The Sleep Niche Edition 😴
Unless you're a vampire, we all need sleep. Some affiliates have made the most of this lucrative evergreen niche. Check out the latest issue below for some inspiration, complete with legal battles!
Welcome to the latest issue of the Affiliate Examples newsletter! This week, we are focusing on the sleep niche. It’s one that affects us all - whether we get enough (or not enough!) sleep has a major bearing on our health, so sleep related products are super important. But let’s not digress - I’m not here to preach to you about your sleeping habits, especially as I’m sure there are many late nights or early mornings spent working on your affiliate empires!
The sleep niche seems to have exploded in popularity in recent years, seemingly fuelled by the dozens and dozens (actually, 175 and counting in mid-2020! - source) of direct to consumer (D2C) mattress companies popping up (Eve, Casper, Emma, I’m looking at you!). Casper is also a unicorn company - valued at over $1bn!
With a global market of around $30bn (55% residential, 45% commercial - hotels, etc.) the market is predicted to grow to $40bn by 2027 - a big increase! So now is the perfect time to capitalise on this.
However, it’s not all pound and dollar signs… One of the first major affiliate sites in the niche was embroiled in a legal case with a mattress manufacturer as a result of the reviews that they posted on their site. Sleepopolis.com was at the centre of all of this, and it showcased the sometimes seedy underbelly of the affiliate marketing world.
Still, we’re here for inspiration, whether that’s design, content, or even just niche ideas, so let’s crack on.
Sleepopolis
This is the one that started it all for me, leading me down the rabbit hole of the sleep niche. The story, from a few years ago, started me off on a journey to check out what other sleep niche sites were out there. At the time, there were few, but over the years since, more have spawned.
It’s evolved slightly over time, but it feels more like a magazine content site now than a typical ‘top 10’ list site, with a really clean and effective design. It’s fronted by a ‘face’, so that you instantly feel like you’re being helped to make the right decision on your sleeping purchases, rather than just a site designed to get you to the highest income links as quickly as possible.
Top10Mattresses
The domain name for this site tells you exactly what you’re getting - a Top 10 list. It’s easy to see and compare some features of the mattresses, although with something as subjective as comfort, it’s hard to quantify this.
The layout of the page is definitely one designed to get you off to an affiliate site as fast as possible.
This site is commonly found in the ad positions on Google, showing that they are investing heavily in paid traffic (in fact, it appeared today when searching for Sleepopolis!).
It’s been around for a while though, so it shows that there is good money to be made if it’s profitable even with Google Ads…
The Sleep Judge
A really nice looking site, with a range of categories available, listing different products available in each one. Social proof helps to boost how authoritative the site looks, so that’s something that may work in your niche (seems to be OK here!)
Sleep Softly
Looking like a traditional affiliate site, with ‘Recent Posts” being the primary heading on the homepage, this is more basic than the other ‘buyers guide’ style sites, such as Sleepopolis.
That’s not to say it doesn’t work though - this site has been around for a while, and at the time of adding it to my niche site list, it was earning low 4 figures per month. This just goes to show that design isn’t everything - execution is!
Sleepedia
There’s definitely a theme here amongst the sleep niche sites - content/magazine style. The sites that have been around the longest offer more to the end user (or reader) than the ones that don’t seem to last, or rank well. That’s definitely a takeaway here - focus on what the reader wants, and make that information easy to find - rather than Google.
Super Comfy Sleep
Almost looking more like a retailers site than a cookie-cutter affiliate site, Super Comfy Sleep has a range of categories and options.
The logo is really well designed too, and one of the nicest ones here (in my opinion of course!) When you can get a professional logo designed for such a cheap rate on Fiverr, or UpWork, there really is no excuse these days. It’s a business investment 😁
Sleepbo
Providing educational resources as well as buyers guides and product reviews is one way to stand apart from the competition too. The post graphics are all consistent, and are well designed, leading to a really cohesive look and feel here.
I think this is a fairly recent site, as I first discovered it through sponsored posts on Facebook - targeting me. At the time of writing, it only had a couple of hundred likes on Facebook, which isn’t unusual for an affiliate site. I don’t have any income figures for it, so I would assume that they are fairly low for now, but it definitely shows potential for the future.
The Dozy Owl
I actually came across this site on a journey to find a weighted blanket. The reviews are very personal, and don’t feel like they are written just from reading product details and reviews elsewhere.
Again, this site is also an example of execution being better than design. It’s not the sleekest looking site, but it does have tons of content, and every word seems to have a purpose on the site - no filler waffle!
What products can I link to?
Whilst mattresses may be the obvious high-ticket item in this niche, there are many different categories you can choose from. From pillows (very subjective, and they need replacing regularly!), bed linen, alarm clocks, SAD (seasonal affective disorder) lights, blackout curtains and blinds, bed clothes (or pyjamas!), sleep tracking devices, and books on sleep - there are so many different product ideas so you can be sure there will be plenty to write about. In fact, I might even start a site in this niche!
So, there we have it - a few sites in the sleep niche to hopefully give you a bit of inspiration, whether it be for a new site, or simply taking some of their design ideas and implementing them onto your existing sites.
Have you taken inspiration from any of these emails yet? Do you have any thoughts on how the newsletter is doing so far? I’d love to hear from you! Feel free to reach out to me - affiliateexamples@gmail.com
Thanks again, and see you next week!