Affiliate marketing isn’t as easy as marketers want you to think. They want you to believe that within a short period of time, you’ll be living the four-hour workweek dream and making everyone jealous.

This couldn’t be farther from the truth. Only ten percent of affiliates drive ninety percent of the traffic and sales. The rest are just hanging on by a thread.

So, how do you choose a niche that’s profitable? Which one should you choose and why?

I’ve decided to sit down and give you a quick overview of a few niches I think would make you money sooner than later. Here’s the top fifteen affiliate marketing niche ideas to get you started.

What Do People Want?

When building any business, you have to think about what people want. And to figure out what people want, you have to first look at what they need.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs is a good place to start. Maslow created a handy chart to visualize the needs of every human on earth.

We’re simpler creatures than we like to think. Every human needs food, water, warmth, oxygen, etc. We all need to feel safe. We all need love and belonging. We all need the affirmation of others. When any of these things are missing in our lives, it creates need.

Without these things, we can’t self-actualize, or become the best we can be.

The Most Lucrative Needs

The sad thing is, marketing often takes advantage of these needs. But that doesn’t always have to be a bad thing.

If you’re helping people find love through your advice and at the same time leading them to helpful products, you’re not doing harm. You should always lean toward helping people.

Out of the needs list, it’s easy to distill the most lucrative. Sex/Love, Health, and Self-actualization. Or as some like to say, laid, paid, and live forever. (Although, getting paid doesn’t always correlate with self-actualization.)

While not everything you find on my list will be from those three categories, the most lucrative of the bunch will be. Alright, let’s get down to it, shall we?

1. Alternative Health

Every generation or so (about 80-90 years), humans start grasping for straws. We want to live forever. We want to keep from getting sick. We want to be attractive.

Something happens that causes humanity to eschew current medical and scientific research and favor “natural” solutions.

Now, sometimes those solutions work and science corroborate their claims. Most of the time, these solutions are merely snake oil.

But as a marketer, you can take advantage of this trend. If you’re hesitant to sell snake oil, do your research. Find medically-backed naturopathic remedies and find an affiliate.

Your affiliate doesn’t even have to target human health. People are just as worried about their pets. Maybe create a blog about natural dog products and partner with a company that sells organic CBD dog treats.

Feel free to take these categories in any direction you please. They’re just most likely to earn you money.

2. Forex

The Foreign Exchange market is globally massive. And Forex traders are wizards. They turn over $5 trillion dollars a day.

If you can plug into the Forex market and become an affiliate of a trading company or a banking company involved in Forex, your audience will be a rich one. You’ll be making bigger commissions than any other niche.

The only problem is breaking in. It might be easier, if you have the funds that is, to start Forex trading and get to know the big players before approaching anyone.

Once you’re in, you’re in. Forex is one of the most respected industries in the world. You lend yourself some credibility by plugging into this niche. Who knows, you might garner some connections otherwise missed.

3. Entrepreneurship

GenZ is the most entrepreneurial generation to date. They know what influencers were before they hit puberty. And now they’re going to make more money than the previous three generations.

But who is going to show them the way? Well, you are, of course!

Unless society collapses entirely, this niche will only continue in its profitability. Here are a few affiliates you can jump on right now.

AWeber and Email Marketing

Email is older than I am, but it’s still as relevant and useful as pen and paper if not more so. That’s why marketers are taking advantage of it left and right.

But some people still need convincing. They think email marketing is old hat. It’s your job, if you choose to accept it, to show them the results.

If you convince them to join AWeber, you get a 30% commission. That’s an excellent grab.

What’s more? If they keep subscribing, you get a commission off of their subscription. This is true passive income.

The Six Figure Mentors

This affiliate is specifically geared toward entrepreneurs and not just businesses in general. And it’s for you as well.

The benefits are double with this one. You get a commission and you get a whole bunch of awesome marketing and business advice and training. It gives you access to networking and analytics tools to help you start your business.

Once you’ve got the goods, you can share them with other people.

Colmex Affiliates

This is a Forex trading affiliate and it fits into a previous niche as well as this one. It helps people get into Forex, Futures, and CFDs.

It’s a high commission at 40%.

BlueHost

Web hosting is the foundation of your website. If you don’t have a reliable and secure host, your site will go down and you’ll lose traffic.

For every person who hosts on Bluehost through your link, you get $65. That’s a great chunk of change! If you can get 100 people, that’s over $6k!

Shopify

Shopify has made it incredibly simple to set up a storefront online. They claim that you can make $58 for each user who buys the basic plan and over $2k for each Plus referral. WHAT?! That’s just nuts.

But it kind of makes sense. When you set up a Shopify, you’re likely to buy various features over time. Plus, they’re getting money from sales on their platform. So, how much is a Plus referral worth to them? Way more than $2k, that’s what.

4. Online Dating

If you’re single and looking for love, you’re on Tinder or a niche online dating site. How many people does that encompass? Billions, likely.

If you can dole out serious dating advice that helps people in the dating sphere, you’re providing value. And if you can lead people to an online dating site that works, you can also provide value.

5. Gambling

Google and Facebook won’t let gambling companies advertise. For this reason, SEO and Affiliate Marketing are their only bet.

If you can find a gambling company who will let you be their affiliate marketer, you’re going to make bank. Negotiate a high percentage because you’re worth it.

6. Gaming

Three years ago, the digital gaming industry hit $91 billion dollars. That’s more than you can probably imagine. And you can earn more than you could imagine by partnering with a gaming affiliate.

This is an insanely broad category, so niche down. PC Gaming is still a thing. VR is on the rise. Mobile gaming is growing like grass. And eSports are a thing people sit down and watch now.

7. Travel

Want an even more lucrative niche? Try travel. Over $7 trillion? Yep, that’s the travel industry. If it were a country, it wouldn’t be in debt.

People spend loads of money on travel. But they’d rather spend less. This is where you come in. Figure out how to find and give steep discounts. You’ll get traffic like ants.

8. Preppers

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Or maybe it’s not. But find a prepper and you can hide from it…if they’ll let you into their bunker.

Survival instinct is hardwired into our brains. And our world seems like a scary place right now to a lot of people. Some just say, oh well, and keep on living. Others decide they’re going to prepare.

These people prepare hardcore. They want to make sure they survive the apocalypse. They’ll spend a bunch of money to do it.

You can cater to these people. If you like talking about doomsday scenarios, start a blog about doomsday and partner with someone who sells survival gear. You’ll make bank so you too can survive the apocalypse.

9. Sports

I know, it’s a broad niche. You could go into fantasy football, golf, running, etc. But I’d steer you toward fitness in general.

Fitspos as we call them are making bank while us marketers are scratching our heads. If you love fitness and you love encouraging people to get fit, join a fitness affiliate.

If you want to go even farther, you can become a “coach” for one of these fitness programs. They’ll give you a commission on the people you’re coaching and you can sell other products with their brand-building tools.