In response to the article I wrote about making money online with pet products, some of you have asked me about what type of affiliate programs you can choose for this type of niche. There are quite a number of them out there and since I have a fair bit of knowledge about this topic, I’ve selected the Petco affiliate program – my personal favorite – to show you how it works.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
For those who are entirely new to this, affiliate marketing is a legitimate online revenue model whereby you earn sales commissions as a result of referring customers to merchant retailers. You don’t need to invest in any inventories to start this online business; just affiliate links placed at the right place to guide your readers through their purchase.
It’s a very effective marketing strategy that helps big companies grow their sales and offer opportunities for the general people to diversify their income.
How to Apply for Petco Affiliate Program?
The Petco affiliate program is available through Conversant, an affiliate network that you can become a member for free.
Once you are signed in, go to the advertiser and search for ‘Petco Animal Supplies’ and you should be able to find details about program terms and product links. However, you will need to set up a website first before submitting your application as this is part of the program’s requirement.
Tips for Niche Brainstorming
The last I check, there are more than 20,000 products that you can promote as an affiliate marketer. That is A LOT of earning potential, but it doesn’t mean that you should start stuffing products on your site to maximize earnings. Affiliate marketing doesn’t work that way. You need to take a step back and evaluate what type of niche you want to be involved with.
All the products you see in Petco have one thing in common; they provide a solution for pet owners. So the question is – what kind of topics you can write about that can help people with their pets?
Talking about ‘dog care’ would be too general, but ‘senior care in large breed dogs’ will help you come up with better ideas. Likewise, ‘cat toys’ is also a broad niche, but ‘training tips for indoor cats’ will certainly attract more readers to your site, don’t you think?
Niche research is really all about focusing on a certain type of audience and promoting a few handfuls of products through product reviews – not re-creating an eCommerce store experience – on your site.
The advantage to this is that reviews are web content that can actually rank on the search engines and it will attract a stream of readers for a long period of time, hence providing you with recurring income.
Use Targeted Keywords for Content Creation
In order to produce effective content, you need to understand a thing or two about keyword research. Broad keywords like ‘dog care’ is too general and way too competitive.
Using my favorite tool, Jaaxy, you can see that although it is a super popular term (>8000 searches/month) there are more than 400 websites ranking for this particular phrase.
However, if you target longer and descriptive keywords like ‘how to help dogs with arthritis’, your competition is only 26, which allows you to rank easier on the search results.
This technique should be repeated on all your articles – whether they are product reviews or general content – and you want to ensure that you are publishing regularly in order to grow sustainable traffic to your site.
Here some are low-competition keywords that I’ve brainstormed for you. Can you find a topic that you are interested in?
- get puppy to stop chewing – (Average searches = 120 / Competition = 21)
- what is the best flea and tick control for dogs – (185 /6)
- are rawhide bones bad for dogs – (120 /21)
- how often to change a cat litter – (114 /6)
- get cats to stop scratching furniture – (128 /11)
- cat carriers for large cats – (338 /29)
- how to keep aquarium water clear – (120 /8)
- best artificial aquarium plants – (80 /32)
- can i use shredded paper for hamster bedding – (32 /3)
- what to clean bird cages with – (56 /0)
What’s Your Earning Potential?
Once you have chosen a niche, it’s good to know how much money you can potentially make so that you know what type of products to focus on OR the very least, get you motivated.
According to Petco affiliate program terms, you earn 8% commissions from the general sales and 5% from selected items. Assuming that ‘how to help dogs with arthritis’ is your chosen niche, you can target these product categories to expand on your content and reviews.
- Orthopedic bed = $69.99 (commission $3.50)
- Elevated feeder = $39.99 (commission $3.20)
- Dog Lifting Aid = $69.99 (commission $5.60)
- Joint Supplement = $59.99 (commission $4.80)
- Special Dog Food for Mobility = $54.99 (commission $2.70)
- Pet Ramp = $174.99 (commission $14)
Now, don’t underestimate the small commission values that you see above. These figures can multiply in 10 to 100 folds, granted that you keep building traffic to your site. So the potential of earning $350 to $1400 from one single product review is not impossible.
Just stick to these simple steps and you’ll see positive results in your online business;
- Aim for low competition keywords
- Get ranked on the search engines
- Get more clicks to your product reviews
- Make more sales!
Petco Selling Points
If you are already excited about affiliating with this company, there’s even more;
1) Petco has a very up-to-date community blog/forum where you can find a lot of ideas for your articles.
2) And a ton of YouTube videos that you can use for content engagement.
3) The company offers free shipping for a certain amount of order – this will encourage more people to buy online.
4) Their online store is very user-friendly and all products come with detailed descriptions and customer reviews that you can leverage from.
5) The Petco Foundation is active in adoption drives, animal welfare, and funding programs. Even though you don’t earn from any of these, your marketing effort indirectly supports their work.
So, there you go – from the application, niche research, content creation and monetization technique. That’s how you grow your online business with the Petco affiliate program. It’s not something that can be achieved overnight, but with passion and a lot of action taking, you can certainly create a successful online business in this niche.
I hope this article has inspired you with some interesting ideas. If you like to get started, do visit Wealthy Affiliate for more training OR use SiteRubix to create your first affiliate website for free.
Got some thoughts or questions? Just leave your comment below and I’ll reply the soonest.
Hi Cathy, just wanted to thank you for offering this valuable information about the Petco affiliate program. I have a website that is dedicated to cats and was searching for affiliate programs. I was excited to see your article listed on the first page of my search. I am a member of Wealthy Affiliate and found your explanation of what is affiliate marketing, tips for niche brainstorming, and using targeted keywords very helpful.
Hey Suzette, always great to bump into another WA’ers on the internet. I have a big interest in the pet niche and I work in one too, so if you need any help, just pm me 🙂
Thank you for the interesting article Cathy! This is the first time I have heard that Petco has an affiliate program so I will definitely be checking it out. I appreciate how you outlined the success strategy in this niche and concrete steps to make it happen. Regarding your success so far in this area, can you comment on how long it has taken you to reach this point and if you have been successful ranking in the search engines?
Hey Andy, I am in the online business niche which is quite competitive so it took me about a year or so before I actually earned my first commission through the Wealthy Affiliate program. I have a few posts that are ranking quite well on Google now, but driving online traffic is a continuous process. You don’t just reach one point and stop because there’s really no limit to how much you can achieve. Generally, the more content you put out there, the more conversion you’ll make.
Hi Cathy,
I think you do a great job of explaining how a pet lover can monetize his or her passion. Once more, I think your blog is useful even if one is not a pet lover because it’s really, whether you intended to or not, a “mini course” in affiliate marketing.
You hit all the key points:
1) How to narrow a niche
2) How to choose key words
3) How to create content from keywords
4) How to apply to affiliate programs in your niche
In short, you provide the information needed so someone can have a good idea of what affiliate marketing is about.
Thank you for this interesting look at the pet niche. I will definitely look into the Petco Affiliate Program as I have a website about birds that is starting to take off.
How do the commissions at Petco compare with those at Amazon? Looking at your products and commission structure, it does look slightly better. Also are the prices competitive in comparison with other sellers?
Petco recently launched an added discount for repeat delivery service so that makes their prices far more competitive than those on Amazon. So if you are promoting pet food and supplies that have this potential, then Petco is the way to go.
Yeah but would an affiliate earn more with Amazon or Petco? I would love to know the answer to the question.
While both Petco and Amazon offers 8% in sales commission, there’s a higher chance one may earn more with Amazon because there are more product variety within and outside of the pet niche. If you are promoting a product/service that is only available in Petco, then it is obvious to just stick with that company.
This is awesome. I actually have a site just sitting that I created for my pets hoping I would find a good way to work with it and monetize it. It really was just something to do instead of posting their photos on facebook all the time. This article has given me some great ideas and with the rising costs of keeping them…
Yup, keeping an active pet blog is a good way to supplement their expenses. Get that blog rolling Alison!
Hi Cathy
I think you have highlighted every important point for pet lovers to monetize their passion and build a successful home based business towards it.
It sounds like Petco offers a great affiliate program. This is the first time I hear about it!