Blogging is mentioned as one of the top online businesses for individuals in this Entrepreneur article. It is among the top professions for people working on the Internet because blogging can seriously increase your income if you do it right.
As a blogger, you’re probably fed up with creating content in the niche you’re experienced in without getting anything in return but views. If you have a blog and want to monetize it, it’s time to start an affiliate marketing career.
Gaming is one of the fastest-growing industries and markets globally, with billions of consumers. In 2021, Video games generated a total of $180.3 billion, making them one of the most valuable industries in the world. If you’re a gamer and own a blog that regularly talks about the video game industry, be sure that you have unlimited potential.
With numbers like these, it’s clear that getting a piece of this action will be easy to get. Affiliate marketing is the best way to do it. If you’re a gamer, own a gaming blog, and want to become a gaming affiliate marketer, keep reading and see how to do it.
Table of contents:
1. What is Affiliate Marketing?
2. What is Gaming Affiliate Marketing?
3. How Much Can I Earn and Make per Month as an Affiliate?
4. How do I Apply to Become an Affiliate?
5. What Are the Requirements to Join Affiliate Programs?
6. How to Get Started as a Gaming Affiliate
7. What are the Best Affiliate Marketing Tips you must know?
8. Best Gaming Affiliate Marketing Programs
9. A Few More Details on How to Become Successful as a Gaming Affiliate Marketer
10. Is the Gaming Affiliate Niche Worth Doing?
11. Final Thoughts
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is the action of promoting products on behalf of someone else. Affiliate marketers are not directly selling anything but earn commission for the products they are promoting on their blogs, social media, and other online platforms.
Depending on the affiliate marketing program of particular companies and the success with high conversion rates, one can make tremendous amounts from selling them. Some companies provide up to 200% commission per sale, so a capable marketer will truly make serious bucks by promoting their products.
What is Gaming Affiliate Marketing?
Gaming affiliate marketing is focused on digital games, console games, and the gaming industry in general. Bloggers talking about their experience with video games will set up landing pages on which visitors can read about the new releases and choose to buy some of them based on the bloggers’ experience and opinion.
Highlighting several products and providing a link to the page of these games can make some of your readers purchase the game you advertised. Depending on the affiliate program, you will earn affiliate commissions for your efforts. That’s how gaming affiliate marketing works.
How Much Can I Earn and Make per Month as an Affiliate?
Depending on your engagement and traffic on your website, you can earn just some or tons of money from affiliate programs for gamers. All affiliate programs are different, but considering their profits, it’s more than sure that you’re getting rich if you put yourself out there.
Considering that gaming is one of the richest fields in the world with millions of customers, you may say that sky is the limit for you. According to some sources, you can earn anywhere from $300 to $3,000. That is for all affiliate managers in all niches. Be dedicated, learn everything about it, and you’ll become rich in no time.
How do I Apply to Become an Affiliate?
After seeing how big the market is and realizing that there’s a chance for everyone, it’s logical to ask how to apply? There’s no single answer to this question, though. Some online games have dedicated landing pages on their websites where they explain thoroughly what you need to do, while others cooperate with affiliates only through gaming affiliate networks.
Networks like CJ, GameFly, GameStop, and others will sign you up for their programs, provide the necessary referral links you need to add on your private pages, and that’s all there is. Nearly everyone is eligible to become an affiliate marker, and if you have the dedication, you can surely apply to become one.
What Are the Requirements to Join Affiliate Programs?
There are two main requirements to join a gaming affiliate program – have a blog or a web page and have a payment account on which you’ll get transferred the money when it’s earned. Other than this, you don’t need anything else on your end.
The company you’re getting the products from will provide a dedicated link that you need to use on your page. This is acquired after you get registered and approved by the company. When this is finished, you will get affiliate links to the products you can use on your website. When you make sales, the commission will go first to the account on the provider, which is later transferred to your bank account.
How to Get Started as a Gaming Affiliate
You can’t just set up a blog, start writing about a subject, and wait for the money to start rolling in. If it were that easy, no one would’ve ever done any real work, and everyone would be writing blogs about stuff they love. Instead, you need to work on your marketing first.
Most bloggers who earn money today have had these blogs for a long time. If you want to start earning, you need to set up a blog that will have enough audience and visitors willing to buy the products you’re advertising.
The best deal is to advertise your blog through some of the already known marketing strategies, like SEO, SEM, social media marketing, and installing software that will generate leads. Take a look at this link to see more on how to start in the gaming affiliate marketing niche.
What are the Best Affiliate Marketing Tips you must know?
Although every affiliate story is different, and various things worked for some but didn’t prove valuable for others, there are some tips every marketer needs to hear when they start working. Here are the most important ones:
Always use different affiliate partners
The first thing that most affiliates think about before starting is how to choose the right affiliate partner. You’re not supposed to select only one if you want to succeed. Choose more affiliate partners and diversify your offer. When you provide more offers to your customers, you have a higher chance to make sales. That goes both for different games and different places to buy these games.
Always write honest reviews
Always write honest reviews about the products and don’t force visitors to buy something you think is best or will provide the most money for you. You can highlight the pros of a particular game, but let the visitors decide what they’ll buy. People will see if you’re scamming them just to make money.
Stick to your niche
If gaming is your thing, talk about popular games on your blog. This is how you build trust and a healthy relationship with the audience. Some affiliates tried to promote different types of products on their dedicated blogs, but this has proven less successful than actually sticking to the niche you’re an expert in.
Don’t hide that you’re earning from affiliate
Many of your audience will not be aware of you getting a commission, but you shouldn’t keep this a secret from them. It’s far worse to lose their trust after learning about it from another source than publicly stating that you’re an expert, you know what you talk about, but yes, you earn a commission of your visitors. When you say it out loud, it makes people trust you even more and purchase through you.
Regularly update the information
No one wants to see outdated information about products. If your title says “Hottest shooting games of 2019”, be sure that no one will read that article. Instead, update the content and share the hottest games of 2022. You’ll see how you get instant success.
Always talk about trends
Always get on the bandwagon and catch the trend. After this initial wave, you might not get any more action on it, but why not earn from the moment? If a game is an instant success, don’t hesitate to make an analysis, share your thoughts, and, of course, share the link for your readers to buy it if they are interested.
Use software to track and analyze
In the ocean of affiliate blogs, it’s hard to stand out, especially at the beginning. If you’re willing to continue and make money out of your gaming blog, it’s best to install dedicated software for affiliate marketing that will track, analyze, and collect information on consumers.
Best Gaming Affiliate Marketing Programs
Most games will go through gaming affiliate marketing networks, while others have their own programs. It all depends on what policy the game makers choose. Over five million games exist on this planet. You’d say that’s an abundance of choices among which every gamer can pick something new and exciting. Of course, not all of these have their affiliate programs, but hundreds of companies are available to become your affiliate partners. Below, we prepared a list of top gaming affiliate marketing programs that are the most suitable for gamers and bloggers in this industry. If you browse through them, you just might find something interesting. Check out which ones are the best in our opinion, concerning their accessibility, attractive conditions, and user-friendliness:
Gaming Affiliate Programs to Promote Right Now: LepreStore
Brands like WoW, Apex, and Destiny 2 are all part of the LepreStore service, which makes it clear what kind of interest you’d have among your readers. Leprestore is a boosting service, which means that millions of players will be potentially interested in upgrading their characters with the products you’re offering.
The cookie duration of these guys is just 15 days, which might be a downside compared to others, but the commission is a generous 10% per sale of all game items provided.
Tech Gaming Company with an Affiliate Program: NVIDIA
Every gamer depends on NVIDIA products. These guys make graphics processing units without which no game will run smoothly. Most modern-day video games require the latest NVIDIA products, which will support the gaming experience. That means you have access to a market of billions.
They provide commission from 2% to 5% but considering that their products do not come cheap, you can expect good money from every sale you make on your blog. The cookie duration is 45 days, which is more than fair.
Affiliate Program for Gamers and Streamers: Twitch
Is there a need to introduce the American streaming company Twitch? They are world-famous, and every gamer knows about them. If you’re into gaming and seeing eSport competitions, you have surely registered on Twitch.
If you’re streaming on Twitch, you’ll earn 5% for every game sold on the platform. That means you don’t even need to do serious SEO work, provide written content, or explain stuff. Just do what you regularly do on Twitch, and you can make some money.
Affiliate Program for Game Rental: GameFly
A popular way of playing games is renting them, playing for a while and seeing whether they like them or not, returning if not impressed. GameFly works on a Netflix-based model; they offer a wide range of games, and users may order some of them and receive them at their home address.
Being an affiliate for GameFly means you’ll get $15 for free trials and subscription plans and 5% from selling any new console game. The cookie duration is 30 days, and you are paid through Payoneer, direct deposit, or check.
Affiliate Program for Gaming Accessories: Secret Lab Chairs
Secret Lab Chairs produce some seriously good gaming chairs. Every gamer needs one, and those really into gaming are willing to spend top dollars for the best models. These chairs sell for a minimum price of $350, while some models go even over $500.
This is important because the company provides a 12% commission for its affiliates on each sale. Sell two chairs of $500, and you made easy 120 bucks. The only downside is the cookie length of only seven days, but not everything can be spectacular.
A Few More Details on How to Become Successful as a Gaming Affiliate Marketer
It’s not just gaming that can bring in loads of cash as an affiliate marketer, but nearly all niches out there can turn profitable. Right now, some affiliates make millions by doing nothing else than promoting other companies’ products and getting commissions from them.
All affiliate marketing strategies are more or less the same, and we talked about the basics at the beginning. You must follow the rules, but you also need to do something on your own, listen to your hunch, work extremely hard, and always follow the affiliate trends.
Is the Gaming Affiliate Niche Worth Doing?
A question that many bloggers ask is whether the affiliate efforts are worth doing. When you look at the commission of most affiliate programs above, you’ll see that the numbers may not seem spectacular, but have in mind that you’re not holding on to just one product, and you’re not providing content for only one gaming field.
If you have a gaming blog or a streaming service like the one on Twitch, you might see dozens of sales every day from people following you and seeing your content. That means even if the commission rate is as low as a few bucks when you gather 10-20 sales per day, you’ll get tremendous amounts at the end of the month.
This is not much different from some of the other affiliate program niches. If you want to see how others are doing, please click this link, and see more about the best affiliate programs last year. This will give you a clear insight into what’s happening in the affiliate marketing world.
Final Thoughts
The video gaming market is expected to grow with a CAGR of 8.94% between 2022 and 2027, which means it will reach a market value of $339.95 billion by that year. These numbers prove that online gaming will be a goldmine for affiliate marketing in the years to come.
Owning a blog and creating content in the gaming niche is an excellent opportunity to make money. You don’t need to change anything; simply keep doing what you were so far and learn about the principles of affiliate marketing. These tiny and unnoticeable changes may bring in a fortune for you.
If you find it too complicated, you can always google the best affiliate marketing software on the Internet. These programs will help you analyze, track visitors, see the trends, look at conversions, find the right ads, and collect leads. If you don’t want to do this manually, install the software and enjoy.