I find that a lot of people who look to get into affiliate marketing, often end up not even trying and one of the reasons why is because they hear rumors like this business is oversaturated (as well as a bunch of other negative stuff).
And without investigating further, they just accept this statement and quit. Fortunately, if you’ve stumbled onto this blog, I’ve already done all the investigating for you and will prove that affiliate marketing is not oversaturated at all.
How I’m going to prove to you that affiliate marketing is not oversaturated:
And this is because I’m someone who is very experienced in it (here’s my affiliate marketing story).
When I began, I too had to overcome these same rumors and negativity but because I persevered, succeeded (and failed), I gained a ton of knowledge and here is a claim you may not believe just yet (but you will after reading my 5 reasons):
Affiliate marketing is actually undersaturated and the opportunity to succeed in it, regardless of your experience is not only possible, but more possible than you can imagine if you follow the advice I give you.
I stopped succumbing to the black pill people who find negativity in anything positive, including affiliate marketing and I am strongly encouraging you to do the same in every part of your life.
Let this article on affiliate marketing not being over saturated be the first step to you moving up in this business.
Here are the 5 reasons (summarized) why affiliate marketing isn’t too saturated:
I’ll be getting into each reason in detail and provide proof shortly but here they are in summary:
- 99% of affiliate marketers fail, so you only have 1% of competitors to worry about.
- Even with the 1% of competition remaining, there’s really not much competition overall.
- Any little competition you have to worry about can be conquered if you create quality content.
- With all the niches, networks and opportunities out there to generate traffic and affiliate sales, you have limitless opportunity.
- Over saturation in affiliate marketing is a myth and will never be a problem.
If I’ve done enough with this summary to prove that affiliate marketing isn’t too saturated and you’re convinced you can succeed at it, you’re welcome, but if you need a hand in getting started, that’s what my site is here to do, so head over to my affiliate coaching page to see how I can directly help you.
But if you need more evidence to back up these 5 points, that’s totally fine and I’m going to do that right now:
1) 99% of affiliate marketers fail. You only have 1% of affiliates to worry about:
There are no specific statistics to show how many affiliate marketers there are in the world, but here is a list of a few major networks out there and estimates of how many affiliates they have:
- Amazon Associates alone has over 2 million of them.
- AWIN, another major affiliate network likely has 100,000’s of thousands if not over a million.
- Clickbank easily has 100,000’s of affiliates and I would know since I’m one of the most successful Clickbank affiliates.
- Commission Junction, another major network also carries a plethora of affiliates (100,000’s).
- And then there’s individual affiliate programs and networks out there that have their own affiliates.
Based on these broad numbers, we can estimate that there’s millions of affiliate marketers out there. I did find a good article that provides more accurate stats on affiliate marketing here. You’re welcome to check that out but it really backs up my estimates.
And one can also draw the conclusion that because there’s so many, that it must mean the market is over saturated with affiliates and that success is nearly impossible and that affiliate marketing is dead.
Well if you are on that side of the coin, flip it because you’re wrong. These numbers don’t tell the real tale and you need to filter them through experienced eyes, which is what I’m going to do now.
When you do, you’re going to see an entirely different and positive story. Here’s the more realistic way of looking at this:
Here’s why this is a good thing for you:
Of the millions of affiliates out there, you can easily cross off 99% of them as being a “danger” or “competitor” to your success and here’s why:
1) In my experience, more than 50% of all affiliate marketers aren’t even active. They just have dead accounts.
2) Of the less than half remaining people, 9 out of 10 of them aren’t successful because they don’t know what they’re doing.
3) So honestly, if we take what’s left, you really only have 1% of millions of affiliates left who are actually successful (and I’d say that real number is even lower, which is great news for you).
And while it’s always sad to see people not succeeding, this add on point makes the originally bleak picture more positive now.
2) With the 1% of affiliate competition left, you still don’t need to worry:
While very few people succeed at affiliate marketing and those few are spread across a plethora of niches, I learned to stop worrying about these people and focus on my own success.
The key to succeeding with affiliate marketing is to:
1) Properly select a niche market that you know and love.
2) Find the successful affiliate sites in these niches and piggyback of them.
3) Do what they do but only in your own voice and content (don’t ever copy or steal ideas).
So you can and should look at this 1% of success stories as inspirations because following what they do in affiliate marketing albeit ethically, and being involved in the same passionate niches is how you’re going to reach that success yourself.
3) Beating your real competition comes down to creating high quality content:
- Whether it’s creating blog posts like this.
- Whether it’s creating YouTube videos.
- Whether it’s creating pay per click ads on social media or search engines.
The key to overcoming your competition in any of these networks is to create BETTER content than the competition. This is what drives the evolution of affiliate marketing and helps complete beginners enter this world and overcome those who have been big dogs at it.
It’s what keeps the potential for success high. And from the moment I entered this world, to today, to 10 years from this, it’s exactly how it will play out.
So the question that should arise from this is: How do you create better quality content than your competitors?
Well if you follow the 3 points I put above, you should select and start from a niche you really like. That is really one of the core points and that’s because:
The more you know about your niche and the more passion you have for it will directly affect the quality of the content you create for it.
Remember that because this point is took me 15 years to fully comprehend. It’s reflected in this site I made on affiliate marketing. And while it does take practice to create that content, whether it be on blog posts, YouTube videos or ads, the point is that once you start from this point, you’re starting on the right one and that’s what’s truly important.
And here’s how following this rule will help you beat your competition:
Anyone who can create good content on any network will always get overwhelmingly favorable feedback from the people who read and watch that content.
Search engines, social media, YouTube, ect… are designed to reward content that get s favorable feedback from viewers and so the content you make will get ranked higher and get more viewers.
That’s really how it all works and why it works.
So no matter how good the content is from the 1% of real competition out there, you can 100% enter just about any niche you love and create your success in it if you follow this rule.
For example:
In many of my blog posts I keep referring to this site on affiliate marketing and how it really is a competitive niche. Yet by following my own rules that I just told you about, I made this site in late 2019 and already made money from it, which is snowballing into more profits. My own affiliate marketing income reports reflect this.
Here’s how some of them look:
And it’s because I express my passion and experience on affiliate marketing through this blog and my YouTube videos.
This content gets very favorable feedback from my viewers and readers and thus I am rewarded by search engines, and YouTube for this and this is what drives my site higher and higher everyday.
4) There’s too much opportunity in affiliate marketing, not the opposite:
I’m going to give you one example to show why there’s too much opportunity in this business. Let’s take a single niche I listed in this article on 10 affiliate niches in 2020 to bank on (the dirt bike niche).
Let’s suppose you are into dirt bikes and select this as your niche to build an affiliate business out of. You explore the internet, find countless blogs, YouTube videos, forums on this stuff and because of that, you start to think that this niche is over saturated.
Well if you have been reading my article thus far, I hope that’s not the conclusion you came to, but let’s consider the following:
In this niche, if you are already experienced, you have your own voice to share with the internet on this subject. So you can easily start an affiliate blog and YouTube channel and it doesn’t matter if what you say or write has already been said on other blogs/YouTube videos. If it’s your own voice and unique perspective, do it.
There are countless keywords and topics within the dirt bike niche you can find, ranging from actual dirt bikes, to accessories, to topics such as how to fix them or gear to buy if you’re riding them. I would estimate there’s easily 100’s of keywords typed looked up by millions every single day.
Once you start to tackle these keywords and topics and start writing and creating content on this subject, you’re going to get views, readers, likes and people buying from your affiliate promotions and again, it doesn’t matter how many other sites and YouTube videos there are in this subject.
Once again, if you create good content, you will get recognition, views and sales. And this is one niche, which some might find “too competitive”. It’s not, believe me.
5) Oversaturation in affiliate marketing is really a myth:
Now if we take that 1 simple niche example (dirt bikes) and how easy it was to find content ideas to create videos and articles on to get traffic, views and sales, what happens when you scale that? You have infinite opportunity.
What I mean is:
- There are countless niches with which you can find opportunity in.
- Each niche has products you can promote from one or more affiliate networks.
- Each niche has countless blog opportunities and YouTube opportunities to use for traffic (and there’s more than that).
- Each affiliate network, if they approve you will allow you to promote potentially millions of products to your audience.
- And then if you take that opportunity and start a new niche site or YouTube channel and replicate the same formula, you are going to be growing a business that can reach infinite potential.
And when you start to try fathom the opportunity in all of this, the truth is you can’t.
And that just shows you why affiliate marketing is under saturated, not over saturated. And I know I’m being broad with my point here, but I tell you, all of my experience in affiliate marketing makes this picture clearer and clearer everyday that I am involved in this business.
And in those points above, I didn’t go all the way with the opportunities because that list would get bigger and bigger and frankly, I’ve got to finish up this article.
Did I provide enough evidence and points that affiliate marketing isn’t too competitive?
I hope so and I would love to know your thoughts below on these points or if you still have doubts.
What I want to finish up with is saying that despite all the opportunity in this business that you still have to work hard at it. There’s a reason why only 1% of all the affiliates in this business actually make something out of it and 99% don’t.
The 99% typically do not work nearly as hard as they can or should to make this work. And it’s a common mistake in affiliate marketing that can be corrected if you follow the guidance I gave you here.
If you pick a niche you really love then you are more likely to succeed at this business because that love will help you work harder while at the same time enjoying the process and not suffering from it.
And I already explained how that passion snowballs into success in this business. So now with that said, once again, if you need help with this stuff, see about my coaching in affiliate marketing for more details!