All sorts of live events are making their way back into the realm of possibility. But in this article, we’ll be focusing on sports events rather than live music or comedy entertainment. This is because now is your chance to prepare your affiliate audience for the upcoming games and make some of the highest commissions in the industry while you’re at it.

How? Antivirus software is saving the day one device at a time. So, are you ready to help your customers watch all the sports events of the summer hassle-free?

Read on to find out how to make money with the Antivirus & VPN niche during 2022 sports events!

Are Antivirus and VPN ads still profitable in 2022?

In a word, yes. According to research carried out by MarketResearchFuture the antivirus software market is set to increase by 10.8% from 2020-26. It has always been a profitable vertical in affiliate marketing with some antivirus and VPN providers paying some of the highest commissions per customer in the affiliate industry.

In fact, this vertical has been considered to be an evergreen niche, meaning that you can rely on it to give you a solid return on your investment all year round if you know what you’re doing.

Has the pandemic made it harder to run Antivirus and VPN offers?

Again, the answer is short and concise — no. Actually, due to the pandemic and many companies moving towards the work-from-home model, the demand for antivirus and VPN services has been exponential in recent times. Work computers placed at private homes need to be secure online, and both VPN and antivirus software helps keep employers at peace knowing that their employee’s devices won’t break down or get hacked in the middle of the workday.

This has been a big opportunity for affiliate marketers who can offer a discount on the antivirus software to the end-user and offer more sign-ups to the antivirus companies. That’s what we call a win-win-win.

Remote work has really been a boost to the VPN and antivirus niche in affiliate marketing. But we may not have seen the peak of this bull market just yet, with the opportunity that these summer sports events pose.

The comeback of sports events and why this matters to the Antivirus niche

According to research by A.T. Kearney, the sports events industry is estimated to be valued at up to $620 billion, much of that being from football/soccer. So, pay attention to events like the FIFA 2022 World Cup or the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics which have already kicked off. That means this is the time to advertise your Antivirus and VPN offers to these sports fans now.

Although there are always large sponsorship deals done for events like the Olympic games and other sporting events, this is not the only way to make money with sports events. You know it’s possible by now to take advantage of the big events of the calendar like Valentine’s Day, Easter, or Black Friday, right? Well, big sports games are just the same, millions of people gathered in one place thinking about one thing is always an opportunity to make some money if you’re quick enough.

When all these people are interested in watching their favorite sport live, but the coronavirus has made it difficult for that to happen in person, need once again calls for inventions That’s not to say in-person sports events aren’t taking place, they are, just not on the size or caliber that they once were pre-covid. So, a solution to this is big screens and watching the game safely at home. And that opens a great deal of business opportunities for affiliate marketers.

How the Streaming angle skyrockets during big sport events

The surge in demand comes with the summer of sport and the summer of streaming sites. Everyone wants to watch their favorite sports teams whether that’s in the FIFA 2022 World Cup, Wimbledon, or even the Tour de France. And when there are sports events, there are streaming platforms to provide the broadcasts to the fans around the world. But we all know some of these sites are on the risky side, so a good solution to this is the Antivirus and VPN software that’s available to promote to your customers.

This is also a great opportunity for VPNs which help some users access streaming sites that are not available in their country via their IP address.

It’s less about the crowds heading to the venues, but rather capturing the opportunity to make money online via those catching all the action from the comfort and safety of their own home.

Benefits for sports fans using Antivirus and VPNs:

🏆   Private and secure online activity.

🏆  Accessing (streaming) sites that are blocked by their GEO.

🏆  Secure access on public/shared internet connections.

🏆  Improving the speed of connection (for online sports gaming).

🏆  Saving money internet shopping, e.g. when buying flight tickets to the match.

🏆  Bypassing Internet censorship and restrictions.

🏆  Securely and/or anonymously downloading files.

🏆  Safe access to a business or home network while traveling.

Which sports should affiliates focus on for the Antivirus & VPN niche?

Nearly all major sporting events are broadcast on multiple different news outlets in 2022. Naturally, this leads to huge advertising opportunities as the viewership for such events is huge.
For example, for Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics there are over 220 nations broadcasting the games, each with different broadcasting needs. And that doesn’t even cover the unofficial sites streaming those broadcasts.

To take advantage of such large numbers of viewers online you will need to target users on streaming platforms where the sporting events might be held. Therefore, the Antivirus and VPN vertical is a perfect pairing for such sites as people want to be able to watch their sports team while being safe and secure online.

Another reason the target audience might want to download a VPN is to watch their favorite sports team while abroad or simply they prefer the streaming services provided by another country. A VPN solves this problem as the user can select from a list of countries to have their connection routed from in order to allow them to have access to such a streaming service.

For example, the BBC Sport coverage for FIFA World Cup 2022 is in English but limited to viewers with IP addresses within the U.K. What’s the solution for this? Simple, a VPN that can allow you access to servers based in the United Kingdom and thus access to your favorite commentators in your native language.

Essentially this means that any sporting event with a live broadcast is an opportunity to make money as an affiliate marketer this summer. So, we are suggesting that you do your own research to see which sports events make the most sense for you and your campaigns this summer.

Sports Events Calendar

To help you navigate through this summer’s timeline, we’ve prepared an ultimate sports events calendar for affiliate marketers. Just have a look below! The calendar has all the key dates for when spectators might want to engage with VPN and Antivirus offers the most, giving you heads-up as to when and where (GEOs the games are held in are also included) it’d be best to promote them.

💡 TIP: If you are running antivirus software or VPN with push traffic, we especially suggest you target the specific dates of these events to ensure the best chance of your success with your campaigns.

What Targeting works best for Antivirus & VPN niche?

Desktop

Desktop has always performed well for the Antivirus niche. From when the first computers were placed inside people’s homes, other people designed and coded computer viruses. This means that historically speaking, computer viruses have been mostly created to affect desktop devices. Although with the decline in desktop use and a switch to mobile and tablet devices for nearly all internet-based activities, the antivirus market has also changed.

Still, there are many tasks that people prefer to do from a desktop device, as there is a perception of an added level of security from such devices. For example, banking, e-commerce, and gambling all feel safer to the user from behind a laptop rather than on mobile.

However, the demand for desktop devices protection is still there. And as we have already mentioned, the demand for home-based desktop devices has significantly increased due to global work-from-home initiatives to help during the coronavirus pandemic. Hence, the demand to keep such devices protected has also increased. So, the number of desktop devices to target has naturally increased despite a general switch to mobile devices.

As we can see in the example of UEFA EURO 2016, the advertiser demand increased in direct correlation with the dates of the games, and so did the conversions for the same period.

We are currently seeing the same boost in traffic in this niche in particular from data available for FIFA World Cup 2022 this year too. So, if it works for this event then take another look at that calendar and start planning your campaigns carefully to maximize your return on investment with desktop traffic.

Mobile

Does mobile have enough antivirus traffic for it to be worth running mobile antivirus campaigns?

Well, in short mobile is still where you can make some money with antivirus and VPN. As we have said, the world is trending away from using desktop devices for the majority of tasks according to a survey by WeAreSocial and Hootsuite.

In an attempt to gain a share of that market, there have been antivirus mobile applications that can be downloaded to protect users from many different threats to their devices and even plugins to mobile browsers too in the case of VPNs.

From recent research from the market, it has been seen that there has also been an uptake in antivirus downloads from tablet users. However, desktop is still where the big payouts occur, as payouts can be as much as $60 according to Offervault.

It’s the affiliate marketer’s job to find exactly what works for their target audience, and not to forget to separate the device type for each campaign. You don’t want to show desktop downloads to mobile users, that’s a rookie mistake!

Based on our research here are the top-performing GEOs for mobile push ads for antivirus and VPN 

This data was taken during the UEFA EURO 2016 for antivirus and so highlights the opportunity for the upcoming sports events in this niche. And the beauty of this niche is that it is broad, as ironic as that sounds. Just about every person with a computer or mobile device can benefit from this kind of protection technology online.

What are some of the most popular antivirus and VPN providers worth promoting?

Here we will give you a rundown of some of the most popular choices of antivirus software companies, or VPN providers with affiliate offers, or programs to promote.

Antivirus Examples available from Offer Wall partners:

🔰  Norton

🔰  McAfee

🔰  Avast

🔰  Panda 

🔰  Kaspersky

🔰  ESET

🔰  TOTALAV

🔰  BullGuard

🔰  HEIMDAL

🔰  TREND Micro

VPN Examples available from Offer Wall partners:

🌎  Express VPN

🌎  Hola VPN 

🌎  Nord VPN

🌎  ZenMate

🌎  SurfShark

🌎  VyprVPN

🌎  PrivateVPN

🌎  VirtualShield

🌎  HideMyAss

🌎  CyberGhost

🌎  IPVANISH VPN 

Many of the most popular VPNs listed above have affiliate programs that you can join as well. So, if you have a blog website or large social media following it might be worth joining one of the affiliate programs and seeing if you can make money from your established audience.

On the other hand, there are always offers from them that you can promote without a website, often from affiliate networks like the ones provided below.

Affiliate networks providing these offers:

• Maxbounty
• Zeydoo
• Lemonads
• Clickdealer

Each of the affiliate networks provides offers on both antivirus and VPNs that you can use with your sports events campaigns right now. And many of them have additional bonuses for being a Zeropark customer too.

Zeropark Deals

If you’ve got a Zeropark account then we have a bonus waiting just for you! Did you know you can go to a place that has the affiliate marketing industry’s best networks, advertisers, affiliate programs, top offers, and tools such as trackers, landing page builders, and spy tools? Well, that’s the Zeropark Deals section. And each deal has an exclusive bonus just for being a Zeropark customer.

If you’re looking to make some extra profit this is the place for you. It’s the Deals tab, which can be found in your account dashboard. We update it regularly so remember to come back and check if there is a new deal for you as we might have just added some new partners.

And if you’re only after affiliate offers, head to the Offer Wall under the Deals tab to see what’s waiting for you.

Examples of ad copy & creatives  for Antivirus & VPN niche

As you can see in the case of push ads example, the way that we market antivirus still has to be through suggestion rather than aggression. And if you want to find out what works best with antivirus, we’ve got another blog post for you, just click here to read!

Conclusions 

The demand for antivirus has gone through the roof in recent times, both from the rise in the work-from-home model and now from the comeback of sports events. In both cases, the need for privacy and security is as important as ever.

With more people watching sporting events from home this summer, the antivirus vertical has continued to be one of the most popular and profitable niches in the industry. We know that push traffic works best with this vertical, so use that and the other helping hints in this guide to give yourself a head start against your competition this summer. Once you’ve found your formula of the right copy and creatives for your customers you’re halfway there. Now go drive some quality traffic to your campaigns and watch them take off!

 Want to win big with Antivirus & VPN ads?
Run your campaigns with Zeropark!