Please note that affiliate links may be included in some posts.
If you're interested in joining a credit card affiliate program, below I've compiled some of the best networks to join.
Credit card stats are insane: According to CreditCards.com, there are 364 million open credit card accounts in the United States as of the end of 2017 with 7 in 10 Americans owning at least one credit card (Source).
It's a competitive niche with lucrative payouts, so it will take some determination and unique angling to come up with a traffic strategy that works.
Keep in mind- besides just credit card affiliate programs, there are a variety of Financial Services offers you can promote.
Below is a screenshot of the Financial Services affiliate offers available from FlexOffers:
FlexOffers gives a good breakdown of the different financial offers you can promote- so you don't necessarily need to consign yourself purely to credit cards.
But, if you're intent on credit card offers, check out this list of the available types of credit cards you can promote from Credit.com:
Before we dive into the credit card affiliate programs, I thought I'd throw my 2 cents in regarding keyword research and traffic generation.
If I were to compete in this niche, I'd look for low competition/high search volume keywords that I could create overwhelmingly good content around.
A good starting point is my NerdWallet.com keyword research- enter your email below to get 10,000 of their best organic keywords, search volume, and keyword difficulty estimates:
[thrive_leads id=’4640′]
This would include both website content for Google Search as well as video content for YouTube.
Credit Card Affiliate Keyword Research
For example, I used Ahrefs to do some keyword research- I ran "credit cards" through their Keyword Explorer tool and filtered the difficulty to "under 15".
This is what I came up with:
There are some huge terms on here with relatively low search volume like "victoria secret credit card" and "gamestop credit card". You can download this table by clicking "Download CSV" in the bottom right hand corner.
It's definitely a good starting point. Make sure you consider searcher intention when producing content for this niche- are searchers looking for credit card login URLs, reviews of the cards, interest rate figures?
Search out forums for issues with the credit cards that you can help users deal with. Or even investigate the Google type-ahead for the most common concerns:
If I were targeting this "gamestop credit card" keyword, I'd publish a 2,000+ word post with subheadings targeting all of the type-ahead terms you see above and any other subject domains I can unearth using Ahrefs or general Googling.
Traffic & Monetizing
It's a no-brainer to create content around some of these low-competition/high-volume keywords if you're in this financial niche or looking to enter and leverage 'SEO' traffic.
Even if the particular card doesn't have an affiliate program- you can at least get the traffic by producing the content and perhaps suggest an alternative credit card you can monetize.
For example, if Credit Card A is easy to rank for, but doesn't have an affiliate program, you can write about Credit Card A but suggest a comparable or superior credit card, Credit Card B, as a worthwhile alternative. Or just push the traffic to your highest-converting page.
Or- say you're a travel site. You can grab some of this lucrative traffic by writing up a guide on the best travel credit cards. Car blogs can do the same with some of the gas charge card programs like Shell's.
The key is to think outside the box- figure out a unique angle and execute on it.
NerdWallet does an awesome job with their content- producing high-quality information that they simultaneously monetize with bank and credit card affiliate links:
NerdWallet: Get more from your money
Track spending, reduce debt, improve your credit, find the best credit cards. Join the millions of people who use NerdWallet to get more from their money.
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The 5 Best Credit Card Affiliate Networks
Below, I've collected a bunch of credit card affiliate programs you can join. Really, these are more 'networks' than programs, but I digress.
The Credit.Com Affiliate Network
If you're looking to join a credit card affiliate program, one of the best places to start is Credit.com.
According to their website, Credit.com has connected with the leading credit card providers to provide the very best solution for affiliate publishers seeking to advertise credit card offers.
They promise the largest affiliate payouts in the charge card space, the very best converting credit card affiliate offers, real time affiliate sales tracking and online reporting.
Sign Up | Credit.com Affiliate Marketing
Credit.com offers the best affiliate programs for financial services including credit cards, credit reports, debt help and more.
Joining will get you access to a variety of credit card affiliate opportunites from companies like American Express, Barclay, Capital One, Chase, Credit One, Discover, MasterCard, Visa.
You can also get access to different types of credit cards including Rewards, Airline Miles, Cash Cards, Rewards Points, Gas Cards, Balance Transfer, Merchandise Cards, Secured Cards, Business, Cards, and Student Cards.
It's one of the big players in the space and signing up will let you assess the different offers, payouts and conversion rates.
The Commission Soup Network
Commission Soup also has access to a bunch of different business and consumer credit card affiliate programs:
- Credit One Bank® Unsecured Visa® with Free Credit Score Tracking
- AccountNow® Gold Visa® Prepaid Card
- Indigo® Unsecured Mastercard®
- AccountNow® Prepaid Visa® Card
- Scotiabank®* American Express® Card
- Applied Bank® Secured Visa® Gold Preferred® Credit Card
- The First Progress Platinum Elite MasterCard® Secured Credit Card
- primor® Secured Mastercard® Gold Card
- Indigo® Mastercard® with Fast Pre-qualification
- Credit One Bank® Unsecured Platinum Visa®
- Official NASCAR® Credit Card from Credit One Bank®
- Credit One Bank® Credit Card with Cash Back Rewards
- Credit One Bank® Visa® Credit Card
- Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® with Cash Back Rewards
- Indigo® Mastercard® for Less than Perfect Credit
- Credit One Bank® Visa® Credit Card
- USAA Homeowners Insurance
- Milestone® Mastercard® – Bad Credit Considered
- Scotia Momentum® Visa* card
- OpenSky® Secured Visa® Credit Card
- Scotiabank® GM®* Visa Infinite* Card
- Milestone® Mastercard® with Free Choice of Card Image
- ScotiaGold Passport® Visa* card
- primor® Secured Visa® Classic Card
- primor® Secured Visa® Gold Card
- Credit One Bank® Visa® with Free Credit Score Tracking
- Indigo® Platinum Mastercard®
- Harley-Davidson® Mastercard® credit card
- Indigo® Platinum Mastercard® Credit Card
- Progress Credit
- Milestone® Mastercard® – Unsecured For Less Than Perfect Credit
- Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit
- Credit One Bank® NASCAR® Visa® Credit Card
- Milestone Gold Mastercard®
- NetSpend® Visa® Prepaid Card
- Indigo® Unsecured Mastercard® – Prior Bankruptcy is Okay
- Scotiabank® GM®* Visa* Card
- Credit One Bank® Unsecured Visa® for Rebuilding Credit
- Horizon Gold
- Credit One Bank® Cash Back Rewards Credit Card
- Scotiabank®* Gold American Express® Card
- Barclays Arrival® Premier World Elite Mastercard®
- CreditCardSoup.com
- Best Western Mastercard® credit card
- Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® for Rebuilding Credit
- Freedom Gold Card
- Applied Bank® VISA® Business
- Credit One Bank® Unsecured Visa® for Rebuilding Credit
- Milestone® Mastercard® – Mobile Access to Your Account
- Barclaycard Ring™ Mastercard®
- First Progress Platinum Select MasterCard® Secured Credit Card
- primor® Secured Mastercard® Classic Card
- Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa®
- Premier Rewards Gold Card from American Express
- Gold Delta SkyMiles® Business Credit Card from American Express
- Fingerhut Credit Account
- NASCAR® Credit Card from Credit One Bank®
- Credit One Bank® Platinum Visa® with Cash Back Rewards
- Credit One Bank® Visa® with Free Credit Score Tracking
- Net First Platinum
- Credit One Bank® Visa® Cash Back Rewards
- Credit One Bank® Unsecured Visa® with Cash Back Rewards
The Bankrate Credit Card Affiliate Network
The Bankrate Credit Card Network is another resource if you're a publisher looking to monetize your credit card-related content and traffic.
Bankrate Credit Cards
Bankrate’s free credit card affiliate program provides you with the tools and support you need to turn credit card related web traffic into revenue.
According to their website, Bankrate’s Affiliate Program has a variety of financial offerings beside just credit cards.
The FlexOffers Affiliate Network
FlexOffers has some Financial Services offers you can explore, including their credit card affiliate programs.
The BankAffiliates.com Affiliate Network
Another option is the BankAffiliates.com network- they provide "performance marketing for financial products and services".
You can check out some of their offers that include the affiliate programs for: Personal Capital, The Street, CreditRepair.com, Options House, Discover, Lexington Law, Credit Sesame, Lending Club, Lendio, and SmarterBank.
Credit Card Affiliate Programs | Bank Affiliates
Find the best credit card affiliate programs. Engage your traffic with the top performing credit card offers by searching our listings for the right programs
Affiliate Offer Aggregators
Sites like Offer Vault and ODigger are another place to search out charge card affiliate programs.
Affiliate Marketing | Affiliate Programs | CPA Offers | OfferVault
Affiliate Marketing made easy. Find the best affiliate programs, affiliate networks and affiliate marketing resources. We’re the #1 Source for highest paying affiliate programs.
These affiliate aggregators are like meta-search engines for affiliate programs. It's a good place to scour out niche affiliate networks and programs.
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Read More Of My Niche Reports
Final Thoughts
One important thing to remember- the affiliate landscape shifts over time.
It's important to routinely keep tabs on the different networks and programs in this landscape. While Bank of America, Credit Karma, Fidelity, and Capital One don't seem to have (or have temporarily suspended their) financial service affiliate programs, you'll want to monitor the available lead generation opportunities on an ongoing basis to spot their emergence.
If you have a lot of traffic and really want to be an affiliate for a particular brand, there's no harm in reaching out. I've gotten into private affiliate programs just by outreaching.
Last Updated on November 15, 2023 by Ryan Nelson
Hey,
Really good article.
But the problem is, these affiliate networks just do not approve new affiliates.
Any solution?
Anyways,
Thanks.
The onus is on the Publisher to convince these programs to accept them. If you really want to get into a program, shoot them an email- if you can show them you have high-quality traffic, in decent amounts, it’s really a no-brainer for them to approve you, in most cases. A lot of people expect to just get auto-approved with no traffic and no plans for generating it- doesn’t make any sense for the Advertisers to take that deal.
“doesn’t make any sense for the Advertisers to take that deal.”
why not? what do they have to lose by approving people? I wish I could call them to just chat so they can get to know me and know i’m working hard on organic SEO.
It’s such a pain when you GET HQ traffic but then can’t monetize because you’re waiting for weeks to be approved by these people
I would suggest publishing at least 10-20 articles that show that you have related content that meets the advertiser’s requirements and needs. Be sure the site is designed out as well.
Other affiliates have the same problem. Credit card affiliate programs can be notoriously picky about who they work with. They don’t want to just auto approve novice internet marketers – it seems like they have a preference for established brands and partners. Did you try out FlexOffers?
I too have applied for an affiliate program. They said they’d reach out in 2 days. I got no response after 2 days, so I emailed them a week after and they said they are still reviewing applications. I already built my site but there’s no way I’d dish out more money and energy into it if I can’t be certain that they’ll approve me. Shouldn’t they approve first before people start investing a considerable amount of time into the website?
Credit card affiliate programs are pretty picky about who they work with. Did you try FlexOffers? It’s a network- you might get better support/feedback from them.
I’m also having trouble getting into any of these. I made a blog about CC and added an article on the best credit cards with long tail keywords, but they still won’t approve me.
With Commission Soup I’m now on my 3rd application. I’ve even got 50 visitors a day now but it’s all going to waste because they won’t approve me. Their support is really bad and they seem to only want to work with massive brands that already have 1m traffic a month:(
Any other new CC affiliate programs that are open to working with the little guy who’s new to the CC scene?
Yeah- it can be hard to get into some of these programs. If you can connect with an affiliate manager and demonstrate you have traffic/serious ambitions, that’s how I’d approach it. FlexOffers, as a network, has a lot of credit card/finance offers. I did write a post recently about credit repair affiliate programs: https://nichefacts.com/credit-repair-affiliate-programs/
50 visitors a day isn’t that much, to be honest. If it’s any comfort, you’re probably not leaving too much money on the table as is because conversion rates on these offers likely isn’t going to be that high. I’m not in the finance niche, but if I had decent traffic, say over a thousand visitors a day, I would think that gets some attention from affiliate advertisers. Plus, once you’re at that level, you can apply to join Mediavine and run ads on your content- likely an even better/stable revenue source than affiliate in the credit card space. (Apologies for the late reply – I’ve been clearing out a lot of spam comments in an effort to find the real ones.)