Affiliate marketing is about promoting other companies' products or services and earning commissions. You make money when people click on your link and buy your product or service.
This is definitely not a scam.
- This is legal as long as you comply with the relevant laws and regulations in the country you are in. For example, here are the guidelines from the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) .
- This is ethical , as long as you disclose your relationship as an affiliate and only promote products you believe in.
Many websites make money this way, including major ones like The New York Times , The Verge, NerdWallet, and more.
The real question is…is it worth your time?
[]()## Is affiliate marketing worth it?
Considering that this is the monetization method most people successfully adopt, the answer would seem to be yes.
Source: LinkedIn
There are many examples of people who have made a ton of money through affiliate marketing.
- Entrepreneur Pat Flynn made around six figures in just one month in 2017.
- Living Cozy is an independent affiliate site (i.e. not affiliated with any major brand) with revenues exceeding $12 million .
- Another independent site, Grilling Dad, generates more than $25,000 per month .
- MoneySmart, Asia’s NerdWallet, made $29 million in 2022 .
- DogFoodAdvisor, a dog food affiliate website, was acquired for $9 million .
- Wirecutter (now part of the New York Times) was acquired for $30 million .
That being said, this isn’t a get-rich-quick secret. It’s simple, but not easy . You’ll need to invest a lot of time and effort before you can start making money, and you ’ll need to understand what you’re doing, especially when it comes to SEO .
But if you’re willing and able to invest the time, energy, and money into affiliate marketing, it’s worth it.
Further reading
[]()## Scams to beware of
Affiliate marketing itself is not a scam, but like any industry, it has its share of fraudulent activities.
Here are three main issues to watch out for:
Paid Affiliate Program
As the name suggests, there is a fee to join these affiliate programs. There is no fee.
Real affiliate programs are always free to join. After all, there’s nothing to lose for the merchant since they only pay for each sale.
Fake gurus, courses and training programs
In the affiliate marketing industry, fake gurus are people who sell affiliate marketing (or make money online) courses without any real experience. Their main source of income is not affiliate marketing, but the courses they sell you.
As a result, these courses or training programs are often disappointing, cookie-cutter, and may not deliver on their promises.
For example, a few years ago, before I worked in digital marketing, I read Tim Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek and became interested in making money online. So, I spent a lot of money to sign up for a two-day offline workshop in Singapore.
The workshop was a complete disappointment. Most participants needed manual guidance to even double-click an icon. I wasted two days of my time, which could have easily been a three-hour workshop. For the money I paid, it was a real rip-off. As I later discovered, the instructor was a notorious "fake" guru (I was a novice at the time and didn't know that).
I want to help you avoid my fate, so here are some red flags to watch out for:
- Unrealistic promises – If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
- Pressure tactics — They’ve read Cialdini and they bombard you with urgency and scarcity. Especially if they’re fake (“How can an online course sell out?”)
- Image over value - Instead of providing free content, their marketing and positioning is all about how lavish their lives are, how many sports cars they have, and how much money they make, even though their cars are often leased and their income data is doctored.
- Success stories are questionable - they have "social proof" but look suspiciously fake. Generic names, no photo IDs. These days, pictures and testimonials are AI-generated.
- Lack of evidence of their own success - They don't have case studies or their own website to show. If they have a chart (usually in the top right corner), it's definitely fake or a rip-off. You can ask them if they can provide their actual website, then enter that site into our free traffic checker to see if it actually generates search traffic. (If they refuse to show you their site, this can be a telltale sign.)
To find a good tutor and course, reverse all of the above and find a tutor with the following characteristics:
- Don't over-promise. They should give realistic expectations.
- Don't use pressure tactics. If the course they offer is urgent, then it should be justified (e.g. it's a live course so the number of people is limited).
- Provide free and valuable content to demonstrate their expertise.
- You can find real (and independent) success stories on social media, forums, Reddit, and more.
- There is evidence of success (e.g., they were acquired for $X and it was reported in the news; they resold their site and there is evidence of success on the EmpireFlippers marketplace, etc.).
Poor, inferior or fraudulent products
It can be tempting to promote a product simply because the commission is high, but if you end up promoting a low-quality, inferior product, or even worse, a product that doesn’t exist, your reputation will suffer.
For example, My Top Tier Business (MTTB) is a product that many affiliate marketers use to promote.
In 2018, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) charged MOBE (its parent company) with fraud and ordered it to cease operations. Some of the company’s well-known affiliate marketers were even charged . In the end, MOBE reached a settlement with the FTC.
So, you have to avoid promoting bad stuff as much as possible. Here’s how to avoid these unreliable things:
- Check if the affiliate program is authentic. Find out if the company is legitimate, if the affiliate manager is real, and if they have actually worked with other affiliates. If you know anyone who has worked with the program, ask them for their opinion.
- Test the product. You should already be doing this, but you’d be surprised how many affiliate marketers don’t. Using the product will also help increase your EEAT , which is important if your affiliate site relies on search traffic.
- Choose reliable and reputable affiliate networks. These networks help in selecting genuine products.
- Prioritize your audience. The easiest way, although probably not the most profitable, is to only promote products that you use and trust.
- Trust your instincts. If you feel there is something wrong with a product, even if you can’t explain it specifically, don’t promote it.
[]()## How to start affiliate marketing
Convinced affiliate marketing is worth your time? Here are some basics to get started:
1. Choose your niche
A niche is your area of focus. For example, although I’m not a big fan of vacuum cleaners, your website could be focused on vacuum cleaners.
An ideal affiliate marketing niche has four qualities:
- High Paying Affiliate Program
- High traffic potential
- Low competition
- Topics you are interested in
How do you find a niche that meets these four criteria? Here’s one method:
- Go to Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer
- Enter your topic of interest
- Go to Matched Terms Report
- Add filters that include words like “best” and “reviews” (Reason: most affiliate sites make money from articles targeting keywords like “best [product] or [product name] reviews”)
- Add minimum DR filter, up to 30
Side note.
Domain Rating is our authority indicator for websites , if a website ranks in the top 10 but has a low DR, it indicates that the competition for the topic may be low.
Looking at the report, we can see that the niche we’re interested in (“vacuum cleaners”) is a good niche because:
- Some keywords have good traffic potential and low difficulty . For example, the keyword "best vapor cleaning for carpet" has a TP of 7,500 and a low KD of only 11. However, a website with a low DR is already ranked in the top ten.
- Vacuum cleaners are generally not cheap, so affiliate payouts can be considerable.
- There are many affiliate programs out there, such as Amazon Associates and even Dyson.
I will leave it up to you to decide if this satisfies the ultimate qualities you are interested in in a vacuum cleaner.
Further reading
2. Determine your platform
While you can do affiliate marketing on any platform (e.g. YouTube, TikTok), I recommend building a website and focusing on search engine optimization (SEO).
This article lists 8 reasons why SEO is crucial , and the most important one is that search traffic is passive and stable. This is important because stable traffic means that the number of clicks on your affiliate links will continue to grow.
Further reading
3. Find affiliate programs to join
The easiest affiliate programs to join are Amazon Associates and affiliate programs from large retailers like Target. You can also find programs on popular affiliate networks like AvantLink, ShareASale, and Commission Junction.
If you already use a product, see if they have an affiliate program. If not, ask them if they would be willing to form an affiliate relationship with you.
Further reading
4. Create high-quality content
You already know what content you need to create through your niche research. For example, for our hypothetical vacuum cleaner website, you would definitely want to create content around topics like “best vacuum cleaners,” “best pet vacuum cleaners,” “Dyson cordless vacuum cleaner reviews,” etc.
Make sure you ’ve actually tested these products and not simply copied and pasted them from another article. Google clearly states in their “ Guidelines for Useful Content” that they’re looking for content that:
It’s easy to create articles for these topics, but that alone is not enough. One reason: links . They are an important Google ranking factor , and in the real world, you’ll find it hard to get other sites to link to these pages (also known as “money-making pages”).
Therefore, you also need to create other types of content. These can be link bait or informational content.
In fact, when I interviewed Dustin Christiansen, founder of Territory Supply, a few years ago, he told me this was his content strategy for his affiliate site :
[…] We also do a lot of content that’s completely unrelated to products or affiliate marketing — like hiking and camping guides with the best places to explore in different regions. These articles are thoroughly researched, and we work hard to find authors who live in the areas we cover or who explore those areas to ensure their articles provide real, accurate value to our readers. We do so much more than product-based content, and I think this helps find an audience that many affiliate sites might miss.
Dustin Christensen, Founder, Territory Supply
A quick way to find target informational topics is to enter your niche into Keyword Explorer , go to the Matched Terms report, and flip the switch to Questions .
Go through the list and identify topics that are relevant to your website.
Further reading
learn more
Want to learn more about affiliate marketing? We have tons of resources for you to check out:
- Affiliate Marketing Beginner's Guide: What is Affiliate Marketing and How to Succeed
- Affiliate Marketing for Beginners Course
- How to Create a Niche Website That Makes 4 Figures a Month in 6 Easy Steps
- How to Build a Successful Amazon Affiliate Marketing Website (Step-by-Step Guide)
- How to Become an Affiliate Marketer (5 Steps)
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