If you are planning the next steps of your affiliate marketing strategy, are you considering taking the high road?
The affiliate marketing trade is all about selecting the right niche and procuring an advantageous commission-based arrangement that will remunerate your marketing efforts and expertise.
With traditional affiliate marketing, we earn by scaling the returns from lower percentage commissions.
The average affiliate commissions are anywhere between 5% and 30% each sale, according to Referral Rock.
So, building a head of steam on our click-through rate by publishing and ranking engaging and informative content makes all the difference to building a thriving income.
There is another key affiliate marketing approach that you may want to use when developing your online businesses.
Rather than focusing on numerous low-value transactions, we’re going to take a look at what happens when you pitch products at the other end of the scale, both in terms of the sale value and commission percentage.
This is called high-ticket marketing, and it can bring in thousands in commission from a single sale. This is what we are going to take a look at in this article. Are you ready?
With decent money to be made, I definitely am!
We will also look at what you will need to do to achieve high-ticket affiliate marketing sales and delve into the opportunities and programs available to affiliate marketers at high-ticket rates.
Let’s get into this!
What is high-ticket affiliate marketing?
High-ticket affiliate marketing is a type of affiliate marketing that preferentially targets affiliate programs that pay high rates of commission by a percentage of the sales transaction or because the item being promoted is very expensive.
By promoting high-cost products and services through high-ticket affiliate marketing, you can enjoy large profits through fewer sales than needed in mainstream affiliate marketing programs. Typically, high ticket affiliates should be earning at least $100 per transaction.
As a high-ticket affiliate marketer, you can earn commissions that are in the hundreds and even thousands of dollars.
Many of your fellow affiliates are shying away from these types of programs as they are concerned about competition and the difficulty they may have in converting sales.
However, that leaves a relatively wide-open playing field for you to dominate — should you want to become a super affiliate.
Types of high-ticket affiliate marketing strategies you need to know:
Affiliate marketers all have their own take on what constitutes high-ticket affiliate marketing. I’ll run through the main types you may encounter on the internet:
- The high-ticket offer: With these arrangements, you are dealing in products that have commissions in the hundreds of dollars. Marketers like to deal in high-ticket offers because they get a much greater ROI on the effort of promoting the product or service compared to marketing regular low ticket offers.
- High converting offers: These affiliate programs are a great deal as they feature products and services that have an ultra-high conversion rate, well over 10%. With this type of high-ticket arrangement, you don’t need shedloads of traffic to enjoy buoyant sales.
- Offers with a high frequency of repeat purchases: These types of high-ticket sales are in exclusive niches where buyers return again and again to make their purchase.
- Low-competition offers: This is what just about everyone is looking for; an area with high-ticket products that is currently underserved and ripe for growing an authoritative presence.
- Recurring commission offers: These arrangements will provide you with an ongoing monthly, quarterly, or annual commission as a subscription is purchased by the user. These high-ticket affiliate programs are great for building a decent financial base.
Why high-ticket affiliate marketing could be an advantageous strategy for you
More and more people are becoming switched on to what can be achieved by building up an online business through affiliate marketing.
Mainstream programs like Amazon Affiliates have made it easy to start and scale a competent affiliate site and enjoy good earnings.
For most companies, the commission you earn on sales is never going to be very high. This is because they will be actively trying to protect their profits.
Think about how many sales you need to make to earn $1,000 in commission from Amazon selling $19.99 items?
In many ways, high-ticket sales are just as transactional, but if you investigate the opportunities and marketplaces out there, you will be able to pin down companies, products, and niches where you will be hauling in at least several hundreds of dollars per sale and even more recurring if you are in on repeat subscriptions or renewals.
More money with fewer sales!
If you are looking to hit a five-figure monthly turnover, this is going to be achieved with only a few $1,000 commissions, rather than hundreds or even thousands of smaller sales.
Whether you do traditional or high-ticket affiliate marketing you are likely to be putting in the same amount of effort, and with high-ticket programs, the demands of traffic to your site are often lower.
Great rewards for being focused
High-ticket affiliate marketing is also much more product-focused. With standard affiliate marketing, you may be selling many products that are within a particular niche.
But with high-ticket affiliate marketing, your inventory is far more limited than, say, Amazon.
In this type of business, you just have to focus on selling fewer expensive items really well.
My high-ticket item website, seen in my monthly income reports, gets sales and commissions on items sold every day on Amazon for over $2,000. I never dreamed people would spend $2,000 per item on Amazon.
But they do!
Excellent ROI
For many affiliates, the high-ticket marketplace is a fast track to building a substantial long-term passive income.
Because of high commissions, the costs of investing in the caliber of digital marketing needed to sell these products effectively is easily recouped and ongoing sales will quickly put you into profit!
If you have a substantial social media or digital following, introducing your audience to high-ticket offers could prove an extremely lucrative addition to your existing online business activity.
Does high-ticket affiliate marketing have any barriers to entry?
The amazing thing is that anyone can get involved. You do not need specific skills, expertise, or finances to be able to profit from high-ticket affiliate marketing any more than what is needed for regular affiliate marketing.
Just stop focusing on websites and blog posts that chase those $19.99 sales.
What types of items and products are “high-ticket?”
High-ticket items are not necessarily gilded, obscure, or exclusive products.
A lot of the time the high returns on affiliate marketing is because companies want to diversify their marketing or save on doing the job themselves.
These businesses are therefore incentivizing you to do the hard work of selling their products.
You’ll also find that many high-ticket products are typically software or other digital services. These types of products are advantageous for high-ticket affiliate marketing as they often provide recurrent commission.
Here are some examples of high-ticket affiliate programs that are currently open to applications:
- Sandals Resorts
Sandals Resorts is well known for providing one of the most competitive affiliate marketing programs in the luxury travel sector.
Their affiliates receive a commission rate that starts at 4% of the net value of bookings across all their resorts, holiday packages, and even activities.
If 4% sounds like small change, you need to remember that this luxury Caribbean holiday company has room rates of up to $8000 per person per night!
A week’s stay for honeymooners at $1000 per person per night, booked via your affiliate link could see you earn as much as $560!
Their 60-day cookie life provides every opportunity to cash in from the informative and inspirational content you create to promote this company.
I know holiday niches are competitive. But wedding niches, and especially niched down topics within the wedding niches, are not so tough to crack.
One sale a week from an item worth $8000+ would be enough to make a successful affiliate website.
- HubSpot
HubSpot is keen to work with affiliates who can refer users to purchase any of their custom tools and packages.
If you are successful in assisting them, you can look forward to an extremely generous commission, which is some of the highest on the internet!
A 90-day cookie is available for remuneration of up to $1,000 per product purchased with sales in the starter tier of services – netting you at least $250!
- BigCommerce
E-commerce juggernaut BigCommerce does not mess around when it comes to rewarding its affiliates.
Your bank balance will be more than healthy with a mind-boggling 200% commission for every enterprise customer you refer.
The 90-day cookie life means you have every opportunity to draw in up to $1,500 per sale!
- Hammacher Schlemmer
Hammacher Schlemmer is an American tradition. As America’s oldest catalogue company, it has become a compendium for buying everything from the ordinary to the extravagant.
The rate of the commission may seem standard at 8%, but when you find that Hammacher Schlemmer sells items like $65K racing simulators, the opportunities for high-ticket sales seem completely different.
Taking home 8% of their $300K Amphibious Sub-Surface Watercraft will net you a cool $24K, which is all the motivation you need for working with this famous brand.
- eToro
You are certainly going to feel bullish with the uncapped 25% commission on revenue offered by eToro to participating affiliates in its partnership program.
As one of the world’s most recognizable social trading platforms, the affiliate program is packed with media assets and branded resources to assist you in selling the benefits of using eToro to trade.
Multiple channels are provided for referring traffic with up to $400 Dynamic Cost per Acquisition (DCPA) as well as its outstanding revenue share.
Making high-ticket sales work for you
Mastering high-ticket affiliate marketing and becoming a super affiliate takes focus and dedication.
You will need to proactively sell the brand’s products and services you are partnering with, and structure your online content to tackle all aspects of the sales cycle and the objection handling – this is almost certainly going to be needed.
Here are my top tips for making a real impact in high-ticket affiliate marketing
- For high-ticket marketing, you need to acquire expertise
Though you don’t have to market high-ticket items related to your personal interest and expertise, that can help greatly.
Otherwise, high-ticket affiliate marketers have a steep learning curve for gaining the knowledge and understanding of the products and services that are needed to sell them well.
High-ticket marketing sites usually have to be authoritative, with content that leads in describing the products and answering exhaustive questions about the specifications and function.
- Your high-ticket buyers will expect real attention to detail
Prospective customers need as much information as they can get to really evaluate a high-ticket purchase.
You need to become their 5-senses, with detailed, descriptive content that handles the product or uses the service for them.
Don’t leave anything out, even the smallest details and crumbs of insider insight could tip the balance towards a sale.
- You must become a master of AIDA to convert high-ticket transactions
Because you are online, you need to work harder to provide your users with an enriched sales experience that is compatible with their higher price point.
After all, that is why these companies are prepared to part with such large amounts of money.
Pay attention to Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action (AIDA) in both structuring your website and crafting your content plan. Nothing should be left to chance.
- Boost your reach to give you the exposure needed to net transactions
High-ticket affiliate marketing is still largely niche-based, but you may need to think creatively about where your users are going to be on the internet.
For high-ticket affiliate marketing with momentum, you should be getting to grips with social media and email marketing so you can leverage interest in your featured products without simply relying on the search engines.
As you can see, the high-ticket approach to affiliate marketing can prove to be a lucrative one
High-ticket affiliate marketing provides loads of opportunities to strike out in a new niche, or integrate high commission items in an existing, thriving blog.
The techniques used in high-ticket affiliate marketing are virtually the same as you have been using with your regular sites, meaning that you have every chance of building a decent income with fewer but more valuable sales.
