Thanksgiving weekend is when many US consumers start their holiday shopping, making it a key moment for affiliate marketers. Can you imagine that a perfect time exists to test your marketing ideas for Thanksgiving affiliate marketing campaigns?
Recent statistics show that this is now the most popular holiday in the US. It has even surpassed Christmas in shopper engagement. Many consumers use Thanksgiving as the beginning of a five-day shopping spree. It even includes Black Friday and Cyber Monday. This period is one of the most lucrative periods for holiday affiliate marketing campaigns.
In 2022, over 196 million Americans shopped over the Thanksgiving weekend, generating over $5.3 billion on Thanksgiving Day alone. For 2024, analysts project these numbers will rise, especially as mobile shopping gains ground.
Affiliate marketers have the unique opportunity to capitalize on this increased consumer activity by promoting timely, relevant offers from a range of affiliate programs.
Best Affiliate Programs to Promote for Thanksgiving
During Thanksgiving weekend, consumers focus heavily on electronics, apparel, home goods, and holiday gifts.
Black Friday is synonymous with discounted electronics, while Cyber Monday focuses more on online-exclusive deals across various categories. Many consumers also begin their Christmas shopping during this period, so promoting items like toys, gadgets, and home décor in your affiliate campaigns can be particularly effective.
Promoting a mix of physical goods (like electronics and homeware) and digital products (like software subscriptions) can help you maximize your affiliate earnings during this high-traffic period.
Here are some top affiliate programs to consider:
1. Walmart
Walmart is a major player in holiday shopping, with a wide selection of gifts, electronics, and home goods. They offer a 4% commission on most items. With their regular promotions for Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Walmart’s affiliate program is great for marketers. It helps them take advantage of the holiday rush.
2. Amazon Associates
Amazon is the go-to online retailer worldwide. It offers a vast array of products, from tech gadgets to holiday decorations. Shoppers highly anticipate their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. The commission rates differ by category, usually between 1% and 10%. However, the high sales volume during this time can offset lower commissions.
3. Blue Apron
Meal kits are especially popular around Thanksgiving, making Blue Apron an excellent affiliate choice. They usually offer $18 for each new order. This makes it very profitable, especially during Thanksgiving.
There are multiple affiliate networks that cater to this offer. Find the best one for you!
4. Harry & David
Known for their gourmet food and gift baskets, Harry & David are perfect for promoting during Thanksgiving and Christmas. With a 3% commission on qualifying sales, they are ideal for affiliates focusing on festive gifting.
5. Best Buy
A top choice for tech and gadget lovers, Best Buy offers a 1-3% commission on most products. Their Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals attract a lot of shoppers. This is especially true for electronics and smart home devices. These offers make the program appealing for affiliate marketers.
6. Crowd Cow
Crowd Cow provides ethically sourced meats for people who care about sustainable food. They offer Thanksgiving favorites, such as turkey. With a commission rate of up to 14%, it’s a great option for affiliates targeting holiday meal planners.
7. Minted
Minted is perfect for promoting personalized holiday cards and gifts. They offer up to 20% commission. Making it a great program to target shoppers looking for unique and customizable presents during the holiday season.
8. Adobe
For affiliates focusing on digital products, Adobe offers up to 83% commission on their software subscriptions. Including popular products like Photoshop and Illustrator. This is particularly useful during Cyber Monday, when digital tools and creative software see an increase in purchases.
5 Tips to Maximize Earnings from Your Thanksgiving Campaigns
Here are five key tips to help you enhance your Thanksgiving affiliate marketing campaigns:
1. Create Engaging Thanksgiving-Themed Content
Creating relevant and timely content is crucial to a successful Thanksgiving affiliate campaign. During this period, consumers are actively searching for gift ideas, recipes, home décor, and shopping deals. Tailoring your content to these themes will increase engagement and conversion rates.
Thanksgiving Gift Guides
Gift guides remain one of the most effective types of affiliate content during the holiday season.
By curating a list of products that fit within a Thanksgiving theme — such as “Best Kitchen Gadgets for Thanksgiving Dinner” or “Top Holiday Gifts Under $25” — you can drive traffic to your affiliate partners while helping your audience find what they need.
These guides can be shared in blog posts, social media platforms like Pinterest, and through email campaigns.
Tips for Creating Gift Guides
- Organize by niche: Create guides for specific demographics like “Holiday Gifts for Foodies” or “Eco-Friendly Thanksgiving Gifts.” This helps cater to your audience’s specific interests.
- High-quality visuals: Include high-quality images of the products and direct links to affiliate landing pages to ensure a seamless shopping experience.
- Include reviews: Integrate product reviews or testimonials to build trust with your audience.
Wish Lists and Product Reviews
Affiliates often generate significant interest through wish lists and product reviews.
Platforms like YouTube and Instagram are perfect for showcasing Thanksgiving-related products. Especially kitchen tools, home décor, and food delivery services. For example, creating a YouTube video showing how to cook a Thanksgiving meal using affiliate-promoted kitchen gadgets can drive substantial traffic.
2. Leverage Social Media and Email Marketing
With over 61% of affiliate marketers using Instagram and 75.8% using Facebook for affiliate marketing, social media is a must during Thanksgiving. Here are affiliate marketing strategies for using social media and email marketing to your advantage:
Thanksgiving Social Media Strategies
- Engagement-driven content: Use Instagram and Pinterest to share curated Thanksgiving content. For example, as festive table settings or delicious holiday recipes that link to affiliate products.
- Run contests or giveaways: Consider hosting a Thanksgiving-themed contest, asking followers to share their favorite recipes. You can even ask to share Thanksgiving traditions with friends and family using a branded hashtag. Partner with affiliate companies to offer prizes, increasing engagement while promoting your products
Email Marketing
Email marketing remains a top strategy during the holidays if you have an email list. Use Thanksgiving to craft heartwarming messages, offering special deals and exclusive affiliate offers. Be sure to include engaging visuals and clear calls to action to drive clicks to your affiliate links.
3. Plan for Post-Thanksgiving Campaigns
Thanksgiving marks the beginning of the holiday shopping season, but it doesn’t stop there. Extend your campaigns into Black Friday and Cyber Monday to keep the momentum going. By transitioning smoothly from Thanksgiving content to Black Friday promotions, you can capitalize on the extended shopping frenzy.
4. Optimize for Mobile
As mobile shopping continues to rise—nearly 49% of online sales now come from mobile devices. So, optimizing your marketing campaigns for mobile is essential. Ensure your landing pages, email campaigns, email campaigns, and social media posts are mobile-friendly to make it easy for users to complete purchases on their smartphones.
5. Monitor Performance
Tracking the performance of your marketing strategy is key to maximizing earnings during Thanksgiving. Using tools like Google Analytics and a tracking tool like Keitaro Tracker will help you monitor traffic, conversions, and engagement in real time.
Keitaro is a gold-standard self-hosted ad tracker designed specifically for affiliate marketers, media buyers, and publishers. It provides complete control over your traffic and privacy, which is crucial during high-traffic periods like Thanksgiving. Here’s why Keitaro is the top choice for affiliate marketers:
- Keitaro handles over 200 million clicks per day and can track any type of traffic, including apps. This allows affiliates to gather detailed insights on their campaigns.
- Trackers’s reporting is fast and fully customizable, offering filtering and grouping options. This flexibility ensures you can analyze your campaigns in-depth, optimizing them based on real-time data.
- The platform includes blacklist/whitelist management to reduce unnecessary costs. Which is critical during periods of high ad spending like Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
- Keitaro provides detailed conversion tracking and server-to-server (S2S) postback support. Allowing for precise monitoring of user actions and campaign performance.
- The tracker integrates with major platforms like Facebook, TikTok, and Google Ads. Ensuring that your campaigns can span multiple advertising channels seamlessly.
- From A/B testing to setting custom scripts, filters, and redirects, Keitaro gives you the tools to optimize every aspect of your campaign.
- It also includes over 500 ready-made CPA and ad network templates and supports over 30 built-in metrics.
- Most importantly, it has quick human support that will assist you virtually with any issue that you may encounter.
By using Keitaro Tracker alongside traditional tools, you can monitor key performance metrics such as traffic sources, user behavior, and conversion rates. This enables you to make data-driven adjustments in real time, ensuring your Thanksgiving campaigns yield maximum results.
Thanksgiving affiliate marketing offers marketers a golden opportunity to boost earnings by tapping into the holiday shopping season surge. Start planning your Thanksgiving affiliate marketing strategy now and position yourself to capture the most traffic and conversions in 2024.
