Ultimate guide to bundle collaborations

Bundles are the new “thing” and considered “more powerful than ads”.

I surmise that’s because collaborations are powerful, and collaborative bundles = a symbiotic collaboration.

I’ve been using collabs to grow my email list and catapult my biz into an actual something, but I find the information about bundles is quite lacking on the internet.

I’m being a rebel and sharing everything I’ve learned and figured out about bundles so far. 👇

What are bundle collaborations?

A collaborative bundle consists of a bunch of digital products made available for free or a fee less than what the products would be worth collectively.

Types of bundles

There are three types of bundles:

  1. Free
  2. Paid
  3. Hybrid

Free bundles

With free bundles, you opt-in via inputting your email address in a field to receive access to the bundle of curated products for free.

Paid bundles

Paid bundles are typically anywhere between $5-100, much less than what you’d pay for the products included in the bundle if you were to buy them separately.

There is a cart to buy the bundle, which you receive access to after successful payment completion.

Hybrid bundles

A hybrid bundle may be one of three formats:

  1. Combination of free and paid
  2. Free bundle with paid upgrade (usually a bundle items tracker via Airtable or Google Sheets) or extension (extra time to collect the products you want)
  3. Free version and paid version, e.g.
    1. Free version goes up to $100 in product value (each)
    2. Paid version has products valued at $100+ each

Benefits of participating in bundles

Why might you want to participate in bundles at all?

I had to convince my cousin, my blog flipping business partner, that giving away a paid digital product for free was good for business and NOT detrimental to it.

I’ve seen other people balk at the entire concept of bundles, wondering why it’s even worth it when their product costs $$$ — and relent later because their business mentor did.

1. Grow your email list

Contributing to, or sponsoring bundles, helps you grow your list. The better, more relevant your offer, the more people who will want to sign up.

2. Network with other collaborators

Everyone who contributes to the bundle wants it to do well (or should). Many contributors also want to collaborate with each other, to boost each other up along with the bundle.

Bundles provide wonderful opportunities for exactly that, and you get to build a network of fellow people doing business online.

You might find someone to co-host a bundle with, be invited to other collabs, or engage in freebie swaps where you give each other’s freebie a shout-out in your newsletter.

3. Invite your existing audience deeper into your world

Participating in bundles is a great way for people already on your list to sample your product suite before buying your other offers.

Actually, I’ve experienced almost all of Elizabeth Goddard’s low-ticket offers in the past two years because she participated in bundles. Her participation exposed me to resources I’d not have experienced otherwise, or as soon as I had. ✨

And now I’m speaking at both of her summits this summer. 👀

4. Exposure & credibility

Being able to say you participated in X bundle may boost your online business credibility. If people have never heard of that bundle, the bundle host, or know what bundles even are — then probably not.

If you choose to display the bundle or bundle host’s logo(s) on your page, ask for permission first. Logos are part of intellectual property and copyright, meaning you need permission to use them (even if promoting). ✨

4. Income boost

You can boost your income when collaborating via bundles by adding an upsell or tripwire, depending on the collaboration rules, to your contributed product’s opt-in.

Another “native”, or organic, way to boost your income internally is by creating a special welcome sequence for those who opt-in to your contributed product that includes affiliate links to your top recommended tools and resources.

The welcome sequence route is perhaps the easiest to setup, since it doesn’t require you to have extra additional products.

Paid bundles pay out special contributor commissions. I’ve seen paid bundle contributors say that upsells and tripwires don’t sell as well with paid bundles (since they’ve already paid for the bundle), but affiliate sales seems to be the trade-off.

5. Easier to participate in bundles than to host

I personally prefer participating in bundles over hosting bundles.

Hosting bundle collabs is hard and better done with a team, even if that’s only ONE other person.

Participating in bundles is supposed to be EASY, not stressful, even in the event of hiccups. Everything is provided for you, making the participation process mindless.

Prerequisites to participating in bundles

All bundle collaborations have prerequisites (prereqs). Always make sure you read through them to ensure you qualify to apply.

⚡ Many bundles usually have sponsor packages, meaning you sponsor the bundle for a definite inclusion.

These packages often mean you can circumvent the prereqs and aren’t as obligated to fulfill the contributor duties. It all depends on the sponsor package!

1. Email list

Sometimes, having email subscribers doesn’t matter as long as you have an engaged social following.

A subscriber count is preferred, though. Minimum subscribe count requirements are usually 50-2500 subscribers.

⚡ If you’re subscribed to the bundle host’s membership, there may be an exception to subscriber requirement minimums.

👉 Subscriber count minimums exist to create fairness. Some leniency may exist on occasion, but don’t count on it.

2. Way for people to snag your digital offer for free

The point of collaborative bundles is to offer one of your digital products for free in exchange for the bundle attendees opting in or buying the bundle.

Ergo, you need to give people a way to snag your offer for free.

I prefer opt-in forms, but have also used Gumroad, which is what I use for course-related material.

Email opt-ins work well for downloadable goodies or if you already automate a lot of processes in your biz.

Less work to opt-in, the better

The less hoops people have to jump through to opt-in to your product, the more likely they are to sign-up.

Tips:

  • General rule is to NOT require people to input their card info unless they choose to buy your upsell. Despite info being stored in Stripe, that increases risk because credit card info is stored in yet another place that they might not ever even buy from.
  • I hate being asked for my phone number & Instagram handle. It’s weird if I don’t even know you like that (even if the Instagram is public information). 🤔
  • Why do you need my address for digital product freebies if I’m not even going to buy anything with money yet? That’s personal info that I don’t just give out to anyone.

The simpler, the better

  • More effort required to signup for your freebie deters people
  • Email opt-ins work best for downloads or templates they’ll need to make copies of (that don’t require tutorials) — ConvertKit allows for unlimited forms
  • 100% coupon code for opt-ins with a cart
  • Gumroad is my go-to + has email marketing capabilities

Products you can contribute to bundles

Ultimate Bundles has been around for years, but bundle collaborations only started growing more popular late 2022 and probably more so in 2023 — so plenty of people still don’t know.

Trainings

“Trainings” is an umbrella term for any kind of educational or informational content delivered as a training, e.g.:

  • E-courses
  • Live training
  • Mini classes
  • Tutorials
  • Workshops

Digital downloads

The most classic digital product offer on the web, in my experience, is a digital download. I’ve seen more and more people be creative with theirs — and I love this.

Examples of digital downloads:

  • Clip art
  • E-books
  • Printables
  • Stock photos

Templates

Templates are popular bundle offer contributions, but I haven’t seen too much saturation yet — even if multiple people contribute similar types of templates. The target audience is still different, and the template styles are different from each contributor.

Types of template products:

Tips for successful bundle collabs

1. Choose carefully.

Good bundle hosts choose who they accept/reject carefully, so why shouldn’t you do similar when choosing to apply for bundles?

Don’t participate in bundles that don’t share your target audience.

Make sure the host’s values match your own.

When I choose a bundle, I ask whether it’s…

  • LGBTQ-friendly?
  • Supports diversity?
  • Gender-focused?
Is the bundle LGBTQ-friendly?

I’ve never seen a Christian-focused bundle that is accepting of LGBTQ+ peeps.

I’d also never apply to one because I don’t want to expose myself to that kind of hypocritical rejection (even LGBTQ+ Christians are rejected by anti-LGBTQ+ Christians).

Christian-focused bundles typically promote a particular brand of Christianity.

Does the host support diversity?

Virtue-signaling happens a lot and is really annoying, because it’s only signaling and seldom with the values associated with that.

I was surprised to find out how many online business owners have the three-line small text spiel of how they don’t discriminate against marginalized communities — while their content is inaccessible, their messaging is ableist and gaslight-y, and they have a quiz for their audience to find out what their [industry] spirit animal is. 🥴

Is the collaboration gender-focused?

I feel uneasy about contributing to bundles that are “FOR women, BY women” because of my own gender struggles and the fact that I have nonbinary people in my audience. 🤷‍♀️

A collab for women and nonbinary people would be OK, since there is fluidity there.

I find ascribing to “woman” entirely far too restricting.

2. Contribute a product related to the theme.

If your digital product doesn’t relate to the bundle theme, you’re wasting everyone’s time.

3. DON’T contribute a random product.

Only contribute products that relate to your regular offers or what you want to be in your digital offer suite.

Otherwise, you will have a bunch of people who signed up for that random product with little way to tie them in to the rest of your product suite.

I could contribute a training on starting a mom blog to a bundle, because I have that experience. My other blogging-related offers would fit in with that product nicely.

However, I don’t imagine a training on how to build one’s own car would have any place within my business because it’s unrelated to everything I do. 🤷‍♀️

4. Consider the value of the product against the bundle.

More valuable products tend to perform better, though value is perceived by each person based on their own biases.

This is rather something you need to consider on your own against your own pricing standards.

5. Upsells & tripwires

Products need to be related to each other, or else they won’t sell well.

Trying to sell a watercolor course to someone who signed up to receive Peachy Presentations would be futile, since the two audiences are usually not the same.

It would be different if people saw both products in my shop and decide to buy them together, however.

I prefer to nurture new subscribers with a welcome sequence that has some affiliate links, in addition to my offers, rather than quickly directing them to a tripwire.

I currently have only a welcome sequence that introduces me + lays out expectations of what to receive from me, because I upended my biz to simplify it.

6. Promoting the bundle

Track conversions using your affiliate link; bundle hosts use this data to determine whether contributors promote, too.

I’m really bad about signing up for the affiliate programs, since I don’t have PayPal and it goes to my cousin’s account as her payment for being my graphics person. 💁‍♀️

Bundle hosts may sign up for your newsletter to ensure you’re promoting the bundle as you promised, but I’ve mostly had to fill out forms — which I’m bad about remembering during the bundle. 🥴

Scheduling your promos ahead is better than waiting until the day of to promote the bundle.

7. Nurture new subscribers

Many people will unsubscribe ASAP or after a short while. Some will return.

This is normal. 🤷‍♀️ Expect a high subscriber turnover, but prepare to nurture new subscribers anyway.

I use a welcome sequence. All of my subscribers receive the same one. 💁‍♀️ I could totally change this and might in the future, but I keep things simple and combine things anyways. 🤷‍♀️ So this is what works for me.

I don’t treat subscribers coming from bundles/summits any differently.

8. Contribute a product you HAVEN’T yet

Bundle products that have already been featured in other bundles diminish the value of the bundle.

There was a bundle contributor who contributed the same exact offer (an affiliate marketing ebook) to nearly every bundle in 2022 — paid and free.

And I know those bundles’ prereqs said NOT to contribute anything that has already been featured in other bundles in the past year.

Common bundle prereqs in regard to “repeat” contributions:

  • NEVER been seen in a bundle (Ultimate Bundles and I think even Lizzy’s Christmas Party are like this)
  • NOT been in a bundle the past 6mos (most common)
  • Hasn’t been in a bundle in the past 3mos (least common)

9. Audit the bundle results

After a bundle, audit the results you get.

I give my bundle experiences a full month before I go about making sense of any data — or until the redemption period is over.

Where to find bundle collabs

So…where do you even find bundles to apply for?

Facebook Groups

Facebook Groups are the #1 hangout for bundle and summit collab sign-ups.

Groups include:

Memberships

A couple bundle-related membership programs exist where you can join in on their bundles, learn how to do bundles better, etc.:

  1. Bundle Bash
  2. Bundle Better by Bree Boucher

Newsletters

Some regular bundle hosts share about bundles they’re hosting via their newsletter.

  • Bree Boucher also shares about upcoming bundles, as is seen in her Facebook Group.
  • Elizabeth Goddard hosts a hybrid bundle at the end of the year and two summer summits.
  • Steph Blake hosts a few bundles each year.

Word-of-mouth

If you know other online business owners who participate in bundles, consider asking them.

Subscribe to my blogging tips newsletter for more blogging tips and to find out when I post new tell-all posts like this 👇

Love this post?

Support me by subscribing to my blog and/or buying me a cuppa:

Leave a comment