3 Shortcuts to Finding a Profitable Affiliate Niche

If you're trying to find a profitable affiliate niche here are 3 ways to help cut your affiliate marketing research in half so you can get on to the fun of promoting and begin making money.

Shortcut #1: Head over to the ClickBank Marketplace and choose any category you might be interested in promoting. This will bring back the top ten most popular products in that category. You might check the second page too, if you don’t find something that interests you on page one.

You'll notice that for each product that Clickbank displays they also provide sales and affiliate information. Here's a little about what each one means:

$/sale - Average net amount earned per affiliate.
Future $ – If a product has recurring billing this is an average sum of all re-bills.
Total $/sale – Average total $ per sale, including all recurring billing (if applies) that may come from a sale.
%/sale – Your affiliate commission percentage
%refd - Percentage of total sales referred from affiliates
Grav - indicates how many affiliates promote the product. This is not an exact number, i.e. 100 does not mean 100 affiliates, there is a calculation but suffice it to say the higher the number the more affiliates the product has.

Don’t be put off by the fact that a product seems too popular or the market too saturated. Affiliate marketing is all about driving appeal and grabbing your target market's attention. If you have an “eye” for that market your promotional skills will shine through.

Shortcut #2: Another place to “read” your market is to go to the niche forum, list how to find a forum. If your niche is internet marketing the warrior forum is the best place I've found to get in tune with what internet marketers want and struggle with. If you're looking for a specific niche forum simply type the following into Google to find forums that match your keyword phrase:

alllintitle:keyword forum

Replace 'keyword' with whatever topic you are looking for.

Listen to the members in the forums. Do you notice recurring questions or problems? Is there a specific product that can serve their concerns? Make sure you become a helpful contributor and then note which affiliate products can best serve those individuals.

Shortcut #3: Take a break from your computer and head over to your favorite bookstore and check out the magazine rack. If advertisers are spending money on ads then there's enough interest to support the magazine so it's a safe bet that there’s a market for an affiliate product in that same niche.

Train yourself to think outside the box when looking for profitable affiliate niches. It's about drilling down and getting creative. Home decorating is a very popular topic but if you drill down just a little you'll see that there's profit potential in niche ideas like 'bathroom art' or 'DIY closet organization ideas'. Use free keyword tools like Google Keyword tool or Wordtracker to help you see where the interest is.

These are just some of the simpler ways of digging into the minds of potential customers to find what wants, needs and desires they have. For more serious affiliate marketing strategies you can't beat the Super Affiliate Handbook by Rosalind Gardner, in my experience there's no better or a more thorough guide available for helping you not only find profitable affiliate niches but how build a successful affiliate marketing business.