The forex market is a highly lucrative one and so is the field of forex affiliate marketing. However, becoming a truly successful Forex affiliate marketer is not exactly a walk in the park, but an endeavor that requires specific skills and persistence to seek success, especially for those embarking on this path without substantial relevant previous experience and without an established online presence to fall back on. The present post aims to clarify the forex affiliate marketing landscape and provide useful information and tips for those wishing to become successful forex affiliate marketers.
What is Forex Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing, in general, pertains to promoting a product or service offered by someone else and earning a commission if your promotion or referral results in a purchase by the person you refer. In the context of the forex market, forex affiliate marketing occurs when you direct traffic and traders to an external broker’s trading site and trading platform. Whenever a prospective customer that clicks through your link signs up and funds their account, then you earn a commission. The Forex affiliate payment structures vary from broker to broker, the majority being paid based on the height of the deposit or the trading volume that a trader generates. Moreover, the situation is further obscured because the term “forex affiliate program” is often used as an all-encompassing term that covers all types of affiliate partnerships, including those where you introduce people from your own network to the broker, without the process taking place necessarily online.
A closer look at Forex Affiliate Programs
The affiliate programs of online retail forex brokers are a way to increase the revenue stream that is best suited to website owners, digital publishers, online marketing professionals, and social media influencers. In other words, they are more appealing and more lucrative to individuals who already enjoy an established presence online and are already considered reliable and trusted sources of information and advice on all matters pertaining to trading. Having already a good reputation and gained traction simplifies and eases your way to success through a Forex affiliate program.
In most cases, when you become a Forex affiliate you embed links and banners into your own site, which divert those clicking on them to the corresponding broker’s page or platform. Prior to this though, you would have signed up with the broker that best suits you and your existing online audience, and agree on your reward scheme. Then you simply publish the relevant promotional materials and when your users click through the broker will do the rest.
As already mentioned, the payment structures of the various forex affiliate programs vary from broker to broker, but an overall tendency is that they work on a CPA (cost per action, or cost per acquisition) basis. Click-throughs are tracked automatically by the broker’s platform and this is how you are allocated the agreed relevant commission each time a user that came through your own link makes a deposit. The height of the commission also varies, with some being fixed amounts or others being a percentage of the deposited or traded amounts, but there are some very generous deals to be had if one scoops around.
The process of spreading the word around
What makes forex affiliate programs very appealing to many is the fact that they allow one to earn income passively, since in effect you capitalize on your existing significant and established online presence and you depend on those to secure and encourage referrals and sign-ups, without needing to put in any significant extra effort and work. Of course, once you do become a Forex affiliate you should use all the means and channels at your disposal, including your social media accounts, in order to effectively promote the offer and acquire as much attention and traffic as possible. Usually, the broker you partner up with will provide you with an array of branding and marketing materials, such as banners, buttons, and headers to assist your efforts for effective and efficient promotion through your own online venues.
How to go about choosing the Best Forex Affiliate Program
In general, online affiliate programs enable the earning of commissions on referrals, provided such referrals result in someone becoming a paying customer, either online through a website or application, or even offline. The popularity and appeal of such partnerships are on the rise since they have been tested and proven to work and be mutually beneficial for both ends of the transaction.
The partnerships resulting from forex affiliate programs work in this same way, but entering this world entails not only knowing how it works but also being able to discern which forex affiliate programs are worth your while, in the sense of being reliable, trustworthy and allow for real revenue generation.
The Best Crypto Trading and Forex Affiliate Programs in 2024
4.7 / 5
Rating breakdown
4.3 / 5
Rating breakdown
General Overview of Forex Affiliate Programs
As a general rule, forex referral programs reward the introduction of new clients to forex trading platforms via commissions that are based on the value of new sign-ups, the deposits, or the trades that result from each sign-up. Often, those opting to join such programs are agents, entrepreneurs, or experienced traders who can effectively persuade and influence others to become traders as well. Most brokers who offer such affiliate programs provide their affiliate partners with an array of promotional and branding tools and options, to allow them to focus on the attraction of new referrals instead of spending time and effort to prepare promotional material.
Thus, a Forex affiliate program is ideal for those influential individuals with an existing, established, and authoritative online presence, be it in social media, or in the form of a website, a blog, or even a YouTube channel with trading-related content. In short, a forex referral program offers an avenue for monetization for those who can create high-quality content and/or provide advice and tips on trading matters, by turning their existing large following and audience into a high revenue stream.
Forex Affiliate programs differ from White Label partnerships, where trading services are offered under a branded version of a trading platform developed by the white-label provider. An affiliate program however is often the first step for many prior to deciding to launch their own brokerage via a Forex white-label solution.
What to Consider when Choosing a Forex Affiliate Program
If you are examining the possibility of becoming a Forex affiliate and joining such a program the two main factors to consider in order to be able to choose the best possible option are the rewards to be had and the scheme that governs them, as well as the quality of the actual offering of the broker that you will be promoting, as this will make it easier for you to convince your referrals to become actual paying customers.
Besides ensuring that you will be getting competitive commission rates, it is equally important to ensure that you will partner with a broker who offers you high-quality assistance and support, not only in the form of high-quality marketing materials that are appealing and frequently updated but also fast and easy access to support 24/7 to better enable you to effectively and efficiently achieve referrals. The actual quality of the broker’s offering, the quality of its trading platform, and all the tools and options put at the disposal of traders are also crucial and will help you attract more prospective customers willing to convert.
The best forex affiliate programs around are those that not only provide a good way to supplement your income and create value for your existing users and followers, but that comprises of a complete sales and marketing strategy, coupled with comprehensive support to make the process easier, as well as the technological tools that allow you to effectively keep track of your ROI.
Besides individual brokers offering various affiliate programs, it should be noted that there are also B2B forex brokerages solutions, offered by specialized firms that put at the disposal of forex brokers specialized technological packages that enable them to devise and offer affiliate programs to their partners and even to their individual clients.
The IB Module
The Introducing Business, or in this case, Introducing Broker Module constitutes the most effective marketing tool currently available to achieve business and audience growth, in a parallel ad indirect manner, allowing the concentration on operational aspects. IB Modules allow for the real-time calculation of rebates and this can be done in a variety of frequencies, daily, weekly, or monthly and in a variety of methods, per percentage on lots, on mark-ups, or on commissions.
The IB Module is compatible with and can be integrated into the brokerages’ Trader Room and such an integration results in the boosting of the potential revenue for forex affiliates through an effective and efficient affiliate program software solution. To further promote operational optimization an IB Module can also be included and integrated into forex white label trading platform solution packages.
Types of Forex Affiliate Programs
As already discussed the forex affiliate landscape is rather confusing due to the variation of different payment structures, commission fees, and partnership options offered by each forex broker. Besides the reward and payment issues arising, each affiliate program may work differently, while there may also be differences between the affiliate, the referral, and the introducing approaches. Moreover, in order to determine if it is worth your while, it is useful to know how much marketing effort is expected on the part of an affiliate. Broadly speaking working with a forex broker can be done in three main ways, as a white label, by branding their technology under your own name, by referring clients and gaining commission on how valuable they are, or by hosting links as an affiliate, directing traffic from your own online presence to the broker.
Useful Terminology
Prior to discussing the forex affiliate landscape in greater detail, it is useful to define some essential terms, which are key in the industry’s operation.
CPA: Depending on the approach taken by each broker, CPA may stand for either Cost Per Action or Cost Per Acquisition. Understanding exactly what it means is imperative before entering a deal on such terms, since the “action” which results in commission payment may vary from broker to broker. For example, merely opening an account may not be enough to earn you a commission, which only happens if your referred client makes a deposit of a particular height.
CPL: Standing for Cost Per Lead, this method is used by referral programs that reward the referral of potential sign-ups, who do not necessarily commit to opening a live account and fund it, but may simply provide their contact details or sign up for a free demo account. As expected, the height of CPL commissions is much lower than those under the CPA arrangement.
Rebates: Rebates denote ongoing commissions, which are based on the trading volume performed by your referral. Rebates come either in the form of a certain number of pips per standard lot, a set price per traded lot, or a percentage of spreads.
Revenue share: Though less common in the context of Forex affiliate programs, revenue share schemes entail a commission that is paid based on how profitable the referral proves to be overall.
Sub-affiliate/second tier commission: This type of commission is earned when your referrals proceed to refer other additional clients to the particular broker. Though such an arrangement is another great way for passively earning extra income, it is not offered by many brokers and it comes with the added burden of being difficult to track effectively, unless it is backed by a reliable technological system.
There are several different payment structures that are followed in Forex affiliate programs and their exact form depends on what each broker decides to offer. Usually, payments are related to the height of a referral’s deposit and/or the number of lots traded, and they may be paid as a one-off commission per CPA or as an ongoing revenue share. An ideal program would be one where the commission types paid out and the payment structure followed are dynamic and adaptable, allowing you to choose what suits you and works for you best, while also allowing adaptations depending on the spending capacity of each referral. An added advantage is affiliate programs which also provide an easy and trackable method for earning sub-affiliate commissions as well.
Smart Tips on Choosing the Right Forex Affiliate Partner
In order to be better able to correctly assess the various forex affiliate programs around and decide which one to join, it is imperative that you perform careful research and also thoroughly read all the small print and terms and conditions of the partnership you are about to enter. However, the biggest decisive factor for such a relationship to work is mutual trust and mostly your being able to trust your broker. Inevitable at the initial stages this trust can only be based on the broker’s track record and reputation. A trusted, reputable broker which is viewed favorably by its clients and other partners is the obvious choice over some obscure, newbie broker, even if the latter promised to pay more. The analogy would be paying more for traveling with a five-star airline that boasts an excellent safety record, rather than a budget carrier with a poor safety record.
To further illustrate the point, it should be mentioned that your most important criterion should not be the CPA or commissions on high minimum deposits, because if the offering is substandard and the brokers have no high reputation and impeccable credentials, then your referrals will not be convinced to commit to high deposits and you will end up receiving nothing. Another point to consider is that if there is a sub-affiliate commissions scheme available too, this is only an advantage if it is backed by a credible and reliable technology system that effectively tracks and accurately calculates the commissions due.
It wouldn’t be inaccurate to claim that the best brokers also offer the best affiliate programs too. Just remember not to be dazzled by a high CPA offer, nor judge merely depending on rebates and financial benefits. When entering a referral agreement, you get the whole package for both you and the audience you are referring, so don’t just look at money matters, but also the overall offering and quality of the broker, which will encourage your referrals to convert, as well as the support, in terms of marketing materials, email templates, banners, literature, etc that the broker makes available to you to be able to effectively and properly promote the brokerage to your audience.
Is Affiliate Marketing truly a lucrative opportunity?
What is certain is that money can definitely be made through affiliate marketing and there is an abundance of successful affiliate marketers around to prove this. This being said however, one should not enter this field having expectations that are unrealistically high. The only scenario under which affiliate marketing can become your primary income source is if you already enjoy high online visibility and can ensure extremely high volumes of traffic, while also being prepared to invest in time and effort to make the affiliate venture a great success. In most cases, it is more reasonable for affiliate marketing to be a great supplementary source of income, a promising lucrative stream that may be bringing in a high return on a modest investment of time and effort.
Brief roadmap towards Forex Affiliate Marketing Success
Your chances of remarkably improving the passive income received from your forex affiliate marketing endeavor can benefit greatly if you dedicate some time and effort to more effectively and efficiently attract the attention of your existing or new audience to the referral links.
Getting the most of a Forex affiliate program can be achieved, if you follow the following roadmap to success:
- Step 1: Being considered an Authority in the field
- Step 2: Consolidating and Extending your Authority
- Step 3: Reviewing Trading Products and Platforms
- Step 4: Building an email list
- Step 5: Signing Up to the Forex Affiliate Program
- Step 6: Embedding the Forex Affiliate Link on Your Site
- Step 7: Promoting the Link to Your Audience
- Step 8: Promoting the Link further through PPC Advertising
- Step 9: Collecting Your Earned Commissions
- Step 10: Reviewing and Improvement moves
Now, let’s explore each of those in greater depth.
Step 1: Being considered an Authority in the field
As an affiliate marketer you are actively and directly advocating for and in favor of a product. This is what differentiates affiliate marketing from simply hosting advertising. In affiliate marketing, you are recommending and inviting, and encouraging your audience to trust a certain broker and deposit their money with them. In other words, you are offering your opinion, but for your opinion to be worth anything, your audience has to have reason to trust it and follow suit. This is why you need to establish a clear, helpful, and trusted voice on matters related to forex trading, investing, finance, etc. Once your voice is considered trustworthy, it will be better heard and be more impactful and help your audience regard you as an authority in the field and not only appreciate your advice but actually follow it.
Step 2: Consolidating and Extending your Authority
To be able to effectively refer potential clients to a forex broker, your own base of followers needs to be pretty substantial, to begin with. If you do not manage to have a healthy volume of audience and followers then you will prove an unattractive partner for brokers and your affiliate marketing endeavor will not be lucrative. The way to consolidate, extend and expand both your authority as well as your online presence and visibility, leading to increased popularity, is closely knit to the actual quality of the content you produce and post. If this content is useful, interesting, unique, engaging and regularly updated then you will gain both in terms of users as well as boosted search engine rankings. This entails producing content on the right topics and keywords, content that is targeted, focused, and tailor-made, while also using Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tools and methods in order to rank high and ensure bigger volumes of inbound traffic. Another useful tool to make full use of and take advantage of our social media channels, the effective use of which can gain maximum exposure.
Step 3: Reviewing Trading Products and Platforms
Writing reviews about forex and trading-related products, services, platforms, technologies, etc is a wise and effective tactic to adopt and pursue before becoming a forex affiliate. By doing so your audience will become accustomed to reading reviews and comparisons and opinions from you, so once you start promoting or endorsing a particular broker it will not strike them as odd or unnatural. Moreover, writing reviews and comparative pieces will allow you to incorporate specific keywords in your content in a natural way and this will help improve your rankings and also help in attracting new readers.
Step 4: Building an email list
When trying to promote something specific it is better if you already have a direct line of communication with your audience open, so starting to collect email addresses and building an email list is another step to take prior to setting up a Forex affiliate and one that will also greatly help your future forex marketing efforts. Securing such an email list, even if it consists of a few hundred email addresses will prove very helpful in your Forex affiliate endeavor, as conversion rates tend to be markedly better through personalized emails, and a smart and careful approach via email may well lead to very profitable prospects. Make sure you fully comply with the provisions of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) so that your email marketing efforts are fully compatible. A good way of obtaining the email addresses of your audience would be through an embedded pop-up subscription form, or even uploading high-quality content to which free access is only granted to those who enter their contact details first, to be able to download the material.
Step 5: Signing Up to the Forex Affiliate Program
Once you complete the first four steps described above you are ready to proceed with actually signing up for the Forex Affiliate Program of your choice. As already discussed, your chosen program should be the one that best suits and matches your own specific circumstances, needs and requirements and your decision should not the based on the commission rates and payment structures offered alone, but also take into account the overall quality and reputation of the broker, which will make it easier for you to effectively and efficiently promote the specific brokerage to your audience.
Step 6: Embedding the Forex Affiliate Link on Your Site
Once you do sign up you are ready to start generating referrals and commissions as a Forex affiliate marketer. To be able to do this you will need the unique referral link provided by your chosen partner broker, which you will embed in your own site, blog, social media channels, etc. Ideally, besides the link your partner broker should also provide you with a full package of marketing materials, such as banners and widgets that you can use accordingly.
Gaining as much exposure as possible should be your aim, but you need to do this in a smart way, not coming across as too pushy or aggressive. Obviously, it makes sense to add the referral link to any review, article, or relevant post where the broker appears by name. Moreover, you could also publish dedicated articles, reviews, or video demonstrations, where the merits and perks of the specific broker are presented and explained.
Step 7: Promoting the Link to Your Audience
Once all the embedded links are up and running you have the option of sitting back and waiting for people to just click through. However, it makes more sense if you go the extra mile and further promote the broker amongst your core audience. One targeted method would be to send an email to all people on your mailing list letting them know about the broker you are affiliated with. If the email is clear and engaging it is more likely to result in actual conversions. However, bear in mind that the forex and financial trading industries are highly regulated, therefore your broker should provide you with the relevant templates and proper sample wording, which will ensure that all written communication you conduct is not only compliant with all regulations but also transparent and accurate.
Step 8: Promoting the Link further through PPC Advertising
If you are really committed to your referral endeavor perhaps you should also examine the possibility of further promoting your referral link through paid advertising channels, since in this case, a relatively small investment could prove that it can go a long way and generate substantial results and income. A pay-per-click advertising campaign of your referral code could be carried out via Google or Facebook since these channels give you maximum control and flexibility allowing you to tailor make the campaign and target it effectively, to reach out to those who really interest you and allowing to keep the associated cost within reasonable levels and not exceed your allocated budget.
Step 9: Collecting Your Earned Commissions
Once you complete all your promotion efforts you simply need to sit back and wait for your achieved referrals to yield their results and bring in the money. Ideally and provided you have chosen your partner broker wisely, you would be granted access to a dedicated platform through which you will be able to track and monitor the entire process, allowing you full control and providing you with the full picture of how many referrals you achieved, how much they have deposited and traded and what your corresponding commission is.
Step 10: Reviewing and Improvement moves
Even if you do manage to achieve a good and healthy level of passive income through your commissions you should be aware that there is always room from improvement. Your forex affiliate program should give you access to performance monitoring tools that will allow you to effectively evaluate your ROI. Based on this information you will be able to determine which aspects of your promotional efforts were the most effective and use this information to improve your future targeting, promotion and advertising decisions. This will allow you to keep improving your ROI by abandoning approaches that prove not to work and boosting those that deliver results, while at the same time trying out new angles.
Final Thoughts: in lieu of concluding remarks on successful Affiliate Marketing
Contrary to what one might normally expect experience has shown that the most successful Forex affiliate marketers appear to be those who don’t fixate on achieving the sale. Success rates are improved for those who approach the endeavor and the transaction more from the point of view of their audience and ensure they keep devising ways to offer something of value, unique and useful and letting the sale happen in a more natural, subtle way, being the result of an informed, willing decision on the part of their audience.
This approach builds on the notion that people don’t buy a product or service or invest their money because someone else tells them or wants them to do so, but take such an action if and when they have been convinced and persuaded to do so. As an affiliate marketer and not a direct salesperson you are in a better position to persuade your audience to choose the specific broker you are affiliated with since they already view you as an authority, a consultant, an influencer, and a mentor.
As mentioned already in the beginning of this post, a forex affiliate program, if chosen wisely and dealt with smartly could well be a very lucrative opportunity to be had. This being said, success is not guaranteed and will not come unless you as an affiliate marketer show patience, persistence, and creativity, always seeking ways to communicate the referral message to your existing audience and increasing your visibility and reach towards new audiences as well. With a concerted and well-planned out effort, the benefits to be reaped will be substantial.
If you decide you are ready to try it out as a Forex affiliate marketer, then our resident team here at start-business-online is uniquely positioned to offer you information, guidance, and an array of opportunities to partner up with one of the several affiliate programs offered by members of our partners’ network. If you decide to collaborate with one of our partners and join one of our featured Forex affiliate programs, you not only stand to increase your income through your earned commissions but also be able to enjoy a variety of additional benefits and rewards that we have safeguarded just for you!
Start-business-online partners are able to enjoy access to multiple specially designed exclusive features, which include excellent promotional tools, 24/7 access to support, and the partner portal for monitoring the affiliate performance, as well as advanced analytics tools coupled with an array of different partnership options and commission and rebate schemes. Another lucrative opportunity is offered through our Introducing Business Partner program which is purposely designed for individuals aspiring to achieve success in the world of forex.
To learn more about the exciting world of potentially highly lucrative opportunities that are put at your fingertips through our several forex affiliate marketing programs offered in partnership with award-winning, top-notch, reputable brokers, contact us today and let us guide your way towards forex affiliate marketing success.
