Chewy Affiliate Program
Are you interested in building a pet niche website? If that’s so, you should start looking for affiliate programs that sell pet products. We’ve already talked about Amazon Associates in several of our other posts, but today we’re going to tackle a less known one, the Chewy affiliate program.
Read on to find out about its features, commissions, its advantages and disadvantages, how and when you are going to get paid, and much more.
Chewy.com affiliate program
Chewy is a division of Petsmart, one of the biggest online vendors of supplies for pets (but not only, other animals, too). You can find products for cats, dogs, pet birds, ferrets, rodents, and anything else you might want on their site.
There are over 1,000 brands of supplies available to date, and most of them are very well-known (unlike what you’d find on Amazon, for instance).
Becoming a Chewy.com affiliate
Based on the info that we have gathered about the approval process, it doesn’t seem to be all that lengthy or complicated. Most sites get approved in a matter of several days, but just to be on the safe side of things, your website should have decent traffic and at least a couple of articles posted.
On top of that, the platform works with Partnerize to show you advanced reporting in terms of the orders you have referred, your performance, and whether there’s any optimization that needs to be done on your end.
Types of products you can promote
As previously mentioned, Chewy sells pet products, but these are categorized as follows:
- Clothing, collars, and leashes
- Treats and food
- Toys
- Beds
- Healthcare and alternative medicine
- Books about pets
- Tech (gadgets such as smart ID collars and pet finders, automatic litter boxes, and a variety of other such accessories)
It really doesn’t matter which of these you choose to promote in your articles as the commission is fixed, as you will see in the sections below. So, if you come across a low-competition, longtail keyword in the tech category, you should consider creating an article about it as even a small-value product can bring you the same commission.
Commissions
The way Chewy.com is different when compared to other affiliate marketing programs is that it doesn’t pay a commission for every referral you make.
For example, if someone clicks on your link, the cookie lasts for 15 days, and if during that time span, they make a purchase, you will be paid a fixed commission of $15. However, if that person clicks another link after a month and makes another purchase, you are not going to be paid anything.
Payments
You have to provide your bank information when you create an affiliate account. You will receive either a cheque by email or be paid by direct deposit.
How can you promote Chewy?
Creating content about pet products is practically a must if you want to join this affiliate program, but that shouldn’t be all that difficult if you have any prior experience with managing niche sites.
You can look for keywords containing the name ‘Chewy’ in them to find whether people are looking for discounts or coupons and then create articles on that topic.
Read more:
Creating internal linking opportunities using Screaming Frog
Another way would be to look for generic ones, such as the names of the brands or the ‘best’-type of product for a particular species.
Low-competition, longtail keywords work best, especially when you are starting out. There are lots of niche affiliates out there recommending that you stick with keywords like ‘review’ rather than try to rank on high-competition ones such as those with ‘best’.
Pros and Cons
As expected, there are both advantages and disadvantages to using this particular affiliate. In terms of the pros, they are the following:
- You get a fixed $15 commission even if you generate a low sale
- Chewy has an enormous range of products that you can promote
- The niche is very generous as people are always going to look for food and accessories for their pets.
What about the cons?
- The fixed commission is only available for new customers. You aren’t going to get paid anything for any repeat customers.
- Once you’ve received a bonus, the commission is lower.
Chewy.com vs. Amazon Associates
If you don’t have a huge amount of traffic (for instance, if you tend to get around 2K unique visitors per month), Chewy.com might make more sense for you since the likelihood of new people finding you is higher anyway.
Amazon’s commissions are not something to write home about these days, so unless you have a lot of traffic and many repeat visitors, we wouldn’t recommend applying for the Amazon Associates program to the detriment of Chewy.com.
The bottom line
In the end, becoming a Chewy affiliate is your own decision, but we think that it’s a program that you should at least consider. Most pet guardians out there are always looking to offer their furry friends the best, and so it’s a niche that’s failproof.
On the other hand, as you might have noticed, there are drawbacks to solely relying on this affiliate program to monetize your site, and the most significant one is that you don’t get any commissions for referrals that have made a previous purchase on Chewy.com.
Want to learn more about monetization options, affiliate marketing, and SEO? We have several different plans available. Get in touch today.
Craig Campbell
I am a Glasgow based SEO expert who has been doing SEO for 22 years.
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