Successful Affiliate Marketing Websites To Inspire You
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There are all kinds of affiliate marketing websites out there. Some add affiliate links everywhere they can, while others are more subtle about it. Some offer tools and services, while others review products. And some cover big, competitive topics, while others fit into a slimmer (yet still lucrative) niche.
These affiliate marketing website examples are here to spark inspiration for your own site, and you may even learn a bit about what you don’t want to do.
Bankrate
Bankrate is one of the leading affiliate marketing websites with financial product comparisons. It also has financial news, reviews of credit cards and other products, and in-depth information about credit cards, investing, mortgages, personal loans and more.
What’s particularly great about Bankrate is that it offers a ton of value to consumers, with all sorts of finance calculators to play with. Affiliate marketers can take a cue from this and offer their visitors interactive elements that add value and keep people on the page longer.
Learn about saving for retirement, buying a home, insuring your car, choosing a credit card, investing for the first time… Basically anything and everything you’d need related to personal finances.
BarBend
BarBend has reviews of nutrition products, equipment and gear, plus nutrition and training guides and health-related calculators.
One of the affiliate products being promoted is featured at the top of the home page in a large, animated banner, making it the first thing you see when you go to the website.
The articles that aren’t heavily affiliated have lots of opportunities for linking to the more affiliated roundups on the site, so affiliate marketing is always being pushed even if it’s indirect. This is a good example of providing value to the visitor while still moving them toward making a purchase.
Cat Food Advisor
What puts Cat Food Advisor among the top affiliate marketing website examples is that its purpose is obvious right off the bat.
Aside from the can’t-be-more-clear website name and URL, the homepage tells you what they’re about at the very top: cat food reviews and ratings.
If you need information on cat food, this is the place to go.
The website has an excellent lead magnet as well. It collects email addresses and adds subscribers to a cat food recall alerts mailer.
Pet owners will find it irresistible to sign up for a newsletter that will help them keep their cats safe. And this gives the website owner more opportunities to promote affiliate products via email marketing.
P.S. There’s also a Dog Food Advisor website with the same purpose and dog-focused lead magnet.
Digital Trends
Digital Trends and similar affiliate marketing websites have lots of tech-related topics they cover, and pretty much everything you read will have affiliate links, too.
Digital Trends posts news, reviews and roundups in the audio/video, computing, entertainment, gaming and mobile niches, all covered by writers with in-depth knowledge of their field.
This is a good example of a website that doesn’t leave an affiliate link unturned but also vets the products it promotes with firsthand testing and/or expert-level knowledge to only push the ones the publisher can stand behind.
Headphones Addict
Where sites like Digital Trends go broad, affiliate sites like Headphones Addict go narrow.
Everything here is focused on headphones, as you’d expect, with reviews of earbuds, posts about new products and roundups.
Here’s what we like most about affiliate marketing websites like Headphones Addict: You can see that the reviews are first-person because the reviewer often posts images of themselves using the product.
Even the images without the reviewer are similar enough in style to make it clear that these aren’t stock photos, which means the products were actually tested by the content creator.
That goes a long way toward building trust with your audience, which is a must if they’re going to follow your recommendations and make a purchase.
Lucie’s List
The name “Lucie’s List” doesn’t make it obvious what the site is about, but everything else on the homepage above the fold does.
While this is an affiliate marketing site, it veers more to helping parents navigate different stages of parenthood and understand the topics that may be hard to talk about.
And, of course, there are a lot of baby gear recommendations, with a Gear Guides link in the main navigation bar.
We particularly like the affiliate disclaimer at the very top of the page.
Usually, websites try to bury this information as much as they legally can, putting it in the footer and hoping it goes ignored. However, this one makes the site even more appealing because it explains that affiliate links keep the site “free of ads or sponsorships.”
Scrolling without pop-ups and flashing ads is practically unheard of these days, and it makes Lucie’s List extra appealing.
Making Sense of Cents
Making Sense of Cents is kind of like a Bankrate for a younger audience. In its place amongst financial affiliate marketing websites, this one covers money management but adds millennial-and-younger-focused topics like:
- Apps for making money
- Blogging income streams
- Earning extra money
- Finding a new job
- Paid survey sites
- Starting a business
- Working from home
Its listicles seem like gold mines for adding affiliate links, but Making Sense of Cents doesn’t overwhelm readers with tons and tons of links per article. Instead, they’re purposely placed where they matter most, which tells the reader that their experience is the top consideration.
The site appeals to readers who are interested in modern ways of earning extra cash or a full-time income, like getting paid to read books, online remote positions, and even scoring free gift cards.
There are more traditional articles, too, like credit card roundups (excellent for affiliate marketing) and basic tips like how to write out a check.
NerdWallet
NerdWallet is another entry in the financial affiliate marketing websites niche, like Bankrate, but skewing slightly younger — though not as young as Making Sense of Cents.
That doesn’t matter for our purposes, though, because where NerdWallet thrives in terms of affiliate marketing is with their free browser extension. You can link to that via the banner at the top of the homepage:
Here’s why this is brilliant:
- The free shopping rewards Chrome extension from NerdWallet alerts users when a coupon or other type of reward is available from a major retailer, like Ulta, Old Navy, Petco, Walmart, etc. Major value for the user.
- All of those offers are affiliated. According to the Chrome Web Store, “This is a white label extension made for NerdWallet that uses affiliate programs.” Major value for NerdWallet.
On top of that, lots of NerdWallet’s articles have affiliate links, too.
PCPartPicker
PCPartPicker is a surprisingly uncomplicated website for such a complex topic. And it’s one of our favorite affiliate marketing website examples because it (1) offers lots and lots of value to users and (2) can affiliate just about everything it promotes.
We love the Start Your Build tool that lists each component of a PC, shows you compatibility issues as you go along and, of course, links to product pages filled with affiliate links.
The Points Guy
Travel points and miles can be confusing even for people who use them, and The Points Guy helps take the mystery out of the niche.
This is among the particularly savvy affiliate marketing websites because it satisfies two different types of customers:
- Travelers who want to save money.
- Money-conscious people who travel.
It’s also positioned at a place in the marketing funnel where a lot of visitors are ready to take the next step and make a purchase. The Deals section is especially useful for this because it highlights limited-time offers that you have to act fast on if you don’t want to miss out.
Travel and finance are two excellent affiliate marketing niches (though the competition is tough), and not only because these two topics touch most people’s lives. They also represent decision-making moments when clicking on an ad or sponsorship isn’t a turn-off.
In order to have a better trip, save money or both, many users aren’t going to care if they’re clicking on an affiliate link or not because the payoff for them is so high.
Retro Dodo
Retro Dodo is a great example of a niche affiliate marketing website. It covers retro gaming products, including handheld devices, collector’s items, controllers, gaming history, etc.
Most of the site’s articles have the potential for affiliate linking, and Retro Dodo’s affiliate disclosure page says, “Retro Dodo regularly scours the internet in search of the best retro gaming products out there.”
Retro Dodo excels at balancing value-packed articles with affiliate marketing because even its more informational articles are able to include affiliate links.
It also caters to a unique market of consumers who are interested in the general topic of retro gaming and who are likely willing to pay for another gaming opportunity, especially if the product is hard to find.
SafeWise
The home safety website SafeWise covers everything from news and home security to safety for the home, families and seniors. Not all of its articles and pages are for the purpose of affiliate marketing, but many of them are, including the “Best Home Security Systems” page linked to at the top of the homepage.
What SafeWise does well is balance affiliated articles with news and advice content. Unfortunately, though, the affiliate disclosure is pretty difficult to find, and it’s not even included in the disclaimer section.
We had to head to the Terms of Service page, where there’s a brief paragraph about Amazon affiliate advertising. That paragraph doesn’t make it clear that a commission can be earned for products that are purchased.
A good takeaway from this is to make sure your affiliate disclosures are prominent and clear.
Shut Up and Sit Down
Shut Up and Sit Down is in the board game (and card game) niche, and it does a lot right that affiliate marketers can learn from.
- Posts different types of content, including articles, podcast episodes and videos.
- Has lots of different categories so users can quickly find the exact type of game content they’re after.
- Shows the reviewers interacting with the games so you know the advice is first-person.
Unfortunately, the website didn’t have an affiliate disclosure we could find, though they do use affiliate links.
This Is Why I’m Broke
The homepage for This Is Why I’m Broke is busy and overwhelming, but that’s part of the fun.
This is among standout affiliate marketing websites because instead of going to a blog post about a product and then clicking an affiliate link, the items on the homepage go directly to the items.
If a visitor lands on the This Is Why I’m Broke homepage and clicks either the product image or the “Check It Out” link, they go right to the seller’s website — which means tracking begins, and a commission can be earned on any purchase made within the cookie duration. That basically removes a step that other marketers build into their affiliate marketing websites.
We also really love the site’s affiliate disclosure, which thoughtfully explains how products are chosen and what affiliate links mean for the consumer.
Affiliate Marketing Websites Wrap-Up
With so many different kinds of affiliate marketing sites out there, you’ve hopefully gotten a few ideas for your own. At the very least, you can see that there’s no one way to build an affiliate website. You can do what you think is best for yourself, your niche and your audience, then make adjustments as you go.
Wondering if affiliate marketing is worth it? We have a blog post for that.