How do you analyze the competition in IT affiliate marketing?
1. Identify Direct and Indirect Competitors
- List IT products/services similar to yours (e.g., SaaS, cloud tools, security platforms)
- Identify competitor affiliate programs targeting the same audience
- Include both global and India-based IT players in your analysis
- Monitor new entrants or rapidly scaling affiliate programs in your niche
- Categorize competitors by product type, pricing, and affiliate strength
2. Study Competitor Affiliate Program Structures
- Review their commission models (e.g., flat fee, recurring, tiered)
- Note cookie durations, payout thresholds, and bonus incentives
- Examine their terms of service, rules, and restrictions
- Compare program positioning: are they targeting developers, SMBs, or enterprises?
- Identify gaps you can fill—such as better payouts, tools, or support
3. Analyze Their Affiliate Content and Creators
- Search for affiliate content on Google, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Quora
- Look at review articles, tutorials, tool comparisons, and product roundups
- Identify top-ranking keywords associated with competitor products
- Analyze who’s promoting them—tech bloggers, SaaS influencers, consultants
- Use tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and BuzzSumo to find backlinks and high-performing content
4. Evaluate SEO and Traffic Performance
- Use Ahrefs or SimilarWeb to analyze domain authority and organic traffic
- Identify top-performing pages and keywords driving affiliate sales
- Review their on-page SEO structure, content length, and internal linking
- Monitor paid traffic sources like Google Ads or Facebook Ads (via Ad Library)
- Benchmark your own content and traffic against theirs
5. Monitor Affiliate Recruitment and Engagement
- Check if they promote their affiliate program on their website, blogs, or partner portals
- Analyze how they onboard and retain affiliates (e.g., training, rewards, contests)
- Observe how often they update creative assets and campaign messages
- Join their program (if possible) to explore resources, tracking tools, and communication
- Look at how they use newsletters, dashboards, and promotional calendars to support affiliates
