When it comes to picking out the best gaming affiliate programs for gamers who stream on Twitch or upload videos on YouTube, there is a solid list of programs to choose from. Obviously, I’m not going to go over all of them here but I am going to go over my favorites. Before we start with the list, make sure that whatever platform you’re on (Youtube or Twitch), doesn’t have an issue with you posting affiliate links to any of these sites. I’m not aware of any issue for these at the time of writing this but things change and I would hate for you to lose your channel for such a lame reason.
Green Man Gaming Affiliate Program
The Green Man Gaming
program is probably one of the top affiliate programs that I’ve seen gamers use. The way you earn through them is your typical cookie, which means if someone clicks your affiliate link it adds a cookie to their browser & if they purchase a game through GMG after clicking your affiliate link then you get a commission from the purchase. Something cool about this affiliate program is “Affiliates who perform exceptionally may get exclusive offers as an added bonus.” I’ve always been a fan of bonus incentives for rewarding hard work (in regular day jobs as well), so this was a nice touch by the people over at Green Man Gaming.
Chairs 4 Gaming Affiliate Program
Chairs4Gaming.com has an affiliate program that is hard to pass up. They have a tiered affiliate ranking system, like leveling up in a game. More sales = getting to higher tiers which lets you earn bonuses. As an example, the Level 5 affiliate gets a bonus of $100, 1 gaming chair to giveaway & a $100 PayPal bonus for every following month where you make 5 sales or more. I give a big thumbs up for whoever came up with their affiliate program system.
Amazons Affiliate Program
The Amazon affiliate program is the biggest affiliate program there is & for good reason. You can make some serious money with it. You have multiple different ways of promoting your affiliate link with Amazon, such as; banner ads, text links, & CPM ads. The CPM ads are newish & they’re much stricter about who they accept into that program. With that being said really all you need is the typical text affiliate links as these tend to be the most often clicked through for pretty much every affiliate I’ve ever spoken with, including myself. The flat-out best part about Amazon as an affiliate is that after someone clicks through your affiliate link, you get a commission on whatever is purchased, even if it wasn’t the item you were promoting. For example, if you’re affiliate link is going to a gaming headset & they click on it then decide not to purchase that headset but rather buy a gaming keyboard & also a green screen as well. You get a commission on that gaming keyboard & green screen! I’ve made a good bit of money from items, that I’ve never even heard of that people have bought through my Amazon affiliate link. Now the downside of them is their commission cookie is only 24 hours long. The commission rate they pay varies per category of the product so this is kind of a bittersweet type of feeling for us promoting video game type products. By that I mean, if a regular hard copy of a video game is purchased you’ll only get a 1% commission, but if they buy a digital copy of a video game then the commission is 10%. Disclaimer: This rate may change in the future as they just recently changed their commission rates a few months ago so this may happen again in the future.
Humble Bundle Affiliate
The Humble Bundle affiliate program is actually still in beta at the time of writing this & I haven’t actually used it but as someone who has made plenty of purchases through Humble Bundle, this could be a great income earner for gamers. For those who don’t know, Humble Bundle is games bundled together, in which a user can offer their price to get a bunch of games at a way cheaper price. For example, right now they have a bundle of games that is worth $242 that you can buy for $10 bucks, not even joking. That right there would show you how easy it should be to make money from their affiliate program because the deals are so insane that really all you have to do is get the sales page in front of the user which should convert very well in my opinion. The thing I like about this company is that it allows users to pay more if they would like to & with that, they can also determine how the money is distributed through the game developers, charities or give a tip to Humble. The fact that they have a strong focus on giving to charities is a thumbs up in my book.
Twitchlayouts.com Affiliate
You see those cool twitch overlays or well-designed channel that gamers have on Twitch? This affiliate program allows you to earn a commission from other gamers who are looking to get into the streaming game. When they ask you where you got your kickass Twitch layout, you can point them to Twitchlayouts.com & give them your promo code which usually has an incentive for the user to use the code, like 5% certain designs. This is not your traditional type affiliate program like the others I mentioned above where you click on an affiliate link. On the twitchlayouts site, they don’t even have anything mentioned they have an affiliate program, I only know about it because one of the streamers I watch (shout out to Brutepork!) is promoting their designs with his promo code. I have no clue how strict they are about accepting affiliate but it can’t hurt to shoot them an email to ask.
ClickBank Affiliate Program
The ClickBank affiliate program is focused on selling digital products. The types of gaming type products that you can focus on can be guides for how to get better at playing X, Y, Z game. You can also create your own product to promote on their & have other games promote your product. They have a pretty big selection of items that you can promote in their marketplace so just search around to find something that would resonate well with your viewers. The best part about ClickBank is the commission rates are usually very high (varies per product) compared to other affiliate programs.
Razer Affiliate Program
Razer is one of the biggest brands in the gaming equipment industry, I would say a large amount of that success should be contributed to them having some popular gamers promoting their product. That isn’t meant to take anything away from Razer as a company, I was more giving kudos to them for knowing how to market. Anyways, if you’re a fan of their products then why not promote them?
KontrolFreek Affiliate Program
The KontrolFreek affiliate program has a great incentive for help their affiliates promote their products. Usually, with an affiliate program, you just get the affiliate link & that’s it. They also give a 10% discount code on top of that. If you’re looking for an affiliate program for controller skins, grips, custom thumbsticks & other gaming accessories then this should be right up your alley.
Loot Crate Affiliate Program
Loot Crate has an impressive pricing payout that you could make some very good money from. Loot Crate widens your affiliate gap because if some of your viewers could care less about buying new gaming equipment but still like getting gaming accessories, apparel, toys & all kinds of other cool stuff then this will be the service that helps turn those viewers into customers.
Gamer Launch Affiliate
Gamer Launch provides an affiliate program for multiple services that tons of gamers need. Here a list of things that Gamer Launch offers that gamers would need.
- Create & Host A Guild Website With Your Custom Domain
- Raid & DKP Tracking
- Raid Scheduling, Attendance Tracking, Recruitment Tools…
- 25/50 slot Voice Server Through Ventrilo, Mumble or Teamspeak
Some of these are essential to running a guild, especially if you on the more serious sides of raiding or PVP. Sure, you can do each of these through a separate service but having all of this bundled together into one service is a very enticing offer for lots of gamers who run clans or guilds.
OriginPC Affiliate
Custom built gaming computers is a huge market with OriginPC being one of the most recognizable brands in the industry. Lots of gamers gladly spend $2k & more on their setups, so just think of the commission you can earn with even just a few of these every month.
GamerDating Affiliate
As you can tell by the different types of affiliate programs I’m listing that I want to give you a wide range of ways you can make money as a gamer. GamerDating adds in another avenue that most of us don’t even think about when searching for affiliate programs to join.
Alas, We Have Come To The End…
Note: If you’re looking into sponsorship’s then take a look at our, becoming a sponsored gamer article. This is our initial list of the best gaming affiliate programs. This will be an ongoing article that I will keep adding new affiliate programs as I come across them. For now, this is a great list to get you started & as you can tell I diversified the type of affiliate programs because I know not everyone wants to promote the same thing. If you recommend an affiliate program which would be great for gamers that is not mentioned on this list then feel free to shoot me an email so I can look into adding it. I realize there are lots more actual brands than Razer that have affiliate programs, like Corsair or Logitech for example. I was more aiming for variation of different types rather than just a full-on massive list of all affiliate programs, however, since this is just the initial draft then this might be added in later. If there are any companies reading this that would like to be added, shoot me an email with the URL of where to find your affiliate information. Just make sure it’s a product that would make sense for video gamers to promote it. Last thing, there is different ways to monetize your gaming channels so be sure to explore all of your options.