Quick Answer: Some affiliate marketing niches are more competitive than others but that doesn’t mean you can’t still stand out from the crowd. With millions of potential niche ideas and keywords out there, there’s enough opportunity for everyone to succeed.
Some people believe success is limited and that someone else’s success reduces their chances of success.
In some professions that might be true, if you’re competing with colleagues for the same job promotion for example, but with affiliate marketing, I genuinely believe (on the whole) that there’s no need to compete because the online space is big enough for everyone to grab their slice of the action.
That being said, it’s true there’s higher competition in popular affiliate marketing niches and some stiff competition for particular Google rankings, if you work on yourself and work hard then you give yourself a greater chance to shine.
Your 2 Main Competitors In Affiliate Marketing
1. Other Affiliates In The Same Niche
This is the most common type of competition, and usually, it is not a problem unless you are in a crowded niche or if there are too many affiliates trying to sell the same product or offer.
It’s important to note here that some niches are more competitive than others, and some have more potential than others (for example, it’s harder to make money with affiliate marketing in fashion than online dating).
2. The Online Stores Themselves
This gets more complicated because merchants might not even know they are competing with affiliates (they don’t realize they’re competing for sales), but when it comes down to it – what matters is how much traffic you bring in comparison to other affiliates who are also promoting that merchant’s products or offers?
4 Biggest Affiliate Marketing Challenges
You’re not competing with 100% of affiliate marketers but merely 5%.
Why?
Because 95% of affiliate marketers quit within 12 months of starting out.
Affiliate marketing is hard when you don’t know what you’re doing and there are a lot of moving parts you need to put in place before the commissions roll in.
Let’s go through some of the biggest challenges you may encounter if you decide to become an affiliate.
1. Finding The Right Niche
The first challenge in affiliate marketing is to find the right niche. You have to identify a niche with good growth potential but low competition.
If you’re struggling to narrow down a niche, this video will help you out:
2. Driving Targeted Traffic
The second challenge is to build an audience for your affiliate website.
(And YES, you do need a website!)
This could be done by promoting your affiliate website on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc., or posting about it on blogs related to your niche. You can also use paid ads on Facebook and other social media platforms to get more traffic to your site.
3. Converting Visitors Into Customers
The third challenge is to convert visitors into customers through your affiliate website. Your earnings will be low or even zero if you do not convert visitors into customers! You need to create high-quality content on your site and ensure that it ranks well in search engines so that people can find it easily when searching for information related to their problem/need/issue etc.
Affiliate marketers must work hard to get new customers because conversion rates are usually low. This means you will have to invest a lot of time and money into your website before making money from it.
4. Outworking The Competition
If you want to master affiliate marketing and succeed in this business, you need to be aware that many other affiliate marketers are also trying to do the same thing as you. You will have to work hard to get ahead of them in terms of sales and profit margins.
These are some challenges faced by affiliate marketers but follow the right training and you can easily overcome them.
Becoming A Successful Affiliate Marketer In A Competitive Environment
The competition in some affiliate marketing niches is very high. Many websites offer similar products and services as you, so it’s complicated to stand out from the crowd.
However, there are also many ways to beat the competition and earn more money as an affiliate. Here are some tips that will help you succeed:
However, there are some ways to overcome this problem:
1. Be Your Unique Self
This is the best way to beat any competition and stand out.
You have a unique voice, style and approach. Some people will love it, others will hate it, but you’re naturally going to build a tribe of people who resonate with you.
So just be yourself – when you’re writing content, shooting videos, designing your website and interacting with your audience, keep it real and you do you.
Avoid done-for-you affiliate marketing systems where there’s no way to inject your personality.
Don’t go for the same keywords everyone else is going for.
And don’t say the same old thing everyone else is saying.
People will follow you, trust you and buy from you when you give them your unique take, share your first-hand experiences and give them your honest opinion.
2. Use Scarcity
Scarcity creates urgency in people’s minds and makes them want something more than before.
For example, if you make an offer like “Only ten left at this price,” people will feel that they need to act fast or miss out on something great!
3. Find A Niche Within A Niche You Can Dominate
The first step towards success in affiliate marketing is finding a viable niche market. A niche market has a lot of demand for products or services but not many suppliers.
Suppose you can find an untapped niche market. In that case, this will give you an edge over other affiliates because there will be no competition from other affiliates selling similar products or services in that specific niche market.
Let’s take the sports niche for example. That’s super broad and general and likely got a lot of competition.
What do you do?
You take a different angle and approach the niche in a way nobody else has done before.
If everyone else is talking about how to get fit in the gym, you talk about how to get fit at home with no gym equipment using only everyday household items.
You’ll immediately stand out and be different.
4. Multiple Advertising Plans
You need to try different marketing strategies to see which works best for your niche market and offer combination packages to your customers so that they get more than just one product or service when they buy from your site.
For example, if someone buys a course on how to make money online via affiliate marketing, then offer them additional tutorials on how to drive traffic to their website; if someone buys eBooks about home improvement projects.
5. Put Your Audience First
All you need to do is ensure you can provide value for your customers. The more value you can provide them, the more likely you’ll build loyalty. They’ll trust you and buy from you. This will incentivize them to promote your products, which means that other people might also be interested in buying from you.
6. Valuable Product
Another way of overcoming this challenge is by having a good product or service to sell.
When people see something good available in the market, they want to get their hands on it immediately!
So if you have something good to offer, they can also recommend your products or services to others!
7. Target The Right Keywords
I can’t emphasize this point enough.
There are literally millions and millions of keywords out there you can target:
Questions and phrases your target audience is googling.
Sure, the search volume might not be as high as some of the bigger keywords but who cares?
It’s a numbers game. Target enough of the keywords your competition hasn’t discovered and you’ll easily carbe out a niche for yourself.
8. If You Can’t Beat ‘Em Join ‘Em
Remember what is aid in the beginning about success not being in short supply?
When it comes to thinking about your competition in affiliate marketing, it might be useful for you to think about them more as fellow collaborators.
There’s no reason so-called “competitors” can’t help each other out.
- So reach out and do a link exchange
- Offer to send out one of his emails to your list if he’ll do the same for you
- Write a guest post for your competitor’s site to help expand your reach
- Interview each other on YouTube.
The possibilities are endless but the point I guess I’m making is this:
Instead of working against your competitors, why not find ways to work together and help one another succeed? Find the win-win.
Is Affiliate Marketing Competitive? Yes & No
It really does depend on your mindset and approach.
Affiliate marketing can be fiercely competitive if you go about it the wrong way.
Do it the right way, however (the way we teach at Commission Academy), and affiliate marketing can be a lucrative and rewarding career where everybody thrives.
