As the post-pandemic world drifts online, the proper affiliate programme can help you earn hundreds of thousands of pounds, especially when it comes to the high-ticket affiliate niches. And the educational niche is no exception. This market is full of opportunities. Today, you’ll learn the peculiarities of the education affiliate marketing in the UK and how to succeed in this niche.
How Does Education Affiliate Marketing Work?
The education niche for affiliate marketing follows the general rules: publishers and affiliates promote advertisers’ products in exchange for a commission.
Here’s what sets education affiliate marketing programmes apart from most niches:
| Prolonged Decision-Making | Taking a course is a significant commitment, so potential clients meticulously weigh the decision before taking action. You need to prove the long-term value of your offer to them. |
| Higher Average Cheque | Online courses range from a dozen to a few thousand pounds. For example, stock market courses may cost over £1000. You should go the extra mile to convert such referrals. |
| Recurring Commissions | Online education affiliate programmes allow you to earn recurring commissions if the advertiser enables it. In this case, you should nurture the referral beyond the first conversion. |
Consider the peculiarities of the affiliate marketing education niche while creating a suitable promo. After all, getting high-intent leads in this niche is far more complex than generating traffic for the e-commerce offers.
Affiliate Marketing Education: Another Pot of Gold for Affiliates
Online education is a highly-qualified niche with high cheques. Commissions in education affiliate programmes may reach 30%, with an ROI of up to 900%. However, we encourage you to weigh the specifics of each education sub-niche before even initiating the campaign.
Use this table as your starting point for the marketing analysis:
Affiliate marketing in education can be challenging for some sub-niches. For instance, you should hire extra experts to verify the validity of your marketing statements in healthcare or legal studies.
Let’s Talk Numbers: CPA, CPL, and CPC for the E-Learning
One of the burning questions is how much you need to spend to acquire or sell one customer in e-learning affiliate programmes. To determine it, use metrics like cost-per-action, cost-per-lead, and cost-per-click.
Source: Statista
Customers from the United Kingdom are on roughly the same level as those from Germany, Australia, and Canada. Meanwhile, the average annual expenditure per student from primary to secondary education in the United Kingdom is approximately £10,000. It makes the education niche extremely attractive both for advertisers and merchants.
Education Affiliate Marketing: Markets, Niches, and Audiences
Just a few decades ago, traditional education was the primary option for affiliate marketers. But as of late 2024, online learning bursts into the market, changing once and for all affiliate marketing education niche.
It’s expected to grow to a tremendous $280 billion (almost £225 billion) globally by 2029, tripling from the 2017 results.
Source: Statista
Driving Growth with AI: How Artificial Intelligence Shapes the Future of Education Marketing
Almost 50% of Public First survey responders agreed that children need to learn AI tools, which may help them learn faster. 61% of respondents believed that it would be impossible to stop children from using AI services, and 47% think that banning these tools is as pointless as banning the calculator.
Source: Public First
It makes AI and education inseparable as more UK students implement those tools in their routines. However, 63% of respondents want to ban AI tools, at least for exams.
There is no wonder that generative AI in education has pros and cons. It’s fast, but it gathers up info from the whole internet, including untrustworthy platforms. It explains information with details, but sometimes, “facts” can be made up, as the tool will try to fill in the blanks randomly.
We’ve gathered the pros and cons of AI in education in a table to ease your understanding of this technology.
| Advantage | Disadvantage |
| Assistance with tedious tasks | Biased info |
| Speed of work | Spreading errors further |
| Personalisation | Cheating |
| Contextual answers | Social isolation, as AI tools aren’t human |
| Individualisation of learning opportunities | Sophisticated AI tools may take some niche jobs |
AI and machine learning in education will eventually earn their stable place, and you, as an affiliate marketer, should consider this info in your campaigns.
Education offers and their targeted audience
There are dozens of sub-niches in the e-learning affiliate programmes. It provides you with the freedom to choose any of them. Meanwhile, it may become too hard to pick suitable options. We’ve gathered seven common sub-niches and their target audience to ease your choice.
| Niche | Target audience (potential leads) |
| Online courses and short certifications | Individuals looking to get supplementary education or hobby learning |
| Degree programmes | High school graduates, college students and working professionals looking for a degree to unlock new career paths and roles |
| Language courses | Individuals looking to learn a new language for academic, business, travel or personal reasons |
| Test preparation cources | Students who want to prepare for proficiency tests |
| Tutoring services | Students of all ages seek academic support to fill their knowledge gaps |
| Educational software | Individuals (students, educators and parents) who are looking for additional educational tools to gamify the learning process |
| Educational consulting services | Students, parents, and professionals seeking guidance on educational planning, admissions, or career paths |
There is plenty of space in the education niche for affiliate marketing businesses. People naturally tend to learn new things, while others like to educate those individuals. You can benefit from those desires by promoting educational companies to potential leads.
Top Education Affiliate Programmes: A Selection for Affiliates
Udemy
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 101,295,364 | 7 | 590 | 0.37 | 67.53% | 18.67% | 1.71% | 1.84% | 3.43% | 6.81% |
Udemy is an online learning service that offers business and lifestyle courses alongside an affiliate programme for websites with at least 500 unique monthly visits and 500 followers on socials.
The initial commission starts from 10%. The cookie’s lifespan is 7 days.
Udemy Education Affiliate Marketing Programme – Application page
MasterClass
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 7,940,773 | 2 | 108 | 0.62 | 30.98% | 62.60% | 1.40% | 1.18% | 1.13% | 2.70% |
MasterClass is an e-learning service that provides classes by well-known experts across industries. The list of instructors includes Neil deGrasse Tyson, Melinda Gates, James Cameron, and more.
Masterclass runs affiliate marketing education programmes via Skimlinks and Impact for various GEOs. Currently, Skimlinks covers Canada, Australia, Italy and the US. Meanwhile, Impact network works globally, including the UK. The default commission on both services is 25% of the amount of the order’s sale.
Teachable
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 14,834,307 | 4 | 285 | 0.48 | 64.87% | 9.50% | 0.46% | 9.62% | 5.10% | 10.44% |
Teachable is a service where anyone can create short education courses and share helpful digital materials.
Like other services above, it has an affiliate programme with up to 30% commission and a 30-day cookie lifespan. It has a recurring payment feature.
Teachable Education Affiliate Marketing Programme – Application page
LinkedIn Learning
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 1,874,665,475 | 8 | 453 | 0.26 | 71.96% | 23.05% | 0.03% | 2.11% | 2.10% | 0.74% |
LinkedIn Learning has over 15,000 short online courses in business, technology and creative industries. It’s a global platform available in English, German, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese.
Anyone with a LinkedIn affiliate account can earn a 10% commission on a free trial sign-up and 35% on the online course purchase. The cookie lifespan is a traditional 30 days.
How to apply for the LinkedIn Learning Affiliate Programme
Skillshare
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 5,460,464 | 4 | 167 | 0.5 | 53.65% | 30.56% | 1.76% | 1.56% | 3.03% | 9.44% |
Skillshare is an online educational hub with thousands of online courses and projects in creative and lifestyle niches. The platform runs an affiliate programme that offers up to 40% commission (until it reaches £50) for every referred customer.
The cookie lifespan is 30 days. All publishers can track their referrals in real time.
Rosetta Stone
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 2,720,456 | 8 | 526 | 0.39 | 60.26% | 27.79% | 1.21% | 4.45% | 2.78% | 3.50% |
Rosetta Stone is one of the most popular language-learning platforms. Users can learn more than 20 languages from Indo-European, Turkic, Sino-Teetian and Austronesian families here.
It also has an affiliate platform where publishers can get a 7% commission without a minimum payout. Cookies last for 30 days.
The Princeton Review
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 1,811,966 | 4 | 174 | 0.51 | 39.29% | 53.38% | 0.45% | 3.08% | 1.84% | 1.96% |
The Princeton Review is an online tutoring service that connects tutors with students who prepare for standardised tests. As an affiliate, you can earn up to a 7% commission on referral sales within the Princeton Review affiliate programme. While this number may not seem as tremendous as you think, the average £700 cheque can still make a £50 commission.
Princeton Education Affiliate Marketing – Application page
Udacity
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 1,747,526 | 7 | 438 | 0.4 | 60.52% | 26.07% | 0.64% | 4.69% | 2.45% | 5.63% |
Udacity is a platform with a variety of technology-related online courses. It runs an affiliate programme with a 24% enrolment fee and a traditional 30-day cookie lifespan.
It has a sub-affiliate network, where publishers earn 1% of the sub-publisher’s commissions. If you climb up to the maximum revenue share tier, you can earn up to 10% of commission from your sub-publishers.
Udacity Education Affiliate Marketing Programme – Application page
Coursera
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 57,596,644 | 9 | 653 | 0.39 | 63.21% | 23.05% | 1.53% | 2.01% | 3.86% | 6.34% |
Coursera is a leading eLearning platform with online degree programmes from the best universities (including the University of London, Imperial College London, etc), online courses, and professional certificates.
Affiliates can earn up to a 15% to 45% commission on over 4,000 online courses, with a cookie duration window of 30 days.
Kaplan
| Monthly Visits | Page Per Visit | Time On Site | Bounce Rate | Direct Traffic | Search Traffic | Paid Referral Traffic | Referral Traffic | Mail Traffic | Social Traffic |
| 738,739 | 4 | 321 | 0.6 | 46.35% | 38.16% | 0.24% | 9.75% | 4.24% | 1.25% |
Kaplan is known as a worldwide provider of language courses. It also offers a Kaplan Test Prep Affiliate Programme, offering up to a 5% commission with a cookie duration window of 30 days.
Take Your Education Affiliate Marketing to the Next Level With Lynx & Call Logic
It’s crucial to professionally handle your campaigns with advanced tools like Lynx – affiliate marketing software that covers all your needs, automating every bit of the campaign.
Discover those three key benefits of Lynx:
- Real-time performance tracking: Implement new trends among the first to become the most productive affiliate in your niche.
- Referral journey control: Inspect whether your traffic meets the advertiser’s expectations.
- Exhaustive lead insights: Tailor your promo to perfectly meet leads’ demographic and psychographic portrait.
Here is the live-action screenshot of the tool’s homepage:
Synergise Education Affiliate Marketing With Other Traffic Channels
Even the best education affiliate programmes won’t show themselves in full beauty if you refuse to use additional channels. We recommend you coordinate your marketing efforts with organic search traffic and paid traffic acquisition channels:
Source: Promodo
Luckily, marketing suits like Phonexa can help you manage all your affiliate campaigns in one place.
Fine-Tune and Automate Your Education Affiliate Marketing Efforts
While Lynx remains a splendid service, it shows its full strength combined with other Phonexa products. The toolkit covers all aspects of education affiliate marketing, from organic to paid campaigns to buying or selling leads.
Here are the eight tools you get at a single price (use this online price calculator):
| LMS Sync | Lead tracking & distribution software |
| Call Logic | Call tracking & distribution software |
| E-Delivery | Bulk email & SMS marketing software |
| Cloud PBX | Cloud phone system |
| Lynx | Click tracking software |
| Opt-Intel | Suppression list management software |
| HitMetrix | User behaviour recording & analytics software |
| Books360 | Automated accounting software |
Build your plan now to grow your affiliate income, or book a demo to learn more about Phonexa.
Frequently Asked Questions
How might AI and Chat GPT affect education?
Many students already use generative tools to write their essays. Educational institutions may implement anti-AI measures, such as examining texts with AI detectors, asking for video essays, or other ways to prove that students understand the material.
What are the pros and cons of AI in education?
AI-based tools can provide personalised learning opportunities tailored to student’s needs. They can automate administrative work, freeing up teachers’ time. Meanwhile, these services can perpetuate biases in the data they are trained on, and they can’t still replace human interactions.
Is using AI in education considered plagiarism?
AI and plagiarism in education are closely tied, as most generative tools simply gather all info available online to create an article. However, if you use these tools only for general research, adding more information from your own deep research, thoughts, and conclusions, the work will be considered unique.
Is it possible to get an AI-based education?
As of late 2024, there are no fully AI-based education tools, as people still create course structures and most of the tasks manually. So, we can’t examine AI education pros and cons, as there are no fully automated services.
What are the pros and cons of using AI in education?
AI in education and learning can provide personalised experiences, adjusting course structure and tasks to student’s needs. Meanwhile, even the best AI tools won’t replace human interactions.
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