Home > General > Affiliate Marketing Forum

---

Affiliate Marketing for...the WINE Industry? (17)

---

Way back in 2014 when I found STM, the late, great Caurmen (Hugh Hancock) and I became friends over fine whisky, an interest we both shared. Although I still love my whisky, over the past several years I have really gotten into wine.

I have less than zero interest in getting into the actual making and distribution of it, but I am curious to know if there are any legitimate offers to promote in the wine industry- perhaps not the selling of wine itself, but wine education, accessories, membership sites, paid forums, tours etc. Wine is an "irrationally passionate" market full of people (like me) who won't spend $20 on a new t-shirt, but will happily fork over $300 for a bottle that will be gone in a week (unless I am "cellaring" it, then I will have to wait 15 or more years to drink it, an even more ridiculous concept).

I am quite familiar with (the way overpriced) wine.com, Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, CellarTracker, Vivino, and most of the other known wine sites, but I'd be curious to hear everyone's opinion about affiliate marketing in the wine industry, Let's hear your thoughts!

---

Great post man... interesting question indeed...

Only stuff that pops into my head:

1) there's some wine subscription service that I was seeing TONS of ads for in the UK over this last year... can't remember the name of it but man they seemed to be killing it...
2) I would guess there's a lot of wine blogs making money on not just affiliate links for wine-selling sites, but travel affiliate stuff... that's a big, big niche, and I imagine those folks just fill up their pages with travel affiliate links for wine country tours, flights to France and California, all that kind of thing...

I can't think of any wine-oriented info products, though I'm sure there are some out there...

I would guess the best opportunities in paid traffic would be subscription services... as all of us come to expect our food and drink to arrive at our doorstep more and more... and a subscription box would also let you really cater to wine geekery in a more effective manner, and tap into those who are willing to pay $300 a bottle like you said...

Or if you were really ambitious you could start a "wine social network" like Bigger Pockets is to real estate lol (if you're familiar with Bigger Pockets).

I don't drink at all actually but my parents LOVED wine so can definitely relate when I was a kid they even made their own wine and they would have me get in the big tub and crush all the grapes lol. Very fond memories

---

Tons of gadgets and doodads to do with Wine so could always do simple ecom for corkscrews, rubber corks, aerators, etc.

And let’s not forget The Wand: https://getthewand.io/offer-01/

---

I believe the company @jack_l is referring to it NakedWines.com. I noticed them too being quite prolific and they still seem to be running quite a bit on native networks. It was merchant direct rather than affiliate, so I'm unsure how viable it would be on a CPA basis or how to get the offer, but they've been running for far too long and high scale for it not to be working well for them.

In the US there's Winc.com, who have an affiliate program but the CPA looked low from what I can see (only $14).

Personally I would think the best bet would be to try working directly with a single winery, initially on a local/regional level. Alcohol is a weird industry, as I'm sure you're aware. As a close friend of mine runs a brewery/distillery, I've seen the numbers on it, and the product itself has an extremely low incremental cost, but a lot of massive semi-fixed costs along with insanely high taxes, especially when shipping outside of region/country (depending on local laws) and the distributors take a major cut. Working direct with a winery, IMO at least, would probably be a scenario where the numbers would make the most sense.

---

The Wand.....YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

Best Deal, 80 "Wands" for $119.96, appropriate for the frequent Box Wine Boozer, lol.

---

I’ve run auto insurance and solar offers in the US with shittier payouts than that on Native. So it might be doable. Not sure how many traffic sources allow alcohol (TikTok currently doesn’t allow anything alcohol or tobacco related afaik, FB is OK with it with some gotchas), but it can’t be that bad if big brands are doing it.

---

The Wand looks so good, I think I will order some for my wife

---

I would go with wine subscription offers rather than a winery. A winery will probably offers you a revshare on the first sale. But if they don't know how to monetize the client later, the payout they are going to offer you will be quite low.

In Chile, we have CAV (Club de Amantes del Vino - www.cav.cl) that is really aggressive in its acquisition strategy. They offer 2-3 (up to 8) bottles with the first subscription.

I don't know if they are that interested in paying $$ for leads though, as most use free bottles or gifts that are provided at a very low cost by their suppliers. But if you are into wine and you find a company have a selection that you like, you could try barter clients vs credit in their shop to buy nice bottles.

---

Didn't Gary Vaynerchuk start by reviewing wine?

Checking... yup, he did. Apparently, he's not making any new videos, but his youtube channel is still online: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-8...1Mt8MgojmNvn4w
And looks like he founded his own wine brand too: https://empathywines.com/

I happen to have a friend who is running a local wine eshop, he actually asked me to start the business with him, several years ago as I was into wine at that time too. But I didnt take the offer since the margins in selling wine are really low. Literally cents per bottle Unless the focus is the premium expensive bottles.

The subscription services are doing this I believe, selling higher priced bottles at inflated prices... that way it can work just fine.

But since you said you didnt want to get into selling the actual product, thats not an option.

I have personally bought a few books about wine, also some accessories as bottle openers, decanters, premium glass sets, wine refrigerator etc... so there is definitely a lot of related products that could be sold, so maybe opening a niched wine-lovers eshop would be an option

I've never searched for wine related affiliate offers so not sure if there are any legit ones, but now you made me curious... I will give it some time to check if I can find something decent.

---

I didn't know there were that many wine-related gadget type things, that's interesting...

I like the idea of selling a subscription box that contains both fancy-dancy wines and wine-related gadgets/etc, but make it really atmospheric, like come in some beautiful wood box, and include some little booklet or subscription-only video each month, really play up the intangibles that wine people love so much... make it feel really exclusive and cool... maybe include like fancy gourmet chocolate or mushrooms or spices... that sort of thing...

Kind of like this but for wine: https://www.bespokepost.com/

Seems like the kind of people who would really be into that would have plenty of money to pay it and you could get the margins pretty high compared to other stuff in the industry...

---

Hi John! So great to see a post from you! And thanks for mentioning Hugh!

Regarding wine - let's not forget wine coolers - some of those babies go for thousands of dollars each:

https://www.wineenthusiast.com/cooli...e/wine-coolers

And they have an affiliate program:

https://www.wineenthusiast.com/for-b...iliate-program

3% may not sound like much, but if someone buys a $5700 cooling unit, that'd be $170 in commissions.

I have a buddy doing dropshipping in this niche and making good money per purchase - that's not his site above (can't out him).



Amy

---

PM me for a great deal which totally won't be attached to my giddyup affiliate link

---

You could also add some side hustle like

"Disclaimer: Please drink responsible.

If you´re feeling that you drink too much reach out to -> affiliate link from rehab program"

---

Oh yeah, there are so many gadgets for wine lovers... I've seen some very nice wooden boxes/crates, many themed ones including chocolate (as you suggested) and other sweets. Wine goes well with cheese so that's also included a lot (might pose problems with shipping). Basically, any wineshop you enter would have these on the offerings

There is quite a big market for personalized wine related presents... for example companies buy these at the end of the year to treat their best clients. Such as bottles with a logo on it, branded wooden boxes, bottle openers and whatnot.

It's an interesting niche for sure.

---

This was a great post and an interesting read. For me I am specifically interested as I have recently launched and online wine store where we are selling subscription cases and also individual bottles / gift boxes. I came across this post as I am researching if there are any Affiliate Networks that focus on the niche, or if I would be better partnering with one of the big dogs. If anyone has any feedback / advice on this, it would be greatly appreciated

---

I haven´t seen a networkt hat is focused on that niche but I saw some offers on networks like Zanox (now Awin).

As far as I remember there were also some wine related offers on Maxbounty few years ago.

---

I don't think there is any network that would focus on the wine niche specifically, so you would have to go with some of the big networks that focus on tangible products... shareasale, cj.com... start there maybe.

You can also try to make your own affiliate program, but that's an option for larger operations who have lot's of products so the affiliates have a solid range of products to promote. Check this for inspiration: https://shivanshbhanwariyadigital.co...iate-programs/

You can also try to do some private deals with wine bloggers, I'm sure there is a ton of them and they might be willing to sell you a banner spot or write a paid review.

---

Home > General > Affiliate Marketing Forum