Trading Affiliate Programs

Trading affiliate programs allow website owners and content creators to develop partnerships with online trading brokers to make money through referrals. Use this guide to understand the meaning of trading affiliate programs, how pricing and setup works, and how to choose the best provider for your website or platform. We’ve also listed the best finance affiliate programs in 2023 to help you get started today.

What Is An Online Trading Affiliate Program?

With an affiliate program for online trading, you refer your customers or readers to specific online brokers, platforms and other trading services to earn a commission per referral. In this type of affiliate marketing, you focus on the trading industry, partnering up with investing firms to advertise their services.

You can focus on specific markets, for example, affiliate marketing for forex trading companies, or collaborate with a wide range of day trading brokers. You could also be an affiliate for trading courses, earning when people sign up for classes and seminars.

How Trading Affiliate Programs Work

To get started with affiliate programs in online financial trading, you will first need to create a website or other kind of marketing platform (e.g., social media) and decide which markets you would like to target.

Firstly, search for brokers’ affiliate programs and compare them to find the ones that match your website’s needs. Then, register for your chosen brokers’ affiliate programs and promote their services on your platform by utilizing the provided marketing materials.

Whenever someone clicks on a link to a broker or service on your website, a cookie is generated on their device. This cookie identifies your platform as the referral source, and you will receive a commission if the customer signs up. This commission can be in your preferred currency or awarded as trading credits.

Pricing

Trading affiliate programs offer three main commission structures:

• Cost Per Lead (CPL): You receive a fixed amount of money for every lead that opens an account with a broker you referred, regardless of their trading style or deposit amount.
• Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): You earn a commission when someone signs up for a service through you and fulfills the required criteria, which could involve depositing a minimum amount or placing a certain number of trades. Your commission may depend on the amount of the customer’s initial deposit or the volume of their first trades.

The IG and Trading 212 affiliate programs are examples of CPA-based systems. Another type of commission structure is revenue sharing, where you earn a percentage of the broker’s profits from your referees for a certain period of time. For example, the TradingView affiliate program has revenue sharing commissions. The best commission structure for your affiliate trading program will depend on your users’ trading styles. If your users are beginners and are not likely to start trading right away, a CPL structure might be beneficial. If you are targeting more experienced traders, a CPA structure might be better as your commission will increase with their initial deposit. Revenue sharing is particularly useful for day trading affiliate programs, as you will earn per transaction.

There are several pros of affiliate programs. Passive income is one of them – once you have signed up to an affiliate trading program and added your partner’s marketing tools, that content will generate passive income. Another pro is flexibility – maintaining your platform and communicating with your partners can be done from almost anywhere.

• You can work from home, have your affiliate marketing platform as a side business or work at any time of the day – there are few restrictions.
• Tracking Tools & Performance Reports: You will be able to understand who your viewers are and adapt to them by using your performance reports and search engine optimisation (SEO). These tools will help you see what information customers are looking for and who is clicking and signing up for your partner’s services.
• Low Risk: If you compare affiliate marketing vs trading, your risk and potential losses are a lot smaller from trading affiliate programs. You cannot lose more than you invest and external factors like market changes provide less cause for concern.

Cons Of Affiliate Programs

• Smaller, Longer-Term Income: If you are considering getting started with trading or affiliate marketing, the latter is potentially less risky but typically takes much longer to generate returns. However, if you have market-specific knowledge and experience, you might be able to use trading to produce bigger profits in a shorter timeframe. It takes patience to set up a successful affiliate program on your platform.
• Dependence On Program Restrictions: Signing up to a company’s trading affiliate program means accepting their restrictions and you have limited control over these or over how they can change. You have to work within the parameters of the affiliate program.

What To Look For In Trading Affiliate Programs

If you are thinking of getting started with a trading affiliate program, you will find there are plenty of options out there.

Here are some factors to consider when choosing the best programs:

• Pricing Structure: As we explained above, there are several ways that you can earn a commission for your referrals. Make sure you choose a pricing plan that matches your referees’ trading styles to maximize your profits. Finding a program with a flexible or customisable structure will help you match your customer base accurately.
• Performance-Based Plans: Some programs will offer different commission programs depending on the number of referrals. Upgraded plans can include bonuses, higher commissions, better marketing materials and extra services. If you plan to scale up your affiliate trading business, aim for these upgradeable programs.
• Reputable, Regulated Programs: Ultimately, you will be referring your readers to external brokers and services. Your partners’ reputation will affect your own, so make sure to thoroughly investigate a broker or website before applying for their program. This can include checking which financial bodies regulate their activities and reading online customer reviews about trading affiliate programs.
• Global Reach: Find brokers and services that have a strong brand across the globe. This will make it easier to market them to an international audience and ensure higher revenue potential. Make sure to check which countries and regions your partners are allowed to operate in and implement that on your website.

Moreover, look at what products each broker offers and how that fits with your content.

For example, a stocks-focused website might want to consider only stock trading affiliate programs, or a currency trading blog will want to advertise forex brokers.

Marketing Materials: Your partners will provide you with marketing materials to integrate with your website or platform.

These can include banners, useful widgets with live data, custom email templates and attractive landing pages.

Look for prospective partners that offer a wide range of marketing materials that will fit well with your content.

Support: You should partner with brokerages that offer you comprehensive support.

This can include prompt email, chat or telephone responses and consistent and helpful answers.

Some trading affiliate programs will offer you a personal account manager to be your point of contact.

Straightforward Sign-Up Process: Trust and transparency are key to a successful affiliate relationship.

Find a broker that doesn’t confuse you with hidden fees or a complicated sign-up process.

Reporting Metrics: To analyze and improve your performance you will need to keep accurate records of your progress.

Whether it’s Trading 212 or CM Trading, you will want a quick affiliate login process to view live dashboards with your sign-up numbers, click rates and other useful bits of information.

Good trading affiliate software can help you identify what sections of your content work best, areas to improve and how to target specific audiences.

• Final Thoughts On using Affiliate Programs

Trading affiliate programs are a great way to profit from the world of trading and build a network of partnerships with the best brokers and financial services.Partnering with regulated, reputable brokers will ensure that you get paid in time, have access to live, accurate information and that you refer your clients only to the best services.

Make sure you research each program carefully before signing up to ensure the commission plan suits your readers’ trading style and, most importantly – be patient!Developing a successful platform takes time and effort, but if things turn out well affiliate programs can be extremely rewarding.

The main challenge is to attract as many interested readers or visitors as possible to your web site or social media account, to make the enterprise profitable enough.The keyword here is “interested”, as it serves no purpose to market to people that are not interested in trading financial instruments on the internet.It could even be considered unethical to attempt to persuade people that were not previously interested in the subject. Attracting only the most relevant potential customers is a science in its own right, which we won’t go into here, but we recommend reading up on “internet marketing” and similar subjects.

FAQ

Through your website or platform, you refer your customers to your affiliate and make a commission for each successful referral.