How To Boost Your Affiliate Income For The Holiday Season

The period from Black Friday through to New Year is the biggest season for affiliate marketing. Most people are spending a lot more time online, and they’re expecting to spend more money regardless of what they’re celebrating or how they spend their time.

This post is all about how to help people find what they’re looking for and earn yourself commission as a thank you. It’s a win-win, because it costs them nothing extra and the company you’re recommending is paying you.

Let’s get started!

How To Boost Your Affiliate Income For The Holiday Season Share on X
Side note: We also have some other blog posts on this topic you may find useful, including How To Create A Great Black Friday Buying Guide, The Affiliate’s Guide To Black Friday At Lyrical Host, How To Win At Affiliate Marketing In The Current Economy, and How To Get Affiliate Sales Even If You Don’t Get Much Traffic.
 

What makes seasonal affiliate income different?

People are ready to buy, expect to be spending money, and tend to spend more. Although many people have less disposable income due to increases in the cost of living, this means that they are starting to shop earlier to spread the amount spent at one time, and the holiday selling period is lasting longer.

Holiday seasons means people are looking for answers and options more quickly. They are less interested in doing big comparisons and reading a lot of research, and they just want to buy without needing to think too much.

There are two main groups of buyers: people who are looking for something specific (e.g. a viral toy or a web host), and people who have no clue what to buy and want ideas.

For the former, you’re looking at unboxing or review style content, talking them through the item and giving them the pros and ideas. If it’s a must-have product that’s sold out, people are very grateful if you can suggest an alternative. Tutorials or getting started guides can also work well for tech products and services.

For the latter, lists of ideas with links or creating bundles so people buy multiple purchases can be huge for you. Instead of just listing individual items, do an example Christmas Eve box, family hamper or whatever makes sense for your niche. For digital products, bundle them together in one image or video with links, and explain how they work well together and walk them through some examples. You could suggest a bundle that consists of Lyrical Host, Shortpixel and Envato Elements, for example.

Get specific. Instead of “Gifts for Men”, try quirky gifts for food lovers, budget presents for dad, homemade gifts for family gatherings, presents for people when you have no clues, budget Secret Santa ideas for work colleagues, and so on. Tailor them to your niche and offer different options, such as “kids educational toys”, “kids toys on a budget”, “viral kids toys for Christmas 2026,” and so on. That way people can find everything in one place and if one list or category isn’t right for them, hopefully another one will be.

Location is also an important factor. If your list is just for the UK or US, mention that early on. Equally, if it can be purchased worldwide, that’s a huge advantage you want to comment on. Some affiliate programs, like Amazon’s, allow you to create different affiliate links for different countries so you don’t miss out on sales. Others, like ours at Lyrical Host, naturally work worldwide from the same link and code.
 

Seasonal planning for affiliates

Figure out who you’re targeting by taking your usual audience/niche and getting specific. If you’re a food blogger and your readers are looking for recipes from you, what else do they need? What problems do they have? What time can you save them? Then add a seasonal twist. For example, you could do a “Christmas Baking Essential Equipment list” and include everything from cookie cutters to KitchenAids.

Need inspiration? Check the latest and upcoming trends via Google Trends, Hootsuite’s Trend Analysis Tool, or Pinterest Trends.

Decide on whether you’re doing seasonal-specific content or just content that visually looks seasonal. A Christmas gift guide is both, whereas a Black Friday sale on software that is used all year round will just look seasonal in how you present it.

Don’t sleep on non-seasonal things. Black Friday is huge for digital products and services, and sales for these are often good right through to Easter, even without Black Friday deals. These also typically pay much higher for fewer sales, so you don’t need a big audience to easily make good money. As an example, our affiliate program pays you $80 for selling just one Boss hosting plan or $24 for a Navigating SEO course.
 

Building your seasonal affiliate content

Content creation is one of the most important parts of affiliate marketing. New and eye-catching always wins out, so even if you’ve created content on this topic or about this product/service/company before, make it as new and fresh as possible.

A seasonal theme or new core message can help with this. Check out the Lyrical Host Resource Library or your past October/November emails from us for seasonal themed stock photos.
Create any or all of the following:

• A bridge/landing page (to post on your socials) – see 7 Free & Cheap Ways To Create Landing Pages if you’re not sure how.
• A holiday blog post (or interlinked series, if you have time).
• A free resource (e.g. for digital things like web hosting, it could be a social media or SEO cheatsheet, for consumer products it could be a travel packing list or Christmas seating chart or name place templates) delivered via email or instant download if they purchase through your link or using your affiliate code.
• An infographic, Pinterest pin, or other explanatory image you can share on your channels or within other content. It could be a guide, how to use something, why it’s great, or similar. Give examples but not the whole thing; you want people to click through rather than observe from a distance or disappear to search for it themselves.
• Video/podcast – Especially if you’re promoting something tactile or that makes a noise.

Don’t forget to repurpose these content pieces; for example a video for social media can also be embedded on your landing page or in your blog post.
Tip: The Lyrical Host Affiliate Center has lots of done-for-you resources, from infographics to stock photos. There are promo downloads for our digital products as well as for web hosting.
 
Within the content, you want to:
– Explain why it’s a good option (the benefits), or address a specific problem and explain your solution.
– Clearly present the product/service and how to buy it. You don’t want to bury a link in a big paragraph of text. Experiment with buttons, colors, and text highlighting, formatting sizing and spacing. Someone should be able to scroll your page pretty fast and quickly and easily see where to stop to buy.

 
Content types
There are endless options, so here are just a few you may want to consider:
Gift guides – A classic. Position them in a problem-solving way – what to buy for the man who has everything, what to buy for your bestie on a budget, how to choose something for someone you don’t know very well, what to buy when the viral thing they wanted has sold out.

The digital version of this is tech stacks; list all the services and tools you use and affiliate/promo links for each of them. Encourage people to swipe your list and save time vs researching all the options themselves.

Comparisons – X vs Y reviews, switching guides etc. Add a personal touch through achievements or overcoming problems or “Why I switched from X to Y”, your secret weapons, alternatives to X.

Walkthrough tutorials – Be specific: “How to start a coaching business for $200” is more attention grabbing than just giving your web hosting affiliate link. Create faceless screen recording tutorials showing how to accomplish a specific technical task in 3–5 minutes. Place timestamps in the YouTube description, and next to each tool mentioned, include your affiliate link with a custom discount/bonus code. Pin a comment: “All tools used in this workflow linked above with exclusive extended trials.”

Subscriber-attracting freebies – Include free downloads tailored to your audience – checklists, coloring pages, templates or similar, in exchange for them subscribing to your mailing list. Be sure to segment them so you know where they came from, and take the opportunity to send follow up emails they’re likely to be interested in. You can re-use this in future holidays, too.

Tip: When the holiday season is over, use a WordPress plugin to duplicate your page as a draft. That way you can do it all even faster next year. Have the original page URL redirect to a similar page on your website so you don’t end up with a broken link. (If you need help with this, just raise a ticket with the Lyrical Host support team).
 

Reach out to affiliate programs
Mention that you’re doing a holiday campaign, show them what you have so far, and ask for exclusives, e.g. genuinely useful resources specifically tailored to your audience, or bonus extras when they place an order using your link. This means you can send out freebies to your subscribers without lifting a finger, or allows you to add value to an existing bundle or course.
 

Co-create content
Creating content with someone else gives your audience something new and different, reduces your workload, and also gives you a supportive buddy if you’re nervous or need accountability.

The other person could be someone selling something and you’re an affiliate for them (or vice versa), or even someone in your family and you’re joint earning affiliate income together. You could even potentially trade with someone else selling something you’re not, so they do a video with you and you do a video with them.

For digital products and services – you could do a joint video call or Q&A on what X looks like in the next year, or talk through what’s in a bundle or how to do something from start to finish (such as create a website). Record the video and add it to your resource library, integrate it into a course, or offer it as a downloadable resource for subscribers. You could also use clips for social media.

For physical products – you could do a Live with a friend or family showing the products in use, or do unboxings or ASMR videos. Similarly you can supplement this with a gift guide download or links, either directly or by having people sign up to your mailing list.
 

Visibility

Mention in different ways across all your channels – website, social media, email list, etc. Make sure your landing page or blog post link is in your bios, regular email signature, pinned content, and that you have a plan to keep mentioning it instead of dropping it and running.

Assuming, like most affiliates, you’re only recommending products and services you use and love yourself – review what you’re using on the brand’s channels. This could be as a Google or Facebook review, Trustpilot review, social media review, or testimonial on the brand’s website. This can be a powerful way to show you genuinely support what you’re selling and gives your followers a sense of familiarity when they’re investigating the brand themselves.

Make it easy to find your links:

• Create a LinkTree style page for your recommendations (see How To Create A Linktree Style Page Using WordPress so people can easily find them.
• Create a Resources/Resource Library page featuring your recommendations and affiliate links along with downloadable content that has clickable links inside, such as gift guides or tech stacks.
• Update your social media banners with short, easily memorable URLs (see How To Set Up A URL Shortener).
• Have your affiliate links and key content links saved as snippets or notes on your phone so you can quickly copy and paste if someone asks.

 

Promotion

Next it’s time to share what you’ve created with the world. Create a campaign by developing new, eyecatching imagery and messaging with a consistent theme for all your channels, and make it look different to what you’re usually doing in terms of color so it’s eyecatching. Give enough of a hint as to what it’s about – e.g. making a particular holiday cheaper/less stressful/more exciting – and mention exclusives, freebies, VIP access using “be the first to know” style copy.

Make a list of all the channels you have to promote – email, social media, your website etc. – and then create a posting schedule. Preschedule as much as possible to save time, and change up the wording and imagery so it doesn’t feel repetitive if someone is looking around all your assets or sees a lot of your posts everywhere.

If you don’t have an audience – Create a community around a niche, such as a Facebook group or WhatsApp channel – what seasonal posts are you seeing this year on social media? People are always looking for the cheapest places to buy popular toys, or ideas for elf on a shelf, or budget activities to do in the home or outside it over the long December/January period. You can drop in affiliate links along with your organic content. Keep your community tied to a niche theme for best results. Get a lot of content banked up to start with so you can post regularly without running out of new ideas. You can always mix and match your more commercial posts with ones offering free colouring pages, images of activities, getting people to share their own ideas and so on.

Attract people to your page or mailing list with freebies – share them in groups, on social media, or create content around you using them (for example coloring in printable coloring sheets).

Kick things off with a giveaway of something your target audience wants, asking them to add friends and share to enter, and keep the momentum going by doing a couple more giveaways over the next few months. While you can’t tell people to enter your giveaway by buying something using your link, you can attract them in with the free giveaways so they’re seeing more of your content. Ask them to join your mailing list, either in your group joining questions or in the group itself, and create a custom one just for this audience.

Find another blogger, business owner or affiliate marketer with a different theme to yours (to avoid conflict of interest) and share each other’s content. You could even team up and split your earnings.

Hopefully this blog post inspired you to look at doing some affiliate marketing this holiday season – check out the other posts in this category for more tips!
 

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