10 Hottest Paid Traffic Sources for Affiliate Marketing in 2023

When it comes to affiliate marketing (or any sort of business), one of the most important things to consider are the channels you’ll use to bring traffic.

There are many organic and paid traffic sources for affiliate marketing available and choosing the correct one is vital for your success.

In this article, I’ll cover what I think are the 10 hottest paid traffic sources for 2023 based on 20 years of experience, conversations with affiliate managers, and what I am hearing inside my own affiliate circle.

Why use paid traffic sources for affiliate marketing?

Paid channels bring many advantages over organic ones.

To start, you can achieve results fast. That’s especially important if you’re just starting.

Unlike organic traffic sources for affiliate marketing, you don’t need to spend months creating content and building backlinks hoping that your site will eventually rank high. All you have to do is put in the budget and the leads will start coming.

This concept is explained in the Powerhouse Affiliate 30 Day Challenge. It explains what I think is the fastest way to make money online as an affiliate.

Most paid sources allow you to pick exactly who’ll be viewing your content.

With content marketing, for instance, there’s always the chance of producing content that ends up appealing to the wrong audience. Paid sources, on the other hand, allow you to reach the right people more accurately, whether it be by interests, keyword searches, or countries or even devices and browsers.

Paid campaigns will always have priority over organic results on search engines, social media platforms, and others, and you’ll always rank above them.

Other than the expenditure, the biggest downside is that you can end up facing policy changes and shifts in competitor behavior that affect your cost per lead overnight.

Ideally, to maintain a good balance and mitigate risks, you should rely on both paid and organic channels. This “dual approach concept” is explained in the first “Affiliate Marketing Certification Course” at Powerhouse Affiliate.

With that in mind, let’s move to the best paid ones.

10 Hottest Paid Traffic Sources for Affiliate Marketing in 2023

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Facebook Ads

With a potential reach of 2.11 billion people all over the world (this number changes frequently). I hate to admit it Facebook Ads is definitely one of the best traffic sources for affiliate marketing out there – even if you’ve been banned and hate Mark Zuckerburg. (no I’m not bitter)

The fact that most of its users are there for entertainment makes it ideal for B2C offers, but it can work greatly for B2B as well.

Here are Facebook’s ad formats:

• Image ads
• Video ads
• Slideshow ads
• Stories ads
• Carousel ads
• Instant experience ads
• Collection ads

You can target people by their interests, demographics, pages they’ve interacted with (including yours), and more.

You can also create lookalike audiences with lists of potential customers who share characteristics with the people who’ve bought from you in the past.

One of Facebook’s downsides is that it has stricter advertisement rules than alternatives.

In addition, it has banned several product categories, including personal loans and finance, prescription drugs, and tobacco & alcohol.

Finally, Facebook allows you to run your campaigns on Instagram as well, letting you generate leads from both platforms without having to switch between them and create the same campaign twice.

Instagram Ads

Like Facebook, Instagram is owned by Meta. Because of this, both have many similarities, including the same targeting options.

They also have a pretty similar audience size, with Instagram boasting over 2 billion monthly active users. However, its audience is a bit younger than its counterpart, with two-thirds aged from 18 to 29 years old. This makes it perfect or limited for you depending on who you’re selling to.

Another key difference from Facebook is its format. Instagram favors more visual content and its ad formats include:

• Image ads
• Stories ads
• Video ads
• Carousel ads
• Collection ads
• Explore ads
• Shopping ads
• Reels ads

These formats are great to generate brand awareness and consideration. But they aren’t the best if you’re aiming for conversions given that texts are limited and links are harder to click on.

As of 2022, Instagram’s average CPC varied between $0.40 and $0.70, depending on the device, location, and others.

Instagram doesn’t have its own platform to manage ads and uses Facebook’s instead.

LinkedIn Ads

LinkedIn is by far the best social media platform for affiliate marketers selling B2B products. It has nearly 900 million users worldwide, of which approximately 10% are decision-makers.

Its targeting options include location, company, job experience, education, interests, demographics, and traits.

You can also go further by targeting people according to their company’s category, connections, growth rate, followers, industry, name, revenue, and size.

Thanks to that, your ads could be targeted to a wider audience such as marketing managers at U.S.-based companies, as well as to people working on specific roles at specific companies that you believe would be the perfect fit for your offers.

LinkedIn ad formats include:

• Sponsored content
• Sponsored messaging
• Text ads
• Dynamic ads

You can define awareness, consideration, or conversions as your campaign’s goal.

The downside is its much higher CPC, averaging $5.39. However, whether or not it’s worth it depends on the return you’ll get from it. And, if you use all its targeting options right, you could get a lot from your investment.

Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Ads (formerly Bing Ads) get displayed throughout Microsoft Ads Network, which includes Bing, AOL, and Yahoo-owned and partner sites and apps.

It has a potential reach of over 700 million people.

A key advantage is that, in Microsoft Ads, you’ll face less competition than in other channels like Google. This translates into being able to reach a more qualified audience for a lower cost and makes it one of the best traffic sources for affiliate marketing.

Another great thing is that Microsoft owns LinkedIn and uses its data on ads. This allows you to leverage LinkedIn’s data without facing its much higher cost per click.

Microsoft ad formats include:

• Expanded Text Ads
• Responsive Search Ads
• Product Ads
• Multimedia Ads
• Microsoft Audience Ads
• Microsoft Advertising in Bing Smart Search
• Dynamic Search Ads
• App Install Ads

You can create your target audience based on location, day of the week, time of day, gender and age, and device.

Google Ads

Ever wished that there was an easy way to make your site rank at the top of Google’s first page overnight? Luckily, you can do just that with Google Ads.

Google Ads (formerly Google Adwords) displays search ads before and after the first organic results:

However, keep in mind that, like nearly every paid ads platform out there, Google decides where your ads will rank based on an auction. So, to rank high with valuable keywords, you’ll also have to face a higher CPC.

I have been running Google ads to my CPA Marketing campaigns for several years. It is my favorite traffic source.

One of the advantages of Google over other traffic sources for affiliate marketing is that you’re able to get in front of people when they’re actively researching for something. This makes it ideal for campaigns focused on generating conversions.

But Google ads aren’t just displayed on Google’s search results pages (SERPs). They also get displayed on Google Display Network, which includes over 2 billion websites and apps, including YouTube.

Google Ads formats include:

• Text ads
• Image ads
• Video ads
• Responsive ads
• App promotion ads
• Shopping ads
• Call-only ads

You can target people by their demographics, interests & habits, what they’re actively researching, past interactions with your ads, website, or app, and more.

To nail your Google Ads strategy and get the highest return on your investment, you may also consider hiring a Google Ads agency.

YouTube Ads (& Short Ads)

YouTube has over 2 billion monthly active users, the largest group of them between ages 15 and 35.

Since it’s owned by Google, you must create and use a Google Ads account to launch and manage YouTube campaigns.

YouTube offers three different video ad formats that can display before, during, or after a video: Skippable and Non-skippable Video Ads and Bumper Ads. The last one includes short, non-skippable video ads of up to six seconds that must be watched before the video starts.

Video ads are ideal for campaigns focusing on generating brand awareness and consideration.

Additionally, you can also opt for Overlay Ads. They only appear on desktops and include image or text ads that appear on the lower 20% portion of a video.

Targeting options include demographics, interests, life events, your data segments, customer match, and similar segments.

The last three work similarly to Facebook’s lookalike audience. They allow you to use data from people who’ve interacted with or bought from your brand to retarget them or create audiences with similar traits.

YouTube makes it hard for users to ignore ads, which works both in your favor and against you.

The upside is that people are far more likely to pay attention to them, grab your message, and take action. The downside, however, is that they can feel intrusive and annoying and might make people associate bad feelings with your brand.

Ads on YouTube are usually more expensive than on other platforms, but they also have higher click-through rates, dropping the average cost per click to just $0.49, lower than most channels.

Also keep in mind that creating YouTube ads take up more work, and therefore might not be the best option for you if you’re just starting and are looking to get your ads running ASAP.

One more “trendy” traffic strategy is to set up your Youtube Ads ads to target people watching youtube Shorts. There is not a lot of content about this right now but I am actively testing these ads and seeing great results in terms of landing page click through rates and conversion rates.

TikTok Ads

TikTok was first released in China in 2016 but has grown tremendously ever since. It now boasts over 1.5 billion users from all over the world, nearly 10% of them in the U.S.

A lot of advertisers make the mistake of thinking it’s only Gen Z and Millennial generations on TikTok, however, some of my my best campaigns converted with an older audience in TikTok.

One great way to find winning TikTok ads is to use a TikTok ads spy tool like Pipiads.

TikTok ad formats include:

• In-feed Ads
• Brand Takeover Ads
• Top View Ads
• Branded Effects Ads
• Branded Hashtag Ads

Brand Takeover and Top View Ads pop up when users open the app. Branded Effects Ads, on the other hand, allow businesses to design an ad with their own custom filter on the app.

Finally, the Branded Hashtag Ads are quite interesting.

They involve encouraging users to videotape themselves performing something like a dance or doing something in line with the product and posting it with a defined hashtag.

That’s very unique and different from what’s normally seen in the market and takes brand awareness and engagement to a whole new level.

Targeting options include age, gender, interests, operating system, location, language, behavior, device price, and mobile carrier.

Twitter Ads

Twitter has nearly 400 million users globally. However, they’re a bit older and better educated than users on most social media platforms. Here are some quick stats on them:

• The median age of U.S. Twitter users is 40
• 42% of them have a college degree, in comparison with 31% of the U.S. population
• 41% of them report an annual income above $75,000

This means that Twitter allows affiliate marketing businesses to reach other groups better than on other social media platforms. And, better yet, wealthier ones who are ready to spend more.

Despite that, Twitter’s average cost per click is lower than most alternatives, with an average CPC of just $0.38.

Twitter offers several ad formats, including but not limited to:

• Image ads
• Video ads
• Carousel ads
• Moment ads
• Text ads

You can target people by demographics, device, keyword, topics & tweets they’ve engaged with, interests, and more.

Twitter’s downsides are mostly related to user experience. Advertisers often complain about poor conversion tracking and its lack of user-friendliness. Besides, it can take two weeks just to get your advertiser account approved.

Despite all that, Twitter is definitely worth a try considering its highly qualified audience and lower cost per lead.

Native Ads

Native ads allow you to place ads directly into the user’s feed, which blends in with the other content that they are viewing. This allows you to reach audiences when they’re already consuming content and open to discovering something new.

The average CPC on top-tier platforms is $0.2 for mobile and $0.6 for desktop devices. The CTR (click-through rate) is on average 60% higher than in other traffic sources for affiliate marketing.

To run native ads, you must start by picking a platform like MGID or Taboola. These platforms have their own ad formats, targeting options, and display networks, so make sure you pick the right one based on your goals and audience.

Find out the 9+ Best Native Ads Platforms in 2022

While native ads can be great, also beware of their risks.

First, your ads may be displayed with low-quality content if you pick the wrong native ads platform, which can reflect poorly on branding.

Second, although the average CTR is higher, those leads aren’t usually as qualified as on other traffic sources for affiliate marketing. This increases the percentage of people who leave your site after viewing only one page (aka the bounce rate), negatively impacting SEO.

Email – Giveaways & Promotions

Giveaways and promotions are an incredibly effective way to collect email subscribers. This allows you to generate traffic for your affiliate marketing business in the long term.

If done right, you can turn your visitors and buyers. All of this is covered in the Email Affiliate Marketing Course at Powerhouse Affiliate.

You can also require your leads to share posts promoting your products with others to qualify for them, putting your brand in front of more eyeballs.

Here’s an example:

As you can see, this offer not only makes their current followers more likely to buy after engaging and consuming their free bonuses but also gets them to share their content and bring even more traffic.

Another cool thing is that you can offer digital products like e-books. While you’ll spend time and money creating them, you can then share them with as many people as you want without spending anything more, eventually bringing your cost per lead close to zero.

By offering discounts, giving away products, or offering limited-time bonuses, you can often generate cheaper and more qualified leads.

Final thoughts

Organic traffic sources for affiliate marketing can be great.

But paid ones are also essential if you want to take your business’s growth to its ultimate level, generate results in the short term, and protect your business against overnight changes that may happen on organic channels.

Make sure to pick the best ones based on your audience and campaign goals and execute a great strategy and you’ll be on track to generate an incredible return from your paid campaigns for your affiliate marketing business.

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Joey Babineau

Hi I am Joey Babineau. I am an online media buyer & entrepreneur since 2002. Please provide comments or feedback below or help me by sharing & linking to my content! Thanks for visiting. Check out My Free Book Unstoppable Online Income.

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