What Is High Ticket Affiliate Marketing?

In the world of affiliate marketing, there are two types of commissions: high and low tickets. This post will describe exactly what high ticket affiliate marketing is, how it works, and how you can get started fast!

While the exact number varies, high ticket affiliate marketing is when an affiliate (you) earns a commission of at least $500 per sale. Within the world of high ticket affiliate marketing, it is common for an affiliate to earn commissions as high as $5,000 per sale.

Click here for free training to start a high-ticket affiliate marketing business today.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Before we dive into high ticket affiliate marketing, let’s take a moment to discuss what affiliate marketing is and how it works. Affiliate marketing is when a content creator (you) recommends a product or service to a customer. Then, when the customer buys the product using your affiliate link, you get paid a commission.

In general, there are three parties to affiliate marketing: the customer, the content creator, and the company that owns the product or service. Let’s take a quick look at each of these parties.

The Customer

The customer is simply someone that has a problem. When a customer has a problem, they jump to the internet for a solution. We’ve all been customers in the affiliate marketing game at one point or another.

Usually, a customer starts by asking a very general question. For example, if they have a pet that sheds a lot, they may search on Google, Yahoo, or Bing “how to clear up pet hair.” As the customer gains more information, they may focus their search a little. 

For example, they have learned from basic searches that the best way to clean up pet hair is to vacuum. So now, they go back to their favorite search engine and search “Best vacuum cleaner for pets.”

After searching around a little more, they have narrowed their search to 2 or 3 vacuum cleaners based on several factors. They are now searching “vacuum X review.”

Once they feel they have enough information, they will buy the best product that meets their needs.

The Content Creator

The content creator will create content (free or paid) to solve the above customer’s problem. Usually, experienced affiliate marketers will create content that is helpful and will attempt to solve the customer’s problem without them leaving their site.

The content creator will do keyword research, both free and paid, to figure out exactly what questions the customer is asking. Most often, keyword research is as easy as going to Google and typing in keywords and phrases. If you found this post via a search engine, then you know this works.

My favorite way of doing keyword research is the alphabet soup method. The alphabet soup method is simply tying in a keyword, for example, “best vacuum clear for,” then hitting the spacebar and letting Google do the rest.

Google is telling me exactly what customers are searching for. It makes my life easy.

Eventually, the content creator will get an affiliate link from the product/ service owner. The affiliate link is a unique URL given to each affiliate. When a customer links on the affiliate link and buys the product, you get paid a commission.

The Product Owner

The product owner is the last piece of this puzzle. The product owner, for example, Amazon.com, has products that they want to sell. They are responsible for shipping the product, customer service, and paying the affiliate. 

The product owner benefits because they save on marketing costs, they can sell more products, and because we tend to “trust” the average joe more than mega-corporations. 

Now that we know what affiliate marketing is let’s talk about high ticket affiliate marketing.

What Is High Ticket Affiliate Marketing?

As I mentioned earlier, high ticket affiliate marketing sells at least $500 per sale. Therefore, high ticket affiliate marketing is approached slightly differently than low ticket affiliate marketing (which I’ll cover in this post).

What’s The Difference Between High And Low Ticket Affiliate Marketing?

Other than the price point, there are several differences between the two business strategies. In this section, I will explain each of the differences. While there aren’t hard and fast rules, these differences are common between most high and low ticket items.

There are a few main differences between high and low-ticket affiliate marketing. In most cases, high ticket affiliate marketing offers the following (and the low ticket doesn’t):

• A value ladder
• A video sales letter
• Landing pages
• Email sequences
• Done for your backend
• Usually a digital product or service

Value Ladder

A value ladder is simply a way to bring a customer in on a free or inexpensive offer ($7-37), increasing the price as the value also increases. Here is an example of a value ladder at work:

A customer is brought into the ecosystem with a free book (they pay for shipping) for a total of $9.95. After the customer purchases the book, they are offered something of additional value, as the audio version of the book.

The audio version adds value because it allows the customer to listen to the book on the go. However, the audiobook cost is going to be slightly higher ($97 – 137).

If the customer decides to purchase the audio version, they might be interested in a digital course. The course will allow the customer even more value at a higher price ($197 – $499).

If the customer is interested in the course, they will be interested in an in-person master class. The master class allows the customer to work one on one with industry experts. The master class will cost $499 and up. 

As an affiliate for this program, you’d receive commissions for each of these buys. Let’s assume you’d receive a 40% commission at each of these levels:

• Book ($9.95): $3.95 commission
• Audio upgrade ($97): $38.80 commission
• Digital course ($197): $78.80 commission
• Masterclass ($1,000): $400 commission
• Total commission for the affiliate: $521.55

As an affiliate, you’d make $521.55 in commissions from a free plus shipping offer. 

Another reason the value ladder is so popular is that it pays for advertising. If you’re running paid ads on Facebook or YouTube, a low intro offer can help offset the initial cost to acquire the customer. The higher the customer ascends the ladder, the more money you make on the backend.

Most low-ticket offers can’t do this. Most low ticket offers are more transactional, one and done. 

Video Sales Letter

Here’s a secret that you shouldn’t know. When you log in to those sales letters that are 1.5 hours long, you get excited about something, but you don’t feel like you learned anything? Those are designed that way.

In high ticket affiliate marketing, video sale letters (or VSLs) help sell the customer that the high price point is worth it because you learned something for free. If the video starts with people pretending to log in from around the world, it will be a high-ticket item. 

If the presenter wants to share with you “3 secrets,” it is a VSL aimed at getting you excited about the product they will sell.

VSLs aren’t really a thing with low-ticket items because there is already social proof. For example, when you purchase something on Amazon, you can scroll down and read all of the reviews before buying. But, of course, when you’re purchasing digital products, that must be engineered a bit.

Email Marketing

In most cases, low-ticket items are treated as a commodity. Therefore, there isn’t a lot of hand wringing over the product. Usually, low ticket items take it or leave it, whereas most people don’t purchase high ticket items right away.

Usually, customers have to think about buying the product just a little more. That is why you will see experienced affiliate marketers push for an email list. Oftentimes, they will give you a free ebook in exchange for your email address (called a lead magnet).

Done For You Backend

One of the best parts about high ticket affiliate marketing is the affiliate needs to drive traffic to the offer. Once traffic is given, the affiliate program will do all of the work. For example, Clickfunnels has a lifetime cookie.

A lifetime cookie means that they are tied to you forever if a customer buys anything using your affiliate link. Clickfunnels will continue to email, call, text, and anything else, and you’ll get the commission. 

In contrast, Amazon will only pay you once the customer buys the product using your affiliate link. In addition, Amazon only provides a 24-hour cookie window. This means that an affiliate will only get paid a commission when a customer buys a product within 24 hours of clicking the link. 

Digital vs Physical Products 

While not always true, most of the low-ticket items are physical products. Physical products, in general, are more expensive for the product owner. A product owner has to consider storage, shipping, customer service, and more when paying affiliates.

Digital products, however, have a much cheaper cost to maintain. In addition, you don’t have to worry about storage, shipping, or any of the other drawbacks that come with physical products. 

Should You Start High Ticket Affiliate Marketing?

Yes! Everyone should be doing high ticket affiliate marketing. High ticket affiliate marketing takes the same amount of time and energy as low ticket affiliate marketing. In addition, if you crunch the numbers, it’s easier to do high ticket affiliate marketing!

Here is an example. Your income goal is to make $5,000 per month. You can choose between a low-ticket item that pays $50 per sale or a product that pays $500 per sale. 

To make your monthly goal, you’d need:

• 100 sales of the low ticket item OR
• 10 sales of the high ticket item

I can tell you from experience that it’s much easier being right 10 times than 100.

Everything else is the same when you compare high and low ticket items. You will do keyword research the same, create the same content solving problems, and find high-quality affiliate programs. 

Where To Start With High Ticket Affiliate Marketing?

The best place to start with high ticket affiliate marketing is picking a niche. Usually, high ticket products are found in the following niches:

• Health
• Wealth
• Relationships
• Technology

Once you determine a niche, you can search “niche affiliate programs.” Find a program that has good reviews and that already has some buzz. It won’t be easy promoting a product that very few people are talking about.

After you have these first two steps out of the way, do some research and find out your customers’ problems. You will need to solve those problems before they decide to buy.

Can I Do Both?

Yes! You can do both high and low-ticket affiliate marketing as long as they are congruent with your niche and the content you’re creating. For example, if you’re in the health niche, you can promote a yoga ball if it makes sense to your audience. This is even a good way to determine who is a buyer and who isn’t.

If they are willing to buy from you once, chances are they are willing to buy from you over and over. 

Another option is to create your own value ladder. For example, if you’re promoting a product that doesn’t have a value ladder, you could sell a low ticket item, then the upsell could be your affiliate product. 

Final Thoughts

High ticket affiliate marketing is a great way to build an online business. It is a great way to scale an online business fast, and it takes the same amount of time, energy, and effort as low ticket affiliate marketing.