niche is, without question, the biggest around at the moment. Thousands of bloggers all over the world are netting eye-catching incomes by publishing sponsored posts and advertising on their highly-trafficked blogs. But in an era of air fryers and home chefs, food niche affiliate marketing is taking off like never before
- Example: BBQ kings, Grill Masters Club’s affiliate program pays their partners up to 10% per sale on their BBQ products and accessories each time someone buys something via your blog.
5. Moms & Parenting
Baby products ∙ Books ∙ Toys ∙ Clothing
There’s something in the moms and parenting niche for everyone, and the endless list of brands operating within it is a testament to this online sector’s success. Busy parents and expecting mothers are always on the lookout for quality content that provides them with tips and hacks that make raising children easier. Perfect for adding affiliate options.
- Example: Undercover Mama offers affiliates 10% commissions and some tasty incentives and bonuses for bloggers sending paying customers their way.
Click here to find more affiliate programs for bloggers that pay well in the Moms blog niche.
6. Education
eLearning ∙ Teaching tools ∙ Online courses
If ever the education niche was booming, it’s now. With increasingly concerned parents schooling their kids at home, teachers looking for innovative tools to boost their curriculum, and millions of people looking to upskill online, bloggers are cashing in on the surging demand for online learning solutions.
- Example: Coursera’s affiliate options pay as high as 45% per registered customer and keep paying out even when new customers who originated for your blog sign up for more courses.
7. Health & Wellness
Nutrition ∙ Fitness & exercise ∙ Mental health
People today are more conscious and aware of their health and wellness than ever before. Between increasing levels of chronic, avoidable diseases and in the wake of a global pandemic, the health and wellness niche continues to grow. And businesses are taking advantage, with pharmaceutical companies and healthcare brands roping in bloggers to help them reach their massive market.
- Example: Fitness tracker pioneers Fitbit may offer their affiliate partners a lower-than-usual 3% commission in return for promoting their products, but their premium status and higher prices mean affiliate revenues are still rosy.
See more health and fitness affiliate programs here.
8. Gaming
Online gaming ∙ Gaming competitions ∙ Gaming equipment
Gaming is huge, with millions turning to a multi-billion dollar industry oozing with potential. While the gaming blogging niche tends to be a very competitive one, brand players are offering lucrative affiliate programs to niche bloggers willing to punt their goods and services to a generation of cash-flush gamers.
- Example: Dell’s gaming computer and hardware subsidiary, Alienware, is offering their affiliate partners up to 6% commission for helping them to promote and sell their premium gaming equipment.
9. Home & DIY
Home hacks ∙ House improvements ∙ Renovations
Anyone who owns a house and is looking to maintain or improve will agree about how helpful blog content can be to learn and upskill themselves when taking on home projects. Contractors, big-box hardware players, and DIY equipment suppliers are always looking for content creators to market their wares and drive traffic their way.
- Example: Furniture and décor titans, Wayfair, offer their affiliates about 7% commissions for sales originating through their content, claiming an average order size of around $300.
10. Fashion
Affordable shopping ∙ Sustainable fashion ∙ Seasonal fashion trends
The fashion niche has been around for a long time, with many bloggers spending years building up enormous loyal followings. Driven by social media exposure and more ethically conscious markets, the fashion niche is perfectly primed for productive blogger-fashion brand affiliate partnerships.
- Example: Longtime online retailer Zappos credits much of its international success to long-term partnerships with partners around the globe. Their affiliate programs pay up to 7% for creators who send them customers (who reportedly spend an average of $150 per purchase) and have invested heavily here by establishing dedicated affiliate support teams.
Check out this guide for more fashion affiliate programs for bloggers.
11. Pets
Pet care ∙ Pet toys ∙ Pet tips & training
As information central for everything related to our furry family members, the Pets niche is a thriving content sector that has already established itself on the blog affiliate marketing front. With many pet owners buying their pets’ food, medicines and accessories online, pet brands and companies are well-known for offering great affiliate marketing programs.
- Example: Dog GPS and health tracking innovators, FitBark, offer affiliates impressive 12% commissions along with a generous 60-day cookie retention policy for helping them to promote and sell their products.
12. Art & Graphic Design
Design software, Arts & crafts equipment, Graphic design tools
The world of art and graphic design is taking center stage online, with artists, creatives, and designers finding new ways to monetize their talents every day. The demand for design software and tools is bigger than ever, and countless innovative startups and emerging platforms are turning to bloggers to help them get the word out.
- Example: Canva’s affiliate marketing program is already famous for paying out their partners up to $36 for each new Canva Pro subscriber who signs up using the content creator’s unique referral link. Not too bad.
Conclusion
As the eCommerce boom continues and more and more people turn to the internet for information, brands and content creators are coming together at record speed, collaborating on new, innovative revenue models and partnerships.
Blog affiliate marketing is fast becoming among the top revenue options for online entrepreneurs, and bloggers who have mastered the art of niche blogging are seeing impressive returns for their efforts.
Niche blogging allows creators to tap into rich consumer markets whose audiences depend on making their buying decisions based on the high-authority content provided for them.
Whether looking to sign up for a new digital platform or tool, or considering making a big-ticket purchase online, bloggers have tremendous power in informing, educating, and influencing these decisions.
Brands know this, and that’s why they’re happy to reward their partners handsomely for sending ready-to-buy customers their way. So, finding the best niches for affiliate marketing has never been more important.
Welcome to a brave new world where everybody wins!
