Walmart is the world’s largest multinational retail corporation, and its success continues to prosper throughout its various operating channels.
In this article, I will discuss the Walmart Affiliate Program and everything you need to know about this commission-based business before venturing into the world of affiliate marketing.
You will find out how much you can earn from the program, promote product offerings, and differentiate the Walmart Affiliate Program from the existing Amazon Associates Program.
In addition to this article, you may also want to check out 35+ high paying affiliate programs.
Walmart Affiliate Program
Walmart Affiliate Program is an affiliate marketing program where website owners get a commission whenever customers purchase on the Walmart website. Website owners place product offerings on their site, and consumers purchase through it.
The affiliate program used Rakuten Linkshare as their service provider until June 2019, until they switched to Impact Radius.
It is easy to apply for the program. To sign up for the affiliate program, interested website owners must complete an application form.
Then, the approval team completes the approval process within 24 hours, according to their site. For an application to be accepted, one must have a website.
The contents in your existing website must not contain explicit or illegal materials and activities, as most affiliate programs require. As long as your website is regular, then you are good to go.
The Walmart Affiliate Program website has a terms and conditions page that discusses the enrollment process, prohibitions, rewards, and other technical things you need to know.
Mainly, Walmart provides less strict conditions in their program’s application process than other programs like eBay’s.
Upon approval, the applicant receives banners and generated links used in their websites once the program is ready to be conducted. Walmart grants the use of deep linking so website owners can customize links to direct in any products.
Walmart also provides data feeds to update members on best-sellers and exclusive items on the site.
However, members cannot use links to any social networking site and paid advertisements.
Related Reading: eBay vs. Amazon Affiliate Program – Read The Comparison Here.
How Much Does the Walmart Affiliate Program Pay?
The commissions given in the program depend on the item category. Usually, the commission ranges from 1% to 4%.
For example, baby and beauty products pay 4%, electronics pay 1%, and business and personal checks pay up to 18%.
The commission rates are low and not very appealing. But since Walmart is an established company in the business industry, it rewards a higher conversion rate if you endorse the right products to the right market.
Similar to the e-commerce giant Amazon, Walmart offers various products under their general categories. You can find almost anything that may fit your audience’s desire and, therefore, promote better.
There is a referral window of 3 days and a last-click credit policy in the Walmart affiliate program.
The last-click credit policy means that a visitors’ access to your affiliate link is not credited when they did not purchase any product. Then, they accessed a different affiliate link from another website and proceeded with purchasing; then, the commission goes to that website.
According to their terms and conditions, the Walmart affiliate program pays about 60 days following the end of the month, which is longer than the other affiliate programs.
Related: Best Credit Card Affiliate Programs To Promote.
Can You Earn $1000/Month as a Walmart Affiliate?
With the provided sample of commission rates above, you now know that the program does not pay high. But can you make $1000 with only one percent to four percent commission?
Yes, you can achieve a thousand dollars in a month just like other affiliates that earned the same value in a month with the Amazon Associates Program.
However, it is not a comfortable ride to reach the reward. Because of the low commission rates that the Walmart Affiliate Program offers, you need to create more website traffic to earn $1000.
You must note that you will earn faster by focusing on products that fall into the four percent or higher commission rate.
Here is a sample computation of what products you may link to your site and how much can you earn:
Walmart Affiliate Program Example 1
Product A, acne remover, is at $115 under the beauty category, which has a 4% commission.
We compute the 4% of $115 and get the answer of $4.60
If you focus on promoting the acne remover, you will make a thousand dollars in a month if at least 218 people decide to purchase Product A through your link.
Now we proceed to the website traffic. It is impossible to come up with an exact number of visitors, but here is an estimate computation:
An average of 3% and above is an excellent conversion rate. For instance, you wrote a hit product review with a 5% conversion rate. With this percentage, 4,800 people will approximately read your review per month.
For Product A, people can read the review, but since it is a beauty product, the niche may be already saturated, and there is competition for website traffic.
Another example is from the electronics category that has a 1% commission rate. Product B is at $1000. Therefore, the 1% of $1000 is $10. Initially, it is higher than Product A.
Walmart Affiliate Program Example 2
Product B would need at least a hundred buyers to reach $1000 in a month.
A product around $1000 will not get a high conversion rate since it is expensive, but we can expect around 2%.
For Product B, you will need around 5,000 website visitors to achieve the quota of 100 buyers with a 2% conversion rate.
With these examples, even promoting expensive products with lower commission rates still land you with the same conversion rate. Initially, expensive products seem to make more money, but both require the same website traffic in the end.
Ideally, promoting expensive products will earn you more money as long as it is in the 4% commission rate. With at least a 2% conversion rate, then it is possible to earn more.
The 4% of $1000 is $40.
However, in the list of commission rates from the Walmart Affiliate Program, expensive products are commissioned at 1% being the maximum.
Related Reading – Does Walmart Cash Checks – Find Out Now.
How To Make Money With Walmart Affiliate Program
The breakdown of what and how much you will earn from the Walmart affiliate program may not appeal because the time and effort you will put into it may not be worth the income.
But don’t be disheartened. There are ways to boost your product promotion and increase the commission you will receive.
The products chosen as examples above are based on their competitiveness in the market to elaborate on promoting products.
Either you decide to be an affiliate of Walmart or Amazon and earn $1000, the products you focus on will have to be related to your chosen niche. Most of the time, promoting one product will not effectively bring you close to $100.
Below are examples of what you can do to make money with the Walmart Affiliate Program:
Niche Websites
If we sourced on people that earn through affiliate programs like Walmart or Amazon, they would most likely have certain products that bring them significant commissions compared to others.
They can also tell you that a part of their commission earnings are from the little money they get on the many other products they promote.
Generally, this information encourages you to promote products that focus on a niche with more items to offer.
If you will choose to promote a smaller niche, then there is the chance that there are only less than five products available in that category. Meaning, you will only post five product offerings, lessening the opportunity to earn.
However, the charm of using a smaller niche is there is little competition because it has fewer products; therefore, the product maximizes keyword research. If there are such products that can boost your search volume, then consider it as a gem.
In case you do not encounter that gem, try choosing a less competitive niche from a highly searched category. In that way, your product reviews for the selected niche can still rank in the keyword searches.
When you reach the quota earnings for a subcategory or run out of products to review, you can extend to another subcategory to widen your earning chance.
Choose Niche Website Strategy
Therefore, you must think thoroughly about long-term plans before joining an affiliate program, including its expansion in the future. Consider that it is not easy to gather visitors, let alone have them purchase an item.
When selecting domain names, don’t use the niche. If you use your chosen category in the website name, it may limit your site in promoting products.
For example, ‘classiccurtains.com’ implies that it focuses on curtains. Still, if you later decide to expand into couch covers, it will be challenging to convince website visitors that other products besides curtains are available.
Therefore, I recommend going for a more generic domain that uses more broad categories to expand the future site.
If your site highlights the beauty section, then it is not suggested to add home appliances in the category. If you need to add a new niche, then creating a new website is required in this scenario.
General Website
Another strategy to earn more is not to limit your niche and go for more broad categories of products.
Personally, though it may be an easy way to earn more, it isn’t easy to establish a reputation. Visitors may not take the reviews seriously because of the wide range of categories, leaving them the impression that you don’t know what you are reviewing.
When choosing to create a general website, emphasize anything inspirational rather than specifics.
Most successful general websites in affiliate programs promote the most unusual products. For example, the inflatable T-Rex costume that is now famous on social media platforms.
These websites are famous on Holidays, especially in December when people hunt down unique gift ideas.
Once you get the hang of a general website, it is a great way to earn a passive income because there is not much to do.
You don’t need long reviews. The product images, description, and a button to check out the item will do.
A disadvantage in using a general website for an affiliate program is it is harder to improve them with search engine optimization (SEO). General websites use broad keywords, and obviously, there is competition for ranking.
If you plan to promote unique products that are the latest in trend, you must remember that social media and paid advertisements are not allowed. To promote via social media, link your social account to the website.
Related: Ideas to Make and Extra 1000 a Month
Walmart Affiliate Tools
There are available tools that affiliates use to quickly find Walmart deals, generate links and banners, or place ‘buy’ buttons on the site.
Here are some of the Walmart Affiliate Tools that you may use:
Walmart SDK
Walmart SDK allows website owners to place a “Buy Now” button on their product offering, direct customers to the carton Walmart’s website.
The good thing about this, it increases the site’s conversion rates since it reduces purchasing products.
Walmart WordPress Plugin
A WordPress plugin was designed and developed by the Walmart affiliate program to provide affiliates with banners and links for the product offerings. It lets you customize links to search pages when promoting a specific brand or category.
These plugins can be added to your WordPress articles even when you are composing a post. It is convenient, particularly for those who include many products.
However, the Walmart WordPress Plugin has not been updated for years, meaning they are vulnerable to security risks. The plugin is still working, but be aware of the possible dangers it has.
I recommend avoiding using plugins that are not updated for over two years, so risks are lesser.
Walmart Chrome Extension
The Walmart Chrome Extension allows the generation of links and banners even while browsing Walmart’s site. This extension is useful and time-efficient for website owners and customers.
Unfortunately, the Walmart Chrome extension only works with Rakuten Linkshare’s accounts, Walmart’s former provider. In June 2019, Impact Radius replaced Rakuten Linkshare as the Walmart affiliate program’s affiliate service provider.
Hopefully, the extension will work soon on the Impact Radius accounts to use this affiliate tool.
Walmart Deals Chrome Extension
Another chrome extension developed by the Walmart affiliate program is the Walmart Deals Chrome Extension. It previews special deals, top-selling items, clearance sales, and rollback promos.
Unlike the chrome extension above, this extension does not connect to your affiliate account, so it is impossible to create links. The sole purpose of this chrome extension is to preview good deals in Walmart.
Walmart Affiliate Program vs. Amazon Associates Program
Walmart and Amazon both operate an affiliate program and are often compared. Walmart has the Affiliate Program, while Amazon has the Amazon Associates Program.
But if you compare the structure of their models in commission, Amazon Associates is on the advantage versus Walmart Affiliate Program.
Amazon Associates offer a high commission but with a shorter referral window of 24 hours. Walmart Affiliate Program offers a lower commission but with three days of referral window.
But personally, comparing the two does not mean you should limit yourself in selecting one program. If you are a dedicated affiliate, you should always try to experiment, explore, and analyze.
It is always great to test both programs to see what is more compatible for you. You can find out which offers a higher conversion rate and makes you more money.
Consequently, decide which one benefits you more and focus your attention on growing the affiliate program you have chosen.
Should You Join Walmart Affiliate Program?
The program has shown potential for making money, and some people depend on this program for their income. I see why because it can be a passive income for most.
However, I do not recommend this to people who are just starting on the affiliate marketing career and still launching their first websites. They may find the program unappealing with its commission rates.
As seen in the provided sample computation above, it will take thousands of website visitors before you reach it. But the amount and pace of obtaining it still depend on the product’s price.
This program’s affiliate commission will take you time and utmost effort before harvesting labor fruit, just like in any other affiliate programs.
There will be times that your conversion rate will be as low as 1%; thus, it will need more than 20,000 visitors to earn that thousand dollars of the same product offering. For someone starting, this is already a lot to take in.
But if you write reviews that can top rankings and understand how SEO can work to your advantage, it will be easier to achieve that number. The only question left is: “Is it worth it?”
Many affiliate programs offer higher commission rates with little website traffic where the $1000 quota is possible. These programs are best for those who are starting in this industry.
If you already explored and established a niche website for your affiliate marketing, then the Walmart affiliate program is worth trying.
