Gas Tax Holiday 2022: 6 Ways to Make Money From Rising Gas Prices

When President Biden called for a gas tax holiday in 2022, most people reacted one of two ways: relief or skepticism. Gas prices had been brutal, and a three-month reprieve from federal gas taxes felt like a lifeline. But while everyone else was debating the politics, a specific group of affiliate marketers spotted something different. They saw a trending search term with 234,000 YouTube views in 15 hours, a keyword difficulty score of 68 out of 100, and almost zero serious competition. That is the window this video is about.

In this breakdown, you will see how Alston used the gas tax holiday announcement to walk through a real-time affiliate marketing opportunity: where the traffic was going, which platforms were responding fastest, and exactly which affiliate programs could turn that traffic into commissions. The methods here go well beyond the news cycle. The underlying traffic-to-affiliate playbook works any time a high-interest topic surges with low-competition search volume.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A framework for spotting trending affiliate opportunities before they peak
The exact Ahrefs keyword filter that surfaces low-competition, high-volume gas-related terms
A step-by-step Facebook group growth strategy you can launch in a single afternoon
Six monetization methods tied to rising gas prices, including credit card affiliate programs, rebate platforms, and auto product commissions
How to approach local gas station sponsorships once your audience hits a meaningful size
The mindset shift that turns any trending news story into a repeatable content funnel
A platform-by-platform look at where people are actually searching for gas savings content
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Why the Gas Tax Holiday Created a Traffic Surge Almost Overnight

The announcement hit, and within hours YouTube was flooded. Alston pulled up the search results for “gas tax holiday” and the numbers were hard to ignore: one video sitting at 6,000 views posted just 22 hours earlier, another at 234,000 views from 15 hours prior. The topic was brand new, still rising, and the competition score on TubeBuddy showed a 68 out of 100, which means a lot of people care about this but very few creators have staked out territory yet.

This is the pattern that repeats across trending affiliate opportunities. A real-world event drives a spike in a related search term. Most creators wait too long, producing content after the wave has already crested. The ones who move fast and produce honest, useful content in the first 24 to 72 hours capture the majority of the organic views. The gas tax holiday in 2022 was a compressed, visible example of that cycle playing out in real time.

The broader insight is not about gas taxes specifically. It is about training yourself to spot the gap between what people urgently want to know and how much quality content already exists. When that gap is wide, there is an opportunity. When the topic also connects naturally to affiliate programs with real commission potential, the opportunity becomes worth pursuing seriously.

Keyword Research: What People Are Actually Searching

Alston used Ahrefs to dig into the related search landscape, starting with “cheapest gas” as the seed term. The data came back with 447,000 monthly searches and 13,000 related keywords. At first glance that sounds competitive, but here is where keyword research skill pays off: filtering keyword difficulty to 20 or less revealed a completely different picture.

Terms like “cheapest gas in Bakersfield,” “cheapest gas in Albuquerque,” and “cheapest gas in Tucson” all showed meaningful monthly search volume with low competition. These are hyper-local queries that a massive national publication has no interest in targeting. That creates a wide-open lane for a smaller creator or blogger who is willing to go specific.

The second major keyword cluster was “how to save money on gas.” Alston pulled this up on YouTube and found a top result with 890,000 views posted just three weeks earlier. Channels of every size were producing this content and getting traction. The Ahrefs data confirmed that the question “how to save money on gas” was being asked in dozens of variations, each representing a slightly different audience intent. Some people want to compare gas station prices. Others want fuel efficiency tips. Others want to know whether warehouse club membership is worth it just for the gas savings. Every one of those sub-questions is a content opportunity with an affiliate angle.

Traffic Source 1: Building a Facebook Group Around Cheapest Gas

This is the strategy that Alston spends the most time on in the video, and it is worth understanding why. Facebook groups have a unique advantage over YouTube channels or blogs when it comes to community-driven topics: the audience creates the content for you.

The example in the video is a group called something like “Cheapest Gas in Kenosha.” You start hyper-local, posting every time you drive by a station with a good price. You photograph the sign, note the location, and post it. The key insight is that this type of content is exactly what people want to contribute to as well. Someone driving home from work spots a low price, takes a photo, posts it in the group. That is organic, community-generated content that costs you nothing but attracts exactly the people who want to save money at the pump.

Once the local group hits momentum, you expand the geography. “Cheapest Gas in Kenosha” becomes “Cheapest Gas in Wisconsin.” That group can eventually become a statewide resource, and if you are ambitious, you run the same playbook across all 50 states. Alston notes that starting three or four posts per day is the right pace to prime the algorithm and show potential members that the group is active. Once the community takes over, your job shifts from producing content to moderating and monetizing.

The monetization layer sits underneath this community structure. Every post about cheap gas is a natural entry point for affiliate offers: the Costco membership that gets you access to cheaper gas, the credit card that gives cashback on fuel purchases, or the fuel additive that improves your miles per gallon. The community trusts you because you built the resource. The affiliate links feel like helpful recommendations, not ads.

Traffic Source 2: YouTube and Short-Form Video

YouTube was already producing results in this niche at the time of the video. Alston showed a result: “Wisconsin’s averaging the lowest gas prices in the country” pulling 2,500 views. “Wisconsin gas prices top five dollars” getting 21,000 views in two weeks. These are not huge viral numbers, but they represent steady organic traffic from people who are actively in the market for gas savings information.

The TikTok angle is also real. Alston pulled up TikTok.com and searched for “cheapest gas prices” and found creators getting hundreds of thousands of views on content that would take maybe ten minutes to shoot. A walk through a parking lot comparing prices at two different stations nearby. A quick review of the GasBuddy app. A side-by-side of Costco versus a name-brand station on the same day. These are low-production videos that answer a high-intent question.

The strategic move is to use TikTok and Facebook as traffic funnels into YouTube, and YouTube as the platform where you build deeper authority and drive affiliate clicks. Short-form content hooks the viewer; long-form content closes the relationship and earns the click.

Monetization Method 1: Credit Card Affiliate Programs

This is the highest-commission angle in the gas savings niche. Several credit cards offer cash back or discounts specifically at gas stations, and the affiliate commissions for credit card signups are substantial. Alston walked through Impact.com (also called Impact Radius) and showed that typing “credit card” into the marketplace surfaces a range of programs: AARP, tallyprivacy.com, credit.com, OpenSky, Capital Bank, and more.

Commission Junction (CJ.com) and FlexOffers are two additional affiliate networks mentioned as sources for credit card programs. The pitch to your audience writes itself: “You are already spending money on gas. This card gives you cash back every time you fill up. Here is the link.” The affiliate value proposition aligns perfectly with the audience problem, which is why conversion rates in this category tend to be higher than random product recommendations.

The key is to lead with the audience’s existing frustration (high gas prices) and frame the credit card as a partial solution. You are not selling a credit card; you are showing people how to recover two to five percent of their gas spending automatically. That framing changes the psychology of the click.

Monetization Method 2: Rebate and Cashback Platforms

Swagbucks is the example Alston walks through, and it is a strong one for this niche. Swagbucks offers coupons, gift cards, and cashback on everyday purchases including gas and groceries. More importantly for affiliate marketers, Swagbucks has its own affiliate program. When someone signs up through your link and starts earning points, you get a commission.

The audience fit here is broader than credit cards. Not everyone wants to open a new credit card. But almost everyone is willing to sign up for a free app that saves them money on things they already buy. That lower barrier to action means higher conversion rates, even if the per-conversion commission is smaller. Swagbucks is one of several rebate platforms in this space; similar programs exist across the cashback app landscape, and most of them have affiliate structures available through the major networks.

Monetization Method 3: Fuel Additives and Auto Products

This is an underutilized angle that most people in the gas savings niche completely miss. Fuel additives actually exist to help drivers get more miles per gallon, and there is a surprisingly active search landscape around them. Alston searched “do fuel additives actually help” and found content from Geico and other high-authority sources discussing brands like STP and Sta-Bil.

The affiliate play here is through Amazon Associates or the AutoZone affiliate program. You create content that answers the question honestly: “Do fuel additives work, and if so, which ones?” You link to the products directly. The audience that finds this content is already motivated to reduce their gas spending, so a product that costs ten dollars and claims to improve mileage is an easy, low-commitment purchase for them to make.

The creative extension of this idea is tire pressure gauges and tire purchases. Properly inflated tires improve fuel efficiency, which is a real, documented fact. That creates a content hook: “Your tires might be costing you 10 cents per gallon.” The affiliate angle is through the Tire Rack affiliate program or Amazon, promoting tire gauges, nitrogen inflation services, or new tires for vehicles with worn tread. The connection between tires and gas savings is counterintuitive enough to drive clicks out of curiosity alone.

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Monetization Method 4: The Costco Affiliate Program

Costco is a natural fit for the gas savings audience for an obvious reason: Costco is consistently among the cheapest places to buy gas in the country. Alston mentioned that Costco (along with Sam’s Club) typically offers gas prices below market rates, and the Costco affiliate program pays a commission of around six dollars for every new member signup.

Six dollars per signup may sound modest, but consider the context. You are talking to an audience that is already motivated by saving money on gas. A Costco membership pays for itself in gas savings for most households that drive regularly. Making that specific, data-backed case in a YouTube video or Facebook group post is not a hard sell. It is useful math. The audience does the arithmetic themselves and makes the decision.

The content angle is simple: “How much would you save on gas with a Costco membership?” You take the current price difference between Costco and the nearest full-price station, multiply it by average monthly gallons, subtract the annual membership cost, and show the net savings. That kind of concrete, personalized calculation drives signups.

Monetization Method 5: Gas Finder Facebook Groups With Affiliate Integration

Alston searched for existing “gas finder” Facebook groups and found one with 346 members and 10 posts per year. That is a dramatically underserved community. Someone who built this group properly, posted regularly, and created a culture of member contributions could realistically reach thousands of members in a single metro area within a few months.

The affiliate integration inside the group is where this becomes a real business. A pinned post at the top of the group links to your blog article comparing the best cashback credit cards for gas. A weekly pinned update includes your affiliate link to GasBuddy or a similar app. A monthly roundup post covers the cheapest gas stations in the area and includes your Swagbucks affiliate link for members who want to stack savings. None of this feels promotional because all of it genuinely serves the group’s purpose.

The bigger groups, once they reach a meaningful size, also become candidates for the next monetization layer.

Monetization Method 6: Local Business Partnerships and Brand Deals

This is the most advanced strategy in the video and the one that requires the most audience size to execute. Alston’s point is straightforward: gas stations are competing for customers just as much as customers are competing for the cheapest gas. A creator with 10,000 followers in a specific metro area represents a real marketing asset for a local gas station or regional chain.

The model looks like this. A gas station agrees to offer a small exclusive discount (say, five cents per gallon) to members of your Facebook group or subscribers of your YouTube channel. You promote the deal. Your audience gets a tangible benefit. The gas station gets new customers it would not have reached otherwise. You get a sponsorship fee or a per-referral commission negotiated directly with the business. Alston pointed to golfoil.com as an example of a company already operating in this kind of partnership space.

This monetization method takes time to reach. But knowing it exists from the beginning should shape how you build your audience. Every decision you make about the group or channel, its name, its geographic focus, its posting style, should be made with this eventual partnership potential in mind.

Honest Drawbacks to This Strategy

The gas tax holiday of 2022 was a specific moment in time. The urgency of the opportunity was tied to a news cycle that had a defined beginning and end. If you built a gas savings channel purely around the tax holiday announcement and did not pivot to the evergreen angle, “how to save money on gas permanently,” the traffic spike would have faded with the news.

The Facebook group strategy also requires consistent initial effort. Posting three or four times per day to seed a group until the community takes over is real work. If you start a group and go quiet for a week, you lose momentum before members develop the habit of contributing. The first 30 days of a group require more effort than most people expect.

Credit card affiliate programs, while high-commission, come with compliance requirements. Many networks require you to display specific disclosures and avoid certain claims about card benefits. Violating these terms can get your affiliate account suspended. Read the terms of any credit card affiliate program before promoting it.

Finally, the hyper-local YouTube content strategy works best in mid-sized markets where competition is genuinely low. In major metros like New York, Los Angeles, or Chicago, gas savings content has already been claimed by larger creators and local news outlets. The keyword difficulty filter that Ahrefs applies at “20 or less” is the right guardrail to use when evaluating whether a specific local market is worth entering.

The Repeatable Framework Behind This Opportunity

What Alston demonstrated in this video was not really about gas taxes. It was about a process. Step one: identify a trending news event that affects a large portion of the population (90 percent of Americans have a stake in gas prices, as he noted). Step two: run that trend through keyword tools like Ahrefs to find the low-competition search angles underneath the main story. Step three: identify which platforms are responding fastest, where the audience is already gathering. Step four: map affiliate programs to the audience’s actual needs. Step five: choose the traffic source that matches your existing skills and build consistently.

This framework is transferable. The next time a financial policy change, a product shortage, or a consumer frustration point goes mainstream, the creator who runs this process in the first 48 hours will capture organic traffic that slower movers will never recover.

Find Your X

The gas savings niche is one example of dozens of audience-need-plus-affiliate-program combinations that exist right now. The harder question for most people is not “does this work?” but “which version of this fits me?” If you are a driver who genuinely knows your local gas market, the Facebook group strategy makes sense. If you are already comfortable on camera, the YouTube angle with hyper-local targeting is your fastest path. If you want to write, the keyword-optimized blog approach with credit card and rebate affiliate links is a proven model.

Take seven minutes to answer the questions at finder.platformproof.com and get a recommendation matched to what you already have: your schedule, your skills, your starting point, and what you actually want to build.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a large following to make money with the gas savings niche?

No. The credit card, rebate, and fuel additive affiliate strategies work with very small audiences because the audience intent is high. Someone searching “cheapest gas in Tucson” is already motivated to take action. A blog post or video with 200 monthly visitors on a high-intent keyword can drive more affiliate revenue than a general lifestyle channel with 20,000 followers who are only casually interested.

Which affiliate network is best for credit card programs?

Impact.com (Impact Radius), Commission Junction (CJ.com), and FlexOffers all carry credit card affiliate programs. Alston walked through Impact and CJ in the video and found programs from AARP, credit.com, OpenSky, Capital Bank, and others. The right program depends on which card best matches your audience’s situation, not which pays the highest flat rate. A gas cashback card pitched to a savings-focused audience will convert better than a travel rewards card with a higher payout.

How quickly can a gas-focused Facebook group grow?

This depends heavily on how actively you post in the first 30 days and how well you optimize the group name for local search. Alston’s advice was to post three or four times per day initially, documenting cheap gas sightings in real time. A group with consistent, genuinely useful posts in a mid-sized market can realistically reach a few hundred engaged members within a couple of months. The community-driven nature of gas price reporting accelerates growth because members have a direct personal incentive to contribute.

Is the gas savings niche too competitive now that the 2022 moment has passed?

The acute news-cycle window is closed, but the evergreen search volume for “how to save money on gas,” “cheapest gas near me,” and related terms is persistent. Gas prices fluctuate, and every time prices spike, search volume spikes with them. A creator who builds authority in this space during quieter periods will be positioned to capture traffic automatically when the next price surge happens. The opportunity is not gone; it is in a maintenance phase rather than a launch phase.

Do fuel additives actually improve gas mileage?

The honest answer is: some do, marginally, under specific conditions. Products like STP Fuel System Cleaner can help restore efficiency in engines with significant carbon buildup. The improvement for a well-maintained vehicle is minimal. The content angle that works here is honesty: create a post or video that answers this question accurately, links to the products with proper affiliate disclosure, and lets the viewer decide. Honest reviews outperform oversold claims in affiliate conversions because they build trust that drives repeat traffic and purchases.

Can I do this without a website?

Yes, in the short term. Facebook groups, YouTube channels, and TikTok accounts do not require a website to start generating traffic and affiliate clicks. However, a simple blog adds an important layer: searchable content that captures long-term organic traffic from Google and Bing. Alston’s approach throughout his content involves building multiple traffic channels, with a website or blog as the home base that owns the audience relationship independently of any single platform’s algorithm.

How does the Costco affiliate program work?

Costco’s affiliate program pays a commission, Alston referenced approximately six dollars per new member signup, when someone clicks your affiliate link and completes a new membership purchase. You find the program through affiliate networks or Costco’s own affiliate portal. The pitch to your audience is straightforward: if someone drives regularly and has a Costco within a reasonable distance, the membership tends to pay for itself in gas savings alone. That specific, calculable value proposition makes the affiliate pitch feel useful rather than promotional.

When is the right time to approach local gas stations about a sponsorship?

Alston did not give a specific follower threshold, but the principle is clear: approach local businesses when you can demonstrate a focused, local audience that represents their potential customers. A Facebook group with 2,000 engaged members in a single metro area is more valuable to a local gas station than a national YouTube channel with 50,000 subscribers spread across the country. Focus on building a concentrated local audience first, then pitch the partnership as a mutual benefit: their customers save money, your audience gets an exclusive deal, and the station gets a predictable flow of new customers.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “Gas Tax Holiday 2022 – $1,000 Day Gas Tax Holiday 2022,” YouTube, published 2022
Ahrefs keyword research tool, ahrefs.com
Impact.com affiliate marketplace (Impact Radius), impact.com
Commission Junction affiliate network, cj.com
Swagbucks cashback and rewards platform, swagbucks.com
GasBuddy gas price tracking, gasbuddy.com
Costco Wholesale membership and affiliate program, costco.com