Please note that affiliate links may be included in some posts.
Lowe's is a Fortune 500 American company that runs a chain of appliance and home improvement and stores in the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
According to Wikipedia, Lowe's is the 2nd biggest hardware chain in the United States, sitting behind The Home Depot and ahead of Menards.
On a global scale, Lowe's is the second-biggest hardware chain, surpassed by The Home Depot, but sitting behind European stores B&Q and OBI (Source).
So, if you're an affiliate marketer looking for a physical product retailer to promote, Lowe's is a logical alternative to Amazon.
How To Sign Up
The Lowe's affiliate program operates through Commission Junction (CJ)- you just need to join the network and apply to the Lowe's program.
As you can see in the screenshot below, Lowe's has an affiliate program for Canada, but I don't see one for the U.S.:
I contacted them through Commission Junction and I'm currently waiting on a response.
An alternative, you can sign up with VigLink. According to their Lowe's affiliate landing page, you would receive ~1.11% on all purchases directed to the U.S., Canada and Australia.
As an aside, what VigLink does is take your existing, non-affiliate links on your website and convert them into affiliate links.
The Lowe's Canada affiliate program is doing close to $30 EPC (Earnings Per 1,000 Clicks).
What's The Commission Structure?
According to CJ, Lowe's has a default commission rate of 2%, with an unspecified volume-based potential for higher commissions.
Other Aspects
- 1-Day Cookie Duration
- Robust Product Catalog Feed
- Promotional Newsletters
- Exclusive Promotions
- Free Shipping to Canadian Destinations on orders over $49 (excluding Gift Cards & Oversized Items)
Compared With Amazon
As you can below, Amazon has more generous commission rates across the board, when compared with Lowe's.
Combine that with a much, much higher conversion rate, and there's not a huge incentive to promote Lowe's.
Product Category | Amazon Commission | Lowe's Commission |
|---|---|---|
Amazon Home Services | $3 CPA | N/A |
Outdoor | 5.5% | 2% |
Home Improvement | 8% | 2% |
Tools | 5.5% | 2% |
Health | 4.5% | 2% |
Both Amazon and Lowe's offer Home Services. It's unclear what the payout would be from Lowe's, but Amazon offers a $3 CPA, which honestly isn't that enticing.
Should You Promote Lowe's?
As I explained in my affiliate program review of Best Buy and Target, there are a couple reasons to promote physical product retailer like Lowe's.
They might have unique products (just below I listed out some of Lowe's exclusive private brand deals) and they might offer limited-time deals and promotions that can outperform Amazon's offers on a temporary basis.
I'd recommend joining the affiliate program if you rank for product terms that enable you to send traffic to Lowe's. Just test how it converts before deciding whether to scrap your participation or perhaps join an alternative affiliate program.
Personally, I've had the best success promoting Wayfair as an alternative to Amazon. I'm also enrolled in the Walmart and Jet affiliate programs- but they lag far behind Wayfair in terms of earnings.
Lowe's Exclusive Private Brands
As a quick aside, if you want to promote the Lowe's affiliate program, they do have some exclusive brand relationships.
Their 'Private Brands' include: Kobalt, Allen+Roth, Blue Hawk, Reliabilt, Style Selections, Harbor Breeze, Project Source, Portfolio, AquaSource, Sta-Green, Top Choice, Garden Treasures, Utilitech, EverTrue, Idylis, Lowe’s Garden Club Select, Gatehouse, Holiday Living, Task Force and Master Forge (Source).
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Lowe's Keyword Research
Below I've assembled a list 1,000-strong of Lowe's best keywords (excluding brand terms like "lowes".).
As you can see, they rank for a ton of different product terms. You can use this list to get an understanding of what consumers use Lowe's for.
It's also a useful list of keywords to target if you're writing up product reviews for your hardware or home & garden site.
Lowe's Site Traffic
Below you can see that, at least at the time of this writing, that Lowes.com gets almost 83 million visits, on average, in the last 6 months.
Promotional Methods
SEO
This one's fairly obvious- if you rank for products that Lowe's sells, experiment to see how well the Lowe's affiliate program converts.
The way I've done it on my sites, I'll build a comparison table of Amazon products, but I'll add an option to check out prices on alternative retailers like Walmart and Wayfair.
I recommend using Thirsty Affiliates so that you can track link clicks.
Obviously, the bulk of conversions, for me at least, will occur on Amazon, but you will get a trickle of sales occurring on these alternative retailers.
Perhaps because they have a different, unique product available that Amazon doesn't stock. Perhaps they found something at a lower price or maybe they were able to arrange an in-store pickup.
To promote the Lowe's affiliate program, if you have an email list, I would recommend signing up for all of Lowe's email newsletters.
This will keep you in the loop regarding special deals and promotions- once you find something that's worth promoting you can send out a broadcast to your list about a discounted fridge or portable air conditioner.
Summary
Like some of the other physical product retailers I've investigated, Lowe's isn't incredibly enticing to promote.
The affiliate commissions are pretty weak- though I imagine they don't have much margin to spare publishers since they're being eaten alive by Amazon.
I'd recommend experimenting with it- try tracking the affiliate links you create with ThirstyAffiliates and examine how the traffic you send to Lowe's performs.
You can swap out the link and replace it with a different affiliate program in the future.
Last Updated on March 14, 2021 by Ryan Nelson
