9 Tips for Holiday Affiliate Marketing

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Halloween shopping has been very good to me as an affiliate marketer. I didn’t have very high hopes in the beginning, but I didn’t have anything to lose. The last month has been one of my best when it comes to commission-based earnings as an affiliate. With more special dates right around the corner, it is a good time to pass along some tips for holiday affiliate marketing.

1. Claim Your Property – If you don’t yet have a blog that fits into the shopping niche, get that done as soon as possible. You need to allow some time to have your site crawled. We are not yet into November, so there is still time. Hop on over to GoDaddy and grab a domain. If you don’t yet have hosting, I recommend HostGator. It’s not a good idea to run over to Blogger for another free site. These sites are notoriously hard to rank out of the box. You are going to need that search traffic.

2. Keywords, Keywords, Keywords – Search traffic is likely going to be your lifeblood when it comes to holiday earnings. It was not my regular readers buying up Halloween costumes, it was the onslaught of search traffic coming my way. Hit up Google Keyword Tool and start digging.

3. Post Types – There are a few different ways to work your holiday posts. You can do the ever-popular Top 10s, or you can target individual product reviews. You need to do a little window shopping yourself. See what’s hot for the upcoming holiday season.

4. Ask for Coupons – If you are already an affiliate for a few merchants, get in touch with your affiliate manager. Ask if there are coupon codes available that you can pass along to your readers. This may or may not work depending on how long you have been with a merchant, your earnings history, traffic, etc. But, it never hurts to ask.

5. Ask for Higher Commissions – Again, this may or may not work based on those things mentioned above. But, the worst that can happen is that your affiliate manager says “no.” Don’t be scared of these people. I have found them to be extremely nice in most cases.

6. Mix Up Your Merchants – There is always the go-to merchants, like Amazon. But, do some digging. There is a large market of people looking for off-the-wall and/or unique gifts. Search out a few unique offerings.

7. Watch the Gift Card Promotion – You may think it is a good idea to head straight to promoting gift cards. Double-check your merchant terms first. Some merchants don’t pay on gift card purchases, others have a different commission structure. Choose your product selection wisely.

8. Be Unique – You do not have to stick just to Christmas, and you do not have to promote strictly the hot seasonal buys. You can create your own niche here to take advantage of some of the lesser-covered topics. This isn’t the only time of year to take advantage of gift-giving commissions as an affiliate.

9. Publish Early – Always be looking a month or two in advance for upcoming holidays. Get those posts published early. Shipping time is going to trim a week or two off of money-making time.

What’s your favorite tip as a holiday affiliate marketer?