20+ TOP Gaming Affiliate Programs — Best Gaming Affiliate Networks of 2024 for Online Money Making

The diverse world of affiliate marketing offers multiple ways of earning money online. Be it the gaming industry, eCommerce, beauty, or gambling; everyone can find a way to make money online with the help of affiliate marketing. You can promote all types of products and services by creating unique content, email marketing, website banners, and social media sponsorships to earn commissions. In order to succeed as an affiliate marketer and stand out from the crowd, you must know your niche, audience, and competition. However, every niche has become quite super-saturated now, and to make a comfortable living in this field, people have increasingly turned to online gaming.

Venturing into gaming affiliate marketing is an amazing decision if you know which horse to bet on (not literally!). The gaming industry is flourishing day and night. So much so, that with 2.5 billion gamers all over the globe, the gaming industry was predicted to make a jaw-dropping $152.1 billion in 2019 and achieve a year-on-year increase of +9.6%. And when it comes to the global gaming market, console was predicted to be the fastest-growing segment with a year-on-year growth of +13.4% to reach $47.9 billion.

Source: Newzoo

The gaming industry will keep growing exponentially. It has been predicted that it will grow to $196 billion by 2022 globally and will have a CAGR of +9.0% from 2018 to 2022.

Source: Newzoo

The online gaming market represents a large chunk of the revenue that the gaming industry generates in the form of billions of dollars every year. This field encourages interaction and encouragement and brings lucrative opportunities if you explore it. So, here is everything you need to know about generating revenue by being a gaming affiliate marketer:

The Example of Pewdiepie

Let’s start with the biggest proof of being successful from gaming affiliate marketing I.e., Felix Kjellberg. Felix is more commonly known as PewDiePie, a Swedish YouTuber who was at the top of Forbes’ list of top YouTube earners with his astonishing earnings of $12 million. He earned this money via affiliate links, ads, and endorsements.

Source: YouTube

For his affiliate marketing, he posts videos of himself with a specific accessory like a headset or gaming chair and gives his audience a direct link to that same accessory through the advertiser’s website. Gaming affiliate marketers like PewDiePie earn commissions based on purchases, traffic, and clicks tracked via their unique personalized link.

Affiliate Marketing Statistics that You Must Know About Before Getting Started

Want to look at numbers and figures to start working on something? These impressive statistics about affiliate marketing will convince you to start working on it immediately:

• More than 80 percent (81 percent, to be precise) of brands utilize affiliate programs to increase their sales, reach, and audience.
• Affiliate marketing is not just lucrative, it is important as well. Nearly half (40 percent) of marketers think that affiliate marketing is an important skill followed by mobile marketing, digital strategy, and integration planning.
• 83 percent of businesses use affiliate marketing to increase their overall brand awareness and boost their online purchases & conversion rates.
• The United States of America is the big fish in affiliate marketing and statistics are here to prove that. More than 40 percent of marketers and merchants from the USA use affiliate programs to acquire new customers.
• When choosing a gaming affiliate marketing channel, top affiliate marketers look for multiple factors like service and product relevance, the reputation of the affiliate marketing program, the tracking platform, and the merchant's reputation.
• More than 50 percent of the traffic for affiliate marketing comes from mobile platforms owing to the continuous and rapid development of smartphones and digital technologies.
• Revenue from affiliate marketing reached $6.4 billion in turnover in 2019 only and the revenue has jumped by 52 percent since 2015 and is expected to reach $6.8 billion by the end of 2020.
• The affiliate marketing industry is estimated to be worth $12 billion and the digital media industry allocates 15% of its revenue to affiliate marketing.
• Affiliate marketing drives 16 percent of online orders and 16 percent of eCommerce sales globally.
• As far as earnings are concerned, 60 percent of merchants earn over $5 million or more via affiliate marketing.
• About 9 percent of affiliate marketers make more than $50,000 annually, by promoting affiliate products.

How to Get Traffic for Your Gaming Affiliate Marketing Campaign

1. Quora

Quora has 300 million active monthly users and it has a somewhat professional user base that separates it from other similar social online communities. In fact, users over 18 spend more time on Quora than on LinkedIn and Quora's users are more likely to be in a management position than the general population. Quora is extremely valuable for businesses and affiliate marketers promoting valuable items, especially in the SaaS and B2B sectors.

To use Quora, you should have expertise in one of their topic categories, where you provide your valuable insights in the form of answers. It is a slow process but it is eventually rewarded with a great opportunity for building traffic and personal branding.

2. Write for Medium

You can also try writing for Medium, an online publication offering writers a wider audience. It has a built-in audience, so you will have a decent number of readers. Add your affiliate links or embed your YouTube videos to your blog posts. The choice is yours.

Plus, contributing to Medium does not cost anything.

3. Social Media 

It is impossible to talk about free traffic sources for gaming affiliate marketing and not mention social media. Social media will not cost you anything except for some effort and time from you and as a result, it will give you access to a huge audience from all over the world. The majority of social media sites, allow their users to promote their unique links and affiliate products on their accounts as long as they follow the correct guidelines. Talking about using social media platforms to promote affiliate products, Instagram is on the list of the most popular promoting options out there.  

You may have to learn the ins and outs of Instagram and Instagram marketing before you start using it to promote your products, but if you are willing to spend some of your time learning about it, it is an amazing platform for affiliate marketers and it will definitely pay off in the long run.  

Instagram is not the only popular kid in school. We have TikTok as well. Imagine TikTok as the new kid on the block who just joined the school but started making huge waves in his first week. Instagram's algorithm keeps changing all the time which makes it difficult to crack and get exposed to a larger number of audiences. However, TikTok, on the other hand, is a lot more lenient in rules.

We suggest trying your luck on Instagram while learning the tips and tricks of Instagram marketing on the side. And while you do so, sign up on TikTok as well and make an account for your business while you still have time.

4. YouTube

If you are on a budget, starting on YouTube can look a bit expensive and out of reach because of the expensive filming equipment. However, you do not need all that stuff, you can just use your phone's camera to get started.

Apart from being low- to no-cost, YouTube allows people to get their videos indexed on Google, have them appear in relevant Google search results, and get more exposure. You can add affiliate links in the descriptions of your video. You can also try sticking to a given niche. Some of the most lucrative fields on YouTube are education, technology, gaming, beauty, and fitness.

5. Niche Forums And Groups

You can use forums to your advantage by publishing articles about tools that are related to the group of people you want to target. So, for example, if you find a Facebook group dedicated to a specific gaming gadget with several thousand members, you can write an article about it and share your article's link to different forums and groups.

Just do not forget to provide some context when you post your article.

6. Expert Roundup

Expert roundups are articles in which you interview experts of a specific niche where you ask them some questions and they respond in a short quote.  Once published, the experts will share the post with their audience and you will get free traffic from their social channels. However, the number and quality of experts you attract relies largely on your website’s domain authority and traffic.  

7. Guest Posts 

Guest posting is not just free, it also allows you to collaborate with other content creators in your niche and expand your reach to a wider audience. So, try collaborating to get your content out there.

8. SEO

It is impossible to write about affiliate products without well-thought search engine optimization. You need to leverage the power of search engines to get organic traffic.  

For instance, Labrador Training HQ earned more than $30K monthly by harnessing the organic Google traffic and monetizing it by giving them affiliate marketing offers.

So, if you want to rank higher on search engines like Google, use keywords and increase your topical authority.

9. Pinterest  

Pinterest is an image-sharing platform and it is full of businesses and affiliate marketers promoting their products and articles. Think of Pinterest as Google for images. It has some amazing categories like travel, fashion, gardening, home décor, and fitness. It allows you to upload pictures attached to a URL. When someone clicks on the picture, they are taken to the attached website.  

For instance, The View from Great Island gets about 650K visitors every month and 26 percent of that traffic is from social platforms and 90 percent of that traffic is from Pinterest only.

10. Reddit

Reddit might not be your first choice or even the most obvious one but it can do wonders and drive hundreds of visitors to your affiliate website. People come to Reddit to get advice and recommendations from others on different topics.

You can add links to your blogs in the comments. However, add comments that add value and do not look spammy.

Limitations that Affiliate Marketers May Face in The Gaming Industry

Being an affiliate marketer is not an easy thing to do. You will encounter multiple hurdles every step of the way that can make it look like you will not be able to make it. However, having some preliminary knowledge of what are the limitations that gaming affiliate marketers can face along their affiliate journey can help you prepare yourself for some of them.

You can even take any precautionary measures to stay on the safe side if you want. Here are all the limitations that affiliate marketers face in the gaming industry:

1. Quantity Approach

Affiliate marketing campaigns are often associated with spammy links and there is some truth to it as well. In many instances, affiliate marketers produce misleading content with spammy links to get more traffic, so they can achieve quick and small wins.

And even if it might look easy, once you get caught in the whirlwind of false advertising and black hat affiliate marketing methods, it is not easy to get back on track. And that is only possible if you do not lose your credibility first or put your merchant or vendor’s reputation at risk. Keep in mind that this can also result in a cooperation breakup from the merchant’s end and once you are done you will not get any commissions at all.  

It is better to concentrate on long-term affiliate strategies and create quality content to get quality links, so you can earn sustainable and recurring revenue eventually. The goal should be to be legit and act legit.  

2. You Do Not Have Any Control Over the Affiliate Marketing Programs

You cannot create or own an affiliate marketing program overnight. Therefore, you have to use the ones that are already out there. As a result, you, as an affiliate marketer, are totally dependent on the rules and conditions implemented by the merchants.  

Even an affiliate program that may look lucrative in the beginning, can become less competitive and low-paying later. If that is the case, you will not be able to adjust the terms and conditions. All you can do is talk to the merchant to increase your commission and wait for him to implement the changes.

3. It Is Impossible To Establish A Loyal Customer Base

Once someone buys a product from your reference, you can never be sure if he or she will purchase from you again. Customers typically purchase things repeatedly from the vendor directly, especially if they a have good experience on the first try (thanks to the affiliate marketer) to repeat the purchase. That’s how the affiliate business works with the marketer driving new leads for a vendor again and again.  

If you want to establish a loyal customer base and earn recurring commissions, you can try to find marketing affiliate programs that offer recurring commissions in the form of recurring licenses.

4. You Do Not Have Any Control Over Your Competition

Competition can change based on the industry you want to work in. However, when it comes to gaming, people are super-passionate about the games they play and the tools and accessories they use. But because there are strong benefits of being an affiliate marketer, including high-profit opportunities, no expertise required, and low costs of investments, everyone likes to people try their hand at affiliate marketing. So, you never know when the competition will become difficult and when it might pose a danger to your performance.  

5. Not Everyone Is Made For Freelance Jobs

Not everyone feels comfortable working from home. This brings a lot of uncertainty, stagnation, and loneliness with itself. However, do not let these feelings scare you from trying your luck in the gaming affiliate industry. You can take certain steps to prevent any loneliness like not closing yourself away from your family, establishing a working space outside, working in a busy coffee shop, or trying a coworking space.  

6. Your Affiliate Links Might Get Hijacked  

Although this scenario does not occur very often the possibility is there. There have been some cases of affiliate links getting hijacked, so someone can steal someone else’s rightful commission. In such a case, it is hardly possible to retrieve your links, so this is one major limitation with no solution.  

7. There Is No Guarantee Of Revenue

Pay-per-performance is an amazing way to earn money but is also a big risk. There is no guarantee that you will start earning your expected revenue right away. It is going to be a hard challenge and you will have to put in a lot of effort to maximize the opportunities for yourself.  

Affiliate Marketing Trends in the Gaming Businesses

As with all other areas of digital marketing, the gaming affiliate marketing area also has its fair share of trends and innovations that come and go with time, based on the changes occurring in the market forces. There is no denying that the gaming industry is changing and it is changing faster than you can keep up. If you want to stay in the game and earn revenue from being a gaming affiliate marketer, you need to keep up with new trends and tools:

1. Familiarize Yourself With AI Technology

Artificial intelligence is the new Batman in the world of gaming. There are multiple tools out there that you can promote as they help people save their time and improve their productivity. And not just in terms of making revenue, such tools can also help you in improving your current affiliate marketing schemes to stand out from other gamers.

There are tools that can create content using AI technology and create your blog posts for you, so you can save your time and invest it in engaging your customers online.

You can also invest your time in gamification to give your affiliate program a performance boost. Gamification programs can help you grow your audience and reach more people than you have ever before. However, in gamification, you must identify the right affiliate technology, platforms, plug-ins, and platforms for yourself. And this is where AI can help you out.

2. Work On Your Commission Terms

How do you get paid at the moment? As an affiliate marketer, you do a lot more than just simply build audiences for your merchants. From advertising by using traffic sources that focus on straight CPC to retargeting after analysis and optimization of data obtained from Facebook and Google, affiliate marketers do a lot more than just promotions.

Keeping the current paid media channels and their impact on the budget, you may need to ask your merchant for remuneration, especially if you bring in a lot of traffic for them. Keep an eye on payment trends and you will realize that there are more effective ways of getting paid for your performance than getting trapped in a CPA or revenue share model.

Analyze your current payments models and consider coming up with a custom hybrid scheme or try looking for merchants who can offer you such payment schemes.

3. Upgrade Your Tools For Better Affiliate Monitoring

Regulation is becoming more and more difficult as an increasing number of governments and regulatory bodies are implementing stricter rules that affiliate marketers and their merchants need to meet head-on. There are lots of trendy tools on the horizon that can help you keep track of your earnings and qualify your traffic before you send it to operator sites.

With data becoming increasingly accessible and more AI tools being developed to monitor the changes going on, affiliate programs will have to limit management and commercial behaviors and relax on quotas to help brands grow. So, keep an eye out for this trend.

4. Diversification Of Traffic Sources

Diversified traffic sources are going to be the next big thing soon. It is crucial for every affiliate marketer to have more than one source of traffic. There is a lot of revenue and growth potential in multiple networks and channels. Affiliate marketers who rely on content-based marketing and SEO are going to miss out on new and alternative traffic sources if they do not spread out.

Moreover, with the rise of influencer-based marketing, affiliates need to start looking for other ways to engage their audiences. Streaming sites for gamers are becoming more popular and people are also using ads to interact with differentiated online audiences.

5. Become More Customer-centric

Affiliate marketing is slowly becoming a lot more customer-centric than it used to be. The best way to become thoroughly customer-centric is by carrying through every aspect of your business and extending your network by further shaping and driving engagement. You also need to make sure that you take appropriate steps to build your brand and work cohesively with your merchant(s).

Treating your customers more like your marketing partners and less like people you need for a successful acquisition will get you more value and loyalty from them. Engage them, cultivate them, and educate them about the products you are promoting just as you would do with any VIP customer.

Case Study: Knowledge by Marcus

Knowledge by Marcus is an informational YouTube channel that provides data and comparisons on different topics. There is this one video on his channel where he talks about the best gaming affiliate programs for beginners in detail.

Now, at the first glance, it looks like a normal YouTube video but if you look at its descriptions it is teeming with affiliate links.

He has mentioned a website in the beginning directly followed by an affiliate disclaimer and other uses warning, etc. He has then placed the links to multiple tools and apps in the bio followed by another affiliate disclaimer and another invest at your own risk disclaimer.

Knowledge By Marcus created a solely informational video but secretly inserted his affiliate links in the description of the video.

Conclusion

The gaming affiliate market is a lucrative field. It is a field that never gets boring. Especially if you are an avid gamer yourself, you will love writing and promoting things you are passionate about. Plus, it is not that difficult to succeed as an affiliate marketer. You just need to crack the code and once you do that, there will be no stopping you!

Keep an eye on upcoming trends and changes happening in the global market. Do not be afraid to try out new things and resources. Especially the longer we are going to work remotely, the more we need to keep an eye on the changing things according to the global situation. And if you ever need some inspiration when things get monotonous, you can always check out your favorite gamer affiliates to see what they are doing.