AFFILIATE MARKETING
Affiliate Marketing vs. COVID-19: Industry Movement and Expert Advice on Surviving the Impact
Just like every other sector, COVID-19 has impacted affiliate marketing in several ways, as well. However, the pandemic influence was both positive and negative. Though many affiliate marketers revamped their tactics from scratch, others did not feel a big difference. It is because remote work was already in their practice.
Let us understand the detailed market condition for affiliate marketing after the pandemic:
Current Market Condition
The contagion has left a deep impact on two factors, niche selection and ad revenue. Many marketers shifted their niches for increased profitability. Areas like health care, home hygiene, entertainment, apps for small businesses, and skills were high in demand. On the flip side, home improvement, luxuries, and real estate lagged severely.
These ups and downs of the corporate sector have massively changed consumer behavior. 64% of the blog owners reported severe traffic changes on the blogs during a pandemic, directly decreasing ad revenue.
Case Study
Z-Skin Cosmetics reported a huge hike in sales. The company’s CEO gave this credit to the hand-sanitizing product line, which is high in demand. The sales for hand sanitizers exploded, and affiliate programs became big support in this regard.
In the same way, the owner of My Supplement Store explained the impact of buying behavior. The company faced a great decline in sports supplements, whereas immunity boosters had record-breaking sales since the pandemic started.
Online learning tools and memberships for online classes are expected to stay high in demand because the virus is back in action. Markets were beginning to open, but they have shut down again. People are confined to their homes once more. Thus, remote learning tools are expected to show an increase in sales. Since remote work is a new normal, video conferencing software like Zoom, Cisco WebEx, and Microsoft are in full swing.
These changes show us a clear picture of the current market. Many affiliate marketers have already changed their niches. If the pandemic continues, a huge chunk of affiliate marketers will shift towards more profitable segments, leaving their present ones.
No matter you change your niche or not, one thing is clear, remote working practice will continue for a long. Therefore, you should have a good grip on tools essential for working remotely.
Let us have a look into these tools:
Remote Working Tools
Affiliate marketing experts recommend using various tools for automating the repetitive tasks in remote working, boosting productivity, and reforming the collaborative remote work. Some of these tools are mentioned below:
1. SEMrush
This renowned SEO tool can be used for performing a blog SEO audit, finding great keywords, and looking at back linking opportunities.
2. Slack
Slack is high in demand these days. This is a collaborative tool that helps in sharing tasks, communicating, and organizing shared projects.
3. Get Response
It is used for email marketing. You can easily create your list and develop a strong customer base.
4. Yoast SEO
The tool gets integrated with Word Press. You can use it for Meta tags and optimizing the content.
5. Elementor
This works as a Word Press plugin and can be used with various layouts.
6. BuzzSumo
If you are looking for content ideas and particularly interested in knowing the highly searched topics, go for Buzz Sumo. It also assists in finding influencers and give alerts based on brand name, domains, links, and keywords.
7. KWFinder
If you are in search of some best long-tail keywords, use this tool. You will easily find the ones with low competition and high searches.
8. Ahrefs
You can search keywords, find backlinks, perform a website audit, and dig into competitors’ strategies with Ahrefs.
Thirsty Affiliates
If you need to optimize your Word Press website with affiliate marketing, go for Thirsty Affiliates. It is a hub of tools that helps you in affiliate marketing.
Now, let us see how the industry experts are playing their affiliate marketing game and dealing with the disruptive situation.
Experts Advice on Affiliate Marketing
1. Shawna Newman at Skipblast
Shawna is an affiliate marketer and has been working from home for the last 10 years. Therefore, when others shifted towards remote working, she felt no change. However, she is focusing on new blogs these days, while others are kept on hold. In total, Shawna has 10 blogs, and only 4 of them are high in demand these days. She is focusing on these 4 but happy with the increasing sales on these 4 blogs.
Shawna recommends Ahrefs and Buzz Sumo for affiliate marketing. She feels creating a new site for high demanding areas is a waste of time, money, and effort. Every site needs time to develop and gain traffic. By the time the site is good to get huge traffic, the market condition will change. She further suggests investing in problem-solving areas as they reap great benefits in the long run.
2. Lior Amar at Journeyborn
Lior Amar thinks about the current situation as an opportunity for newbies. This is the best time to experiment and perform detailed researches in various niches, he suggested. Affiliate marketing is all about research, and we can do maximum research at this time when we have no other commitments.
The only hurdle is the distractions that we routinely get while working from home. However, if we follow a strong morning routine, we will be able to combat every distraction and stick to our mission, he added. According to Lior, Ahrefs is the best tool for finding keywords and performing an audit.
As per his suggestion, we should only work for niches in which we have a deep interest. Besides this, working on products that we have personally used is the best idea. Though some segments are at peak sales these days, we cannot jump into them directly until we have interest and detailed research about the topics.
Wrapping It Up
In short, COVID-19 has changed the entire map of affiliate marketing. Changes in consumer behavior, interest in a few segments, and global financial crises. Segments like health, hygiene, and online learning tools are in full swing. However, other areas like luxuries, real estate, and home improvement are facing a difficult time. Experts recommend focusing on the high-demand areas if you already have a site on it. In another case, try utilizing this time for researching future segments.
Author:
Nouman provides ghostwriting and copywriting services. His educational background in the technical field and business studies helps him in tackling topics ranging from career and business productivity to web development and digital marketing. He occasionally writes articles for Apcelero.
