It’s ok, I know you’re tired… we all are.
Because it’s no secret that blogging is hard (especially when you are also holding down a full time job!).
I mean, do you get to stumble home from work to be welcomed by TV and pizza?
No…
You have:
And wouldn’t it be great to just take a couple of days off because you know you are going to be enjoying a nice spike of income this month?
Well that is my goal for you by the time you reach the end of this post.
I have spent this afternoon trawling through the income reports of top bloggers and podcasters, exporting their affiliate sales data into a Google Sheet, just to make pretty pictures!
(Only kidding, the pictures are pretty but that’s not the point)
I want to provide a solid, data-backed answer to the question I hear asked only too often:
“What are the best affiliate products to promote?”
Because if you have built/are building an awesome relationships with your readers AND you select awesome products that will be of awesome use to your readers… you WILL be rewarded.
Yes, rewarded financially, but perhaps more importantly: rewarded emotionally as you will help your readers take their online career to the next level.
Introduction To Bloggers
In order to produce a reliable and useful answer to the question, I decided to take a cross section of blogs and podcasts from both ends of the income spectrum of the “make money online” niche.
The grandfather of online lifestyle business podcast, Pat Flynn’s affiliate sales make up the majority of his large monthly income.
Oct 2015 Affiliate Income: $87,484
Oct 2015 Total Income: $120,218
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @PatFlynn
It has taken John approximately 3 years to reach the dizzying heights of over $2.3m in income, with a significant contribution from affiliate products.
Nov 2015 Affiliate Income: $41,742
Nov 2015 Total Income: $152,275
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @johnleedumas
Listen to John on Rise of the Entrepreneur.
Famed for his brutally honest and detailed blog post breakdowns of his online activities, the majority of Matthew’s income originates from affiliate products.
Nov 2015 Affiliate Income: $23,071
Nov 2015 Total Income: $27,553
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @MattWoodwardUK
Listen to Matthew on Rise of the Entrepreneur.
Run by Dom, Human Proof Designs exists to make it easier to start niche websites
Aug 2015 Affiliate Income: $1,567
Aug 2015 Total Income: $16,233
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @Human_Proof
Shout Me Loud is an online community of passionate bloggers that are popularly referred to as “Shouters”.
Sep 2015 Affiliate Income: $11,126
Sep 2015 Total Income: $16,877
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @shoutmeloud
BloggersPassionAnil started Bloggers Passion in 2010 to be his virtual home and also to serve an audience that wants to do the same.
Oct 2015 Affiliate Income: $1,488
Oct 2015 Total Income: $1,500
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @bloggerspassion
Matthew Allen is full-time truck driver that also runs an awesome blog that tracks his journey to Dumb Passive Income.
Oct 2015 Affiliate Income: $2,487
Oct 2015 Total Income: $2,487
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @Matt76Allen
Tom started his blog to enable others to leave jobs they do not like to start business online that they do like.
Oct 2013 Affiliate Income: $1,556
Oct 2013 Total Income: $7,557
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @tomewer
Drazen is an internet marketer, online entrepreneur, and author and runs his blog to provide “All In One” blog posts that provide all knowledge necessary for a specific action within that one post.
Oct 2015 Affiliate Income: $961
Oct 2015 Total Income: $961
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @IncomeMesh
Nathan has a goal of replacing his income with passive streams whilst teaching others to do the same.
Nov 2015 Affiliate Income: $332
Nov 2015 Total Income: $1,758
Follow On Twitter For Further Income Reports: @IncomeBully
Sneaky Tip – Follow each of them on Twitter so that when they publish their next income report, you can keep up with the affiliate products that they are currently promoting.
What are the best affiliate products to promote?
OK, before we jump into the data, here are a couple of notes:
- Only affiliate data has been taken into account (other people’s product sold)
- Data was taken exclusively from the income reports referenced above
Let’s get into this, where are these top bloggers/podcasters making their affiliate income?
By income type, Services, Software and Information Products reign supreme over Physical Products, but let’s break this down into greater detail:
After categorizing all of the data from each respective income report it becomes clear that the largest section of affiliate income originates from Hosting Services, closely followed by Information Products and Other IM Related Software.
But what if hosting is not relevant to my audience?
Now, assuming you are in the “make money online” niche hosting IS probably relevant for your readership.
Regardless, the above chart shows that Information Products and Other IM Related Software could be your next best earners.
Ok, so hosting seems promising, but which hosting services is best?
Now either Bluehost has the BEST hosting service or they have an awesome affiliate program, either way that 91.3% majority doesn’t lie.
Bluehost offers a $65 commission for each monthly hosting referral, with unlimited earnings. Thus, if any of your readership may be new to the internet, you need to be offering hosting services.
Conclusion
OK, so there we have it…
It may be a good idea to look into promoting hosting services as an affiliate product in your next post, especially if you are aiming towards the beginner market.
But let’s not get distracted from the reason why affiliate promotions work on blogs:
People that like and trust you will buy stuff on your recommendation.
So I guess what I am trying to say is…
Spending time deciding which is the best affiliate promotion is futile unless you have already invested in the effort of building up a group of people that like and trust you.
And doing this is simple, but not easy:
Make their lives better
If you do… you will only have so many days left of returning from your full-time job to complete blogging activities, because you will be waking up to them 🙂
And finally, I have spent time make you pretty pictures so it is time for me to request a favor in return…
If you have a friend who is currently considering how to monetize his/her blog OR is considering affiliate products, feel free to use the social icons to the left to send over this post!
This post was contributed by, Tom, who is the Founder of Virtual Valley, a platform that connects Entrepreneurs and Rockstar Virtual Assistants with the mission of giving Entrepreneurs back 1 million hours of their time by 2018. Tom writes about how to grow your virtual business on the Virtual Valley Blog and gives free 1 on 1 marketing advice to EVERYONE that signs up here.