What are the most profitable digital products to promote online as an affiliate? Before we dive into this topic let’s look first at the business model we can use to promote digital products in the first place: affiliate marketing. What is affiliate marketing and how does it work?
Affiliate marketing is a business model where third parties can earn commissions by selling other people’s products and services; mostly online. Anyone can become an affiliate by joining an affiliate program and selling a product through their unique identifying link, or affiliate link. Amazon, for example, has one of the most popular affiliate programs available and most people have ordered something from the site as a consumer.
As a new affiliate I too joined the affiliate program and started promoting things from Amazon. (See my about me page for more about me). But after a lot of work and only a small number of sales, I realised that Amazon’s commissions are teeny tiny! You need to sell a whole load of products to make even a modest income from Amazon as an affiliate.
So I looked around and found a site called Clickbank.com. Clickbank is home to thousands of digital affiliate products and you can browse many items which may be suitable for you to sell. Clickbank and digtal products in general will pay much more in commission than your average product you will find on Amazon. In fact Amazon pays between 1-10% on most of its products whereas Clickbank will typically pay between 30% and 40% on sales you generate.
The average affiliate commission rate is therefore typically much higher in digital products.
Most Profitable Digital Products – Why Digital?
So yes, digital products pay more that’s why many affiliates choose to promote digital products over physical ones. But what about the most profitable digital products? how do you find them. Well if we’re talking about Clickbank still you can find a tool called CBEngine.com which can help you shift through Clickbank’s product range for the highest valued items.
Look at the menu on the left hand side of the page and click on the tab for “CB Best Gains”. Then look across the top of the page and click on the link for “Big Payouts”.
Most Profitable Digital Products – Selling Digital Products
It’s worth a quick side note to mention whether it is more difficult to sell digital products than physical ones. Some affiliates will definitely prefer to sell physical products because most people are happier buying something more tangible, such as a physical product than buying something digital, such as a course or software product.
However, given the vast difference in commissions, it’s well worth focusing on digital products in my view. It also depends on how you are selling your products. If you have a photography website, for example, you can easily add a few affiliate products to your site to monetise it through affiliate marketing. I’m pretty sure that physical products will be more likely to sell than a digital photography course, for example. But that’s something you would have to test in order to know definitely. It also depends on your visitors and why they are coming to your site in the first place.
Email marketing is definitely a good idea when selling digital products because it may take a little more persuasion and understanding before your customer makes a purchase. With a physical product you pretty much know what you’re getting. But with digital products, the value of the product might be more obscure and unknown to your potential customers. That’s why it’s a good idea to build an email list and help your subscribers come to a decision, (whether or not it’s the right product for them) by building their knowledge of what it can do for them: benefits not features!
Most Profitable Digital Products: Should You Sell The Highest Priced Products?
Of course it’s also worth bearing in mind that the top priced products may not sell. In any case they may not sell in such large numbers as a lower valued offering. So it’s worth choosing your products carefully and not based solely on the cost of them. After all an item is only profitable to you if it sells, and if you can sell it! So even if a product has a high value, it doesn’t necessarily translate into profit – unless you make the sale! Clickbank has an awful lot of rubbish too, on its site. So choose carefully and look to the gravity of the product too to establish whether it is already selling well. Low gravity scores can denote that a product isn’t selling. See this article for more on Clickbank gravity.
A good way to sell high ticket digital products is to choose to sell a product range, rather than a single product. With a product range, you can benefit from more sales because you have more to offer including low value items, mid priced items and high ticket items. With an email list and a product range, you can sell low value items to more people. Those who can afford and value the higher valued offerings can upgrade their memberships. It’s also worth having subscription affiliate programs within your inventory so you can make recurring commissions from memberships. More on this later.
JVZoo.com
JvZoo.com is another online marketplace where you can find digital items for sale at a very high value. Some of the best selling products are those which can help you generate an income online. The best courses and trainings of course have a higher value than those which offer less personal tuition and training. So a good idea if you want to promote a product of high value is to find one which can help you personally to build an online business. Choosing high value digital products to sell is one thing, selling them is another. So if you choose a program which can help you market your products, you’re going to be better off.
These types of online business courses, and the tools and software to build online businesses are some of the best ones to choose. they are massively popular because let’s face it, what’s more popular than escaping the 9 to 5 and living on your own terms through building an online income?
The Six Figure Funnel
The six figure funnel is one of the most profitable online business models you can choose. It offers some of the most profitable digital products: online business training and mentorship. Plus, with a low value offering in your sales funnel, you can bring in more sales to those who wouldn’t buy your top value offering while also offering greater value to those who want more help and personal support. What we have here is a multiple income funnel.
With most sales funnels you have only one product. The average income per month (depending of course on many variables) should be around $1 per subscriber. With a high ticket funnel it’s more like $5 because of the many products within the product range (including subscription products which pay recurring income).
Digital Mentorship/Training Courses
Digital mentorship and training courses offer some of the most competitive commissions for affiliates in the industry. Training courses which offer more personal help and support are more valuable when launching an online business from scratch. Depending on the product affiliates can earn commissions of up to $4000 on a single sale. With multiple offerings within the product range this gives affiliates the ability to earn from many sources and offers most of your potential customers something affordable and valuable.
Have a look at the commission rates for this program for affiliates:
Open an account to get started with this program here.
Let’s Not Forget Physical Products
Before we wrap up this post, let’s not completely forget about physical products. After all, some physical products will pay a whole lot more than digital products will. Take for example this helicopter which you can find on the site of Hammacher Schlemmer.
Here’s three more super high ticket items you can find on the same website:
Take for example the Amphibious underwater craft with a price tag of $300,000! With an 8% commission on a sale you could earn $24,000 for a single sale! And take a look at the Killer Whale Submarine at $90,000! Worth $7,200 in commissions if you refer a sale of one of these!
While fewer people may be shopping for these super high priced items, there are still some who will buy them. Once you have learned the marketing strategies for affiliate marketing it’s definitely worth bearing these types of item in mind. It’ll make a massive difference to your bottom line!