Is Affiliate Marketing Oversaturated? [The Truth in 2024]

Whenever you’re trying to succeed at a difficult thing, it’s only natural to question how doable that thing is – whether that thing is mastering the piano, running a marathon, or even building a business.

And honestly, you should! Who wants to waste their valuable time and effort on something that has no chance of panning out?

So, if you’re wondering whether affiliate marketing can be a viable opportunity for you, then allow me to answer the question that’s on a LOT of people’s minds: “Is affiliate marketing oversaturated?”

And if it IS, how do you find affiliate success anyway? Let’s dive in!

What Does Affiliate Marketing Look Like in 2024?

Warren Buffett is quoted as saying:

“It doesn’t matter how hard you row, it matters which boat you get in.”

All that to say, if you want to build a business or make some money online, it’s really important to choose a proven approach!

Think about it: you could take your skills and effort and apply them toward different business models – such as dropshipping, ecommerce, freelancing, or affiliate marketing – and end up with very different results, just based on macro factors outside of your control, such as consumer demand, logistics/fulfillment costs, and overall industry trends.

So, what is affiliate marketing, and what does it look like in 2024?

BigCommerce defines affiliate marketing in the following terms: 

Affiliate marketing is the process by which an affiliate earns a commission for marketing another person’s or company’s products. The affiliate searches for a product they enjoy then promotes it and earns a piece of the profit from each sale they make.

This model benefits both the affiliate marketer and the product owner/seller. And with a massive internet, it’s no wonder that affiliate marketing has taken off as it has! Statistics show that the industry will be worth $27.78 billion by 2027.

Affiliate marketing is a major driver of online sales for businesses across dozens of industries and verticals, and it’s not going anywhere any time soon. This is the sort of statistic that should make you feel confident that the affiliate marketing space has plenty of room for anyone who wants to be a part of it.

I believe oversaturation of the broader affiliate marketing industry is basically impossible, as long it’s growing at such a high rate. But with that said, you CAN still run into saturation on a brand or product level. That’s why it’s important to identify which aspects of affiliate marketing are already saturated and which still have plenty of growth opportunities!

Product-Level vs Industry-Wide Saturation

As an affiliate, it’s your job to identify parts of the industry that are on a positive trajectory. So, let’s talk about the difference between product-level and industry-wide saturation levels!

There’s no doubt that affiliate marketing within certain pockets of products, niches, and traffic sources have become oversaturated in 2024. (For example, dietary supplements have been on fire for at least the past 3-5 years among ClickBank affiliates, and there are now signs that the VSL-powered supplement business is slowing down.)

However, plucking those individual examples out and believing that they represent the entire landscape of affiliate marketing is a big mistake! There’s a huge difference between the natural cycle of individual products and services maturing compared to the wider market as a whole.

Another factor that can lead to oversaturation of an affiliate product is the online channel where it’s being promoted. For example, an e-business info product on ClickBank may have already been spread far and wide on Facebook Ads, but hasn’t yet received that same circulation across YouTube Ads (or native ads, or email, or organic social, or blogs…).

By testing a particular product in different places online, you may be able to find opportunity with the exact same high-converting affiliate product! All you have to do is promote it on channels where it hasn’t gained widespread traction or adoption yet.

It’s definitely reasonable to be wary of oversaturation with certain products on certain online channels. However, it’s not fair to say that affiliate marketing itself is oversaturated. There are plenty of opportunities for affiliate marketing growth and income in 2024!

3 Tips to Avoid Oversaturation 

Nobody wants to get out over their skis at any point and find that they can’t make the kind of money they had hoped to make with affiliate marketing. That’s why you need some way of identifying the “right” opportunity, as well as the “wrong” one.

On ClickBank, for example, it’s easy to stumble across “oversaturated” products, because they have the highest rank or Gravity score in the marketplace!

That’s a double-edged sword you need to be aware of, as more affiliates promoting a product and getting sales means more competition for YOU!

If you’re hoping to avoid saturated products, niches, and online channels as an affiliate, here are a few concrete tips to help you out:

1) Select a Growth Niche

Get out your pencil and paper (or Excel spreadsheet) and take some notes. You’ll want to do some research to discover whether the niche you’re getting involved with is expanding (growing) or contracting (shrinking).

In other words, you stand to benefit from a niche that already has momentum behind it and plenty of products available for you to promote. As long as you stay within the lanes of a growing industry, you should be able to capitalize on the momentum that has already begun to build in that space. 

Put another way, think of the common phrase, a “rising tide lifts all boats.” Or maybe you’d prefer a metaphor around grabbing the same slice of an ever-growing pie? Regardless, you make it a LOT easier for yourself if the niche you choose is already big and getting bigger.

There are many ways to find a stable or growing niche to build your affiliate business around. One simple one is to check out a site like Google Trends and search for a broad keyword related to the niche you’re thinking about. As an example, I’m in the music niche – and I can see that broad interest in songwriting and playing piano has stayed roughly the same over the past year.

That’s not bad – certainly not compared to a niche that’s actively losing interest – but in this niche, I have to work harder to see success when overall interest isn’t increasing either! I recommend taking a look at your niche in a tool like Google Trends to make sure it’s going in the right direction.

Another handy way to find out which niche is doing well is by paying attention to ClickBank’s list of the top affiliate marketing niches. Periodically, I’ll refresh this resource for the ClickBank community with the niches that are seeing the most actual sales volume on ClickBank – so you can easily track how your chosen niche is trending from year to year to decide if it’s where you want to focus.

Lastly, you can make a big difference in your business when choosing a niche by specializing. I already mentioned how massive the dietary supplements business is, and weight loss is far and away the biggest category there, which means the competition among weight loss affiliates is intense!

But by choosing a sub-niche within the dietary supplement niche, whether that’s men’s health, women’s health, dental health, etc. – you get most of the benefit of a popular niche without the fiercest possible competition. I did the same thing in the music niche by narrowing in on the sub-niche of songwriting.

2) Diversify Your Traffic Sources

It’s easy to get a little too comfortable relying on a single platform to do all of your affiliate marketing. Understandably, you might prefer certain platforms, but you should diversify your affiliate marketing channels whenever and wherever you can.

When you get comfortable with different traffic channels, ad networks, and software tools, you can reach the broadest audience and get more eyeballs on your affiliate bridge pages This is also helpful that doing this keeps you on your toes and always learning new strategies and ways of reaching your audience.

Consider mixing up the various ways you do affiliate marketing to keep things interesting and avoid oversaturation as well. If a sudden algorithm change on Google search or Facebook Ads has you feeling down, but you have other traffic sources (or the experience to pivot to them quickly), then your business isn’t at risk of disappearing overnight!

I’ve felt this myself as an SEO affiliate with a blog that was growing in organic search traffic from Google for years – until a “helpful” content update changed its fortunes overnight. Now, I’m wising up and expanding to email, YouTube, and paid ads to diversify where my traffic comes from.

3) Build Your Brand

If you have the interest in doing so, consider building your chosen affiliate business into a brand. It’s easy to think transactionally as an affiliate marketer, where you promote this one product as long as it converts and then move onto the next one. That’s fine – but you’re essentially starting from square one and building a new business from scratch each time you do this.

When you build a brand with a website, organic socials, an email list, and maybe even an online store (featuring your own products for sale), then you become a lot more resistant to concerns about saturation in affiliate marketing – because you’re not JUST an affiliate marketer anymore!

At the same time, you’re able to play a longer and more sophisticated game than most other affiliates can, because the customers you acquire will come with a much higher lifetime value. Ultimately, diversifying your income streams is your very best long-term strategy to beat the competition.

Now, this doesn’t mean you have to stop being an affiliate or give up on affiliate products as a revenue stream, but after you’ve found success with affiliate marketing, it’s definitely worth thinking about other ways to keep expanding your business… especially if affiliate marketing saturation is something that keeps you up at night!

Again, for me personally, I started out strictly as an affiliate and that’s been just fine so far. But eventually, I want to create a product of my own to sell under my brand, leveraging all of the content I’ve created with my name and my business’s name.

Anyway, I hope these tips get you thinking! They’re just a few of the basic strategies you should rely on to avoid succumbing to oversaturation as an affiliate. By following these principles, you can set up your business to weather the economic storms and always come out on top! 

How to Measure Your Success in Affiliate Marketing in 2024

I’ve alluded to some ways to avoid the pitfalls of oversaturation in affiliate marketing, but how do you know if you’re actually successful? What lets you know that you’re on target to where you’re trying to go in the industry?

Well, it might seem cliche, but I would highly recommend goal-setting to make sure you’re thinking through your whole affiliate strategy. By taking a deliberate look at the market and your own place in it, you can ensure you’re putting the odds on your side.

Here are a few quick ideas on how setting proper affiliate marketing goals: 

Specific

Know exactly what you want to accomplish as an affiliate. Saying “I want to be a better affiliate marketer” is not enough. Lay out a roadmap for yourself to get you from Point A to Point B.

Measurable

Set out metrics you can quantify and measure yourself against to understand how you are doing. This could include things like conversion rate, number of impressions on your landing page, or total number of sales – but it could also be as simple as “created 1 ad.”

Allow yourself to set intermediary goals on the way to your ultimate goal.

Achievable

Did you know that roughly 80% of people quit a new diet within their first month of trying? This is often because the ideal goals that they have for themselves to stay on track with that diet expect too much of them.

As part of this aspect of your goal, do research to make sure you’ve got a goal that you can truly accomplish with where you’re at in your journey. Perfectionism is the poison pill that kills many goals.

In the case of affiliate marketing, that probably means NOT setting a goal of $10k a month (or even $1k a month) until you’ve focused on making your first $1 as an affiliate!

Relevant

Ensure that you have a goal that is relevant to what you’re trying to accomplish. Generally, as an affiliate, you’ll have an earnings goal, but you should also set smaller goals related to the other milestones in your journey.

This might include choosing a niche, choosing a traffic source, choosing a product to promote, deciding on the right affiliate marketing education… The important thing is that the SMART goal is relevant to whatever you’re trying to achieve as an affiliate.

Time-Bound

Set up specific time parameters that you can use as benchmarks to see how well you’re doing in the affiliate marketing game. When you have time constraints on yourself, you’re far more likely to reach your objectives.

Deadlines are powerful! There’s a reason corporations have project due dates, quarterly goals, and annual company objectives. By tying your numbers to specific time frames, you force yourself to spring into action to make things happen!

These SMART goals truly are a smart way of going about your affiliate business. As long as you lay things out for yourself in this manner, you have a much better chance of reaching your objectives.

And even in competitive markets, being deliberate about your goals and strategy will set you apart and help you overcome any obstacles in your way.

Avoiding Oversaturated Affiliate Marketing Niches Wrap-up

Before we wrap up this article, let’s briefly talk financial considerations – these are a big deal when you’re starting affiliate marketing!

Typically, the newer you are, the harder it is to go toe-to-toe with established affiliates in competitive niches. That’s why it’s so important to steer clear of oversaturated niches or markets, because they may not give you the breathing room you need to make sales early on!

At ClickBank, we want to help you stay in the game for the long term, instead of spinning your wheels because you’re not at the same level of experience or resources as your competitors. So, as a quick rehash, here’s what you need to do to start earning more from affiliate marketing: 

• Select Your Niche. Determine which affiliate marketing niche (or sub-niche) is the perfect balance of demand/sales to competition level. You may find more success getting a bigger slice of a smaller pie, rather than trying to get a smaller slice of a bigger pie. 
• Choose Your Traffic Source. Decide which of the organic and paid traffic sources will help you best reach the target audience of people interested in your products. Once you’ve picked this, you’ll want to be able to do it at scale so you can keep growing your sales.
• Create a Brand. One way to help yourself stand out and avoid the negatives of oversaturation is to create a brand that gets known in the space. Create a unique experience like this and you’ll be resistant to algorithm changes, high customer acquisition costs, and other affiliate headaches. 

If you put all of this together, you should be able to find the success you’re looking for! We hope you enjoy your affiliate marketing experience and earn more from your affiliate business. 

Don’t forget to check out Spark by ClickBank to get up to speed on choosing a niche/product, getting familiar with affiliate marketing strategies, and most importantly, mastering your chosen free or paid traffic source – from organic social or SEO to Facebook Ads or YouTube Ads.

Best of luck!