Nike Affiliate Program Review

Introduction

Nike is one of the most well-known brands on the planet. Battle hardened affiliates out there will be pleased to know that Nike has an affiliate program. However your traffic will determine the best way to earn from Nike related sales.

The main Nike affiliate program is designed for UK and EU traffic that you are sending to their UK site. This means it is really only useful to use the Nike program if you have a site that is generating that sort of traffic.

If your site is mainly attracting U.S.-based visitors then you’re going to have to come at this from a different direction.

Nike – what do they sell?

Nike recently dropped out of the golf equipment market. It still produces clothing and equipment across a wide variety of sports. Most well known for their athletic shoes they gradually diversified into making all sorts of sports accessories. Nike has done well from the rise of the ath-leisure clothing market.

Despite the impact of the Covid pandemic Nike still saw sales of $37.4 billion for the financial year ending May 31, 2020. Fourth-quarter revenues were down because the majority of their stores and retail outlets in general were closed. A 75% increase in online sales mitigated that somewhat.

The brand appeal of Nike means it is a very popular affiliate product and competition can be fierce for many keywords.

Affiliate with Nike?

If you don’t currently have a site that covers Nike products you might be wondering what is the best route to go to start achieving some revenue.

You are more likely to achieve success with an affiliate site where you niche down and try to research areas that have lower competition.

Even niching down may not be sufficient for you to find sufficiently easy terms to rank for. You may have to try ranking for terms that don’t even include Nike in them.

If you are targeting UK/EU visitors then you will be pleased to know you can get commission rates of 11% via Nike’s affiliate program on Awin.

For those of you targeting the US then you have a number of different options.

Amazon is the most obvious. A large number of affiliate’s start out with the Amazon associates program since it allows them to sell almost anything!

The problem with the Amazon associates program is the low level of commission. Currently you would earn 4%. With commission rates being cut fairly regularly over the last few years who’s to say what that might be in another year or two. The major advantage of using Amazon of course is their level of trust with customers. Plus fact that a lot of people are Prime members and so tend not to even think about the price of the product. You also have the added advantage of picking up some additional commission if they had other non-related products to their basket.

Other Options

Al’s Sporting Goods

Currently carrying over 600 Nike product lines this Utah-based store will pay you a 9% commission. In addition to the generous commission rate they also offer a long duration cookie. They also stock many other major brands so you could expand your site to cover other big names such as Adidas.

Designer Shoe Warehouse (dsw.com)

If you’re looking for footwear related products then this is the store to link to. Commission rates run up to as much as 10%. They also offer a friends and family referral program which pays out points instead.

Dicks Sporting Goods

A general sporting goods store that has been trading for over 70 years. You could earn commission of between 3% and 5%.

Etsy

Probably not everyone’s first choice when thinking about affiliate marketing but they do offer a nice 8% commission. Originally founded to allow artisans to sell hand-made pieces. Etsy has expanded of late to encompass more commercial concerns. A search for Nike returns almost 93,000 results. While some of those will be one-off items there will be some that you could promote on your site.

Fanatics

Primarily dealing in replica jerseys, which are generally pretty lucrative. Payouts of up to 10% are available depending upon the product. At any one time there are going to be a number of replica shirts produced by Nike.

Footlocker

It’s hard to believe but Footlocker does have a lower commission rate than Amazon at only 2%. However they will likely stock a wide variety of Nike footwear.

Macy’s

A famous name in US retail they also offer a small range of Nike products which you can include on your site. Affiliate’s can make 8% commission.

Nordstrom

For more than a hundred years Nordstrom has worked to deliver the best possible shopping experience. With Nike among the brands that they stock you could make between 2% and 11% commission.

Overstock

Given the nature of overstock.com it would only be difficult to link to many products as they are likely to sell out more quickly. They do offer a very friendly commission rate of 8% however.

RoadRunnerSports

Specifically covering the running and walking niche you could earn around 6% via their affiliate program on avantlink. Currently listing just under 200 Nike product lines.

Zappos

Stocking a range of footwear, clothing and accessories Zappos could be a good choice to team up with. They offer a reasonable commission rate of 6%.

How to Promote

If you`re going to go the SEO route then you are going to be coming up against some massive players. You really will have to niche down and find the lowest competition keywords possible unless you have an authority site of your own.

Try to think outside the box. Although Nike no longer makes golf clubs they still produce apparel, accessories and footwear for golf. So you could create a site around Nike golf products.

You might need to think about using other channels too. It is probably more difficult than ever for a blog to succeed. You should use social media to promote interest in your blog.

Nike products are usually quite visually appealing. This would be particularly applicable if you were looking at customised Nike products that you might find on Etsy.

YouTube can be a little easier to rank on. If you are comfortable creating video then that might be one way to drive traffic to a blog. If you already have a collection of Nike running shoes then maybe you could do some reviews. Every time you buy a new pair you do an unboxing video followed by a review.

Nike Affiliate Program Review: Conclusion

A big brand such as Nike is going to attract a lot of affiliates. Consequently it will be difficult as a beginner to make much headway. As with most affiliate marketing options you need to be consistent and persistent. Your keyword research will need to be top-notch if you`re going to score page 1 rankings in Google!

James

Related: Golf Affiliate Programs