0

Is Affiliate Marketing Saturated? Is It Too Competitive?

Imagine being super-excited to get started with affiliate marketing, only for some jabroni to tell you that it’s super-saturated and near impossible to succeed.

Talk about taking the wind out of your affiliate marketing sails.

I’ve got years of experience when it comes to affiliate marketing, so let me help you out.

So Is Affiliate Marketing Saturated?

In other words:

• Some aspects of affiliate marketing are saturated.
• Other aspects of affiliate marketing are ripe for the picking (so to speak).

Before I give you a few examples, be sure to take note of the trend (in the image above) when it comes to the affiliate marketing business model.

It always seems to be going up and down, and in my opinion, that is certainly a good thing. The more that other companies need the help of affiliate marketers like yourself, the better.

Now allow me to give you a few examples when it comes to saturation with Facebook.

• You might see saturation in Facebook ads.
• You might see some saturation in Facebook groups.

You also need to keep in mind that these are very small aspects when it comes to Facebook overall. There are always plenty of other niches and offers that you can dive into (when it comes to promoting them).

Let’s say that one specific group that you like has 90% of people doing lead generation, and it makes you feel like the group is ultra-saturated. What can you do from here?

• Take the conversation to your profile.
• Find one of the many other thousands of groups.
• Start reaching out to people through Facebook messenger.
• Create your own Facebook group and make that “saturated” (that’s a good thing).

This is what I refer to when certain aspects of affiliate marketing are saturated. In this example, it’s not too difficult to pivot and find a better plan of action.

Here is another example when it comes to affiliate friendly launch jacking method. Let’s say that a lot of people are doing video reviews for a certain product.

In other words, it has become “too saturated” for your liking. What can you do from here?

• Skip that product launch and review something else.
• Review it anyway and send your email list to your video.
• Up your YouTube skills and get that video higher on YouTube.

Heck, I’ve done this before. There have been times where I noticed a specific product was too saturated for my liking, so I simply skipped it, moved on, and found a different offer.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen affiliates go through a similar situation and think that “all affiliate marketing is saturated”, just because a lot of people were promoting a product launch.

That’s a reason why many affiliate marketers fail. It’s much more of a mindset thing, as opposed to being an “it’s too saturated” type of thing.

I also understand that the words saturation and competition can often go hand in hand. So without any further ado, let’s discuss the competition when it comes to affiliate marketing.

Is Affiliate Marketing Too Competitive? How To Beat The Competition

As an example, I am going to use SEO as an example of competitiveness. When doing search engine optimization, it is imperative that you are aware of some of the most competitive niches.

I bring this up, because if you are a newer affiliate and you don’t have a lot of money to spare, then you are going to want to do whatever you can to avoid these types of niches.

Some of these highly competitive niches can be:

• Casino.
• Adult stuff.
• CBD related.
• Credit card stuff.
• Health and weight loss.

In case you weren’t aware, some of the niches above require a budget of at least $10,000 per month, just to compete. Reasons like that are why beginners shouldn’t even think about niches like that.

So if you’re an aspiring affiliate marketer and you wanted to do SEO, you might want to take the loss and find a better way of making affiliate commissions.

Once again, this is me upfront saying that there is competition when it comes to affiliate marketing. However, there doesn’t have to be.

Why not pick a simple niche and start building up from square one? That’s exactly what I have done with this website and many others.

So regardless of what traffic method or niche that you’re going to leverage, I want to give you a few tips when it comes to beating the competition.

It might not be as much of an uphill battle as you think it might be. Unless of course, you want to do SEO for credit cards, then I will just have to wish you the best of luck, but you’d need a lot more than that.

1) Having A Little Amount Of Money Isn’t An Excuse

I understand this is more of a statement/rant instead of a tip, but I feel that it’s something that most new affiliate marketers need to hear.

I first foolishly started affiliate marketing when I was on unemployment. I say foolishly because I didn’t have a job or an income to help me build as fast as I might have liked.

Related: About affiliate marketing and full-time jobs.

In case you were wondering too, I was bringing in around $50 a month from unemployment which was equivalent to a slap in the face, and that’s about it. The reason it was so low was that I didn’t get many hours from the job in the first place.

Anyways, I bring this up because I found so many ways to make affiliate marketing, even when I didn’t have a whole lot of money.

• I used a TON of free traffic.
• Building an email marketing list helped me a ton.
• Facebook fan pages (when they were big) helped me a ton.
• And don’t forget about launch jacking on YouTube which still works today.

Related: Launch jacking on YouTube explained.

Once I started making my affiliate commissions, I started investing in paid traffic to really build up my list and skyrocket my success.

So please keep in mind that there is always a way to make affiliate marketing work. Just be realistic when it comes to the results that you can see, especially if you are going with the free traffic methods.

2) Avoid The Ultra Competitive Aspects Of Affiliate Marketing

I mentioned this previously but wanted to bring it up again in case it was passed by or simply missed. There are going to be two aspects to this tip:

1. First, figure out what the ultra-competitive aspects of your strategy are.
2. Avoid them.

I talked about how SEO comes with specific niches that beginners should avoid like the plague, and the same goes with other traffic sources.

Here’s the cool thing about this aspect, you can always ask others if you are unsure. Facebook groups are a great place to start, just keep in mind that you might not always get the best opinions.

From my experience, most people who are kicking butt and taking names are busy working, and not necessarily sitting around on Facebook and talking with others.

That’s why it’s good to join courses that come with gated communities where you can get answers from experts, or people who created the product.

Either way, I think you get the idea here. Avoid the ultra-competitive aspects of affiliate marketing, as there are plenty of other areas to have your affiliate marketing presence felt.

If you’re feeling more ambitious when you make more money and have more experience, then you can possibly look into some of the more competitive aspects of affiliate marketing.

3) Don’t Be Afraid To Invest In Your Affiliate Marketing Success

I’ve talked a lot about how you can first start navigating the affiliate marketing waters, but this tip is going to be for once you get a little bit more experience. In other words, once you start making more commissions.

As an affiliate marketer (and any other type of marketer), you want to get out of the beginner stage as soon as possible.

There are a few reasons why I say this:

• There are way too many people stuck there.
• You should have made more commissions by then.
• It gives you a better position of knowledge and authority.

Last, and most importantly, it allows you the ability to use the commissions that you made and put them back into your affiliate marketing business.

I can tell you from plenty of years of experience that most people, do NOT, in fact, want to do this. They want to hold onto every single little penny of profit to dear life.

Investing what you made back into your affiliate marketing business is one of the best “hacks” for seeing faster results and success.

While it sounds easy to do on paper, I understand that it doesn’t exactly work that way.

Here are some ideas when it comes to things to invest in:

• Traffic.
• Content.
• Outsourcing.
• Tools for automation.
• Training and communities.

Don’t forget about building up your email list when it comes to affiliate marketing and lead generation.

I’m not going to get into the nitty-gritty, because everyone is different when it comes to what they need for basic life stuff, as well as what they can use that money for investing in.

Regardless, I hope that I least planted this seed in your mind when it comes to your affiliate marketing career.

Investing in your affiliate marketing business is such a huge advantage, especially when it comes to flying by your competition.

4) Find And Leverage Unique Angles For Crushing Your Competitors

The last tip I have for you is going require a little brainpower, but if you think hard enough, your ideas can help you move affiliate marketing mountains, so to speak.

After all, if you want to make a significant income with affiliate marketing, then you’re going to think differently than how others think. Anywho, you always want to be asking yourself:

How can I seperate myself from what everyone else is doing in my niche?

There are at least 1,000,000 answers to this question. However, if you answer correctly, and consistently apply your strategies, you’ll give yourself a significant advantage.

Here are some ideas that I will give you when it comes to strategies and thought processes that I came up with earlier. These were very helpful when I didn’t have a lot of money to my name:

• I will do whatever it takes.
• I will do (at least) 100x more than what most affiliates do.
• I will leverage similar traffic sources to compound my results.
• I will find what’s working, and then put all of my efforts into that.
• I will focus on the least competitive keywords and build massive authority.
• I won’t be afraid to invest back into my business, because I know many others won’t.

I even remember when I was building up my Facebook fan page, I told myself that I would post every single hour of every single day… and I did. Despite all of the experts saying how it was a “bad idea”… yawn.

Aside from that, most of these phrases have to deal with mindset.

If you haven’t realized by now, I believe mindset to be one of the biggest factors when it comes to affiliate marketing failure and success.

Either way, how can you stick out like a sore thumb when it comes to affiliate marketing?

• Maybe you will deliver content in a unique and consistent way.
• Maybe you will have 1 on 1 support for those who buy through you.
• Maybe you will have the most unique and valuable bonus package, ever.

Whatever it is, you need to make sure that you have a great angle of attack when it comes to affiliate marketing. It’s a great way to separate yourself from many of the other individuals in the affiliate marketing industry.

Is Affiliate Marketing In Demand?

In my expert opinion, you just can’t go wrong with affiliate marketing, especially when the benefits can be life-changing.

While you will always find certain aspects of affiliate marketing to be a little saturated or competitive, you can either avoid those sections or work around them. Just as I’ve described in this article.

I’ve always been very optimistic when it comes to affiliate marketing and life in general. So if there is a way to make it work, I will do whatever I can to make it work for me. I recommend that you do the same 🙂

I’ll leave you with a few related articles if you’d like even more information about the wonderful world of affiliate marketing:

• How safe is affiliate marketing?
• How legit is affiliate marketing?
• How hard is affiliate marketing?

Enjoy, and happy affiliate marketing.