20+ Best Sporting Goods Affiliate Programs and Networks [2024]

Sporting goods are always things that humans will continue to buy. Who doesn't want to exercise and feel good about themselves? Almost nobody. That is exactly why sporting goods are a great way to make money as an affiliate because it is an everlasting Evergreen niche.

One of the greatest things about sporting goods is that you can promote them online and people can even use them in Their own houses. Nowadays people prefer home gyms rather than going to a gym. Besides that, many gyms themselves might buy sporting goods. So basically, they never stopped being relevant. It is also interesting to know that the global sporting goods market value in 2023 is about $180 billion.

This makes it an amazing niche to work in. Plus, it is compatible with all sorts of traffic you can drive to it, like Instagram, TikTok, ads, websites, etc. Because of this great opportunity, we are taking the time to explore sporting goods affiliate programs in this article. We are also going to check how you can select one among all the different options out there, how you can get started, what are the traffic sources, some website ideas, and how to become more successful.

What Are Sporting Goods Affiliate Programs and How Do They Work

Sporting goods affiliate programs are created by manufacturers or retailers of sporting goods. They would want to collaborate with affiliates in order to increase their sales and traffic. In return, as an affiliate, you can earn a Commission by promoting such offers and driving traffic to those websites. This works in a way that every time someone clicks on a link that redirects to an affiliate program, you will be accredited for it, and in case they make a purchase, you will be given a reward in the form of a Commission. The Commission structure can differ based on the program, and we will talk more about that in the next section.

One of the things that makes sporting goods affiliate programs different from Other affiliate programs is that users can literally order these products for their home use. They have even had a boost during the pandemic. Therefore, it is very easy and safe for you to enter this niche because it can forever provide a method for you to earn money.

What Types of Products Can You Promote

There are various types of products you can promote in this niche. Here are a couple of examples and categories you can expect.

• Running Shoes: High-performance athletic footwear designed for running, offering cushioning, support, and stability.
• Fitness Trackers: Wearable devices that track various health metrics, such as heart rate, steps, and calories burned, to monitor fitness progress.
• Cycling Gear: Equipment and accessories for cyclists, including helmets, cycling jerseys, gloves, and bike tools.
• Outdoor Camping Tents: Durable and weather-resistant tents for outdoor camping and adventure enthusiasts.
• Yoga Mats: Non-slip mats that provide a comfortable and stable surface for yoga and stretching exercises.
• Basketball Hoops: Portable or in-ground hoops for basketball enthusiasts to practice their shooting skills.
• Soccer Cleats: Specialized footwear with cleats for soccer players, offering traction and control on the field.
• Golf Clubs: Sets of golf clubs, including drivers, irons, and putters, for golfers of different skill levels.
• Fishing Rods and Reels: Fishing equipment for anglers, including rods and reels suitable for various fishing techniques.
• Tennis Racquets: Performance racquets for tennis players, designed to enhance power and control during gameplay.
• Hiking Backpacks: Sturdy and comfortable backpacks for hikers, providing ample storage for outdoor adventures.
• Water Sports Gear: Equipment for water sports, such as snorkeling masks, paddleboards, and surfboards.
• Boxing Gloves: Protective gloves for boxers and martial artists, offering support and impact absorption.
• Ski and Snowboard Gear: Winter sports equipment, including skis, snowboards, and snow helmets for snow enthusiasts.
• Fitness Apparel: Athletic clothing and activewear, such as compression leggings, moisture-wicking shirts, and sports bras.

Payment Models in Sporting Goods Affiliate Programs

Once you're familiar with affiliate programs and how they run, you'll want to know how you're gonna get paid, right? Every program has its own way of rewarding their affiliates. So, let's dive into how different programs in this field pay their affiliates.

Revenue Share

In affiliate programs, sharing the wealth or revenue share, means you get a cut from each product's value. Like, let's say a product is worth $100 and the commission rate is 10%. If you sell it, you get $10. Simple, right? The pricier the product, the bigger your cut. This way of rewarding is pretty common in these programs.

Cost per Lead (CPL)

The CPL model is when you get a commission for bringing in a potential customer. For example, if someone starts a free trial or signs up for a program because of you, you get paid. Now, what counts as a lead can change from program to program. So, you need to know the rules. The reward for a lead can be anything from $1 to $100, but on average, you're looking at $10.

Cost per Sale (CPS)

The CPS model is like sharing the revenue but with a twist. Instead of a percentage, you get a flat commission whenever someone buys something. Doesn't matter if it's a $500 or a $2000 product, you get the same amount. You'll see this model in programs selling one or two types of products or services.

What to Consider When Choosing a Sporting Goods Affiliate Program

Choosing a sporting goods affiliate program calls for some thoughtful decision-making. You want a program that'll pay off for your time and effort. So, think about things like: do you know the product well, what's the commission rate, is the brand well-known, how long do cookies last, how often are payments made, what's the minimum payout, what kind of affiliate tracking is there, what marketing resources are available, is there good affiliate support, how long does the application process take, are there performance-based bonuses, and are there promotions or discount codes. Looking at all these factors can help you succeed in your chosen affiliate program.

Your Familiarity with the Products

Knowing a product inside and out before you promote it is crucial. If you're not already familiar with it, look it up online - read reviews or watch videos. Trying to sell something you know nothing about can lead to losing your audience's trust, which is the last thing you want as an affiliate.

Commission Rate

While it's important to look at the commission rate when choosing an affiliate program, don't forget about the average order value. Even if the commission rate is high, if the average order value is low, you won't make much. On the other hand, a lower commission rate on a high order value can still bring in a good amount. So, make sure you pick a program with a good average order value, as well as a decent commission rate.

Brand Recognition

Working with a trustworthy brand that has good reviews and leaves customers happy is key. Happy customers are less likely to blame you if anything goes wrong with their purchase. To find out how credible a brand is, look for reviews on unbiased websites or ask around on forums like Quora or Reddit. You can also ask fellow affiliates about their experiences with the program. This way, you'll be able to make an informed decision about whether you want to work with that brand.

Cookie Duration

The cookie duration, or how long a visitor's activity on a website is tracked, can make a big difference when promoting an offer. The longer the cookie duration, the more chance you have of making a commission. Most affiliate programs these days have a cookie duration of 30 days, but some might be longer, like a year or even a lifetime, or shorter, like a week or a day.

Payment Frequency

Nobody likes waiting months to get their commission from an affiliate program, especially if it's their main income source. Most programs pay monthly, but some might pay every two or three months or even every six months. Generally, the longer the payout period, the less attractive the program. This is usually because of the program's policies on product returns - they might not want to pay out commissions until the return period has ended.

Minimum Payout

Some affiliate programs have a minimum balance you need to reach before they'll pay you. This can vary, but a lot of programs require you to make at least $50 before you can get your money. Some programs don't have a minimum payout though, which means you can get your earnings straight away.

Affiliate Trackers

Affiliate trackers are online tools that affiliate programs offer. They give you data on how your visitors are doing on the program. If the program is networked, they usually give you an affiliate tracker on your dashboard. It'll show you things like clicks, signups, commissions, sales, bonuses, and more. This can help you see how your marketing is doing and make any necessary tweaks.

Marketing Assets and Resources

Nowadays, affiliate programs offer all sorts of things to help you, like logos, banner ads, text links, pre-written content, images, and even ready-made landing pages and websites. All of these can help both you and the program make more money. So, make sure you choose a program that offers a variety of resources, especially if the products are very visual.

Some programs even give out product samples for you to test and review. This can really engage your audience. Having a product sample can help you get to know the product and make content that's interesting and informative. It can also help your audience make a more informed decision, which could lead to more sales and, potentially, more commission for you.

Affiliate Support

If you're new to this and need a bit of help, or if you just want to know that help is there if you need it, make sure the affiliate program has good support available. Lots of programs offer excellent support, but it's always a good idea to ask other affiliates about it. Some programs even offer a dedicated affiliate manager who can give you tips on boosting your income. Others might send newsletters to keep you updated on new products and promotions. If you need or want support, do your research and choose a program that gives you what you need.

Application Process Time

If you're keen to get started with an affiliate program, go for one that doesn't take ages to process your application. Some can take weeks, while others let you access the affiliate area straight away. To save time, look for programs that let you get started right away and avoid ones that take a long time to process your application and might even reject it.

Performance-based Bonuses

Some affiliate programs offer rewards to affiliates who make a lot of sales. These rewards can include higher commissions or bonuses when you reach certain sales targets. If this sounds good to you, keep an eye out for it.

Promotions and Discount Codes

If you want to offer your audience a promotion or discount code, look for affiliate programs that let you create your own custom code. Many do, and they'll guide you through making a code for your audience. Some programs even offer affiliates a discount code for special events and promotions. But, some don't offer discount codes at all. If you want to give your audience special deals or a discount code, make sure to choose a program that allows this. It's all about giving your audience the best incentives.

How to Promote Sporting Goods Affiliate Offers Successfully

Now that you know how to choose a certain sporting goods affiliate offer, let's talk about different traffic sources and how you can promote these offers successfully.

Identify Your Target Audience

First and foremost, You need to understand who your target audience is. When we're talking about sporting goods, you should understand that there are various sports involved here. It can be yoga, golfing, basketball, baseball, volleyball, and all sorts of other sports that are included in this niche. Plus, sporting goods don't just refer to accessories, but it can also refer to clothing and all sorts of other goods. Therefore, it's important to understand what your audience exactly wants and what they're into. If you want to have a more generalized sporting audience, that's great, but if you are just starting out as a sporting affiliate, it's important to start with a single niche and then expand to other niches. Plus, you should understand whether your audience is mainly made up of men or women as well. Your tone of voice, your content, and your focus should be based on certain people, and if you are not aware of who exactly your audience is or what you are focusing on, your content can look very irregular and might not appeal to anybody at all.

Niche Selection

Speaking of niches, you should target certain areas. You might be able to talk about different sports fields like basketball, baseball, soccer, football, hiking, cycling, and so on if you have a big website that has been active for years. In that case, you can simply skip this section. However, if you are just starting out, it's important for you to choose one of them, and focus your content, whether it's written content or video content, specifically on that certain niche till you reach maximum success and revenue there. Once you're at 100% capacity for earning in a niche, you can move on to other niches and target other audiences.

Content Marketing

Once you know your niche and how you want to proceed, it's important for you to start creating content either on your own website or on different social media platforms. For now, let's focus on content marketing. Your website or blog, which you can either host on your own domain or on another publishing domain like medium.com, has to have content in different categories like comparison articles, guides, knowledge bases, product reviews, and so on. All of these articles must include links to your own affiliate offers. Of course, before you get any affiliate program to accept you, you need to have this one running website. If you already have it, you probably know what kind of content to post on it.

But if you're just starting out, it's important for you to put your focus on appealing to your audience. If you're talking about basketball, try to include different comparison articles between different basketball goods, reviewing products of different brands related to basketball, and even include guides to different basketball rules or selecting different products.

You don't just have to focus on sporting goods like gear, but you can also focus on clothing.

One of the most important parts of a good product review or article is honesty and proof of first-hand experience with the concept or product you're explaining. If you're talking about choosing a basketball, then it's important for you to post some pictures showing your first-hand experience with that specific product. If you are talking about different basketball rules, it's important for you to explain your opinion or talk in the first person. Content marketing is one of the most important sources of traffic for you because it is organic and absolutely free. You should target different keywords and make sure to use them evenly throughout your website. Plus, your keywords should not be generalized, and they should narrow the topic down to the exact product a user with commercial intent might search for.

Here are a few examples of long-tail keywords in these sporting goods niches.

• Best basketball shoes outdoor courts
• Top-rated baseball gloves youth players
• Affordable soccer cleats beginners
• Where to buy golf clubs online
• High-performance running shoes marathon training
• Durable hiking backpacks long trails
• Discounted tennis rackets intermediate players
• Best fishing rods saltwater fishing
• Youth-sized hockey gear sets sale
• Top-rated ski goggles snowy conditions
• Quality cricket bats professional players
• Where to find affordable yoga mats online
• Discounted mountain bikes off-road adventures
• Top camping tents family outings

Social Media Engagement

If you already have a website, it's great for you to have social media accounts where you post different written or video form content as well. You can post pictures of you using certain products, or post promotions in your Instagram or TikTok stories. Of course, we're talking about Instagram or TikTok because most of the audience is in the sporting goods niche or on such black worms. YouTube is also a great way to start, but you can expect more short-form content views than long-form. You can also include direct links to your affiliate offers and you don't necessarily have to send traffic to your website. If you're on Instagram or TikTok, you can include a link to your link tree page which includes direct links to your affiliate offer pages.

Influencer Partnerships

One of the best ways to gain a lot of traffic very quickly is by partnering with influencers. If you are not an influencer yourself already or have an audience that tunes into you because of what you have to promote, then you can pay an influencer or collaborate with one to send traffic to your page, and from there you can hook users in. This is great if you are just an affiliate or influencer starting out. You could definitely use this shout-out.

Video Marketing

If you're thinking about making some content in the format of videos, you can also do so by posting different videos of you playing a certain sport, introducing a certain brand of sporting goods, or just talking to your audience about your opinion on different sporting goods subjects.

Your videos can be long form or short form. If you want long-form content, then YouTube might be a good platform for you to get started. However, if you want short-form content, then TikTok or Instagram reels are great as well.

Email Marketing

If you have a website, one of the next steps that can help you send more promotional materials to your audience is through e-mail marketing. When users TuneIn on your website, you can hook them in by showing a lead magnet or a pop-up that will ask them to grab a quick offer by entering their email or getting some freebies by subscribing to your mailing list. Then, through a seasonal promotion, you can send them these offers right on their email and inform them of all the ongoing discounts they can catch.

A great service that can help you with email marketing is MailChimp. Through the service, you can either create your own mail list by sending your audience from your website to sign up through the service, or just use their own email lists to ascend offers to a whole new type of audience that might be interested in what you have to offer. However, you should be very careful with this method because users might report your emails as spam, and then, your affiliate program might ban you because most affiliate programs don't like this gesture at all.

Affiliate Landing Page Optimization

You need to optimize your landing pages for affiliate marketing in a way that specifically tells users what they can get if they click on your link, what kind of discounts they will get, what are the recent offers, and so on. Your affiliate landing page should not be a boring and aesthetic page filled with content or articles. It should actually be a page with all the latest promotions and offers and things that are new about your activities. The best way to design your affiliate landing page is to include your specific special promo codes and a link to that offer. You can even ask users to enter their email to receive the discount right in their inbox and from there, you can even target them for email marketing.

Contests and Giveaways

Contests and giveaways are always a thing when it comes to sports. One of the best ways to gather attention for your own affiliate branding is to offer certain products for free to users who will interact with you. This can create excitement around your offers. For example, you can tell users that whoever shares or comments on a certain post of yours will receive one free product. This is a product that you can get from your own affiliate store if you are able to request it from them. It can also be a product that you purchased with a discount for your own brand and offered to your audience. Either way, it is a great way to drive attention to what you're offering users so they will be curious to know what more contests and giveaways you will set in the future.

Plus, with the help of your community, you can get more attention towards your own posts and content when they share them, like them, or comment underneath them. This can create engagement and show you to more people on any social media platform where you are.

Paid Advertising

If you just want some quick traffic to your affiliate website or social media page, paid advertising can be a great way to achieve that very quickly. The first important step before you spend any money or try to test out the results for yourself is to check some ad spy tools to give you some insight into what your competitors are doing to promote the same exact product.

By checking what they are up to you can find the best creatives and offers to use in your own ad campaigns as well. Some affiliate programs have managers who are open to providing you with the right keywords or creatives to promote them through paid advertising as well. So if this is important for you you can ask your affiliate manager.

Participate in Sporting Events

Another great source of traffic for you is participating in sporting events. If there is any sporting event that you can attend and post updates on your social media platform or website, you can use certain hashtags or keywords to drive traffic to your own content very quickly. This can tell users that you are interested in what you're doing and that they can get the latest updates from your page. Plus, this is a great way for you to quickly become an influencer in your field. So besides the extra traffic that you can use, it gives you an upper hand in your field or niche as well.

Utilize Affiliate Banners and Widgets

Your affiliate program will definitely provide you with certain banners and other resources for you to place on your website. You should find the best place that is in front of the users' eyes and not really disturbing them during your content. You should use these banners on your website and guide users to click on them.

Offer Discounts and Coupons

As mentioned before, discounts and coupon codes are one of the most important assets of an affiliate. Without them, you're just asking users to purchase something, but with them, you can ask users to purchase something with a discount. So if a user has already wished to have that certain product, now they can catch it with a discount that you're offering them. This will make them tune into you every once in a while and become one of your main audiences.

Seasonal and Holiday Promotions

During seasonal promotions, affiliate programs will usually send you updates and emails to let you know about what you're capable of doing and in what ways you can promote them for maximum income. You should prepare for these events properly and optimize your landing pages to incorporate your affiliate codes on them.

Engage with Your Audience

Engaging with your audience is one of the most important things you have to do as an affiliate. You should answer your users' comments, interact with them, and maintain a healthy relationship so they tune into you and communicate with you. Another great benefit this has is that it allows you to know what your users want to see on your page. If they want certain products, they can let you know and you can get them the right discount. Plus, this can create excitement and attention toward what you have to offer.

Conclusion

This has been an article about all the information you need to promote sporting goods in the best way possible. All you have to do is follow the techniques and tips shared here and choose the best program using the factors we introduced. If you would like some other programs that you can promote to your audience, you can check other affiliate programs and affiliate networks in our directories to find the best deals.