How To Drive Traffic To Costco Affiliate Programs

There are many ways to send traffic to costco affiliate programs without heavily relying on using a blog.

Here are some behind the scene methods that expert marketers are using that no one is teaching.

Costco Affiliate Program Overview

The Costco affiliate program offers a commission that correlates to the different memberships sold, along with other elements listed below.

Anyone can join for free

  • Cost Per Action (CPA): Yes
  • Commission Rate:$3 to $6
  • Cookie Duration: Session only
  • Payment Threshold: $50 for direct deposit or $100 for check
  • Payment Options: Direct deposit, check

The program is managed by a third part affiliate network, CJ Affiliate

Traffic Arbitrage 

Traffic arbitrage is all using low competition keywords that has nothing to do with Costco, but the content will eventually lead visitors to costco products. 

For example, we can use ChatGPT to predict what the visitors might be searching that may lead to signing up with Costco.

A good prompt you can use would be

  • "What are things people maybe interested searching that will eventually lead to costco membership sign up"
  • "What are related keywords people look up before signing up a costco membership"

Some ideas you can go with are:

  • Discount shopping
  • bulk buying
  • Bulk item deals
  • Bulk grocery shopping
  • Cheap bulk buying

The content should be focusing on these keywords that on the surface has nothing to do with costco. But where it leads to is wholesale deals.

Offer Discounts 

Offer special discounts or promotions to people who sign up for a Costco membership through the affiliate program. This can incentivize people to sign up and can lead to more traffic for the program. However, the traffic method has to align with what people are looking for.

No one just search for offer discounts on Costco for no reason. By following the traffic arbitrage strategy, buyers who are interested in Costco membership generally wants to get discount when purchasing:

  • Bulk grocery shopping
  • Buying food in bulk
  • Bulk food deals
  • Bulk meat buying
  • Buying chicken in bulk
  • Bulk chicken deals
  • Buying beef in bulk
  • Bulk beef deals
  • Buying pork in bulk
  • Bulk pork deals
  • Buying fish in bulk
  • Bulk fish deals
  • Buying grains in bulk
  • Bulk grain deals
  • Buying pasta in bulk
  • Bulk pasta deals
  • Buying rice in bulk
  • Bulk rice deals
  • Buying spices in bulk
  • Bulk spice deals

So target these keywords instead, and they are the same thing as people searching for discount offers semantically.

Social media advertising

Social media marketing for Costco is more effective for influencers that create content that indirectly promote shopping at Costco.

Some of the best examples are:

  • Lifestyle videos
  • Fitness
  • BBQ
  • Home audio

The content itself doesn't focus on sending people to Costco affiliate links, but instead they indirectly talk about where to get the product at a discounted price, aka Costco.

Run Contests

Run contests on social media platforms that require participants to sign up for a Costco membership. This can attract a lot of people who are interested in winning prizes, and can increase the number of sign-ups for the affiliate program.

This works extremely well for an channel with established audience, especially for social media influencers. 

Email marketing

Content creators and deal site owners can also use email marketing to promote their membership program every other month to the costco membership sign up offers. They can send targeted emails with special offers or promotions to encourage people to sign up.

Product Review

Review a specific product either directly or indirectly, then link the product to various places to purchase. One of these can be Costco.

This method can heavily rely on search engine traffic through building a website, or as a coupon website. However, we have to understand that even through Costco is a wholesale business that sells a lot of products, but we have to direct a lot of traffic to specific things in order to make it work.