57 Best Tech Affiliate Programs and Networks [2024]
Tech is something that everyone is into to some extent. Some people like to read about mobile phones, some people like techware and accessories, and some others like Smart TVs and home solutions. There is something for everyone in this niche. That is why your audience as a tech affiliate is super vast. This niche is great for everyone, and you don’t really need to have years of experience in it, but it’s a niche that you need to stick to for sure.
Every year, there are new technological advancements, so there are new products to promote every year. This makes the niche an ever-green one. Plus, if you already have some experience or knowledge about tech, this niche can be much more fruitful for you. That is why we have put together this complete guide to go through everything you need to know to promote tech offers.
How Do Tech Affiliate Programs and Networks Work
Tech affiliate programs and networks are similar to other digital or computer-related niches, where the type of products you can promote ranges from physical ones all the way to applications, tools, or online subscription-based services. That is why it’s one of the best affiliate marketing niches out there.
In this niche, you have to promote the tech products and earn your affiliate reward. So, the process for this niche is pretty straightforward.
- Users search for a tech-related product on Google or see an interesting product on social media;
- They follow your affiliate link to the online store where they can purchase that product;
- You get a share of the sale of that product.
Now that we know the steps a potential customer takes so you can make money, let’s see what type of products you can promote.
What Type of Products Can You Promote
The products you can promote in tech affiliate programs range from accessories all the way to software-based products. Here's a list of products that you can promote and tech affiliate programs and networks.
- Home accessories. These types of products include. All types of smart home items and accessories that work with voice recognition or hand gestures, etc.
- Audio devices. This type of product is great for people who want to listen to music in their house and need a sound system or a stereo.
- Metal detectors. These devices are actually used by a lot of people to find coins, rings and other jewelry out in nature. A lot of people use these to hunt for treasures.
- Tablets and notebooks. Many people use tablets and notebooks in order to take notes and communicate with their smartphones or their computers. These are just the type of products that can easily replace pen and paper, so a lot of people are into that.
- Subscription-based products. There are many online products that allow you to subscribe to them so you can use their tools or services online. These products are also counted as tech-related products that you can promote in tech-related affiliate programs.
- Cameras. There are many types of cameras that people use, including cameras for sports, cameras for capturing beautiful moments during the day, or any other types of cameras that are used for other purposes, including CCTVs.
- Electricity-related products or batteries. These types of products can include power banks, electrical generators, etc.
- GPS navigation systems. Many cars, trucks and motorcycles use GPS gear in order to track where they are going. GPS also works with smartwatches or satellite phones or wristwatch maps.
- Drones. Drones are designed to help people do professional photography. They can also allow us to capture sceneries without us actually being in that position. A lot of artists or videomakers nowadays use drones, so they are pretty popular.
- Printers. Whether they are 3D printers or just normal printers for printing documentations or drawings, lots of people use printers in their houses or at their workshops.
- VR headsets or gaming accessories and peripherals. Gaming accessories and VR headsets are very popular nowadays, especially with the expansion of the Metaverse. Gamers all over the world will be interested in these types of accessories, including glasses or gamepads.
- Home security. There are many wireless services and systems that offer home security. These can include cameras or alarm systems.
These are some of the most common products sold in tech-related affiliate programs. However, there are many other options that you can choose depending on what you're interested in.
Payment Models in Tech Affiliate Programs
Since the type of products that are promoted in this niche include a vast range of products, there are also many different payment models among them as well. However, in this article, we are going to talk about three of them, which include revenue share, cost per lead, and cost per action.
CPL
Cost per lead in this niche is special because it pays you based on every single lead that you redirect to their website. For example, if you bring them a customer that is going to give them all their services after their first purchase, that means that you have created a lead for that business. In that case, the potential customer will return to them every time they need the service done again.
One of the types of products that specifically uses this payment model is home security. Some of the Home Security affiliate programs might pay you per lead (per every new customer). So they are not going to share their revenue from the sale of the products with you, but rather pay you a flat rate per customer. So whether you sell a $2 000 product or you sell a $50 product, you are going to get the same amount.
Revenue Share
Revenue share is the payment model used in most of the tech-related affiliate programs. This is because most tech-related affiliate programs have products that they sell on their own online stores. When you redirect potential customers to their website, they are going to share a Commission rate from the sale of that product with you. So let's say you are selling a $1 000 product for the business, and the Commission rate of that program is 10%. In this case, you are going to be making $100 per every product of that type.
CPA
Cost per action is mostly used in online programs where they require the customer or the user that you're redirected to their website to sign up on their platform, download an application or give them their contact addresses such as their e-mail or their phone number. This can include software as a service (SaaS) programs or subscription-based services such as Microsoft or Google.
What to Consider When Choosing a Tech Affiliate Program
There are a couple of things you need to consider before you move on to choosing a tech-related affiliate program because not all of them are the same and you need to do some research before you go on to signing up on their platforms.
How Much You Know about the Products
While it's not actually necessary to know every single bit about the tech-related products that you want to promote, and you can always go back, study, and read about the products you're selling, it's important to note that if you don't know anything about the products, it's better not to promote them at all. Tech-related products mostly have a lot of specifications that you need to know in order to answer the user's questions when they want to purchase them. So for example, if you're having a product review blog or website and you don't know what to write on it, you're going to have a problem. It's important to know and study the product you are trying to sell so you don't lose your audience's trust.
Commission Rate
The commission rate is the rate by which the affiliate program is going to share their sale with you. Obviously, the higher the Commission rate, the more money you're going to be making. The normal commission rate for most of tech-related affiliate programs is between 5% to 50%. a 5% commission rate can be pretty low. So make sure that selling those types of products is not going to be hard, because if both selling the product is hard and the commission rate is low, you are going to have a problem selling them in the first place.
Cookie Duration
Cookies help save user information on the browser. So every time that a user clicks on your affiliate link and goes to an affiliate program or an online shop, Your affiliate or promo link gets shared on the browser with the affiliate program. This means that if they revisit the website again after they have first visited it, and end up purchasing something, you are going to get your share of the sale. Cookie durations in most affiliate programs can go from 24 hours to 90 days. Some programs may offer a shorter time span for the cookie duration. Obviously the longer the cookie duration, the better. So make sure you choose affiliate programs that offer at least 7 days, or you will not be compensated for your promotion.
Payment Terms and Conditions of the Program
Some tech-related affiliate programs can have complicated terms and conditions for how they pay you. For example, some programs might have terms such as if the user buys something through their platform but ends up refunding it after a few days, you will not be getting your share of the sale. Some others may say that in case the user subscribes to their service and doesn't renew their subscription, you will only get a flat rate or a small amount of money. Make sure you read their terms and conditions so you can understand how you will get paid and what are the occasions that you will not be compensated for your promotion.
Affiliate Tracker
Affiliate trackers, or generally trackers and affiliate marketing are tools that allow affiliates or affiliate programs to view the performance of affiliates, promotions, how the affiliate links are performing, or how much money you are making. These trackers offer valuable insight and can help you enhance or improve the way you promote your links. Sometimes affiliate programs can also offer helpful suggestions or insights on how you can promote their products so you can make more money. Some affiliate programs might not offer an affiliate tracker on your personal dashboard. So it's good to look out for the ones that actually do give you that ability.
Traffic Sources for Tech Offers
tech-related products are a bit trickier to sell, so in this section we are going to go through some of the traffic sources that can help you get the traffic you need for tech-related products and offers.
Social Media
We are in the age of technology. Every day, hundreds of thousands of tech-related products, services, and amazing accessories are shared on social media like TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook for viewers and potential customers to buy or be impressed by. If you just go on social media and find a tech-related channel that shares peripherals or accessories or how they're interested in new technologies that help people's lives get easier, you can see that in the comments sections. There are lots of people that want to buy that accessory.
TikTok is specifically one of the best places to promote tech-related affiliate offers because you can get a lot of attention in just a matter of seconds. You can check out the trendiest topics or new tech products, try them out, make a video out of them, or even unbox them.
YouTube is also a great social media platform to share unboxing videos of tech-related products, review them, or even try them out on camera. As soon as a new phone comes out, such as a new iPhone, you can see hundreds of tech reviewers reviewing it on YouTube in just a matter of a few hours. This is a great opportunity and shows that you can do this with every single type of tech product.
And another social media that is great for promoting tech products that aren't really trendy or are not new or hot topics is Facebook. The average audience on Facebook is aged between 20 to 50, So they're always looking for tech products that can help make their lives easier. You can either run ad campaigns or have Facebook pages where you talk about these tech products, review them, or just redirect people to your own tech landing page.
Forums and Communities
Forums and communities are great places to talk about tech products or promote them.A couple of forums and communities exist specifically for tech, such as Reddit and Quora. People on these platforms ask a lot of questions because they might not know how to use the product, or they might just need some advice on what product to buy. That is exactly your time to shine. You can answer them, offer your insights and review the products on those communities, and in the end include a link either to your affiliate program, or your personal tech review website or blog.
Website Content and Product Reviews
Speaking of tech product reviews, organic traffic is one of the best types of traffic. It's free and you can always count on it throughout the years. In the tech niche, mostly your audience is on Google searching for the type of products they are looking for in order to read some reviews, get some insights about their purchase, or just get some general advice.
You can aim to rank higher on Google search results in order to have people click on your website link and read your reviews and potentially click on your affiliate links. That is why it's important to have a blog where you review tech products. You don't necessarily need to get hosting or a domain and write website content on your own personal website. You can always use content-sharing platforms like Medium to make your own personal blog on their domain. Usually, Medium content is also indexed on Google so you're not missing out on anything.
Tips to Promote Tech Affiliate Offers Successfully
For morning tech-related offers is not always easy because there is a lot of competition in the market. So you might want to pay attention to some of the tips that we have shared with you below to make sure that you are ahead of the game.
Familiarize Yourself with the Tech Nerds
In this tech niche, it's important to know your audience. Everybody is always looking for the most specific things and they have a lot of questions in their mind and you have to be there to answer them.You need to know more than the average affiliate about tech.For example, if you're promoting computers and mobile devices, you need to know exactly how the cameras work, how much storage they need, how much is their processing power, graphical power, etc. Each of these requires some background knowledge in tech.
You might also want to sell home security devices. In that case, you need to know how to apply the home security, and appliances, How to install them, how to troubleshoot them, etc. If you are selling online subscription-based services such as Microsoft 365 or Adobe products, you should also know what those types of products are, what people can do with them, and what they will be getting in return for their subscription money. You should also familiarize yourself with the terms and services of the program you are promoting so people can know what they should be expecting in case they purchase those types of products.
Keyword Targeting
When trying to promote tech-related offers, there are some keywords that you want to focus on in order to rank on Google. Remember since there are many types of products in this niche, you should search for your own product keywords.
In this niche, the most important trick is to use long-tail keywords. For example, if you want to sell drawing tablets, the main keyword you can use is “drawing tablet”. However, you are advised to use long-tail keywords such as “drawing tablets that don’t need a computer”.
The reason for using long-tail keywords is that nobody actually only searches “drawing tablets'', and even if somebody did, they would be reaching the top search results like Wikipedia and other more prominent or popular websites. So you have very little chance to get on top of the search results.
Your best shot is to narrow down your keywords to the exact audience that are looking for a very specific type of product. So for example, in this case, “drawing tablets that don't need a computer” might actually bring you up on the search results, because the number of blogs or websites that are writing about them can be very few. In other words, the competition for them can be very low.
Create a Tech Blog/Website
It's very important to have a website or a blog where you review products and people can find you through the search results. This tech blog is also useful if you have a social media account and you want to redirect people from there to your website. Usually, there is no other way to share your affiliate link, so you might want to optimize your website or landing page.
When you want to review the products, make sure that you are using the keyword tip that we have given you above. You should also review the products honestly and have full trust in the product that you are selling. In other words, you must have first-hand experience with the product or have seen some reviews about it online. You don't necessarily need to try out the product if you can't. But it's important to bring proof and facts to people so they can trust your review.
Make sure you have a wide range of products that you review on your blog, and you also have guides and instructions on how to use the tech products, how to install them or troubleshoot them. If you provide potential customers with this information, they will not go look for what they need in other websites and they will stick around on your blog. This will also make them come back for more later on.
You might also want to put a newsletter form on your website so you can send people promotional content or offers from time to time. You can offer them something for free so you can get their email address for the mail list.
Focus on SEO
Without SEO, all that you have done so far will be useless. Search engine optimization is needed in order to show up on search results for a certain keyword. Some of the most important practices when it comes to SEO include the following:
- Having your main article keywords throughout your content.
- Having your keywords in your headings and subheadings.
- Placing the keywords in the alt description of images.
- Placing the keywords in the URL address of the article.
- Writing a meta description that shows up on Google search results under the name of the article and the name of your website.
There are some more SEO practices that you might want to educate yourself on before you write any content that is not optimized.
Engage with Your Community
In the tech community, it's important to engage with users. You should Always read about the newest products, chat with your Readers or your audience about them, ask their opinion or if there are any other products that you would like to review. If you choose to have a Twitter account or your own forums to talk to people, you can always bring up polls or give them the opportunity to vote about the type of products that they want you to talk about. This gives you some opinions about what to cover next. The tech community is a very hyped up community, so you want to make sure that you are on top of the game, and use this hype to your advantage.
Case Studies
Here are some of the cases of affiliates and blogs that are making a lot of money by promoting tech products.
Case #1: The Verge
The first case on this list is the Verge. Many of us have heard the name of the Verge at least once when we wanted to buy a product. They also have a lot of topics and articles on new tech trends and related topics like games, computers, conferences, etc. They have many sections like product reviews, science, entertainment, and more. But specifically, the section of product reviews include so many affiliate products and promotions that it's enough to make a living.
Almost all the articles in the review section include an affiliate, promotion or product. They write about all sorts of tech products that we talked about above. As you can see, the links on those articles include their affiliate IDs.
The Verge is making about 25 to $50 million a year, not only through affiliate marketing but also through ads and other types of promotional content. But we can safely say that they are making at least half of that thanks to affiliate marketing.
Case #2: Mashable
Mashable is another big authoritative tech-related website. They have all types of content, from entertainment to home security and tech. Even in their text section, they have several other subsections that include tech reviews.
In the tech review section, they have products reviewed all the way from iPhones to Kindle readers, smart glasses, and other types of products That make the job of humans easier.
As you can see in their tech review articles, they include affiliate disclosure. You can also see that they include links with their promotional ID.
One of the most interesting and important sections on tech review articles is the pros, cons, and scoring section. Some of the biggest websites on tech have a section which allows readers to get a quick glance at all the features of the product and figure out if they are needed or not, and then continue to read the rest of the product review. If you want to have an amazing product review blog, you need to have this section on your articles.
Mashable makes even more than the Verge since they have more product reviews than them. They make about $50 million to $75 million annually.
Case #3: Mrwhosetheboss
Mrwhosetheboss is a famous Youtuber in the niche of tech, and probably one of the biggest. He doesn’t only review popular tech, but all types of tech, from indie tech or crafts, all the way to the newest phones and computers.
A quick check on any of his videos shows his affiliate links to the gear he uses and the tech he buys. He’s not afraid to mention that they are his affiliate links, and that has been a great character buildup for his channel with 12M subscribers.
His annual revenue is estimated to be up to $3M, and a substantial amount from that is thanks to the affiliate commission and product sales. He also does lots of promotions. The key to Mrwhosetheboss’s success is covering a vast range of products in every possible tech category, to the point that if it exists, he has probably reviewed it.
If you want to make a living out of a tech niche, you should also cover all sorts of topics that people would be interested in, just like him.
Conclusion
There are so many opportunities in the tech world to tackle. You can always find new programs, businesses, and brands that are looking to promote their products. You can buy some of the products, start reviewing them, and after some time some other businesses will contact you for promotions. The road in this niche is very long and you have many chances and the odds are never against you. So make sure you get started with this niche as soon as possible and stick to it.
