The TopRanked.io Weekly Digest: What’s Hot in Affiliate Marketing [++ BullionVault Affiliate Program Review]

Quick Disclosure: We’re about to tell you the BullionVault afiliate program is pretty great. And we really mean it. Just know that if you click on a BullionVault affiliate program link, we may earn a small commission. Your choice.

Usually, we’d kick off this special Black Friday edition of the TopRanked.io affiliate digest with a few loosely related memes.

But, in case you missed it, a special episode of The Young and the Restless dropped this week, and that’s something definitely worth talking about.

Okay, maybe not.

But there was that thing over at OpenAI. And that 100% felt like Y&R-level drama.

So, in case you missed it (and to save me from writing about it in the news section), here’s a video that sums it all up nicely… all while achieving a god-level rate of memes per second.

With that out of the way, let’s start talking about making you some money.

TopRanked.io Affiliate Program of the Week — BullionVault

So, speaking of the drama at OpenAI, let me ask you a question — What do people do in times of uncertainty?

That’s right, they buy gold.

And a lot of them do it with our affiliate program of the week — BullionVault.

Here’s a little bit about BullionVault and how you can turn other people’s bullion purchases into your profits.

BullionVault — The World’s Largest Online Investment Bullion Service

BullionVault (in case the name didn’t give it away) is 100% about buying bullion. You know, like gold, silver, and other precious metals.

What sets BullionVault apart here is that it allows private investors to access professional global bullion markets at a fraction of the cost of its competitors. And BullionVault offers a bunch of other essential services around this, too.

For starters, with BullionVault, you can store your bullion in professional storage vaults in either Zurich, London, Toronto, Singapore, or New York. And, by using BullionVault, you can insure your stockpile with low-cost insurance.

And, of course, BullionVault isn’t just about buying gold. While most so-called silver stackers and the likes might be prone to hodling, BullionVault totally recognizes that some users will want to sell from time to time.

BullionVault makes this a pain-free, low-cost affair.

And that’s probably why BullionVault is number 1 today, managing $4.1 billion in assets for 100k users.

Here’s What’s in it for BullionVault Affiliates

Of course, while the great services and low prices of BullionVault might help, it didn’t build the reputation on that alone.

BullionVault affiliates also play a part. And, for that, they get rewarded handsomely.

As for how handsomely:

• BullionVault affiliates get a 25% share of all commissions on referred purchases.
• BullionVault affiliates continue to get a 25% share of commissions on their referrals’ subsequent purchases (for a full two years… so no lifetime rev share… but 2 years ain’t bad).
• BullionVault affiliates get a 6.25% share of the commissions generated by any 2nd-tier referrals.

All up, not bad. But what about payouts?

Well, BullionVault performs pretty well here, too:

• For starters, BullionVault credits your account instantly, so there’s no waiting around for silly delays like with some other programs.
• Payouts are promptly made via your bank account.

As for what else you need to know, that comes from the T&Cs.

Now, in all honesty, I really don’t like reading the Terms and Conditions page.

But, guess what?

I do it anyway because I like to look out for you and your best interests.

And here’s something you and your best interests had better look out for — it’s the one ‘gotcha’ BullionVault throws at you.

Here’s a direct quote:

“If you have not validated your account within 8 weeks of starting to earn commissions we will begin charging you a late validation penalty fee of $30 per month until your account is validated. If you have not validated your account within 1 year of the date you started to earn commission, we reserve the right to reclaim any referral commission.”

Yikes, right?

But not to worry — the validation process isn’t that hard. It’s just basic KYC stuff.

Just don’t forget to hook BullionVault up with the necessary details within those first 8 weeks.

Start Earning With BullionVault Today

Now, don’t let that last bad point put you off. Honestly, if you reckon you can make a shot of promoting bullion (whether it’s gold, silver, or even something weird like palladium), then BullionVault is a pretty good partner to monetize with.

The commissions are decent.

The brand reputation is even better (and that means it converts).

And, ‘$30 a month if you don’t validate you account on time’ threats aside, the entire affiliate experience at BullionVault is hard to not recommend.

To give it a shot, sign up for BullionVault here.

Or, if you’re still on the fence, head over to TopRanked.io for our full BullionVault affiliate program review.

Affiliate News Takeaways — Google Drops a Bombshell

Let’s Start Creating Affiliate (Sponsored) News

If you’re a regular TopRanked.io affiliate news reader, then you probably know we’ve written about making money off of the news on a number of occasions.

Most recently, we covered it the Nifty Affiliate Program issue.

There, we covered a bunch of stuff, like how big tech is ‘breaking up’ with the news. You know, Facebook’s de-emphasizing news, there’s Google vs. Canada… all that sort of stuff.

And then, as usual, we suggested a news content strategy might not be the worst idea to grab some eyeballs for whatever you’re promoting. After all, people still want the news, even if big tech is too afraid of it now due to toxicity/legal woes/etc. So if you can fill the gap, then more power to you.

Unfortunately, at the time, we didn’t have any nice numbers to show you. You know, facts and figures about where people are turning to to get their news.

Well, lucky you, Pew recently dropped a bunch of data about social media and news.

Here’s what you might want to know.

People are still (almost) as interested in news on social media as before

After years of “fake news”, algorithmic reshuffles, and other such things, you’d think news consumption on social media would have taken a tumble.

Turns out, it hasn’t.

While the number of people turning to their favorite algorithmic bubble for news has certainly diminished, it hasn’t diminished by much.

Here’s the breakdown of the last few years:

Or, to spin that data another way, in 2020, when we were at peak Covid, 53% of people used social “sometimes” or “often” to get news.

Today, in 2023, that figure’s fallen to 50%.

That’s a drop. But not much.

And that means, on any platform that’s been deemphasizing news, there’s probably a good chance there are still people ready to engage with your content that talks about the news.

TikTok is the new Twitter

Here’s a finding that I totally did not expect, even if it doesn’t surprise me.

Take a look at this chart:

That details the percentage of each platform’s users who regularly use said platform to consume news.

And TikTok is headed straight for the moon… and I’m not saying that in a snarky post-cryptocalypse kinda way.

I actually mean that in a very peak-doge sort of way.

Now, as for why I find this one surprising… I mean, come on. It’s TikTok — the platform birthed on a bajillion viral dances.

And now people are actually using it to get news at a rate that’s almost rivaling even the old Twitter. (And completely dominating it in terms of raw user numbers — remember, that chart above is the percentage of users… and TikTok has more users.)

As for why I’m not totally surprised by this, that’s because news in various forms has been a trend that’s shown its head from time to time.

For example, a couple of months ago we wrote about how gen Z’s going gaga for steam-powered news (newspapers) on TikTok. That was a trend that saw kids go viral simply for reading the news from a newspaper (and dropping a few reactions/hot takes along the way).

In any case, whether it should surprise you or not, the big takeaway here is that news is big on TikTok.

After that, the other platform trending up is Instagram — that’s leapt quite a bit the last year, as has Nextdoor (that local neighborhood app).

People who get their news on social media are more suggestible (and the equals $$$)

Alright, let me first preface this with two disclaimers.

First, I’m not about to suggest you go out and do anything malicious.

Second, while this data is from Pew, it’s a few years old (it’s from 2020, but was linked in the footnotes of the recent report).

So, with that out of the way, here’s another Pew headline finding worth noting: “Those who rely on social media for news are less likely to get the facts right about the coronavirus and politics and more likely to hear some unproven claims.”

The report later says “In some cases, those who get news through social media are more likely to believe unproven claims.”

Now, caveat here. These claims are primarily focused on the likelihood of believing Covid “misinformation”. And, with the Slack leaks and whatnot that have come out since then, there’s pretty good evidence to suggest that lab leak theories and what not were no more misinformation than the popular “no way it came from a lab” line that was being touted at the time.

But I digress.

There are, however, a few clues about people being more wide open to suggestions.

For example, there’s the line, “This group was actually less likely to be concerned about the effects made-up news may have on the 2020 election.”

Or these headlines: “Those who rely on social media for political news follow the 2020 presidential candidates less closely, less aware of political storylines,” and “Those who get most of their political news from social media pay less attention than others to coronavirus news.”

Basically, the takeaway here is that social media users have fewer guardrails up. They’re less concerned about misinformation, and less likely to fall back on other sources.

Do what you want with that information.

Takeaway

The takeaway here is this:

• News is getting a big de-emphasis from social media platforms. (story from a previous affiliate news digest)
• People are still (almost) as hungry for news on social media as ever.
• The demand for news on TikTok is going to the moon.
• People turning to social media for news are (possibly) more suggestible.
• If you provide newsy content, and do it well, there’s probably an audience for you.
• If you can’t find a way to drive social traffic to affiliate links, then what are you doing? (Okay, that wasn’t in the news… but it was worth saying.)

Now, as for how you can tie news into an affiliate program, don’t think too hard about it — the answers are right in front of you.

I mean, take BullionVault for example — do you really think you can’t monetize with gold while there’s a bunch of news about inflation, war, and other ‘bad for the economy’ stuff going on?

And Now For Something Completely Random

If you’re a regular TopRanked.io affiliate news reader, then you probably know we’ve written about making money off of the news on a number of occasions. (And yes, I did just copy-paste that opening line from above.)

This time, I’m talking about random news stories that don’t look like they’ve got much to do with affiliates/the internet/marketing at all.

Cue this week’s random news story: California ban on gas-powered lawn tools takes effect in 2024.

And now cue the obligatory dad joke.

So, with that out of the way, here’s what the story is about.

Next year (2024), California plans to ban the sale of gas-powered lawn tools. That includes mowers, blowers, and any other landscaping tool that’s powered by gas. Here’s the source.

Of course, with Cali being Cali, this has nothing to do with noise and everything to do with emissions.

And that means electrification of stuff is in.

At least, in Cali it will.

But more states could also eventually follow. After all, while California is the first state to introduce such a law, it’s not the first place to. Take Naples (Florida), and Washington (DC) for example — both have introduced bans on gas-powered leaf blowers.

And that leads us to the takeaway.

Takeaway

For years now, the electrification hype has been around EVs. That and eclectic bikes/scooters/etc.

But, against a backdrop of already increasing sales of electric-powered landscaping doodads, this mandatory phasing out of gas-powered alternatives on a state level will provide a massive push.

You, the affiliate marketer, now have the chance to make a play on this and promote some related links. (P.S., remember that last story above… you know, about people using social media for news? Well, here’s your first news item).

Or, if electrification-related stuff isn’t your speed, then maybe a little bullion is.

Closing Thought

Take a look at this picture.

That, dear reader, is the Nintendo Game & Watch. And that’s the device that pretty much kicked off Nintendo as we know it today.

Now ask yourself this question: What’s the Nintendo Game & Watch got to do with achieving super-human AGI?

Random question, I know. But stick with me. I promise there’s a link (including to affiliate marketing).

To get to an answer, you first need to know a little bit about the game’s designer, Gunpei Yokoi.

He invented the device. And he was a firm believer that innovation didn’t necessarily require cutting-edge technology. Instead, he thought you could innovate by taking things that already existed, and assembling them in new and creative ways to create breakthrough technology products.

And that’s more or less how the Game & Watch (revolutionary at its time) came about. By taking LCDs, microprocessors, and a bunch of other stuff that was already mature at the time, and combining it to create something new.

The approach was named “lateral thinking with withered technology.”

In other words, sometimes old and withered is better.

Now let’s turn to what any of this has to do with AGI.

If you’ve been following along with the race, then you probably know there are two big beliefs about achieving AGI.

The first is that we still need to find the breakthrough, cutting-edge research advancement that will finally enable it.

And the other is that we already have everything we need. We just need to figure out how to assemble the bits together and scale it.

That latter approach, if the rumors are to be believed, is the stance OpenAI takes.

It’s also an approach that smells a lot like “lateral thinking with withered technology.”

And look where it got us today. (A long way.)

Now, of course, what old and withered means changes depending on where you look. In the case of AI, old and withered means “last year’s research” — Google released the breakthrough transformer paper in 2017. OpenAI released GPT1 in 2018.

But you get the point — why reinvent the wheel, right?

(By the way, fun fact — the original Google paper talks about achieving ‘state-of-the-art’ performance after training its model for “3.5 days on eight GPUs”… how things have changed.)

So, now for the million-dollar question — What’s any of this got to do with affiliate marketing?

Well, hopefully, you’re seeing the point.

But if not, let me spell it out to you.

When it comes to finding untouched niches and methods, it’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to find something completely new.

But if you look around at affiliates that are making money, most of them are just recycling old and withered ideas in new and interesting ways.

Now, I’m not going to provide you an example of “lateral thinking with withered [ideas and methods]” here — we already did that when we broke down the MrBeast method a month ago.

What I will provide, however, is this closing thought — if this kind of thinking is what gets us to AGI (and Nintendo), then it can probably also take you to the affiliate promised land.

Oh, and speaking of old and withered technology, if you’re looking for something to promote alongside whatever ideas you’re about to think up, I hear gold and silver are always in hot demand in some circles. Hit up BullionVault to monetize on that today.

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(Featured image by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS via Pexels)

DISCLAIMER: This article was written by a third party contributor and does not reflect the opinion of Born2Invest, its management, staff or its associates. Please review our disclaimer for more information.

This article may include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believe,” “project,” “estimate,” “become,” “plan,” “will,” and similar expressions. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks as well as uncertainties, including those discussed in the following cautionary statements and elsewhere in this article and on this site. Although the Company may believe that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, the actual results that the Company may achieve may differ materially from any forward-looking statements, which reflect the opinions of the management of the Company only as of the date hereof. Additionally, please make sure to read these important disclosures.