Personally, I am a fan of High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing.
That’s not to say that everything is perfect, like everything of course.
Really understanding what High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing is also, and more importantly, means understanding what the advantages and disadvantages of this variant are.
In this post, I will list the main pros and cons, along with some not-so-common ones.
Pros
Easy to start: You might think that High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing is a very different business from “normal” Affiliate Marketing (I wrote about the difference between High and Low in this post). In reality, the principles are exactly the same. If you learn one, you learn the other. Of course, there are things that work better or worse, strategies that are better suited than others, and that is precisely what I talk about a lot in this blog.
Higher ROI: Assume you always have the same number of hours per week to work on your Affiliate Marketing business. Working on promoting High-Ticket affiliate products might take longer to see the first results than Low-Ticket products, but in the medium to long term the gains, or rather the return on investment of hours spent (ROI) will be astronomical.
Faster income goals: The producers of the Project24 course talk about being able to replace a person’s average monthly income with blogging and affiliate marketing activities in 24 months. This is their idea of an “income goal” (which I also appreciate personally). By focusing on High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing you can increase your chances of achieving this goal, and even do it in less time.
Sustainability: With low commissions, you will need a lot of traffic to achieve acceptable income. With High-Ticket commissions, if you focus mainly on those keywords with high buyer intent, even a little traffic will be enough to start generating attractive revenue that will sustain and fund your growth.
Upsell: The users you are targeting are willing to spend a lot of money, and if they have done it once, chances are they will be willing again. That’s why it’s critical to be able to get their e-mail addresses so that you can re-contact them with follow-up offers (what’s called Upselling).
Enhanced credibility: Promoting quality High-Ticket products with a dedicated website can increase your credibility in the eye of your audience. If you demonstrate your expertise and professionalism with expensive, perhaps complicated or out-of-the-ordinary products, you will actually place yourself in another category, and your authority will certainly gain.
Luxury appeal: some High-ticket products often have an air of luxury and exclusivity. If done the right way, you can “gain” that appeal of the very luxury items you are promoting. Imagine being in jeans and a T-shirt and promoting a Casio watch VS wearing an elegant suit and promoting a Rolex. The second version creates a whole other appeal, although maybe that elegant dress was cheaper than the jeans and T-shirt of the first version.
Networking opportunities: There is a lot of money in the world of High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing. Being able to grow and make your own niche in this industry also means being able to attend many events and thus many networking opportunities. If properly leveraged, these are all opportunities that can accelerate your growth even more.
Enhanced marketing potential: High-Ticket products usually provide more opportunities for promotion. The status of “quality product” or “luxury product” means that there are many ways to tease the imagination of potential buyers, compared to a consumer product.
Cons
Longer sales cycles: The more expensive a product is, the longer it will take on average for a potential buyer to decide to complete the purchase. This also translates into lower average conversion rates compared to Low-Ticket products.
Higher competition: Where there is more money, it is natural that there is also more interest, and therefore more competition and less room to enter. Some High-Ticket niches are among the most competitive in the world (e.g., the Forex niche in which I have been working primarily for years).
More demanding audience: Since these are expensive products, your audience will demand a lot from you, your content, your reviews, and your recommendations. This will mean that you will have to specialize a lot and spend a lot more time creating real value with your content.
Higher barriers to entry: In some cases, High-Ticket affiliate programs may have more stringent requirements for new affiliates wishing to join, such as a proven high level of expertise, an established online presence, or a proven track record of sales. All of these can make access to these High-Ticket programs or networks more difficult for beginner High-Ticket affiliates.
Difficulty to review: When it comes to Affiliate Marketing, the best strategy for creating true quality content is to try and hand-test the product or service you want to promote. In many cases that means buying it. In the case of High-Ticket products this may become difficult and very costly.
Ethical concerns: Not all that glitters is always gold. Some High-Ticket products are actually low quality products simply sold with a very high price and exaggerated expectations. Some unfortunately are outright scams (which are fortunately short-lived usually). It is always necessary to do due diligence before starting to promote anything.