The affiliate marketing industry is a cornerstone in modern marketing and it accounts for roughly 15% of the digital media industry’s revenue. Companies of all sizes rely heavily on affiliate marketing to bring organic sales to their business. With thousands of affiliate marketing programs, marketers have a plethora of opportunities to capitalize on lucrative affiliate deals. Although the affiliate marketing industry is performing well, there are several promising trends that are emerging that can shape the future of the industry. Some of the trends you should be aware of include:
1. Increase in affiliate marketing blogs
Blogs remain a dominant medium to capture organic traffic and convert it to affiliate sales. There has been a sharp increase in the amount of affiliate marketing blogs that have emerged in 2021 and this trend is likely to continue in 2022. Savvy bloggers can target purchase-intent keywords and write informative blogs on products and services and gain an affiliate commission. With SEO, blogs can get predictable organic traffic to purchase-intent blog posts and generate passive affiliate sales. This makes it easy to earn revenue without having to deal with customer service or anything related to the products/services being sold.
There are many new affiliate sites being created in lucrative niches like finance, crypto and similar industries. Ranking in the top results for a lucrative keyword can mean thousands of dollars in affiliate sales per month. Additionally, with the rise of SEO and AI tools like SurferSEO and Jarvis, bloggers can create SEO-optimized posts for new products and start getting traffic to affiliate posts very quickly. Major media brands are also starting to use their brand and authority to target affiliate keywords also.
2. YouTube affiliate marketing
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and it’s a relatively newer platform for affiliate marketing. Since there are less marketers and companies publishing videos that target affiliate marketing keywords, it can be extremely lucrative. With YouTube, you don’t need a high subscriber channel to start getting views. If you target a keyword with enough demand, you can start getting thousands of views immediately and start making affiliate sales.
What’s great about YouTube is that it opens up additional monetization opportunities. With a single YouTube channel, you can add affiliate links in the keywords, monetize with ads, work with sponsors, create a digital product and more. Marketers are starting to rush to YouTube for additional affiliate marketing opportunities due to its novelty and lack of affiliate competition. This will be an increasingly dominant trend over the next few years in affiliate marketing.
3. Rise in influencer affiliate marketing
Influencer marketing has been around for years, but the rise of different platforms has led to new kinds of influencer marketing. Typically, influencer marketing is dominated by influencers with large audiences, but social media platforms today are empowering smaller creators that are often referred to as micro influencers. These micro influencers typically have a niche audience and a small to medium-sized audience. There’s a ton of affiliate marketing opportunities for these creators due to their niche and intimacy with their audience. Generally, these influencers link out to affiliate programs like Shopify, Amazon and other brands.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are empowering these creators and they have numerous affiliate marketing opportunities. In fact, TikTok recently overtook Google as the most visited website on the internet. Micro influencers are using the virality and network effects of social media to market products and services to their audiences. This is a very interesting trend that will continue to increase in prominence in 2022.
4. Recurring affiliate programs:
Recurring affiliate programs are the holy grail for affiliate marketing and passive income. With recurring affiliate programs, marketers can get paid a commission for each month that someone they referred uses a product or service. Since these programs are so lucrative, it attracts many affiliate marketers to write blog posts, create videos and promote these services on all platforms. This is a great marketing tool for companies because it increases their word of mouth dramatically without any additional work on their end.
These types of affiliate programs used to be used by companies in competitive industries like web hosting and email marketing, but it has trickled out to other niches in affiliate marketing. Ultimately, this is great news for marketers because there will be more great affiliate programs and keywords to target. The more recurring affiliate programs there are, the more money marketers will make from promoting these products and services. You can start finding these types of programs by searching for “your industry + recurring affiliate program” on Google. Additionally, you can use a keyword research service to find low competition keywords and rank easily for them. Not all recurring affiliate programs are great, so make sure to do due diligence prior to promoting any product.
5. Google’s third party cookie ban:
Since 2020, Google has been delaying their decision to remove third party cookies from Chrome. Google has been attempting to remove third party cookies from sites in order to promote privacy, but their deadlines have been pushed back several times and now they are aiming to roll out the ban in 2023. This will create shockwaves across affiliate marketing because many marketers and companies rely on third party cookies for affiliate sales. If Google were to remove them, this means a sharp decline in revenue for the affiliate marketing industry.
Governments, particularly in countries in the EU, have threatened heavy fines against Google and other tech giants for their misuse of consumer data. Google hopes to remedy some of their past misbehavior by removing the third party cookies that collect data on users who use their search engines. With the rise of Google’s “Privacy Sandbox” and compliance laws like GDPR, data tracking is expected to be reduced and this can mean less revenue for the affiliate marketing industry.
These practices are just some of the market trends you should be aware of in 2022. To learn more on how you can get started with affiliate marketing, demo JVZoo here.
Writer Bio –
Ali Ali is a content marketer and blogger at alisquared.co.
When he’s not guest posting, you can find him link building and learning about technical aspects of SEO. He can be reached at [email protected].
