How can you increase your affiliate income in the run-up to Christmas?

Why is Christmas important for your affiliate strategy?

This festive season is a time for family gatherings, celebrations and gift-giving. As the Internet has become an indispensable tool for research, it's natural for Internet users to use it to find the ideal gift, for several reasons:

• Read a test highlighting a product's strengths and weaknesses
• Compare prices to save on your purchase
• See reviews from people who have already bought the product
• Find more gift ideas like these
• Or... Simply go to an online store and buy it

It's a valuable all-in-one tool for web users: they can find out more about their gift, compare prices or find out more via customer reviews. As a content creator, you need to do everything you can to generate additional affiliate income.

What can you do to boost your affiliate revenues this Christmas?

In order to be ready to generate affiliate income from Christmas shopping, you'll need to implement a number of long-term actions. Bear in mind that this is a sustainable affiliate strategy, and that the results could be increasingly interesting over the years.

Preparing the ground upstream

To generate affiliate income this Christmas, you'll need to start preparing as early as late spring! It's at this time of year that we start to see the trends for the star products of Christmas. Take advantage of this to create a content strategy for publication between now and the end of the year. For example, starting to write about the next iPhone on a tech blog, as early as April or May, will enable you to start positioning yourself on the product. The same applies if you're a creator on a video platform or on social networks.

A regular Christmas theme

To position yourself in the best possible way at Christmas time, try to talk about it regularly throughout the year! It may come as a surprise, but there are plenty of opportunities: taking stock of Christmas gifts in January, taking advantage of the sales to buy Christmas presents, reselling Christmas gifts on a marketplace... There's no need to bring up the subject every month, but two or three times a year is fine.

Targeting the star products of Christmas

Now that the groundwork has been laid for your Christmas content, you can start targeting the products most relevant to your audience. Don't make the mistake of completely changing your theme to promote popular, high-priced products. On the contrary, make sure you keep to one guideline in the products you promote: they should add value to your content.

Publish themed buying guides

This is perhaps the most popular type of content for Christmas shopping! Buying guides are perfect for guiding Internet users towards the ideal gift. To increase your chances of selling, it's important that these guides are as complete as possible, and above all, up to date! You can check them every six or twelve months, the aim being to be ready for Christmas.

Some examples of buying guides :

• What mid-range smartphone will cost less than €500 in 2023?
• Comparison of the best noise-cancelling headphones 2023
• PS5, Xbox Series X or Nintendo Switch: which console should you choose for Christmas 2023?
• Tablet or laptop: which is better in 2024?
• The best perfume gift boxes for Christmas
• What to wear for New Year's Eve (yes, you can digress a bit)

Finally, remember to end your articles with the positive and negative points for each recommended product.

Highlighting good deals

Christmas means spending a lot of money. In this context, saving money on Christmas shopping is a priority for many internet shoppers. If you've got the opportunity to share a few good deals with your audience, now's the time. A few tips on how to write a good plan will certainly come in handy.

Promoting content

To get your content seen by as many people as possible, you'll need to do a bit of promotion. Use all the levers at your disposal: social networks, mailing, Discord, forums... If you have a community that complements that of your media, use it. In some cases, the use of advertising (SEA type) can be relevant.

How can you track the performance of your Christmas affiliates?

In affiliate marketing, performance monitoring is one of the keys to success. With the Christmas period so prolific, it's important to pay attention to the performance of your content. There are several indicators to consider:

• eCPC (how much each affiliate click earns)
• Number of clicks (to determine which product was the most popular)
• The number of transactions
• Top-performing affiliate merchants
• Your page displays

Secondly, the best thing to do is to compare developments at Christmas time each year: if your performance increases over the years, that's a pretty good sign!