Written on July 8th, 2009 at 12:07 am by Darren Rowse

How to Find Profitable Affiliate Products to Promote

Affiliate Programs 69 comments

“How do I find affiliate products to promote on my blog?”

Last week I spoke with a small group of bloggers here in Melbourne over a coffee. One of the topics that a number of them were interested in talking about was affiliate marketing. They were struggling with the advertising as a model to make money from their blogs and wanted to branch out and experiment with affiliate promotions on their blog.

However wanting to get into affiliate marketing and actually doing it are two different things. There are a number of challenges to overcome first.

One of these challenges is finding the right product to promoted.

Choosing the right products to promote in affiliate promotions is crucial for a number of reasons – the two main ones being:

1. Relevant Products are Key – if your blog draws an audience centered around a particular topic or demographic you’re unlikely to be able to sell products that have no relevancy to your blog’s topic.

2. The Quality of Products can Impact Your Long Term Brand – promote low quality products and you could be hurting your brand. Readers remember who they heard about products from and their trust of you and your blog will be increased or decreased by what you recommend to them.

So – choosing the right affiliate product is crucial. It not only impacts conversions and profitability but it impacts your brand and relationships with readers.

How to Find the Right Affiliate Product to Promote

A few tips and thoughts on finding affiliate programs to promote come to mind:

  1. Google It – this one isn’t rocket science but it does work. If you have a Beauty Product blog google “Beauty Products Affiliate Program”. Insert your main keywords into that search and you may just find products that are relevant to your niche.
  2. Look at Your Competition – what products are other people promoting in your niche. Quite often a quick glance down the sidebar of another successful blog in your niche to see what products and services they are promoting will reveal affiliate products you could promote to (and it could also point you to some relevant advertisers to promote).
  3. Check out AdSense Ads – many of the AdSense ads appearing besides Google search results, on other blogs and even on your own blog are likely to be products with affiliate programs attached. Don’t click the ads on your own blog but checking out what the ads promote can reveal all kinds of potential affiliate partners. The same thing is true with other types of advertising. For example I was recently surfing on Facebook and saw an ad relevant for my blog – on clicking it I found a new product with an affiliate program that I’d not heard of before.
  4. Approach Potential Affiliate Partners – this one might not work if you’re a new blog with small traffic but as your blog grows you might find yourself in a position to approach the makers of a product or service to see if they’d start some kind of affiliate program for you. I’ve done this a couple of times over the last year and it has been great. The best part of it is that you get a head start on your competition for the promotion as you’re likely to be the only person promoting it.
  5. Search Affiliate networks – lastly there are quite a few affiliate networks around that list many affiliate programs. Most of these have search functions to allow you to type in keywords and find promotions relevant to your niche. Check out MarketLeverage, Clickbank, Commission Junction, PepperJam Network (disclaimer, MarketLeverage sponsors ProBlogger) and many more.
  6. Search Online Stores for Products – many online stores like Amazon have affiliate programs attached to them. In general the comissions are not massive (for example Amazon’s range from as low as 4% up to 15% depending upon the type of product and how much you sell) – I guess they have narrower profit margins) – but stores like this have a massive range of products and can be a good place to start while you build traffic and find other programs.

How do you find affiliate products to promote on your blogs?

PS: this post builds upon yesterdays post – What is Affiliate Marketing?

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69 Responses to “How to Find Profitable Affiliate Products to Promote” - Add Yours

  • Asswass

    July 8th, 2009 12:30 am

    I really like the Affiliate Partners idea. But I can tell you that for small blogs is easier than for big blogs, since amateur bloggers are always looking for other new bloggers who are interested in offering the same products or services.
    In my case my blog is only a couple of months old and I already found some new friends who are willing to partner up as affiliate marketers.

  • Corey Freeman | Blogger Bear

    July 8th, 2009 12:34 am

    Extremely useful and informative post! The kiwidia group was looking at getting into affiliate marketing for our blogs, and as it turns out, we’re not very experienced, haha.

    It’s an interesting suggestion to approach product makers, I’d never really thought about that. But what if the product makers don’t understand how affiliate marketing works?

  • Esoos

    July 8th, 2009 12:39 am

    If you’re on an affiliate landing page that links to offers, and you want to see what networks they’re using, use Live HTTP Headers in Firefox, click the aff link, then check the headers to see what network you were redirected through.

  • Mr. I

    July 8th, 2009 12:40 am

    Great tips! I hope those people read these who just go and write crap about products just for money!
    I have always promoted the products that I have personally used and had success with. For example, I used Chitika for 2 months(still using it) and after seeing (awesome) results, starting promoting it!

  • Roseli A. Bakar

    July 8th, 2009 12:40 am

    I agree that relevant products is the key to your blog success in promoting affiliate ads.

    If you are doing a blog on landscaping, find landscaping related affiliate programs and so on.

    Still google adsense is my top choice..

  • Raymond Selda

    July 8th, 2009 12:43 am

    Glen from PluginID has a case study on affiliate marketing. The case study will guide you in getting started will affiliate marketing. It has 11 parts and has topics like choosing your product, keyword research, picking your product and lots more.

    http://bit.ly/lNyIA

  • Tim

    July 8th, 2009 12:47 am

    I’ve used Amazon.com and a few other services that offered affiliate programs. I haven’t had much luck yet, but I’m still kind of small. I think I’ll try the suggestion about checking out the Google Adsense ads on my site and visiting their websites (without clicking them, of course). Thanks for the tips!

  • The Jack Review

    July 8th, 2009 12:52 am

    While I do agree that relevant products are key, I think point #2 is the more important aspect to affiliate products. Relevancy seems like it should be common sense, but choosing a legitimate and worthwhile affiliate partner is something that should be researched carefully in order to make a decision that mutually benefits you and your readers.

  • ITrush

    July 8th, 2009 12:55 am

    I usually Google it and after that check if there are lots of adsense ads.. (tips 1 and 3)

  • saurabh

    July 8th, 2009 1:00 am

    Well,
    you are completely right.

    But yes, its really a big blog’s game.

    http://jammyspeak.blogspot.com/2009/07/blogging-as-career.html

  • Patrick Parker

    July 8th, 2009 1:03 am

    I mostly let advertisers come to me and I screen their produsts and services to make sure that they are appropriately related to my niche.

    As a result, I do very little advertising on my blog, but the good side to that is I won’t be cluttering my page or advertising crap that will damage my brand.

  • 5starAffiliatePrograms

    July 8th, 2009 1:28 am

    Great article Darren!

    When it comes to the profitability part of the equation, after you find the products you want to promote don’t just look at who has the highest commission. Also compare cookie length, EPC and conversion rates. A product could pay a little less but have double the conversion rates and net you much more income.

  • Salman

    July 8th, 2009 1:38 am

    I like becoming an affiliate but the traffic growth is satisfactory when it is high I will surely become an affiliate

    Regards
    Salman
    Best Tips 4 Blogging

  • Nicholas Z. Cardot

    July 8th, 2009 2:03 am

    That long term credibility thing is what I always worry about. I don’t curry blog about affiliate programs, but the main reason is that I don’t want to sell myself out, so to speak, until I have proven that I am a credible source of information about these things.

    Nicholas Z. Cardot
    http://www.sitesketch101.com

  • Rob

    July 8th, 2009 2:08 am

    Hi Darren, great article.

    we just started our affiliate program a couple of days ago. Do you have any tips on how best to promote it?

    regards
    R

    http://www.goldmail.com

  • Online Business

    July 8th, 2009 2:23 am

    is it worth trying affiliate products on low traffic blogs ? i believe for a low traffic blog it is difficult to do great conversions, for every thing in blogging needs good amount of traffic.

    -Ven

  • Kelley Moore

    July 8th, 2009 2:38 am

    I have a blog on fitness and nutrition. I started it because I truly want to share what I learn with others so that they might have an easier and more successful journey than I have had. Since then, I have begun studying for my certification to personal train. I take the thought of helping other people seriously and have decided to keep focused and defined, and to endorse through affiliate marketing only products I have personally used and experimented with and believe will help people or enhance their experience. I’m trying to write reviews on them and let people know what I am doing with the products. I’ve had a small number of recent sales but find that my blog and exposure is slowly growing. It’s actually fun.

  • Alex

    July 8th, 2009 2:41 am

    Good points. I think when it comes to credibility and long term trust – you should be really picky when it comes to Clickbank products. There is just way too much junk on there. Being extremely selective will definitely pay off in the long run.

  • www.ebooksdock.co.cc

    July 8th, 2009 3:21 am

    Affiliate is a great way to earn.. but know very little about it.
    But trying to improve………

  • Prasanga

    July 8th, 2009 3:24 am

    I can recommend the clickbank rss feed generator. Thanks for sharing.

  • Nicole/MadlabPost

    July 8th, 2009 3:31 am

    I found affiliate programs to promote on my blogs by checking out the affiliate networks recommended by another blogger. I go through the networks to find products that I would buy myself and also find products or services that match what I blog about indirectly or directly.

    Surprisingly, I have recently noticed that Google adsense displays the exact same ads as my affiliate promotions so I have moved the adsense to no be a distraction on some of my blogs and websites BUT I noticed that my email subscribers are seeing the same ad twice sometimes when Google Adsense displays their ad in emails through feedburner. That has been something that concerns me sometimes but it only seems to occur on posts that are specifically geared toward a topic or optimized for a certain topic.

  • Matt Harris

    July 8th, 2009 3:52 am

    I’ve been spending alot of time doing exactly what you are talking about, I’ve done enough research that in the end I just end up second guessing myself and so I end up going in circles.

  • The Jack Review

    July 8th, 2009 4:12 am

    5starAffiliatePrograms makes a great point. Its easy to get distracted by one “big fish”. Sometimes the smaller metrics are the ones you need to pay attention to, and instead make your money through volume.

  • Nicky

    July 8th, 2009 5:04 am

    Okay, I’m new to this whole thing…when is the right time to introduce affiliate products?

    Thanks!
    Nicky
    http://bananaloggirl.wordpress.com/

  • Angelina Hostutler

    July 8th, 2009 7:55 am

    Hi Darren,

    I really enjoyed the article and I appreciate the tips you listed. Every time I think of trying something new, the first thing I do is google it. You really can find a lot of information this way and use that information to compare notes. I find that it helps me to see the pro’s and con’s of a product.

    keep up the good work!

  • Affiliates Mania

    July 8th, 2009 8:07 am

    what a great blog here. i love this blog look and i love to read your post here. thanks Darren for this post. looking forward to your next post. see ya

    -JohnJimat

  • Isaac Yassar

    July 8th, 2009 9:17 am

    You got that right, relevance is the key. Supported by solid traffic = prefect.

  • Mathew day

    July 8th, 2009 10:39 am

    Great post, you gotta stay relevant and find quality affiliate partners but at the same time you gotta think outside of the box. I find many of my products from forums and other related blogs. My blog is still pretty small but I’ve got some good ideas from this post for the future that I will implement.

    thanks!

  • Nidoszintern

    July 8th, 2009 4:03 pm

    Hi Darren . Excellent ideas . I am new to affiliate Marketing and still learning. I will practice what you advice here. Thanks again.

  • Devices Reviews

    July 8th, 2009 5:06 pm

    Great post. You are right. Choose the correct product to promote is key to success. Thanks for the tips.

  • marcus

    July 8th, 2009 5:32 pm

    sorry made a typo error..

    I agree that you should make your product sounds great so it can attract readers. Be wise in making blogs that has a point and making the topic interesting and not just going in circles. Thanks for this information. By the way, try posting this on http://www.freepressreleasecenter.com/ , so everyone can have a glimpse of this information.

    marcus
    Online Learning

  • Kathy Baka

    July 8th, 2009 8:06 pm

    Great post. I’ve learned a lot from your blog so far. Thanks.

    Kathy
    http://www.themlmbomb.com/

  • Dean Saliba

    July 8th, 2009 9:16 pm

    I agree that talking about affiliate marketing and doing it are two different things.

    I did not realise how much effort goes into afiliate marketing before you even pick a product!

  • Michael

    July 8th, 2009 10:33 pm

    I always appreciate how Darren puts things is very easy to understand language so that newcomers can grasp it.

    Picking an affiliate network is not something to be done lightly. Do some research before you make your selection.

  • Simon

    July 9th, 2009 12:08 am

    Affiliate marketing is a very tricky topic and is something that many people never really get under wraps. I myself and still learning and trying different affiliate marketing methods. As you said Darren, every blog has a different affiliate marketing potential and scope to build on. So you need to find the right product to promote!

    Good luck to all those affiliate marketing on takers, myself included :P

    Cheers
    Simon

  • Branko Zecevic

    July 9th, 2009 1:01 am

    Thanks for this tips! I like your comment about branding your name and reputation! I keep that in mind and try to do a lot more research about choosing the right affiliate products!

  • What's Offer

    July 9th, 2009 1:50 am

    Hi! Darren,

    Great sharing tips. I had just setup a blog fully on affiliate products. I may have my own domain name when everything properly done.
    I don’t know whether i did it on the right track? I am new in blogging.
    Sincerely invite you to visit my blog and hope you can drop me your valuable advise.

    Thanks & Best regards,
    Michael

    My new blog are http://whatsoffer.blogspot.com

  • Sean Davis

    July 9th, 2009 4:27 am

    I actually used the method of looking at my competition for ideas. Not only that, I thought about the products and services that I use myself.

  • Web Hosting

    July 9th, 2009 5:49 am

    Nice post! To find affiliate products that are right for you it is best to stick to what you know. Choose a topic that you have an interest in and have some knowledge about it.

  • David Stillwagon

    July 9th, 2009 6:02 am

    Great advice especially about checking out the adsense ads.

  • Kmanblogger

    July 9th, 2009 8:46 am

    I don’t really know why I keep putting off affiliate advertising for my site, could you guys tell me where to put it?
    http://www.e-zonlinemoney.blogspot.com/

  • Blogger Make Money

    July 9th, 2009 2:38 pm

    I absolutely like the Associate Partners idea. But I can acquaint you that for baby blogs is easier than for big blogs, back abecedarian bloggers are consistently searching for added new bloggers who are absorbed in alms the aforementioned articles or services.

    In my case my blog is alone a brace of months old and I already begin some new accompany who are accommodating to accomplice up as associate marketers.

  • cheap dofus kamas

    July 9th, 2009 4:03 pm

    I have never heard a successful blogger claim that becoming a success was easy, automated and that they did not need to lift a finger. But I have heard a lot of failed bloggers claim that blogging was not as easy as they thought it was going to be.

  • adelaide website design

    July 9th, 2009 4:43 pm

    Half of the time the most important thing is how the affiliates landing page looks. You won’t make any sales if they aren’t converting themselves.

    Ramsay

  • Haris

    July 10th, 2009 12:47 am

    i have a list of Top 50 Affiliate Networks. i am still finding out which of those in the list fit my blog. it’s not easy though for non english blogs to get approval.

  • Freelancer Online

    July 10th, 2009 1:37 am

    Im now looking for affiliate programms. I’ve not really an idea what i could promote on a freelancer blog, as it’s all virtual…
    Maybe i go for the amazon programm.

  • BloggerDaily

    July 10th, 2009 6:07 am

    Yeah. Affiliate is profitable when you know how to do it.

    I love to promote high quality products and new products. Why? Less competitive. But it doesn’t mean you have to stop promoting in a specific time unless the product is limited. More prospects come everyday so stop promoting a product will lead a loss.

    I got cash from affiliate by putting random ads on my sites. How about doing it seriously? Sure, it’ll give me more profit!

    Something to think about =D

  • mike

    July 10th, 2009 8:12 am

    The best products are the ones that match your blog as best as possible.

  • العاب

    July 13th, 2009 3:16 am

    Great post Darren ! thank you

  • Affiliate Ready

    July 14th, 2009 10:58 am

    This is the article that I am looking for. I am a newbie in affiliate marketing world and I needed this tip for me not to fall prey on many scams and fraud affiliate products.

  • 2Lincolns.com

    July 23rd, 2009 6:26 am

    Outside of Adsense, I really just use Amazon’s affiliate program now. I tried commission junction, but it required a little too much maintenance for my liking. Amazon is nice because everybody is familiar with it, they sell just about everything, and you can link directly to pages and products very easily with the Amazon Associates toolbar.

    The downside of Amazon these days is that they reduced the expiration of their cookies to 1 day from the previous 30. Can we get a middle ground of 15 please?

    Jeff
    2Lincolns.com

  • extenders

    July 26th, 2009 3:08 am

    The downside of Amazon these days is that they reduced the expiration of their cookies to 1 day from the previous 30.

    Actually I disliked the fact that they reduce it from 30 to 1 day. It does not make sense because it takes time to convince people to buy. They should perhap reduce to at least one to two weeks. This is more acceptable.

  • thigiru

    July 30th, 2009 6:31 pm

    yep, amazon is well known to many

  • new affiliate programs

    August 9th, 2009 2:50 pm

    Yes, it is always advisable to sell the products related to your blog. The other tips explained by you in making the right selection are excellent. I would just like to follow them. Thanks

  • Top Devices

    August 27th, 2009 5:31 am

    Agree totally that one should sell the products related to the blog. Relevance is so much importance nowadays.

  • Toshiba A505

    August 28th, 2009 4:59 pm

    Thanks for this great post, since now, I know how to earn more with my websites.

  • Travis

    August 30th, 2009 11:39 pm

    I’ve been running adsense for some time, and albeit having moderate success with that, I think that affiliate marketing will provide the push I REALLY need to get my blog moving. Thanks for the tips. I too agree that Amazon’s commission is a bit low, but the plus side is that it’s such a trusted and respected brand that many customers have no problems at all going to such a website.

  • Enhancement Pills

    August 31st, 2009 5:54 am

    Thanks for this great post. Now I have a better understanding of how I can monetize my site more effectively.

  • Joshua

    September 1st, 2009 5:04 pm

    Yes you can also sign up with Commision junction or click2sell for alot great products. But make sure it is not a scam ebook! you can tell if the front page is a guy on a boat or in a benz. Make sure it is not over sold meaning dont go out and say hey i am going to sell a twitter tool that everybody knows about.

    Look for
    -Quality
    -Exposer meaning is it a diamond in the ruff!
    -Scam! make sure no scams because that will make your readers made and leave you.
    -% you make 50/50 usualy good anything above that is great.

    on my blog i stoped doing affiliates untill i have reached the 6 month mark.

    http://dailycashsaver.blogspot.com/

  • Art

    September 4th, 2009 5:42 am

    I found some by Googling related topics, which led me to Commission Junction through the affiliate website. Once there I looked for similar affiliates.

  • Top Devices

    September 10th, 2009 7:29 pm

    The problem as an affiliate is that we have so many choices to choose from. To find a niche affiliate program will require lots of research and trial and errors. It is not easy as one thought.

  • MarketingSolutionz

    September 11th, 2009 1:32 pm

    Very well put….however there are a multitude of ways to find affliate programs depending on your specific niche alot of times they are outside the big box setups such as Commission Junction,Clickbank,LinkShare etc…..Homework is key and if by all means you use a “automated what’s hot setup” please do homework…..couple you may find handy are….MaxBounty and Plimus

  • thigiru

    September 11th, 2009 9:52 pm

    you know what? using this strategies, i have been able to make good fortune this month!

  • thigiru

    September 15th, 2009 7:47 pm

    some things are really worth trial.

    growth exercise.
    http://www.igrowtall.com

  • Top Devices

    September 16th, 2009 11:37 pm

    Yeah agreed. The article is very useful especially for beginner. Well done! Guys!

  • Cemil

    September 17th, 2009 4:46 pm

    Agree, great post.

    Is there a follow-up on this one?

    Is would be great if any future post contains some more ‘tips and tricks’ for use newbies.

    Thanks Darren.

  • freisprecheinrichtung bluetooth

    September 17th, 2009 9:43 pm

    I’m a big believer in promoting things that you would buy yourself or things you would use yourself. I’ve been working online gambling for several years even though i’m not a gambler i still love how sports and betting. I’ve also looked at several normal CPA offers and everything i go through the offers i fell like diet crap or credit cars no way i won’t even bother.

    But i have found some good ones like gamefly video game rental or netflix rentals.

    So all that to say that whatver you promote make sure your happy with it.

    Good luck.

  • Gary Homestown

    September 22nd, 2009 11:35 pm

    You can also get a good affiliate program at http://www.myshopping.com.au which offers a comparison tool for a 1000s of electronics and what have you.

  • thigiru

    September 23rd, 2009 8:54 pm

    Gary is right. That is also a source of affiliating products.


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