Choosing a profitable niche is the most important decision you have to make at the start of your affiliate career.

Before you invest your time and effort creating a website and writing content, you need to know if there is demand for products and information in your niche.

Find a profitable niche, and you can tap into an existing audience and drive sales from the get-go.

So what are the best affiliate marketing niches?

Based on our decades of experience in affiliate marketing, we’ve compiled a list of profitable niches that drive revenue every year.

Before we get to the list, let’s go over some of the fundamentals: what is an affiliate niche, and how can you identify profitable niche opportunities?

What is an Affiliate Niche?

An affiliate niche is a specific interest, problem, or goal that people share.

Affiliate marketers make money by promoting products and services to people interested in the niche.

For example, “weight loss” is a huge market with millions of people interested in the topic.

As an affiliate, you would struggle to compete with hundreds of authority websites that already rank in the top spots in Google search results.

However, if you choose a more specific niche within “dieting,” like “over 60s weight loss for men”, you reduce the number of websites you are competing against and increase your chances of gaining traction in search results and attracting more people to your site.

Types of Niches in Affiliate Marketing?

There are hundreds of different niches, with thousands of smaller sub-niches.

However, all of these different topics, interest, hobbies, and problems can be broken down into two main categories:

Evergreen Niches

Evergreen niches are the topics that people are always interested in because they tap into the universal wants and needs of every human being on the planet.

For example, “health and fitness” is a topic that people will always want to know more about, and will be willing to spend money on.

If a niche covers a universal problem or goal, people will always seek out information and products related to the topic.

While interest in trending niches can see a rise and fall in popularity, evergreen niches will always be popular with audiences.

Rather than focusing on a broad topic, you want to niche down even further and focus on a specific sub-niche topic with a defined audience.

If you target an evergreen niche like “dating,” you could niche down even further and choose a topic like “divorcee dating” or “single parent dating.”

The more targeted you can get with your niche, the easier it is to make an impact in search results, and the more valuable your content will be to your audience.

Trend Niches

While evergreen niches see consistent demand, trend niches can see peaks of interest.

These types of niches can still be profitable, but you need to move quickly to capitalize on the periods of peak interest.

To make money with a trend niche, your audience also needs to be willing to spend money on products and services.

For example, basketball is a sport that millions of people watch and play around the world, but opportunities for affiliate promotion are limited.

Golf is a niche with a smaller worldwide audience, but it’s a sport that requires people to purchase products and equipment to take part, making it a more lucrative niche for affiliate marketers.

If you target a trend niche, you need to look for an activity where people are willing to spend money.

How to Find Lucrative & Profitable Affiliate Marketing Niches?

The easiest way to find a profitable affiliate marketing niche is to look where people are spending their money online.

If lots of people are buying products and services in a niche, it’s a great indication that you can make money with affiliate promotion.

Let’s take a look at the two biggest marketplaces for physical and digital products and go through the step-by-step process of identifying a lucrative niche.

Amazon

Amazon is the biggest brand name in the world, accounting for nearly 40% of all US e-commerce sales.

It’s also a great place to find profitable affiliate niches.

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Here’s a step-by-step guide to find lucrative affiliate marketing niches on Amazon.

Step 1

Head over to Amazon and click on the “All” button on the left-hand side of the search bar.

You’ll now be able to see a list of product categories. These are all potential niche topics for affiliate promotion.

Click on a product category that interests you, or one that you think could be profitable, and click the search button - leaving the search bar blank.

Step 2

This will direct you to a new page featuring products in the category.

You’ll see a list of sub-categories on the left-hand side, and beneath the top menu:

Choose a sub-category to niche down even further. You want to get really specific and drill down to a range of products focused on a particular niche topic.

Once you’ve narrowed down to a particular niche, you can see which products are selling well and get an idea of the different products you can promote within the niche.

Step 3

The next step is to identify potential affiliate products in the niche by clicking the “Best Sellers” button in the top menu:

This will show you the best selling products in the category. To determine if a niche is profitable, you want to look for:

  • Average product price above $50, and preferably above $200 (Amazon pays a low percentage commission, so it requires higher spend amounts in order to earn a decent commission).
  • Average product review score of at least 4.0.
  • A minimum of 3 products ranked in the top 1,000 bestseller list for the main product category.

You’ll also want to determine the search volume and SEO difficulty for products in the niche.

We’ll cover that in the next section, but before we do, let’s take a look at the best place to find affiliate niches for digital products and services.

ClickBank

Amazon is a great place to find a profitable niche with plenty of physical products, but the most lucrative affiliate offers are for digital products and services.

While a physical product on another network could offer commissions of 5-15%, on Clickbank, physical products offer commissions of 30-60%, a digital product can provide a commission of 50-90% of the sale price.

The best place to look for a niche with lots of digital products is ClickBank.

It’s a beginner-friendly affiliate network that has a massive range of online courses, e-books, and other digital products.

ClickBank has a straightforward sign-up process, and lets you sort offers according to “Gravity” - a metric that shows how well the product is selling.

Here’s how to find profitable affiliate niches on ClickBank in three simple steps.

Step 1

Head over to ClickBank and navigate to the Affiliate Marketplace. On the left-hand side, you’ll see a list of product categories:

Choose a category and click on the drop-down arrow to reveal the sub-categories within the section.

For example, if you click on “Health & Fitness,” you’ll find several different niches within the broader category.

Click on a sub-category, and you’ll be directed to a page featuring products that you can promote.

Step 2

In the “Diets & Weight Loss” sub-category, there are currently 240 different affiliate offers.

ClickBank is a great place to find digital products, but you need to filter out the low-quality products to find the lucrative offers that are worth promoting.

The “Gravity Rating” indicates the number of affiliates that have earned commission selling the product in the previous 12 weeks.

To speed up the process of eliminating poor-selling products, you can use the “Filters” section on the left-hand side:

Set the minimum “Gravity Rating” to 6 to remove the offers in the sub-category that haven’t generated many recent sales.

Step 3

From here, you want to analyze the marketplace to find a topic that has a decent number of products with a “Gravity Rating” of 6 or more.

For example, there are several products related to “Diabetes” in the “Diet & Weight Loss” sub-category.

Now you have a list of profitable products within a sub-category.

However, you want to go beyond the sub-categories listed on ClickBank and identify the products within the niche that are listed across multiple categories.

You can use the search bar to find related products across all of the product categories.

As you can see, this returns 44 different products related to “Diabetes” with a “Gravity Rating” of 6 and above.

With 44 different products, “Diabetes” appears to be a good potential affiliate niche.

If you conduct a search and find there are less than ten products with a 6+ “Gravity Rating,” you should keep looking for a different niche.

You can make money in a niche with just a few products, but it’s easier as a beginner to choose a niche with significant demand and lots of products to promote.

Before you commit to a niche, you want to check out the sales pages for the products.

This enables you to verify the product is related to the niche, but you also want to look at the quality of the sales page.

If the sales page looks professional and does a good job of selling the product, you can add it to your list of potential affiliate products.

How to Determine If a Niche Is Profitable?

Once you’ve identified a niche and some potential products to promote, you need to determine if the niche has an existing audience. There are two factors to consider:

Is the Niche Evergreen?

Some products might rise to the top of the best sellers list on Amazon, but the popularity of the product could be seasonal.

For example, Halloween costumes and decorations see significant search volume and can rise to the top of the best sellers list on Amazon, but this demand only lasts for a few weeks of the year.

As a beginner affiliate marketer, you want to focus on a niche that will remain popular for a long time.

Choosing an evergreen niche can help you to generate commission and earn money for months and even years to come.

Does the niche topic tap into a problem, need, or desire that people all over the world experience?

If the topic covers romance, health, or wealth, there will always be a consistent demand for information and products related to the niche.

You can use Google Trends to judge the interest in a niche over time:

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Over the previous five years, “Diabetes” has received consistent interest online.

It’s a problem that millions of people encounter, and there is a steady demand for information.

You want to choose an evergreen niche that people will still be interested in for years to come.

Search Volume and SEO Difficulty

If a topic is receiving a high search volume, it shows you there is a significant demand for information related to the niche.

You can utilize free tools like Ubersuggest to see how many people are searching for a topic.

Here’s how to judge niche search volume and SEO difficulty in three simple steps:

Step 1

Head over to Ubersuggest and enter your niche topic into the search bar. We’ll use the niche topic “Yoga” as an example.

Step 2

From the Overview page, click on “Keyword Ideas” in the left-hand menu. This will provide you with a list of related keywords in a table like the one below.

After entering the general niche term “Yoga,” Ubersuggest returned 583 keyword ideas.

There are two metrics you want to pay close attention to: Search Volume (VOL) and Search Difficulty (SD). Some of these keywords are far too general or competitive, so you need to scroll through the list and identify the keyword phrases that offer a search volume of at least 500, and a Search Difficulty of less than 45.

Step 3

To see results more relevant to products and identify keyword opportunities, you can add “best” or “review” to your keyword topic search.

For “best yoga,” there are several keyword ideas with a search volume above 500.

You want to find product-related keywords with low Search Difficulty.

If you can find at least ten product-related keyword ideas that match the above criteria, it shows there is a strong interest in the niche, and that there’s an opportunity to establish yourself in the search rankings and drive targeted traffic to your website.

The last thing to consider before you commit to a niche is whether you’re personally interested in the topic.

You will be investing lots of your time creating content around the niche topic, so it’s always a good idea to have some interest and curiosity about the subject.

Not only will this help you to stay motivated, but it will also provide you with insight into your target audience.

The more you know the people you’re talking to, the easier it is to understand their pain points and recommend the products and services they will find appealing.

20 Best Niches for Affiliate Marketing

You can find groups of people interested in every topic and activity you can think of, but some niches are more profitable than others.

The following affiliate marketing niches are the most lucrative, but to make your affiliate marketing business a success, you need to look for the smaller sub-niches within these larger niches - that’s the key to a profitable niche affiliate website.

In no particular order, here’s a rundown of 20 of the best niches for affiliate marketing.

1. Travel

Low-cost flights have made travel more accessible. It’s easier and cheaper than ever before for people to explore the world.

Online spending on travel and tourism has consistently increased over the last decade, rising to $817.54 billion in 2020:

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Travel is one of the biggest affiliate marketing niches around, and you can find lots of great affiliate offers and products to promote.

You can start an affiliate site for a particular destination and recommend hotels and flights, or create a review website recommending the products that people need for trips to different countries and destinations.

There are so many keyword opportunities and sub-niches, you can quickly establish yourself as an authority on a particular travel topic or destination.

2. Beauty & Cosmetics

The rise of social media has made an enormous impact on the beauty and cosmetics industry.

Recent years have seen an increase in demand and changes to how consumers purchase beauty products.

More and more people are purchasing cosmetic products online, with Amazon seeing huge revenue growth from sales of beauty products. Over 50% of Amazon Prime members have purchased beauty products in the last 12 months.

Instead of purchasing from pharmacies and brick and mortar stores, people are turning to online retailers, creating an excellent opportunity for affiliate marketers to make money.

There are loads of affiliates operating in this niche, but there’s still room to make an impact and gain a slice of the market for yourself.

You could create a review website for makeup products, or capitalize on the demand for information and create a how-to website with a YouTube channel to increase exposure and drive more sales and revenue.

3. Prepping

Over 3.7 million Americans now classify themselves as preppers.

If we take a quick look at Google Trends, you can see that prepping has seen considerable growth in popularity over the last decade:

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With such a large number of active preppers and increasing interest online, it’s no surprise that a vast industry has grown around prepping and survivalism.

You could capitalize on this growing market by creating an affiliate site for beginner preppers, advising them on the kit and supplies they need.

Just like the pet niche, prepping has huge potential because of the number of sub-niches and topics it covers.

From food preparation and preservation to hunting and fishing, all of these topics are interesting to a prepping audience, and they all require equipment and materials that you can promote as an affiliate.

4. Health & Fitness

Research from the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) reveals that the $30 billion US health and fitness industry has been growing by 3% every year for the last decade.

There’s no sign of this popularity dipping any time soon, making it an excellent niche for affiliate marketers.

This vast industry is filled with profitable sub-niches. The $230.7 billion global supplement industry is expected to grow 8.2% by 2027.

Around 76% of Americans take dietary supplements, and you can find affiliate offers from supplement providers that offer commission up to 30% of the sale price.

You could also create an affiliate website that is focused on a specific sport or activity.

For example, running is a fitness activity that millions of people all over the world do every day.

You could review running shoes and gadgets sold on amazon, target keywords opportunities with informational content, and promote digital products and courses from ClickBank.

5. Personal Development

Everybody wanted to improve and be the best person they can be. Whether that means learning to be more confident, more focused, spending more time with family, or earning more money, everybody has personal goals that they want to achieve.

 

Personal development products and courses tap into that desire people have to improve and accomplish their goals.

The universal appeal of personal development has helped the industry grow to be worth a predicted $13.2 billion by 2022.

For affiliates, the great thing about the personal development niche is the number of digital products and courses that offer a commission of up to 75%.

6. High-Cost Hobbies

It sounds simple, but the most profitable niches are the ones where people are willing to spend money.

Expensive hobbies are great for affiliates because they have an existing audience that is willing to purchase expensive equipment and products.

The higher the price of the product, the more you can earn per sale that you generate.

Golf is a sports hobby that millions of people around the world play and spend money on every year. If we look at Google Trends, you can see that golf receives consistent interest every year:

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While interest peaks during the summer months, people spend money on golf equipment throughout the year.

As an affiliate, you could start a website on golf techniques and promote digital products, or you could create a review website specializing in golf clubs or golf carts.

Another way to monetize a golf site would be to promote golfing vacation offers and golf resorts.

7. Home Improvement

Around 5.57 million homes are expected to be sold in 2021. When people sell their home, they spend money decorating the rooms in the property.

The same goes for new house buyers.

People spend money furnishing and improving their new property.

On average, people spend between $1,500 to $10,000 renovating a bedroom, and up to $25,000 renovating a bathroom.

That’s why home improvement can be a very profitable niche for affiliate marketers.

What’s more, home decor is an evergreen niche that is robust to recessions and economic downturns.

Lots of people spend money on their homes as an investment to increase the value of their property.

In times of economic uncertainty, people look to consolidate their financial situation, rather than splashing out on expensive hobbies.

You can start a review website for amazon home decor products, or focus on luxury products and furniture where the commission can run into hundreds of dollars for a single sale.

8. Photography

The photography niche has boomed over the last decade.

People love to share their holiday snaps and photos on social media, and the number of young adults seeking to improve their photography skills and purchasing camera equipment has increased dramatically.

Nearly 17% of Americans aged 18 to 29 have practiced photography in the last year.

With more people interested in photography, the demand for courses and equipment has increased, creating more opportunities for affiliates to make money.

If you create a website and share helpful advice, tips, and recommendations, you can build an audience of photography enthusiasts willing to trust your reviews and monetized content.

People interested in photography are also willing to spend large sums of money on equipment and courses to help them sharpen their skills.

You can promote camera equipment from Amazon and other retailers, and you can also find high commission affiliate offers for photography courses on Clickbank and other affiliate networks.

9. Pets (Including Animal Training)

The pet market is a huge niche that is growing every year and offers enormous potential for affiliate earnings.

Around 70% of US households own a pet, and people are also willing to spend money on their furry friends.

In 2019, US households spent a total of $95.7 billion on their pets.

While the majority of the spending was on food, pet owners also spend big on luxury goods like toys, clothing, gifts, bedding, and even Halloween costumes for their pets. They also spend a lot on animal training, for instance dog owners are regularly searching google for how to ‘stop dog barking’, ‘stop dog chewing’, ‘stop dog digging’, ‘stop dog aggression’, ‘stop dog bolting out the front door’, etc.

You could tap into this growing market by starting a website focused on a particular dog breed, create a cat toy review website, or establish an authority website on aquariums and tropical fish.

There are hundreds of profitable sub-niches you can capitalize on.

10. Yoga

If you conduct a quick Google search for yoga classes, you’ll see just how popular this activity has become.

In the previous five years, Google Trends shows that yoga has received consistently strong interest over time:

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Not only is yoga gaining increasing popularity, but it’s also becoming a huge market for business and affiliate marketers.

Throughout their lifetime, the average yoga enthusiast will spend $62,640 on equipment, classes, and yoga retreats. That’s nearly $100 per month.

As an affiliate, you can make money by helping people to purchase the right products, recommending classes and yoga retreats, and promoting digital yoga products and courses.

This is a big market with loads of opportunities for affiliates to make money.

11. Dating & Relationships Advice

The massive dating and relationships advice niche is popular with affiliates, but there’s still plenty of room to establish a website in a sub-niche and make money.

The market for online dating services is set to reach $9.2 billion by 2025, with annual growth of 4.7%.

This niche is swamped with low-quality affiliate sites, but you can capitalize on this growing market by taking a different approach to what other affiliates are doing.

For example, older generations are becoming increasingly adept at using the internet, and they also have the disposable income to spend on dating services and apps.

You could create a seniors dating advice website and make money by linking to dating apps and digital products targeted towards older people looking for companionship.

Relationships are part of the human experience, so this niche isn’t going to disappear any time soon.

12. Learning Musical Instruments (Guitar, Piano, Drums, How to Sing, etc)

Millions of people around the world play musical instruments, with millions more that want to learn.

The demand for information and products in this niche is constant.

There are hundreds of sub-niches, and if you can build an audience and recommend products and courses, you will make money in the music niche.

 

Music niche sites have a significant advantage over some of the other niches on the list.

The basic demand for learning to play a musical instrument never changes.

Once you’ve created your website and published high-quality content, with a little updating now and then, you can generate passive income for years to come.

13. Coffee

The average person drinks 3 cups of coffee per day, and there are over 24,000 coffee shops dotted across the USA, all contributing to an $87 billion per year industry.

While Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts are the largest names in US coffee, that’s not where you are going to make your money as an affiliate marketer.

The growth of home brewing coffee has been tremendous over the last decade.

You can make money as an affiliate by capitalizing on the growing popularity of home coffee makers, grinders, percolators, and coffee beans.

Domestic consumption of coffee in the United States from 2014 to 2019 (in million 60-kilogram bags)

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You could set up a review website and focus on espresso machines and drip coffee makers, or target high-end gourmet coffee beans and tap into the luxury end of the market.

This is an excellent example of an affiliate niche with expensive products that can bring in affiliate revenue through reviews and recommendations.

14. Personal Finance

The personal finance niche has been responsible for some of the most well-known affiliate marketing success stories. Back in 2012, Martin Lewis sold his personal finance affiliate website Money Saving Expert for $107 million.

There are loads of opportunities to promote affiliate products and services in this niche, and lots of topics and sub-niches you can target.

As long as you help people save money or make money, there will always be an audience willing to hear your recommendations.

The key to breaking into a competitive market is offering something different to what’s already out there.

For example, you could create a budget-friendly cooking website that helps people to save money on their weekly food shopping and review personal finance apps and services.

There’s loads of potential for narrowing your focus onto a profitable sub-niche.

If you focus on helping people to make money rather than save money, you could promote digital products that offer high rates of commission.

15. Insurance

The insurance industry is one of the largest in the world. In 2018, insurance premiums in the US alone totaled $1.2 trillion.

With so much money being spent on insurance, it’s no wonder that it’s become a huge affiliate marketing niche.

 

There are many sub-niches within insurance, with people insuring their homes, cars, pets, mobile phones, and more.

The key to a successful niche insurance website is to offer value that people can’t find elsewhere.

That value can be in the form of your high-quality niche content, or through an aggregator tool that helps people to find the cheapest insurance premium.

Insurance is a popular niche, but you can still break through if you narrow down on a specific sub-niche and offer exclusive value to your audience.

16. Baby & Parenting

Around 140 million babies are born every year, with the global population nearly doubling over the last 40 years.

Not only are there a huge number of babies born every year, but new parents are spending an increasing amount of money on their children per year.

The average cost of raising a baby in the US for the first year is $21,000.

The baby care product industry is set to bring in over $109 billion in annual revenue by 2026:

Baby care products market size worldwide from 2018 to 2026 (in billion U.S. dollars)

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You can help people to purchase the right products for their babies by creating an affiliate website recommending cots, bottles, car seats, and more.

You can also promote digital products and guides to help new parents deal with the problems of raising a child. There’s loads of potential in this niche, and a vast amount of products you can promote.

17. Home Security

Everybody wants their home to be secure, and with the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart home security is a niche with massive potential.

Back in 2018, the smart home security market was valued at $2.14 billion, and it’s expected to see annual growth of 19.6% to reach $4.37 billion by 2022.

You could capitalize on this growing niche by starting a website focused on smart home security devices like video doorbells and home CCTV.

There are home security products on Amazon, but there are plenty of service providers in the niche with high paying affiliate programs.

Alongside home security products, you could review home insurance packages and recommend insurance providers - lots of these companies provide a fee for each lead that you generate, so you don’t even need to wait for a sale to go through before you earn money.

18. Cryptocurrency

Back in 2016, Bitcoin went from boom to bust in quick succession. Despite the crash, Bitcoin has seen a resurgence over recent years.

While we know that all cryptocurrencies go through significant fluctuations in value, they are still going to be here for many years to come.

For affiliates, this is a niche that has big potential. People are a little warier of investing since the crash of 2016, but there is still a huge demand for cryptocurrency.

It’s also a niche with high commission. You can find plenty of affiliate offers for exchanges that offer commission of up to 50%.

19. Gaming

Multiple generations have grown up gaming, with gaming culture now well and truly mainstream.

Back in 2018, GTA V became the most profitable media title of all time, generating $6 billion in sales.

The majority of gamers are willing to spend hundreds of dollars per year on new consoles, accessories, downloadable content, and games.

 

It’s not just consoles that generate huge revenue.

Mobile gaming has become a massive industry, with huge potential for affiliate marketers.

Research shows that gaming accounts for 43% of all smartphone use.

If you can build an audience in the gaming niche through video content or traditional affiliate reviews and recommendations, there’s enormous potential for affiliate earnings.

20. Jewelry

Jewelry is an evergreen niche with great potential for affiliate earnings.

The rise of Instagram and online shopping have boosted jewelry sales, and the industry is expected to grow even more over the coming years.

Total global jewelry sales are predicted to reach $270 billion in 2020, with a healthy 5 to 6% annual growth.

 

Jewelry is a hugely diverse market that is ripe for affiliates to make money. While demand for jewelry is evergreen, you can also capitalize on the holiday seasons and valentine’s day to further boost your commission.

You could create an affiliate site focused on luxury jewelry or build a website focused on a particular topic.

For example, husbands are always interested in purchasing jewelry gifts for their wives on special occasions.

You could create a site focused on anniversary jewelry and capitalize on that market.

Alongside your website, you could utilize social media as another source of traffic for your affiliate offers.

You can find offers paying 10 to 15% commission on jewelry products, and with the price for a ring or bracelet running into hundreds of dollars, that’s a decent slice of affiliate income per sale.

Conclusion

All of the above niches can be profitable, but it takes hard work and dedication to make a success of any business.

When you’re choosing a niche for your first affiliate website, look for a topic or activity where there’s an existing audience, and where people are already spending money on products and services.

 

Follow the money.

If people are spending significant amounts of money on products in a niche, there’s a demand that you can capitalize on.

With more and more people purchasing products and services online, there’s never been a better time to get started as an affiliate marketer and make money online.

 

 

 

Market Research for Affiliate Marketers