Chewy Affiliate Program Review: Is It Worth It?

If you’re making a website in the petcare industry and you want to find out how to make money, then you’re in the right place.

The Chewy affiliate program is currently one of the top memberships in the niche, not to mention that it has decent benefits. For those who want to increase their online income, it’s worth checking out.

The Chewy affiliate program is worth it because it offers thousands of affiliate products, countless helpful newsletters, one-on-one support, and above average commission rates. As long as your website is in the pet care niche, you’ll be able to enjoy this industry-leading affiliate program.

Throughout this article, you’ll also learn the following info about the Chewy affiliate program:

Whether or not you should try this affiliate program
The pros and cons of the Chewy affiliate membership
How you can sign up and make more money right away

Pros of the Chewy Affiliate Program

Chewy is one of the best pet brands on the market, which means that it’s a no-brainer for most marketers to join.

If your website relates to pets, then there’s no question that you should give their affiliate program a chance.

They offer decent commission rates with a lot of useful tools that will help you get to the next level of online income.

Here’s a list of benefits that you’ll receive if you join the Chewy affiliate program:

They have all sorts of products in the pet niche. According to Chewy, they have thousands of items ranging from clothes (for humans and pets!), food, treats, toys, and many other products for your pets. There’s nothing like an endless supply of links and banners to keep your income stream moving along.
The fixed payment structure is reliable for many affiliate marketers. Chewy has a unique system that pays $15 per person, regardless of how much the customer paid. If they load up their cart with a bunch of low-cost items, you’ll receive the payment for converting a new member into the Chewy mailing list.
Chewy offers a weekly newsletter that provides valuable information. If you’re new to the industry, it can be tough to know the in’s and out’s of everything. The good news is that Chewy’s newsletter keeps you updated on everything related to their program. No more trying to figure out how it all works without any help.
People trust the Chewy brand since it’s so popular. It’s no secret that people are more likely to shop with brands they know and trust. If you’re trying to broaden your horizons and include Chewy on your marketing platform, then you’ll enjoy the automatic trust that your readers will have.
They offer a helpful analytics page for all users. Figure out who’s buying which products, when they’re on sale, and why you might not be getting as many clicks as you would’ve thought. This page is invaluable because it’s a great tool for tracking everything related to the affiliate program.

As you can see, this program can be quite lucrative if you know what you’re doing. Fortunately, it doesn’t take a lot of guesswork to succeed with their program.

They offer all of the tools you could possibly need, so there’s no need to stress yourself out.

Nevertheless, this affiliate system has a few issues that can’t be ignored. If you want to know about all of them, proceed to the next section.

Cons of Chewy’s Affiliate Membership

As with all online business opportunities, Chewy’s affiliate membership has a few noteworthy problems. Sadly, it’s unlikely that they’ll change any of these issues any time soon since the company is worth billions of dollars. To be fair, if it’s working out, why should they change anything?

Consider these downsides before moving forward with the process:

The fixed payments can be a burden

Craig Campbell SEO points out that there’s a nice $15 commission per sale, but it can be a huge issue for a lot of potential members.

Let’s say you convert a reader into a customer and they buy $20 worth of items. $15 would seem like an excellent deal for you, right? What about if the person buys $1,000 worth of items? The fixed-rate is good and bad at the same time.

They use a short-term tracking cookie

Tracking cookies are designed to give you credit for a sale. The industry standard for a tracking cookie from an affiliate link is 30 days. Chewy cuts that time in half, giving the customer 15 days to make a purchase. If they buy it outside of the allotted time, you won’t see a penny from the sale.

Repeat customers don’t pay you anything

Most affiliate programs give you money every time a customer buys something through a link.

If you post a link or a banner on all of your website’s posts, they’re available for purchases.

Any time a customer buys something, even if it’s every day of the week, you’ll receive a portion of the sale. With the Chewy program, you only get money for the first click.

It’s up for you to decide whether or not the pros outweigh the cons. In the eyes of most marketers in the pet niche, Chewy can be an important building block for success.

However, there’s no denying the unfortunately low payments for high transactions and the lack of repeat client payout.

Is It Worth Your Time?

Now that you know all of the pros and cons of the business, it’s time to find out if it’s worth signing up. You don’t have to jump into it right away, but it’s better to start sooner than later to build your keywords. The longer you wait, the more competition you’ll have to face down the road.

So, is this program worth your time? Ask yourself the five questions found below.

Do you have a website in the pet care niche? There’s no reason that you should consider joining this affiliate program if your website doesn’t relate to the topic. Note that Chewy prefers you to have a website rather than posting the links of forums and social media, but you might be able to make it work.
Are you okay with the low-end payment plans? This program is far from a get-rich-quick scheme. There’s no such thing as getting rich from $15 payments without being able to take advantage of repeat customers. It should be viewed as a long-term, low payment plan for supplemental income.
Will you be able to stay updated with the prices and deals? The newsletter makes it easy for you to stay on top of everything but you need to have enough time each week to pay attention. If you can spend about an hour or two every week, then you’ll be able to enjoy the benefits of the membership.
Are you able to relate to a customer’s concerns about their pet(s)? You don’t need to be a pet owner to understand how much people care about their dogs, cats, rodents, and other pets. As long as you have a passion for the well-being of animals, this is a good program for you to try out.
Do you have additional sources of income? Again, the Chewy affiliate program isn’t going to make you a millionaire. It should be viewed as a source of helpful part-time income. Make sure you have a full-time job or several sources of income, such as other affiliate programs, ad revenue, or writing gigs.

The Chewy affiliate program can provide a notable boost to your income. It’s not going to be a full-time replacement, especially since you can’t earn money on repeat customers.

However, it’s an excellent method of earning a bit of money for your hard work, while introducing your readers to high-quality products.

What to Know Before Signing Up

You’re probably almost ready to join the program, but there are a few more bits of information that you need to take into consideration. These issues aren’t good or bad;

They’re simply worth knowing before you make a big decision. Joining a business partnership can be an excellent source of income or a complete waste of time.

You need to know these three things about the Chewy affiliate program:

The pet industry is an incredibly saturated niche

If you’re able to rank a lot of your posts in the niche, then it shouldn’t be an issue. That being said, pet care is one of the most saturated topics on the internet.

Everyone knows that millions of people have pets, making it a popular choice for affiliate marketers. In other words, you’re going to have a lot of competition.

They don’t always offer the best prices

Everyone loves to find the best deals, and it’s getting increasingly easier to find lower prices when they’re shopping online.

Chewy is a popular brand, so they can get away with posting high prices. If someone looks elsewhere, they might find a better deal. You’ll lose a few sales this way, but impulse buying is easier than it sounds.

Check customer reviews beforehand

Nobody thinks you’ll have time to purchase and review thousands of products. It would be too expensive, not to mention the fact that you’d need hundreds of pets to try everything. The best way to get great reviews is to check what customers have to say. Never recommend a product that’s below 3 stars.

Once you’ve digested everything mentioned above, it’s time to start your partnership with Chewy. If you’ve made your decision and you’re ready to become an affiliate marketer, check out the quick guide in the following subheading.

How to Join the Chewy Affiliate Program

The Chewy affiliate membership can be a major source of income for your website. It might not be life-changing, but getting a few sign-ups per week can be a fantastic way to supplement your monthly paychecks.

When you’re ready to make the change and sign up for the affiliate partnership with Chewy, read on below.

Here’s the step-by-step process to join the Chewy affiliate program:

Input your personal info so they can verify that you’re not a scammer. Some people prefer to make a business email, while others funnel it to their personal address. Once you’ve decided the route that you want to go, give them your first and last name, country, and address.
Show proof of your website, traffic, and its niche. They need to know that you have a way to bring traffic to their links. Chewy prides itself in their customer satisfaction ratings, which means they don’t want to have a bad reputation for spamming forums. Enter your website, the amount of traffic that you receive, and related info.
Review the terms and conditions. Chewy has a few regulations that you should read before you agree to everything. They require that you read and agree to the terms and conditions, so you don’t want to get yourself involved in something if you don’t read it all. Most of them are basic and expected, though.
Decide how you’ll promote the affiliate links. You can use links, banners, or any other form of promoting their products. Remember that you can promote your website via forums, social media, email lists, eBooks, and more. Try to make use of numerous traffic sources to increase your potential.

As you can see, it’s fairly simple to make an account with the company. You don’t need to wait around for countless weeks to get an approval.

This straight-forward process will bridge the gap between signing up and making money.

However, a quick approval process doesn’t mean that you’ll make a bunch of money right away. If you don’t go about it in the right way, you could be wasting your time.

Fortunately, the next section covers everything that you need to know to boost your potential earnings.

How Can You Increase Your Affiliate Income?

You might make a few sales here and there, but nothing beats getting multiple sales per day. If you want the Chewy affiliate program to be worth your time, you need to make sure that you’re making the most of it. This section is all about how you can earn a lot of money through your links without spending too much extra time.

So, what can you do? Try these suggestions:

Optimize your website’s SEO

Make sure that you’re using all of the proper keywords to fit your website. If you’re recommending dog food, include the brand and full product description multiple times in the post.

You won’t get any sales if nobody goes to your website, and nobody will go to your website if you don’t have decent SEO. Prosociate dives into the details of optimizing SEO for the niche.

Create “Top X” product review posts

Product review posts are known to be some of the best in the industry. They allow you to review and recommend dozens of products without having to make a bunch of posts.

Your readers will be able to find everything they need in one post. It’s the best way to make a bunch of sales, earn the trust of your readers, and lock in $15 per person.

Make a landing page about Chewy’s membership

Chewy offers an amazing membership that allows their customers to have access to newsletters, coupons, and more. One of the quickest ways to make $15 from a reader is to make a landing page dedicated to the program. Mention all of the pros, cons, and what they need to know before getting started.

These simple tips and tricks will make it a bit easier for you to increase your commissions. Sadly, there’s no way to raise your commission rate, but the quantity can always go up. By incorporating everything that you’ve learned so far, you’ll be doing everything that you can to make it better.

How to Use Chewy’s Partnership

If you’re not familiar with affiliate marketing, then this system can be a bit challenging. It’s not the most difficult situation, but it can be a tough time for some people.

The good news is that you don’t have to dig through random forums (although it doesn’t hurt to learn more from other affiliate marketers).

This is how you can use Chewy’s affiliate partnership from the start:

Keep an eye on the analytics page. It’ll show you everything that you need to know about your customers’ interactions with your links and banners. It’s debatably the most important and influential part of the program. You can track the sales and check the window of opportunity to know how long your customers have left to make a purchase.
Create your personalized links and banners. Rather than sticking to generic banners, you’ll be able to customize everything to fit the theme and appearance of your website. Your personalized links will bring every customer back to the website, triggering the tracking cookie so you can earn the aforementioned $15 commission.
Paste everything to your website. Once you’ve made your links and banners, it’s time to put them into action. You can highlight the text of the products when you type it on your website, then paste the link code as a hypertext. To implement a banner, you’ll need to paste the banner’s code into the HTML of your website.
Set up your payment method. You can choose a personal check, PayPal, or your bank account. You might have limited payment options, depending on where you live and what’s available in the area. Remember that some payment methods take a fee from your withdrawals, so it’ll reduce your income.
Contact customer support and the FAQ page whenever it’s necessary. Luckily, Chewy has a top-notch FAQ page that answers most of your questions related to their stock. You can check the answers, review various forums, or contact their 24/7 customer support service.

Using their program is rather simple. You don’t have to go in blindly, nor do you have to worry about spending money to join the program. If you’re a member of an animal shelter (or a similar organization), you can join their unique membership specifically for such people and organizations.

Does It Compare to Other Affiliate Memberships?

Affiliate marketing has been around for quite some time. People have been able to take advantage of all sorts of affiliate programs, so it’s not uncommon to compare the memberships to one another.

If you’re making sure that you’re getting the most money for the time you’ve spent on your website, then there are a few similar programs.

Amazon vs. Chewy

Amazon is the leading online retail company throughout the globe. Their affiliate program is also one of the top choices for people who want to make money online. If you’ve heard about affiliate marketing, then you’ve probably come across Amazon’s program. It offers decent commission rates and a wide selection of products.

Chewy has name-brand deals and a reliable commission rate, while Amazon has brands from all over the place. Some of them are well-known, whereas others aren’t known at all. Amazon’s commission rates sit between 1% to 5%, so the average transaction on pet products will be less than Chewy’s commission rate. However, you’ll be able to make money from repeat customers.

AliExpress vs. Chewy

AliExpress is known for its extremely low prices. If your customers are trying to get the cheapest deal, then Chewy will lose the battle 9 times out of 10. However, AliExpress doesn’t always offer the best quality. Sadly, the low prices are indicative of bad products or a requirement to buy them in bulk.

When it comes to their affiliate program, AliExpress offers similar rates to Amazon, give or take 2%. That being said, they have a Hot Deals section that pays as much as 50% commission per product. Much like Amazon, you’ll have great long-term success with AliExpress, but you won’t make as much money per transaction.

Petco vs. Chewy

Petco’s affiliate program isn’t as popular as most others, but it’s still worth checking out. They offer a generous affiliate commission of 8% per sale. That’s much more when people order hundreds of dollars worth of items, but it’s nowhere near the $15 per sign-up as offered by Chewy’s program.

A great feature of the Petco affiliate membership is that you’ll be able to sell more products to repeat customers, unlike Chewy’s customers. However, Petco cuts the tracking cookie length down to an incredibly low 7 days. This time limit is drastically lower than the vast majority of competitors, which might sway your opinion.

All in all, Chewy’s affiliate program stands among the best of them. It has decent tracking cookies, excellent one-time commission payments, and it’s easy to use. However, Petco, Amazon, and AliExpress have the undeniable advantage of allowing you to sell multiple times to the same customer.

FAQ

Although you know pretty much everything about the program, you might have a couple of extra questions.

After all, it’s crucial that you know everything about any business partnership that you’re trying to join. Let’s explore some of the most commonly asked questions alongside their answers below.

How often do you get paid by Chewy?

Chewy sends out payments once per month based on your customized payment schedule. Some payments are set on the 1st, some are on the 15th, or you could set a specific date that makes recurring payments. Note that these terms are subject to change at any time based on Chewy’s preferences.

Can you make money with Chewy’s affiliate program without a big website?

Yes, you can make money as an affiliate without a massive blog. However, it’s much more difficult to rank in the niche and sell Chewy’s products. Niche Facts suggests that you focus on evergreen content rather than simple terms, such as ‘Dog Food’, or ‘Cat Brush.’ Try to do keyword research before you choose an item to suggest or review.

Do you make money from existing customers?

Unfortunately, Chewy doesn’t pay their affiliates for anyone who’s made a transaction since 2012.

In other words, if someone’s a member of Chewy’s program and they’ve made a purchase between 2012 and today, you won’t make any money; No, it doesn’t matter if they clicked your link to make the purchase.

It’s possibly the biggest downside of the program.

Conclusion

Chewy’s affiliate program is an excellent choice for affiliate marketers who have a website in the pet care niche. If you fall under that category, then there’s no reason that you shouldn’t sign up for their program and start making money. You can mix a few other affiliate programs with Chewy’s to boost your income, or enjoy decent monthly payments.

Here’s a quick recap of the post:

Chewy offers a fixed rate of $15 per transaction.
You can’t make money from repeat customers or those who have been members since after 2012.
They offer a top-of-the-line analytics page to track your customers’ interactions.
The Chewy affiliate program is great for one-time payments from your readers.
Consider creating product review posts to increase your potential earnings.