How To Find a Profitable Niche for Your Affiliate Marketing Business

If you’re reading this guide, you probably Googled “How to find a niche for Affiliate Marketing.”

Maybe you want to start with affiliate marketing. Perhaps you’re a seasoned affiliate looking to tap into a more profitable niche. Maybe you stumbled upon this guide by pure dumb luck.

Whatever the case, we’ve got your back.

We’ll show you a step-by-step process to find a profitable niche for your affiliate marketing business.

Let’s start with the basics.

Why Do You Need a Niche?

A niche is a group of people with shared interests. When you find a profitable niche, you tap into a group of people who are already looking to spend money.

It’s easier to sell to someone who is interested in what you have to offer than it is to sell to someone who isn’t.

If you try to be everything to everyone, you’ll end up appealing to no one. But if you zero in on a specific group of people, you can become the go-to authority in your space.

People are more likely to buy from someone they trust. And they’re more likely to trust someone who speaks their language and understands their needs.

For instance, if you’re trying to sell skincare products, it would be more effective to target a specific niche like “anti-aging skincare for women over 40.”

You can still make sales if you target a broader audience. But you’ll make more sales and better conversions if you focus on a specific group of people.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s look at how to find a niche for your affiliate marketing business.

The success of your niche marketing strategy will depend on:

• Competition
• Niche size
• Spending power
• Demand

Let’s take a closer look at each of these factors.

Competition

If there’s too much competition in your space, it will be difficult to make a profit. On the other hand, if there’s not enough competition, there may not be enough demand for your product.

The best niches have enough competition to keep you on your toes, but not so much that it’s impossible to make a profit.

Size

The size of your niche market will be determined by the number of people who are interested in what you have to offer.

If you’re in a small niche market, you may only be able to make a few sales per month. But if you’re in a large niche market, you could make hundreds or even thousands of sales per month.

Spending power

The spending power of your niche market will be determined by the amount of money they’re willing to spend on your product.

For instance, if you’re selling a $500 product, but your target market only has a spending power of $200, then you won’t be able to make any sales.

It’s important to understand the spending power of your target market so that you can find affiliate products that they’ll be willing to buy.

Demand

If you’re not sure how to determine the demand of your target market, then you can use a tool like Google Keyword Planner.

Just enter your target keyword and it will show you the average monthly search volume.

This will give you an idea of how many people are searching for that keyword each month, which is a good indicator of demand.

How to Own Your Chosen Niche in 5 Steps

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s look at how to find a niche for your affiliate marketing business.

Step 1: Start with a specific audience

Niche marketing starts and ends with a specific audience - the more specific your audience is, the better.

The best way to find your target audience is to start with a broad group of people and then get more specific from there.

For example, if you're selling project management software, your target audience might be small businesses. But from there, you can get more specific by targeting a specific industry, like construction or event planning.

Once you've got your target audience pegged, you can start to think about what kinds of products or services they might be interested in.

Step 2: Research the audience

The next step is to do your research and find out more about your target audience.

This includes things like:

• Demographics: their age, location, gender, etc.
• Psychographics: their interests, values, and lifestyle choices.

The more you know about your target audience, the better equipped you are to find products or services that they'll be interested in.

You can analyze testimonials and product reviews in online marketplaces to find a gap or what’s missing in other people’s products.

Step 3: Research the product

Once you've got a good understanding of your target audience, it's time to start researching products.

The goal here is to find products that your target audience will be interested in and that you can promote as an affiliate.

To do this, you can search online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, or you can use a tool like Google Trends to see what products are trending.

Better yet, you can use Reditus' marketplace to find SaaS products with affiliate programs. This will save you a lot of time and effort in your product research.

Step 4: Check out the competition

Before you settle on a product, it's important to check out the competition.

You want to make sure that there's enough demand for the product and that you can actually make sales.

Contrary to popular belief, competitiveness is actually a good thing - competition means a huge demand. 

In simpler words: there’s so much money flowing around competitive niches.

All you need to do is find a unique angle. 

Here’s how:

1. Find a traffic source your competitors don’t use

There are endless ways to get traffic to sites:

• SEO
• Paid traffic
• Social media
• Forums
• Guest posts

You have to work out what your method will be and whether it’s achievable.

2. Find your own sub-niche

If looking to offer weight loss advice to men over 50, you niche down and offer advice on men over 50 who have heart problems.

To calculate competition:

• Average cost per click (the higher, the more competitive the niche is)
• Head over to google > search for your main keywords > analyze results

Find how many companies are bidding for those keywords.

Step 5: Find a unique angle and defeat the competition

You do not have to reinvent the wheel, but you do have to do something different.

To find a unique angle, you need to understand your target audience better than anyone else and offer them something they can’t find anywhere else.

As an affiliate, you’re offering the same product as many more people.

How can you stand out?

There are two main ways:

1. Your content

If you produce better, longer, more thorough information than the other affiliates, you can build an audience of loyal followers who will trust you and, eventually, buy from you.

For example, you could build a “software reviews” where you compare different SaaS products. You could compare pricing, features, and benefits, and present the same products in a new light. 

This is just an example, of course.

The idea is to think outside the box and outsmart your competitors in terms of the value you provide to your target audience.

2. Additional value

Instead of just promoting the product directly, you could build additional value that makes you stand out.

For instance, let’s say you’re promoting a CRM platform.

In that case, you could create a mini-course on how to get the most out of that platform and give free access to the people who purchase using your affiliate link.

Even though many other people would be promoting the same product, the additional value you provide would make your offer more attractive.

Think outside the box.

A rule of thumb is to follow the opposite direction of the masses.

When everyone zigs, you must zag, and vice versa.

Finding a unique angle to promote your affiliate products will help you stand out in a sea of me-too affiliates. 

Conclusion

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to earn passive income online.

But before you start, it's important to do your research and find a niche that you're passionate about.

Once you've found a niche, it's time to start researching products and finding a unique angle that you can use to defeat the competition.

If you follow these steps, you'll be well on your way to success as an affiliate marketer.

Meet the author

Joran Hofman

Back in 2020 I was an affiliate for 80+ SaaS tools and I was generating an average of 30k in organic visits each month with my site. Due to the issues I experienced with the current affiliate management software tools, it never resulted in the passive income I was hoping for. Many clunky affiliate management tools lost me probably more than $20,000+ in affiliate revenue. So I decided to build my own software with a high focus on the affiliates, as in the end, they generate more money for SaaS companies.