Your most successful competitor’s income doesn’t rely entirely on course sales or memberships. Research from GrowthBadger shows that 57% of high-earning creators use affiliate marketing to diversify their business and generate passive income.
So, even when their courses or memberships are closed for new customers, they earn commissions by promoting relevant products to their audience.
For example, a yoga instructor who runs a membership program promotes different yoga accessories like mats, blocks, and straps to their audience and earns a commission on every sale. This is on top of their membership sales, helping them diversify their business.
But here’s the problem.
Not every industry has the same affiliate marketing potential. Some niches offer a wider range of affiliate programs with higher commissions and more earning opportunities.
So, to diversify your digital products business with affiliate marketing revenue, carefully evaluate a niche before going all in.
This article will make your job easier because it lists the best affiliate marketing niches for course creators.
If you create a course in any of these niches, you can earn a substantial income by recommending relevant products from reliable vendors to your audience.
Let’s dive in.
High Ticket Affiliate Marketing Programs For Experts And Course Creators
The niches we’re about to share are ideal for course creators looking to supplement their income with affiliate marketing for a few reasons.
Some of them are interconnected.
So, even if you’re a consultant or coach in a different niche, you can promote relevant products to your audience from a complementary niche.
For example, a freelance writing coach can recommend the best office chairs for long sitting because freelancers spend hours on their computers.
This not only helps your audience buy valuable products but also allows you to cover a wider range of products and increase your affiliate sales.
Niche #1: E-Learning, Consulting, & Online Courses
We’ll start with our niche, e-learning.
This niche is about teaching professionals and experts ways to monetize their expertise by selling online courses, membership programs, coaching, and other forms of digital products.
It is among the most profitable affiliate niches because of the ever-increasing demand for online courses. According to research, 75% of students in the US and 90% of corporations worldwide use different kinds of e-learning products for skill development.
Experienced professionals in every industry want to cash in on this trend by selling courses and e-learning programs.
Your courses will teach them how to run a successful online course business. However, they must invest in online course platforms, membership platforms, email marketing software, and other applications to automate their business.
But which online course platform is right for them – Thinkific, Kajabi, Zenler, or Teachable? This is where they’ll need your help.
They already trust your advice and have enrolled in your courses. When you recommend a specific platform, they’re likely to follow your advice.
Examples Of E-learning Affiliate Programs
We’ve written a dedicated article listing the best e-learning affiliate programs. Here are a few examples of products you can recommend in this niche.
- Online Course Platforms (15+ platforms including LearnWorlds, Thinkific, Kajabi)
- Coaching Platforms (Upcoach, Satori)
- Community Management Platforms (Mighty Networks, Circle, BuddyBoss)
- Membership Platforms (MemberPress, Podia, Kajabi)
- Email Marketing Tools (ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp)
- AI Tools (Jasper, Pictory, Wondercraft AI)
These articles list dozens of software applications with dedicated affiliate programs offering recurring commissions.
But you can also land lucrative affiliate partnerships by reaching out to complementing brands and products even if they don’t have a public affiliate program.
Of course, your chances of landing big-ticket affiliate partnerships are significantly higher when you’re a big player with thousands of customers or a large email list.
Niche #2: SEO, Digital Marketing And Advertising
The global digital advertising market is worth more than $680 billion.
And this number is projected to grow in the coming years.
This is why thousands of marketers invest in courses and membership programs to learn SEO, PPC advertising, and other digital marketing skills.
Some of the top-tier e-learning programs in this niche can cost thousands of dollars. Yet, marketers willingly pay for such programs because they get hardcore marketing skills they can instantly monetize to get a positive ROI.
Traffic Think Tank, for example, is an SEO membership community with an annual subscription fee of $1000+.
If you’re a digital marketing expert, you can create a reliable income stream by selling coaching, consultancy, and cohort courses to aspiring marketers.
Plus, you can earn almost as much with affiliate marketing in this niche as your course sales.
Why? Digital marketers need tools, services, and applications for competitor analysis, research, and content creation.
As a community owner or course seller people follow, you can recommend the best software solutions to earn thousands of dollars in affiliate commissions.
Jon from Fat Stacks is another excellent example. He is a prolific blogger who has earned millions from his content websites and online courses about SEO and blogging. He regularly shares his favorite service providers and tools (as an affiliate) with his email subscribers.
The best part is that most software companies in this niche offer recurring commissions, which means you only earn once but keep earning as long as your referrals remain customers.
Examples Of SEO & Digital Marketing Affiliate Programs
You can recommend everything from website hosting services and SEO tools to website optimization and AI content creation tools because marketers need them to drive results.
Here are a few examples of leading affiliate programs in this niche.
- Hostinger, Nexcess, Bluehost, and other web hosting services
- SEMRush, SimilarWeb, and Mangools for competitor analysis and research
- Adalysis, Wordstream, and Optmyzr for advertising insights
- Landing Page tools like Swipe Pages, LeadPages, and Unbounce
Niche #3: eCommerce, Dropshipping, & Private Labeling
$22.2 billion – the combined sales figures for the 2024 Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales in the US.
eCommerce is only getting bigger every year, and a lot of it has to do with small retailers going online using platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Amazon.
Naturally, the demand for eCommerce courses has also skyrocketed over the last few years. Dropshipping, for example, is one of the hottest course topics in the eCommerce niche. Similarly, courses about Amazon private labeling, flipping, and wholesaling are in high demand.
If you’ve run a successful Shopify, WooCommerce, or Amazon store and know how to drive sales, you can create courses and membership programs to help aspiring sellers online.
Naturally, your course participants will need to invest in various tools, applications, and services to run their business.
For example, they’ll need an eCommerce website, a payment gateway, product research tools, designing tools for product labels, product sourcing partners, and various other services.
There’s so much demand in the eCommerce niche that you can earn a significant amount of commissions every month just by helping your course participants choose the right applications for their business.
Share your experiences, tell them the pros and cons of different tools, and show them the optimal path to success. As a result, you’ll generate thousands of dollars in recurring affiliate commissions.
Examples Of eCommerce Affiliate Programs
You can earn affiliate commissions in the eCommerce niche in many different ways. For example, you can connect your course participants with a trusted product-sourcing partner and earn a commission on every successful transaction.
Similarly, you can partner with a WooCommerce agency and send clients their way who want a fully functional WordPress eCommerce site.
Or you could take the more straightforward route and simply sign up for different affiliate programs. Here are a few prominent examples.
- Shopify – the most user-friendly eCommerce website and business solution
- Jungle Scout and Helium 10 – leading Amazon product-hunting tools
- Affiliate programs of Stripe, Wise, Payoneer, and other payment services
Niche #4: Health, Fitness, And Weight Loss
Weight loss, fitness, and healthy living are the poster niches for affiliate marketing. Along with finance, these niches were the first to truly embrace affiliate marketing in its early days. This is why most content creators in these niches rely heavily on affiliate commissions.
However, with more healthy lifestyle applications, software, services, and products than ever, you don’t need to put all your eggs in one basket and rely on one or two programs for all your affiliate revenue.
Instead, focus on building a reliable brand image because that’s one of the main challenges in the weight loss niche.
Many creators have been exposed over the years for faking bodies, advocating a natural diet while silently building their bodies with steroids, and promoting low-quality products for a quick commission.
So, if you run a weight loss community, a yoga masterclass, or any other digital product offer in this niche, produce the highest quality content for your members so they can trust you, confidently follow your advice, and buy your recommended products.
Nerd Fitness is an excellent example of this approach. It’s a massive community of fitness geeks and weight loss aspirants helping each other on their journeys.
The community owners make a large chunk of their income from affiliate offers because members trust them and consider them an authority on the subject.
Examples Of Weight Loss Affiliate Programs
You can promote a wide range of products in the weight loss and fitness niches. Start with Amazon Associates to promote weight loss gear, apparel, accessories, and exercise equipment. People want your recommendation for buying the best treadmill or the ideal exercise bike for their weight loss goals. So help them with your experience.
Then, look for complementing products on ClickBank or Commission Junction that your audience might find helpful. There’s a vast range of products you can promote on these platforms.
You can also partner with supplement brands or weight loss software applications like PlateJoy and FitBit that help users track their progress.
Niche #5: Personal Finance & Investing
Who doesn’t want to grow wealth and make intelligent investment choices? This is why personal finance experts and investment coaches run some of the most lucrative online communities, memberships, and consultancy businesses.
They help people understand how money works and teach them ways to put it to work for them. Naturally, people who understand the potential of these programs happily sign up.
NerdWallet, one of the world’s most popular finance websites, is a great example. It shares helpful and actionable content with its users, has a vast community, and makes significant revenue by promoting affiliate products.
What can you promote as a personal finance affiliate? Investment apps, financial services, and brokerage firms are popular choices for affiliates in this niche.
Examples Of Personal Finance Affiliate Programs
Accounting and budgeting software like Freshbooks and QuickBooks run popular affiliate programs in this niche.
You’ll also find numerous financial affiliate programs on FlexOffers, ShareASale, and CJ.
However, the challenge is finding reliable offers that deliver on their promise and do not harm your referrals. This is crucial because, as a course creator or community owner, you’ll be promoting these offers to your customers and tribe members.
One wrong move and your reputation can go down the drain. So, carefully evaluate an offer before promoting it.
Niche #6: Photography, Video Editing, & Content Creation
There has never been a better time to become a video editor, photographer, or any other kind of visual content creator.
Because research shows that online video content consumption is at an all-time high.
If you’re an expert photographer, videographer, or visual content editor, thousands of people are eager to learn your skills, giving you an excellent opportunity to make an impact and create an additional revenue stream by selling online courses.
This niche is also ripe with affiliate marketing opportunities. As an affiliate, you can promote everything from cameras, mics, and lighting equipment to editing software and video hosting services.
It’s a high-ticket affiliate niche because cameras and videography gear can cost anywhere from a few hundred to thousands of dollars. But people still purchase them because of their passion for photography and because visual content creation is their business.
Digital Photography School is one of the best affiliate marketing examples for content creators in this niche.
As one of the oldest photography and videography sites, DPS has detailed tutorials and actionable blog content to help all types of photographers. In addition, it has a dedicated courses section where aspiring visual content creators can buy on-demand tutorials to learn specific skills.
DPS not only makes money from course sales but also earns a significant part of its revenue by promoting photography and video content creation gear as an affiliate.
Examples Of Videography Affiliate Programs And Products
All mainstream cameras, mics, and accessories are available on Amazon, which you can promote by signing up for the Amazon Associates program.
Consumers trust Amazon and can easily judge a product’s utility by reading customer reviews. This is why Amazon has excellent conversion rates, meaning when you refer customers to Amazon, they’re most likely to make a purchase.
However, many companies offer direct affiliate programs as well. For example, you can become an affiliate for SONY, Canon, Nikon, and many other top brands.
On the software side, you can find a wide range of affiliate programs with one-time and recurring commissions. For example:
- Adobe Affiliate Program
- Animaker Affiliate Program
- Canva Affiliate Program
- DaVinci Resolve Affiliate Program
In short, this is one of the hottest affiliate marketing niches for course creators, with numerous high-ticket products and partnership programs.
Niche #7: Parenting
Parenting can be physically and mentally overwhelming. But people only realize this after having children.
That’s when they look for resources online, hire consultants and coaches, or turn to online courses for help.
If you’re past that stage and know what it takes to navigate the parenting challenges, share your knowledge with concerned parents and make their lives easier.
In this niche, the most popular e-learning programs are live courses and one-on-one coaching because every parent-child relationship is different and requires a tailored approach.
For example, a new mother’s challenges are entirely different from those of a 7 to 10-year-old’s mom worried about her child’s sudden mood swings and stubbornness.
However, what doesn’t change is the opportunity to recommend valuable products to your clients and earn affiliate commissions for them.
According to The Brookings Institute, the average US family spends about $310K raising children from birth to their 18th birthday. That’s about $17K a year.
As a coach or consultant, you can help your clients buy the right products for their infants, children, and even teenagers and earn hefty commissions on every sale (baby products can be costly).
Examples Of Parenting Affiliate Programs And Products
You can rely almost entirely on Amazon to find and promote useful products to your parenting clients. Amazon has a dedicated section called The Baby Store, which contains a vast product range from the world’s top brands for kids of all ages.
Apart from physical products, you can promote platforms and apps like Care.com, 1-2-3 Magic Parenting, and Our Family Wizard for recurring commissions.
How To Choose An Affiliate Marketing Niche For Your E-learning Business
If you’re already selling courses or digital products in a niche, find the best available affiliate programs to promote relevant products to your customers.
However, if you’re yet to find your niche and want affiliate marketing to be one of your core revenue channels, consider the following factors before finalizing a niche.
Aligned With Your Expertise
You can’t establish authority or build a long-term e-learning business without being an expert in your topic. And when you don’t sell courses and have no audience, who’s going to buy the products you recommend?
So, the most critical factor of your niche research is alignment with your expertise. You must be passionate and knowledgeable about your topic to create valuable course content.
Everything else is secondary.
Market Demand
Let’s say you’ve found your expert area and know you can create high-quality courses.
But is there a demand for your topic, and are there people willing to pay to learn from you? Without students, you can’t sell courses or earn affiliate commissions.
How do you find demand for a course topic? Here are a few quick suggestions.
- Search Google and Udemy to find any existing courses on your topic.
- Search Amazon for eBooks on your topic. If there are thousands of reviews in your target niche, there’s an apparent demand for the subject.
- Use Ahrefs, SEMRush, Ubersuggest, or any other keyword research tool to check your target niche’s monthly search volume.
- Use Google Trends to see if your topic is in demand.
Affiliate Programs And Commission Rates
So, you’ve figured there’s demand for your topic as well.
But is it an ideal niche for affiliate marketing as well? We’ll have to determine if multiple affiliate programs exist in your niche and check their commission rates.
Ideally, a niche should have a wide range of high-paying affiliate programs so that you can diversify your commission sources.
Here are a few ways to check your niche’s affiliate potential:
- Search Google for the keyword [your niche] affiliate programs
- Search Amazon for products in your niche
- See what brands your competitors promote
- Look for mobile apps and software products with affiliate programs in your niche
While Amazon covers most product categories, don’t choose a niche where it is the only affiliate program because
- It offers low commission rates
- It regularly suspends affiliate accounts for weird reasons
Look for a good mix of software, apps, partnerships, and Amazon products to promote as an affiliate.
Growth Potential
Does your niche have supporting topics or sub-niches that you can target to grow your affiliate revenue? This is not a deal breaker, but still worth considering.
For example, a creator in the travel niche can naturally transition into the photography niche and earn additional revenue by recommending cameras and other helpful photography gear.
Ready To Grow Your E-learning Business With Affiliate Marketing?
You’re already an authority on your subject, and your community members and customers trust your advice.
So, sign up as an affiliate to promote the products you’ve used and believe in. Your customers won’t have to pay anything extra, but you’ll earn a handy commission on every sale.
It’s a win-win scenario.
Some of the world’s most accomplished course sellers use affiliate marketing. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t.
Jeff Cobb, Founder of Learning Revolution
Jeff Cobb is an expert in online education and the business of adult lifelong learning. Over the past 20+ years he has built a thriving career based on that expertise – as an entrepreneur, a consultant, an author, and a speaker. Learning Revolution is a place where Jeff curates tips, insights, and resources to help you build a thriving expertise-based business. Learn more about Jeff Cobb here.
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