What can you learn from reviewing successful affiliate marketing website examples? Lots. That’s why we compiled this shortlist from various niches of brands doing it right.
We’ll show you how these sites make
It’s one thing to tell someone about a concept, but another to show it in action. So you’ll gain something from this post, no matter what level of an affiliate marketer you are.
Ready? Let’s dive in.
Get Your FREE 30-Page Affiliate Marketing Beginners Guide And Grow Your Site Today
Huge affiliate marketing website examples (>1,000,000 monthly visitors)
These sites are the monsters that every beginner affiliate marketer wants to become.
They have millions of monthly visitors and are making north of seven figures in annual affiliate commissions. These sites likely have investors, corporate hierarchies, and content production teams.
In short, if you’re an affiliate marketer, this is where you want to be one day.
1. Wirecutter
Wirecutter is the archetype that all affiliate marketers aspire towards. It’s lean with a broad focus. Also, the entire site revolves around their affiliate offers.
Brian Lam founded the Wirecutter in 2011. Five years later, in 2016, the New York Times acquired it for 30 million dollars.
At a glance:
Niche: Electronics, Gadgets, and Home Products
Monthly Visits: 10.6 million
Domain Rating: 94
Backlinks: 2 million
What they are doing right:
From the beginning, Wirecutter did things differently from how affiliate marketers have done them in the past.
Rather than write a bunch of costly info content, and use that to drive traffic to their
And, you’ll find they’ve stuffed it full of affiliate links for the rare info content they publish.
This approach has helped them focus on the user experience. For example, when they were first starting, their product reviewers didn’t know which products had affiliate links, so they had an air of impartiality.
They built their users’ trust and created a user experience that doesn’t rely on answering questions.
Wirecutter has established itself as a destination to choose a product. You won’t see any display ads on their site, and their product lists don’t have any SEO-related fluff.
When readers visit the site, they know Wirecutter will sell them, and that’s what they want.
How they make money :
As we’ve said, Wirecutter makes
Wirecutter started as a tech/gadgets blog but has branched into almost every product-heavy niche. They’ve become so synonymous with choosing products that they have brokered lists on Amazon, which earn them commissions.
They are one of the most active members of Amazon’s affiliate program.
What you can learn from them:
You can learn countless things from Wirecutter, which is why people tend to copy them heavily. I’d like to focus on two areas.
First, Wirecutter looks excellent. It’s sleek and straightforward, and its products stand out. Their display boxes are the envy of every affiliate partner in the world.
When you read their content, you’ll notice some sidebar content at the top but none as you get into the body of the article. This is because they don’t want anything to take away from its product recommendations.
The other thing you should take away from Wirecutter is that investing in your content is paramount to your success.
Wirecutter has dozens of categories and thousands of individual product reviews and roundups. And all of their content is expertly researched, written, and edited. That didn’t come cheap.
Brian Lam knew that if he invested heavily in content upfront, he would build a loyal readership and make a lot of
If you want to copy what The Wirecutter has done and emulate its success, then you need to be willing to invest the time and
Want your site to look like Wirecutter? Lasso can help make it happen.
2. NerdWallet
NerdWallet is a finance site that provides tools and guides to help its users take control of their finances.
It was founded in 2009 by Tim Chen and Jacob Gibson and is one of the world’s most trusted personal finance sites.
At a glance:
Niche: Personal Finance
Monthly Visits: 16.4 million
Domain Rating: 89
Backlinks: 12.9 million
What they are doing right:
In the beginning, NerdWallet was a simple credit card comparison tool. It showed users credit cards they’d likely qualify for and their perks and terms.
Now, NerdWallet has a suite of tools for various financial needs. For example, they compare different credit cards, banks, insurance companies, and more. They also have multiple calculators on their site to help you calculate mortgage payments, debt consolidation, and investment savings.
Their visitors come for the tools and get directed to the best offers. NerdWallet has built a brand by providing solutions, including high-ticket affiliate offers.
How they make money :
If you’re looking for a credit card with great cash back or airline miles, NerdWallet will quickly point you in the right direction. They’ve solved your problem and made
They also offer helpful guides necessary to stay relevant in this competitive niche. However, the nature of this industry is that solutions require products, which NerdWallet is happy to recommend.
You’d be hard-pressed to find a page on their site that isn’t monetized.
For example, the screenshot below was taken from a tutorial about how to buy stocks and featured a comparison table with two call-to-action buttons.
The first links to a Nerdwallet product review, and the second links directly to the broker’s sign-up page (with an affiliate link).
What you can learn from them:
First, NerdWallet provided a tool to their audience that solved a problem in this niche. Unfortunately, not everyone qualifies for the best credit cards, so roundup posts aren’t beneficial.
They can build a satisfied audience and maximize their earnings by tailoring their content to specific users’ needs.
NerdWallet also maximizes its potential earnings by directing every bit of its traffic toward affiliate offers. So whether you’re reading info content, product comparisons, or using their calculators, NerdWallet will recommend a solution to your problem.
Takeaway: Almost every post is monetizable. It’s up to you to find an angle.
Further Reading:
3. PC Part Picker
I love PC Part Picker. It’s a simple site built by insiders to serve a niche market.
If you’ve ever built a custom desktop PC, you know that there are a lot of compatibility conflicts between different internal components.
If that sounds complicated, it’s because building computers is complex.
PC Part Picker simplifies the whole process. First, you choose necessary components from curated lists, which will tell you if there’s a conflict.
At a glance:
Niche: Desktop Computer Components
Monthly Visits: 2.7 million
Domain Rating: 75
Backlinks: 5 million
What they are doing right:
First, everyone I know who builds computers uses this website. They have a near monopoly for PC builders to check compatibility.
The reason so many people use this site is that it knows its audience. For example, if you asked any PC builder to design a tool to check if desktop components were compatible, it would look like this.
That doesn’t mean it’s not a sophisticated strategy. For example, PC Part Picker shows you which components work together and where to buy them. It also has price alerts, which tell you when a piece is on sale.
That ramps up buying urgency and almost guarantees conversions.
How they make money :
Besides their system builder and price alerts, PC Part Picker curated system build guides.
These guides tell you the cost of a PC build and link to all components. It makes it easier to see how much
What you can learn from them:
All PC Part Picker’s monetization strategies follow a simple pattern: tell the audience what to buy and show them where to buy it.
You can implement this approach in most niches.
For example, let’s say you have a site about cycling. You probably have a post about the best commuter bikes, but do you have a guide for the best cycling setup for under $2,000? Does it include everything your reader needs, like a helmet, shoes, gloves, shorts, heart rate monitor, etc.?
Of course, it would be great to build a valuable tool for your users.
However, the most crucial strategy you should steal from PC Part Picker is knowing your audience and recommending a total solution to their needs.
Further Reading:
Medium affiliate website examples (>100,000 monthly visitors)
These successful affiliate marketing site examples aren’t as incredible as those mentioned above.
The level of success here is attainable for most affiliate bloggers as long as you put in a lot of time and effort. But, of course, a bit of luck helps too.
4. Dating Advice
It’s well known in digital marketing circles that dating, gambling, and cryptocurrency are the most competitive niches. But, unfortunately, they’re also the ones with the highest association with spammy site practices.
Dating Advice has carved out a place in this niche by bucking the stereotype. They display their credentials at the homepage’s top and design their site like a popular news organization.
Instead of cramming their site with display ads and affiliate links to shady sites (which offer high commissions), Dating Advice features helpful articles, longer sales funnels, and a display of authority.
At a glance:
Niche: Dating and Relationships
Monthly Visits: 222,000
Domain Rating: 78
Backlinks: 8.2 million
What they are doing right:
Dating Advice does a great job of proving that their readers can trust them.
They have lists of the best dating sites but also publish news, political content, and studies related to various dating topics.
They’re showing their readers and search engines that they’re legit by using first-hand sources.
How they make money :
Due to the nature of their content, almost everyone visiting their site is interested in dating, probably online dating.
Their navigation bar has a tab called “Reviews,” which breaks up their favorite dating sites based on sexual orientation. Then, when users select their preferences, they’ll find a list of sites matching their criteria.
Like NerdWallet, Dating Advice separates users into buckets based on their lifestyles. They then recommend products that are helpful to those segments of their audience.
The dating niche is crowded because the payouts are super high. These lists convert, and I’d bet they make more from each list in a day than many affiliate sites make in a year.
What you can learn from them:
Again, you need to know, and in this case, respect, your audience.
There’s no way a dating site could provide a solution that works for every single adult in the country, so they’ve chosen to divide and conquer.
Another thing you can learn from Dating Advice is how to prove your credibility.
They showcase the publications they’ve been featured in on the top of the home page. Dating Advice also has these credentials in the sidebar for their content. They refuse to let people forget how legit they are.
Depending on your niche, you don’t need to take it that far, but don’t be afraid to brag about how awesome you are.
Tip: If you have certifications relevant to your industry, you’ve been featured on a news site, or even if you just have years of experience using your recommended products, make sure your audience knows about it.
Further Reading:
5. This Is Why I’m Broke
This Is Why I’m Broke could have been in the larger site section, but I placed it here because of how realistically achievable this level of success is.
There’s no real secret formula here. Instead, they recommend products that people will like, and people will buy them.
This site is a testament to the power of sharability. Unfortunately, most of the shared products aren’t as useful as fun.
Does anyone need a cheese printer or full-face sunglasses? No, but they are fun to give as gifts.
This Is Why I’m Broke is the internet’s version of Spencer’s Gifts, except instead of selling products, they promote affiliate offers.
At a glance:
Niche: Gifts and Gadgets
Monthly Visits: 1 million
Domain Rating: 70
Backlinks: 208,000
What they are doing right:
I’ve often seen people mention this site is on social media. Then, they tag their friends and comment, “Don’t you think this would be perfect for so-and-so?!”
Affiliate marketers think of social media after their site has been established. However, This Is Why I’m Broke is tailor-made for social shares, and it pays off. They have over 300k followers on their Facebook alone. Social proof is a great way to build trust within your audience.
How they make money :
This Is Why I’m Broke is sharable because their offers constantly rotate.
Today their top product is a DBZ Goku Spirit Bomb lamp (which I’m buying). Tomorrow might be a bath mat with a face or a floating tennis court.
Having a constantly changing slate of affiliate offers keeps their audience coming back. They start by scoffing at the ridiculous products; before they know it, they are the proud owners of a set of floating coffee mugs.
What you can learn from them:
Keep your site fresh! You don’t have to upload new affiliate content daily but publish content in a format that your readers can depend on.
Stay consistent if you publish a new article monthly, weekly, daily, or hourly. Search engines like it, and so will your readers.
6. The Adult Man
The Adult Man is a men’s interest blog covering fashion, grooming, fitness, and more. What appears on its face to be a site about how to be masculine is actually a review site for men’s products.
Since founding in 2016, this site has grown to get hundreds of thousands of monthly visitors. It is most likely run by a small team or even a single owner with the help of freelancers.
The Adult Man is an excellent example of a successful affiliate site because its approach is simple and clean, but they have produced enough content to have great results.
At a glance:
Niche: Men’s Fashion and Lifestyle
Monthly Visits: 326,000
Domain Rating: 35
Backlinks: 28,000
What they are doing right:
Most of the sites on this list have a lot of backlinks and a high domain rating (the metric Ahrefs assigns to sites to establish their authority). For example, the Adult Man has a DR of 35, which is very achievable.
Three hundred twenty-six thousand monthly visitors with a DR of 35 is impressive and attainable only with excellent keyword research.
All of the content on The Adult Man is highly targeted for buying-intent keywords.
Their guides are oriented toward product-based solutions, and they’ve placed a lot of emphasis on gear roundups. Their content is optimized for making as much
Also, let’s talk for a moment about site structure. A well-designed website will follow a silo structure, where similar content is divided into different hubs and categories.
This type of structure makes it easier for readers to find content that they find interesting. In addition, it makes it easier for search engines to understand what your site is about, which will increase your organic traffic.
How they make money :
As I said above, The Adult Man targets high-buying-intent keywords, produces content around those keywords, and organizes their content into logical categories.
This strategy is simple and helps their readers find the content they like. It also increases readers’ likelihood of converting since it increases their time on the site.
The Adult Man has also done a great job optimizing its content. For example, its gear roundups feature product display lists right after the intro to the article.
Many readers don’t care much about your opinions; they just want to see what products you’ve chosen. Listing the different products at the beginning of your content allows those readers to convert quickly. I’ve done it on my sites, and my conversion rates have increased by up to 20%.
What you can learn from them:
The Adult Man is proof that if you build a site that is targeted, sleek, and easy to navigate, you don’t need to spend all of your time link building to establish a successful business.
Yes, they do have a lot of backlinks and likely have a budget dedicated to building more. However, it’s not their primary focus.
Their content is clean and helpful but designed to get referrals.
An example of how TAM showcases affiliate offers across the site.👇
Their displays look great, they have red buying buttons (which can also increase conversions by over 10%), and they push their offers multiple times per article.
The Adult Man’s success could be duplicated in almost any niche.
Take a thoughtful approach to publish content and optimize your site for your audience; the
Further Reading:
Our Team Of Affiliate Marketing Experts Will Teach You How To:
- Outrank Bigger Sites
- Monetize Your Content
- Engage Your Audience
Small affiliate marketing website examples (<10,000 monthly visitors)
These niche sites are smaller relative to the other sites on this list. However, most of them are one-person operations, perhaps with the help of a team of freelancers or consultants.
This section shows what is easily attainable in affiliate marketing: a full-time source of income and independence for those willing to put in the work.
7. Making Sense of Cents
Making Sense of Cents is a great example of a successful authority site when one tenacious person runs it.
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner has built a reputable personal finance blog and established herself as an authority in an ultra-competitive niche.
This site covers the gamut of personal finance, including how to make
Each area has high-ticket affiliate offers, which is why this site is likely making Michelle a lot of
At a glance:
Niche: Personal Finance and Side Hustles
Monthly Visits: 31,000
Domain Rating: 72
Backlinks: 312,000
What they are doing right:
Michelle and Making Sense of Cents are feeding each other’s success.
The better the blog performs, the more of an expert Michelle becomes in this industry and vice versa. This is why putting your face on your site can be really helpful.
This site is also a great example of giving away value for free to build an enthusiastic audience. Making Sense of Cents has a lot of helpful content that isn’t optimized for monetization.
But giving away that value upfront yields future dividends.
What Making Sense of Cents has done the best is build a community.
Its email list has a lot of subscribers, and its Facebook group has over 16,000 members. That community is worth more than fast affiliate conversions could ever be.
How they make money :
Between the site, newsletter, and Facebook group, I’d bet Making Sense of Cents is making a ton of affiliate conversions and has a very high income per visit.
The community aspect of this site allows it to make the most
Making Sense of Cents also sells its own digital courses. Selling your own products is a natural progression from an affiliate marketer to a thriving business.
Instead of keeping 5% of a sale, you keep 100%. I don’t know any entrepreneurs who would turn that down.
What you can learn from them:
Fast affiliate sales aren’t the best way to make
I also cannot overstate how valuable a community can be.
If a visitor finds one of your blog posts on Google and buys whatever affiliate offer you promote, you’ll get paid. But you’ll only get paid once.
Instead, what if you gave that visitor enough information to not only answer their question but you totally blow them away?
They are so impressed by the free value you’ve given them that they want to hear everything you have to say about the subject, and they subscribe to your newsletter.
Now, you have the opportunity to continue to sell to that person for as long as they remain a subscriber. And, each time you recommend a product they like, you’ll keep building that trust and increase the likelihood that they will keep buying.
On the Office, Ryan Howard said it’s 10x more expensive to find a new customer than sell to existing customers.
Like Michael Scott, I didn’t go to business school, so I can’t confirm if that figure is accurate.
However, I have been around affiliate marketing circles to know that organic traffic is nothing compared to a devoted following.
8. The Guitar Junky
The Guitar Junky is probably the most straightforward affiliate marketing website example on our list.
They review guitars and accessories, and their site is monetized with affiliate offers and display ads. So it’s not a highly complex approach.
I included The Guitar Junky on this list because it shows you don’t need a complicated approach to build a successful affiliate marketing website.
You can make a great full-time passive income just by working hard and publishing a lot of content.
At a glance:
Niche: Guitars and Accessories
Monthly Visits: 29,900
Domain Rating: 50
Backlinks: 389,000
What they are doing right:
The Guitar Junky is a good-looking niche website.
Its content is broken up into logical silos, its content is well-written, and its product displays look great. They have also done an excellent job of incorporating display ads into the layout of their site without making it feel cluttered.
However, the key to their success is the amount of content they’ve created. The Guitar Junky’s sitemap shows it has over 650 blog posts.
The Guitar Junky has grown, and I think it will continue to grow because they have dedicated a lot of time to creating content.
How they make money :
The Guitar Junky makes
Almost all of their content targets buying-intent keywords. They have some info content, but the lion’s share of their site is affiliate content.
They are getting traffic and making
Rather than create a single post for “the best acoustic guitars,” they have an acoustic guitar silo full of content targeting long-tail keywords.
In this hub alone, they’re targeting terms such as:
- best acoustic guitars for kids
- best acoustic guitars under $1,000
- best budget guitars acoustic guitars under $200
Long-tail keywords are longer, more specific, and typically have less traffic than standard keywords.
However, since they have less traffic, long-tail keywords tend to be less competitive, so smaller sites have a better chance of ranking.
What you can learn from them:
Maybe you’re wondering why The Guitar Junky is getting thirty thousand views per month and your site isn’t.
Well, they have 650 posts. How many do you have?
In affiliate marketing, content is king, and it always will be.
There are so many things in this industry that you can’t control. For example, you can’t control when Amazon Associates cuts its commission rates or when Google decides to change its algorithm.
However, you can control whether or not you sit down to your laptop and hammer out another piece of content.
It’s hard to do when you aren’t making much
9. TechD
On its face, TechD (formerly Smartfinder) looks like a run-of-the-mill generalist Amazon affiliate website.
And, you might think 11,000 monthly visits don’t fit your idea of a successful site. However, I believe this site will continue to grow.
This type of site can be tough to rank in search engines. Broad sites have difficulty ranking because search engines don’t know what they are about.
Sidenote: You benefit from niching down because search engines know what types of queries you’ll be a good fit for.
However, more general sites can be huge if you can make it work. For example, look at how broad Wirecutter’s content is.
It can be very lucrative if you can establish yourself as an expert in everything.
At a glance:
Niche: Electronics and Home Products
Monthly Visits: 11,000
Domain Rating: 28
Backlinks: 4,300
What they are doing right:
I think TechD will continue to grow because they have found an underserved market.
Rather than recommending the best fridge, mattress, or tv, they recommend the best of those items available in India.
The vast majority of affiliate marketing websites are catered to American audiences. And that makes sense; we have a huge consumer economy.
But that also means that many unserved audiences are ripe for the picking.
How they make money :
TechD is monetized entirely with affiliate marketing, and most of its content is review-based. It’s a typical affiliate site, but it targets an atypical audience.
What you can learn from them:
If you can find an audience that nobody else is selling to, you can make a lot of
India is not nearly as wealthy as the United States or Europe, but there are over a billion people. And they all need things.
Don’t turn your nose up at a different audience or geographical target. Their
Further Reading:
How to Become A Successful Affiliate Marketer
There were a few consistent themes that you should take away from all of these examples. In my opinion, these are the most important:
Invest In Your Content
Every site on this list has hundreds of pieces of content. Some of them have thousands.
If you are struggling to grow your site and only publishing one piece of content per week, look where you’re spending time.
Are you really better off building links or posting on social media?
And while we’re on the subject…
Create Content Focused On Your Products
Nearly half of all product searches start with a Google search.
So, what better way to get more clicks and boost passive income than by creating content around the products you’re promoting?
The affiliate sites in this post focus most of their content on their products. Why? Because they make
Product reviews, buying guides, and best lists are some of the easiest ways to achieve this.
Make It Look Good
All of these affiliate marketing website examples look great.
Their sites are easy to navigate, and their offers are optimized to convert. So if your affiliate offers look good, your readers will be more likely to purchase.
Know Your Audience
If you have a site that is gaining traction but struggling to take off, look at how you serve your audience.
Everything from where you acquire a visitor to after they make a purchase is part of their experience with your site.
What does that look like through their eyes, and how can you make it more enjoyable?
Track Clicks So You Know What Your Readers Like
If you want to know how well your affiliate marketing business is doing, you need to track clicks.
It lets you see metrics, so you can:
- Measure what’s working
- Estimate monthly income
- Test new affiliate programs
If you have no idea what’s converting, you have no idea how to improve.
Tracking clicks is how we test our affiliate offers, see which products our readers like, measure audience engagement, and find underperforming links.
Continuous A/B testing ensures you’re making forward progress.
Steal These Affiliate Marketing Website Examples
Look at the sites on our list. They are making
If you want to be like them, take an in-depth look and steal their strategies. There’s no shame in competing. However, if your audience is your number one priority, build a site that looks great, pack it full of helpful content, and set yourself up for success.
Want to learn how our tool can help you build and scale a profitable online business? Give Lasso a try here.
Our creations in your inbox, weekly.
We've built multiple six-figure online businesses that our moms are proud of.
We'd like to help you do the same.