How to find good deals every day: a guide for affiliates

Every affiliate reaches the same point: the group is growing, people expect deals every day, and you spend hours scrolling store apps without knowing whether that "discount" is real. The good news is that finding good deals isn't luck. It comes down to criteria, tools and a routine.

The short answer: a good deal is a product your audience wants, priced below what it usually costs (you check this in the price history), from a trustworthy seller with solid reviews. To find that every day, use price-history and comparison tools like Keepa and Google Shopping, set alerts for the products your group asks about most and follow a short daily hunting routine. Here's the full method.

What makes a deal actually good

A low price alone doesn't make a good deal. A cheap product nobody in your group wants won't get clicks. A "50% off" on a price that was pumped up the week before isn't a discount. Before you post, a deal should pass five filters:

1. Relevance: it fits your group's topic and what people ask for.
2. Real price: it's below the usual price, checked in the history.
3. Trust: a store or seller with a good reputation and a well-reviewed product.
4. Commission: the product qualifies under your affiliate program's rules (programs often exclude some categories or sellers, so check yours).
5. Honest urgency: if the price is time-limited, you know until when, or you say it may change.

Free tools to find and check deals

You don't need paid tools to start. These are the ones worth having in your hunting kit (check on each site what's free and what's paid):

Affiliate dashboards are an underrated hunting ground: that's where you see which products qualify and how much they pay before you spend time writing a post. Commissions and rules change without notice, so always check the current terms in each program.

How to read a price history (and avoid fake discounts)

A price history shows what a product has cost over time. It answers the most important question in deal hunting: is this price actually good?

Look at three things on the chart:

• The usual price: where the line sits most of the time;
• The lowest recent price: if today's price is close to it, it's a good deal;
• Spikes before the sale: if the price went up days before "dropping", the discount is smaller than it looks.

In this example, $64 is still the lowest price of the period, so it's worth posting. But the honest message is "lowest price in months", not "was $109", which was a one-off spike.

Set price alerts so you work less

Hunting everything by hand every day is exhausting. The fix is to let the tools tell you. Keepa, for example, lets you track a product and get notified when its price drops. Alert options vary from tool to tool.

How to build your alert list:

1. 1
   List your group's favorites

   Which products did people ask for or click on most last month? Start with 10 to 20.

2. 2
   Find the usual price

   Open each product's history and write down the normal price and the lowest recent price.

3. 3
   Turn on alerts

   Track those products in a price-alert tool. When an alert arrives, compare it with the lowest recent price you noted.

4. 4
   Review monthly

   Remove what people stopped caring about and add new requests from the group.

With alerts set up, some of the month's best deals come to you instead of you chasing them.

Coupons: how to use them without burning trust

A coupon turns a good deal into a great one, but it's also the number one source of complaints in deals groups. Some practical rules:

• Get coupons from official sources: the product page, the store's coupon section or your affiliate dashboard;
• Test before posting whenever you can, all the way to the cart;
• State the conditions: minimum spend, usage limit, category, expiry date;
• Say when it's gone. A quick "coupon has run out" shows you care and avoids frustration.

A 45-minute daily deal-hunting routine

The routine below is a starting point. The secret isn't the exact time, it's doing it every day in the same time block.

1. 10 min
   Alerts and dashboards

   Go through the price alerts that came in and the featured campaigns in your affiliate dashboards.

2. 15 min
   Niche hunt

   Look for 5 to 10 products in your group's topic. Use a comparison tool to see if they're cheaper elsewhere.

3. 10 min
   Filter

   Run each product through the 5 filters. Keep only the best 3 to 5.

4. 10 min
   Links and messages

   Create your affiliate links, test them in a private browser window and write the posts from your template.

Then post throughout the day, spaced out, at the times your audience is active. If you manage several groups, sending can run on autopilot while you hunt: AutoProd posts the products you've added, each one to the group for the right topic. The hunting, which is what makes your group worth joining, stays with you.

Let your group tell you what to hunt

The fastest way to find deals people actually want is to ask them. Your members already know what they're about to buy; you just need to collect it.

• Run a monthly poll: "what are you planning to buy in the next few weeks?". The answers go straight onto your alert list;
• Keep a request note: every time someone asks "any deal on X?", write it down. Three requests for the same thing means it deserves an alert;
• Watch what gets clicks: your affiliate dashboard shows which products got clicks and orders. If you use other links, tagging them with the free Campaign URL Builder helps you see which posts sent traffic;
• Notice what makes people leave: if members drop after a certain type of deal, stop hunting in that direction.

After a few weeks, your hunting gets narrower and faster, because you stop searching the whole store and start watching the products your group has already told you it wants.

Dates that pack in deals through the end of the year

Some dates call for extra hunting, with links ready before the day. "Double dates" like 11.11 and 12.12 are campaigns that marketplaces set each year, and participation varies by country, so confirm each store's official program.

1. Nov 11
   11.11

   A "double date" for marketplaces such as AliExpress. Confirm the official program in your country.

2. Nov 27
   Black Friday

   The Friday after US Thanksgiving. Each store sets its own sale period, so start your alert list weeks ahead.

3. Nov 30
   Cyber Monday

   The Monday after Black Friday. A good moment for electronics.

4. Dec 12
   12.12

   Another marketplace double date, with Christmas in mind.

5. Dec 25
   Christmas

   Post gift ideas early, because of delivery times.

Running a gaming group? The video game sales calendar has the official Steam and PlayStation dates.

Shortcuts that lead to bad deals

Turn your find into a message

Found the deal? Now it needs a clear message with an affiliate disclosure. Use a fixed template and change only the details:

Affiliate link
🔥 *{PRODUCT NAME}*
{why it's a good deal: lowest price in X months, coupon, free shipping}
💰 *{PRICE}* (price checked at {TIME}, may change)
🎟️ Coupon: {COUPON} ({conditions})
👉 {YOUR AFFILIATE LINK}

To write even better posts, read how to write a deal message that sells. And for the bigger picture on sharing products in groups, see how to promote products in WhatsApp groups.