Many blog income reports prove that high-ticket affiliate marketing is a notable revenue generator for all the top-earning content creators and bloggers.

Since the data shows that it is profitable, you might be wondering, "How can I get started?" Well, it turns out that generating revenue through high-paying affiliate programs is more difficult than you think.

High ticket affiliate marketing is more difficult because it is more competitive, programs are very selective and it requires building strong trust with your audience to make sales.

In this blog, we are going to cover high-ticket affiliate marketing for beginners so that you can learn how to sharpen your efforts on partnerships with huge earning potential.

What Is High Ticket Affiliate Marketing?

High ticket affiliate marketing focuses on generating revenue through affiliate programs with high commissions.

Payments for programs around $300 or 40% per sale are considered as high ticket. It can increase exponentially depending on the product.

This is because a higher Average Order Value (AOV) is one of the most effective levers for increasing your affiliate sales.

In short, high ticket affiliate marketing programs generate higher profits from fewer sales, which is a much more organized way of selling.

Although, it requires a clarified and targeted affiliate strategy to be successful.

According to the data, 95% of brand new affiliate marketers fail to convert sales. And with expensive affiliate marketing items, it can be nearly impossible to make your first sale.

This is because higher profits make selling affiliate marketing high ticket items more competitive than low ticket offers. And with higher costs also come more discerning customers, who want to weigh their options to make the best purchasing decisions.

That's why you'll need a strong strategy in place to start high-ticket affiliate marketing.

Developing A Content Strategy For High Ticket Affiliate Marketing

The way to high ticket affiliate marketing is to become a trustworthy source in the eyes of your audience of buyers.

And one way to do that is through frequent, value-driven communication.
People are more likely to trust a product recommendation from someone who is actually used it. So by trying out the product, I build trustworthiness with the customers. It also shows that I'm not simply trying to make a sale, but I am actually interested in helping people find the right product for their needs.

Actual experience-based product reviews give you an edge for high-ticket products because it shows you know about what you are talking about.

How To Start High Ticket Affiliate Marketing

If you are thinking about how to do high-ticket affiliate marketing, it's actually as simple as signing up to the platforms and beginning to promote your favorite product.

This is why many online content creators move towards affiliate marketing. It has a low barrier to entry.

Apart from high competition and selective programs, a longer sales cycle can be one of the biggest obstacles.
One of the biggest challenges is the longer sales cycle. It can take weeks or even months for a sale to go through with high-ticket items. This can be frustrating for affiliates who are used to getting quick commissions. And since high ticket items have a longer sales process, there's often also a bigger chance of rejected commissions. This means that affiliates may get rejected for commissions more often than with lower-priced items. You have to choose products carefully and understand the sales process to succeed with high-ticket items.

By keeping this in mind, here are the steps to start high-ticket affiliate marketing:

Step 1. Establish your brand

To join high-ticket affiliate programs, publishers typically have to have an established platform, a quality body of content, and an engaged audience.

The requirements make sense because affiliates will have a hard time converting even low ticket offers without achieving these initial standards. 

So, if it’s your goal to target high commission affiliate marketing programs, focus on publishing relevant, high-quality content on a frequent and consistent basis to build your audience.

Step 2. Apply to high ticket high-ticket programs

Another warning to high ticket affiliate marketing is that the requirements to join these programs are stricter than usual. Here are some of the important questions you should ask yourself before signing up for the dream high ticket affiliate partnership:
  • Does my brand come across as professional? High ticket affiliate marketing is often run by industry-leading brands that need to confirm a quality content standard. Keeping their affiliate programs completely protects their reputation and brand image. and it ensures that affiliate partners will actually convert sales. Before applying to high-ticket programs, assess your content, the user experience of your website, and the quality of your writing to ensure that it's up to par.
  • Have I built trust with my target audience? People typically take their time before purchasing high-ticket items. This is why developing trustworthiness in your niche is important as a high-ticket affiliate marketer.
  • How can I ensure my affiliate content ranks competitively? With larger commissions come more competition, so high ticket affiliate marketers have to be strategic about standing out from the crowd. Whether increasing your website’s domain authority and targeting buyer intent keywords, partnering with well-known content creators to establish credibility, getting creative with your marketing efforts can pay off.

Step 3. Build your sales strategy

Many different strategies and traffic drivers can help you convert sales on affiliate marketing high ticket items. Choosing the right one will depend on the product you’re promoting.

With high ticket items, you don't need a ton of traffic. You just need the right traffic. And that's why going for long-tail, lower volume keywords can still pay off.

Types Of High Ticket Affiliate Marketing Commission Structures

High ticket affiliate marketing programs have a variety of payout structures that can affect your earnings.

Understanding these commission terms will help you choose products that generate the most revenue with as little wasted effort as possible. 

The different affiliate commission payment structures include: 
  • Recurring commissions from subscription renewals. If you want to be as “hands-off” as possible, then a program with recurring commissions could be a good fit.
  • High percentage commission rates. If you primarily promote physical products, prioritizing items with high commission percentages and a high price tag can be a good focus. 
  • High flat rate commission payouts. Promoting a product with a high flat rate can convert really well through an email marketing campaign. For example, an online education program, or a software product for small business owners. 
  • Lifetime commissions. You earn a commission on every purchase that a particular client makes with lifetime commissions, as long as they remain a customer.

Best High Paying Affiliate Programs

Revenue from the high-ticket affiliate programs can range from a few hundred to thousands of dollars. This depends on the website and its niche, and how long the brand has been established.

Here are some of the best high-ticket paying affiliate programs for high converting industries:

Semrush



  • Program Name: Semrush Affiliate Program
  • Network/Software: Impact
  • Commission: $200.00 for every new sale
  • Cookie Duration: 120 days
  • Markets: Global
Semrush is a Boston-based online performance marketing platform that enables marketers to easily create and manage campaigns. They also offer keyword research, SEO, social media, and link-building services among their features.

Affiliates can partner with the Semrush program to earn a $200 commission per new subscription sale. Semrush is one of the most trusted keywords and SEO tools on the market, which means that companies searching for their services will likely have already heard about them.

HubSpot



  • Program Name: HubSpot Affiliate Program
  • Network / Software: Impact
  • Commission: 15% recurring or 100% of the first month's revenue
  • Cookie Duration: 90 days
  • Markets: Global
HubSpot is a digital services platform specializing in inbound marketing and was founded by two MIT grads in 2004. Their services include a CRM platform, marketing hub, sales hub, and operations platforms.

HubSpot inbound marketing prices start at $45 a month for beginners and increase to $3,200 a month for enterprises. Customers have the option to pay upfront or commit to monthly payments for one year.

Shopify



  • Program Name: Shopify Affiliate Program
  • Network / Software: Direct
  • Commission: 200% of the monthly subscription fee after 2 months of activity
  • Cookie Duration: 30 days
  • Markets: Global
If you want to have your e-commerce store, you can either create one on your own or simply use Shopify! It is a great e-commerce platform for entrepreneurs who are just starting out, with a stellar affiliate program, too.

Affiliates earn an average of $58 per signup, but this is calculated in the following way: 
  • Affiliates earn a 200% bounty for each successful merchant they refer to Shopify. This means that they earn 2x the monthly plan price selected by the merchant that they referred to after the merchant has been active for 2 months
In short, your referral needs to stick around for at least two months for you to get paid, but once they do, you get two months' worth of commissions as a single payout.

That means, commissions do not recur and if the referral buys an annual plan, you still only get the 2 monthly commissions.

The mode of payment is PayPal, and the payment threshold is $25 to get your commissions.

ConvertKit



  • Program Name: ConvertKit Affiliate Program
  • Network / Software: Linkmink
  • Commission: 200% of the monthly subscription fee after 2 months of activity
  • Cookie Duration: 30 days
  • Markets: Global
ConvertKit is a popular email marketing platform that has quite a few interesting features, You can do everything from creating a basic landing page to sending a broadcast email to your list. It was built keeping creators in mind.

It is a dream tool for Podcasters, Musicians, and Youtubers. ConvertKit paid plan starts at $30/month.

ConvertKit pays its affiliates recurring 30% commissions. Their plans are priced between $29 and $2000 per month. It is one of the fastest-growing email marketing platforms.

ConvertKit offers a free plan for up to 1000 subscribers without the features like automation.

Affilimate



Got an audience of creators, affiliate marketers, or online business owners? There's a good chance that – like you – there in a lot of affiliate programs. Collecting and analyzing data from all of them can be a nightmare if you try to do it with spreadsheets.

Affilimate totals your affiliate data and helps you run cross-cutting reports that connect your commissions back t the content on your site that actually drove the revenue.

With plans ranging from $29 to $239 per month, you can net anywhere from $5.80 to $47.80 every single month per referred customer. If the customer buys annually, take that and multiply it by 10. 

That's up to $478 per referred customer, upfront.

ActiveCampaign



ActiveCampaign is a preprogrammed customer experience platform that enables businesses to connect and engage with their customers through a simple yet powerful email marketing and contact management strategy.

It has simple pricing plans that start at $9/month with limited email marketing features and automation.

You can become an ActiveCampaign affiliate and earn up to 30% in commissions, with 20% as the base commission.

ClickFunnels



ClickFunnel is a US-based online marketing platform that makes it easy to create high-converting sales funnels for online products and services for affiliates.

You can use their platform to launch everything from ebooks to online courses, to webinars. ClickFunnel's drag and drop system means that their platform is easy to use, even if you are not the most tech familiar, which is a great selling point for affiliates.

Click Funnels sells its services on a subscription package basis ranging from $97 to $2,497 per month. 

With ClickFunnels, affiliates can earn recurring commissions of up to 40% each time a subscription is renewed, which makes it an advantageous high-ticket affiliate marketing program for digital marketers.

FreshBooks



With FreshBooks, business finances can be managed from any part of the world. That said, it's most popular in the United States and with US-based businesses.

FreshBooks is user-friendly enough for businesses ranging from freelance writers to large corporations. Their Lite pricing plan starts at $15/month. 

You can earn up to $10 per free trial, plus up to $200 for every paid subscriber.

Teachable



It is possible to promote Teachable as a software product, to an audience of course creators. 

But beyond that, many Teachable course creators can run their own affiliate programs. This means you can promote individual courses by Teachable instructors and earn a commission.

On other hand, this equalized knowledge-sharing and allows for a wide range of courses. But this also means you must be careful to vet the courses you promote.

Teachable has a course discovery tool that you can use to discover Teachable courses in a bunch of different categories. Topics range from everything including fitness, investing, food, yoga, and more. 

So no matter what topic you are covering on your website, there's probably a Teachable course you could try yourself and promote to your audience.

Note that not every Teachable course offers an affiliate program, and the terms can vary greatly between programs. Definitely check the individual course (or even email the instructor) before buying it if you are planning to write a review, and need to know the affiliate terms first.

Rocket Languages



Rocket Languages is one of the most generous language affiliate programs and comes with a personal recommendation from one of Affilimate’s customers and the founder of French Together, Benjamin Houy. 

Both the commission percentage and cookie duration are quite generous for the education industry and a high conversion rate a the cherry on top. 

With their top courses priced at $449, your 40-70% commission rate can net between $179 and $314. Lower-priced courses at $99 still provide decent commissions as well.

You can choose to promote one of 14 languages: Spanish, French, Italian, German, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Arabic, Hindi, Portuguese, ASL, and English. Monica recommends inserting their pre-made free trial form into high-performing blog articles to optimize for conversions.

Kaplan



Kaplan is the oldest education program on this list. It was started in 1938 by Stanley Kaplan. This brand is internationally recognized, with employees in 28 countries across the globe.

While the commission rate may seem low, the average purchase runs upwards of USD 1,200 (€1.1k), bringing the potential earnings up. The program also adds value to affiliates through co-branded “bespoke content and press releases”, as well as discounted member pricing. Even so, it would take a high conversion rate to make this a viable affiliate choice.

Lambda School



  • Program name: Lambda School Affiliate Program 
  • Network / Software: Impact 
  • Commission: $500.00 per student 
  • Cookie duration: 30 days 
  • Markets: US
Lambda provides in-depth learn-to-code courses in exchange for a percentage of a future paycheck. Their programs cost no money down and instead rely on this income-sharing agreement and unlike other platforms, Lambda offers A-Z courses geared towards career changes or early career development. These classes used to take place in-person, but have since moved online.

Their affiliate program pays out a whopping $500 per student who begins the program. They offer a 90-day free trial period to commitment, so while the commission is high, the payout period is longer than most.

Masterclass



The masterclass takes a unique approach to online learning by leveraging well-known celebrity voices such as Gordan Ramsey, Issa Rae, and Steve Martin. Their videos have high production value and take on a podcast-like tone. Full disclosure: this is one of my favorite platforms to learn from. 

However, Masterclass is very strict about brand image and will deny affiliates whose websites rank for search terms like "Download, Free, Torrent, Discount."

Their cookie window and commission payout are conservative compared to other programs that offer incentives for leads. While they offer tiered volume bonuses, their process is not as transparent as other affiliate programs.

Personal Capital



Personal Capital is one of the most actively promoted financial affiliate programs. One site we analyzed linked to Personal Capital over 150 times on their site.

It comes down to the product(and the profit): advanced financial technology, free planning, and tracking tools, and competitive affiliate rates. Their paid offers are geared towards individuals with a net worth over $100k, but their free tools work for everyone.

High-net-worth individuals frequently report unpleasant experiences with the Personal Capital sales team. A Purple Life includes an honest review on her resources page that reads, “They call me monthly and I find it annoying. If you sign up for Personal Capital and have more than $100,000 in your account they will call you to try and have you use their investing services.”

American Express



  • Program name: American Express Affiliate Program 
  • Network / Software: Daisycon, Awin, CJ Affiliate, Bankrate Credit Cards 
  • Commission: €2.50-€110.00 Different fees per product, maximum of € 110.00 CPS (Daisycon), €0.00-€84.60 depending on the product (Awin), CA$0.00-CA$350.00 depending on the item list (CJ Affiliate), (Bankrate Credit Cards) 
  • Cookie duration: 30 days (Daisycon, Awin), 7 days (CJ Affiliate), Not listed (Bankrate Credit Cards) 
  • Markets: Global (Daisycon), IT (Awin), CA (CJ Affiliate), Global (Bankrate Credit Cards)
American Express, is a brand that needs no introduction, A true loyal, American Express has been in the business of financial services from as early as 1850. Since then, the brand has built an attractive reputation for a highly rated product portfolio and service excellence.

The American Express credit card offers the following benefits: 
  • Each purchase unlocks savings for plane tickets, travel, gifts, or concert tickets 
  • Early access to ticket sales for the best places and unique events 
  • A unique collaboration with Air France/KLM in the form of Flying Blue cards 
  • All purchases are insured against damage and theft 
  • One or more extra card(s) are available at no additional cost
As an affiliate, you always get the most up-to-date collateral for marketing purposes, you are looking anywhere up to €110 or CA$350, depending on the specific item and the network.

James Allen



James Allen is a D2C online jeweler specializing in engagement rings for a global clientele. They offer a video viewing experience in addition to a grading certificate to give customers peace f mind when shopping online.

The James Allen affiliate structure is fairly generous, with a 5% commission rate and a 30-day cookie duration. According to their website, an average sale is $6,500, with a $275 commission per sale. 

A potential drawback with any ring purchase is that customers might not be comfortable with purchasing such a high ticket, or personal item online. This could present conversion challenges for affiliates. 

However, if you are confident in the product and service you received, this affiliate program could be a good fit if you have a personal experience to share with your audience.

Horchow



  • Program name: Horchow Affiliate Program 
  • Network / Software: FlexOffers
  • Commission: 2.4% 
  • Cookie duration: 5 days
  • Markets: US 
Not only do lovers of luxury want to good look, but they also want their surroundings to reflect the same - enter Horchowm the luxury furniture affiliate program by Neiman Marcus.

Inside you'll find lamps for $1,000 and sofas for a cool ten grand. The most expensive couch we found on the website will set you back $18,279. 

Home and interior design products are also often present on luxury lifestyle brands, so adding affiliate programs for furniture to the mix isn't a bad idea if it's a fit for your audience. 

Horchow offers a relatively short cookie window of 5 days through FlexOffers, so your readers will need to make a decision quickly.

Conclusion

When it comes to high ticket affiliate marketing for beginners, the massive success of top bloggers suggests that it's beneficial to apply to these programs as soon as you have an established audience.

People are less inclined to part with $5,000 than they are with $50.

That's why affiliates have to take care to present themselves as the expert when recommending affiliate marketing high-ticket items, no matter what niche they’re in.

As a final note, when studying how to do high ticket affiliate marketing, marketers should take care to learn the payout structures of different programs, as well as the most profitable products.

That way they will be able to maximize their earnings and develop a strategic sales funnel, and a marketing strategy that actually generates high recurring revenue.