Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to generate passive income, work from anywhere, and create more freedom in your life.
But how does one become an affiliate marketer? What does it cost to get started? And how long does it take to actually make money?
I have been doing affiliate marketing for nearly a decade and have built three separate affiliate marketing businesses, two of which have generated six-figure revenues…
Today, I’m going to teach you how to become an affiliate marketer, just like me.
Let’s start with the basics.
New to affiliate marketing?
Read our beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing .
How do affiliate marketers make money?
Affiliate marketing is when you promote other people’s products or services using affiliate links, and then if someone who clicks on your link buys something, you get a commission.
Most affiliate marketers will promote their affiliate links on a variety of channels, including their website and blog, YouTube channel, or social media channels. They might create some content about the “best vacuum cleaners for pet hair” and link to the vacuum cleaners they discuss.
Once a consumer of that content clicks through and buys a vacuum cleaner, the company pays the commission into the affiliate marketer's bank account -- usually at the end of the month after all sales have been accumulated and accounted for that month.
But you can do much more than just review products. One of the great things about affiliate marketing is that your potential is only as great as your creativity.
You can place affiliate links in almost any content you create, whether it's promoting a VPN service on a video about starting an online business or sending your friends a link when they ask where you got that cool shirt.
But this begs the question – how do you find affiliate programs to join and promote?
Where to find affiliate programs
There are three main ways to find affiliate programs:
- On the affiliate platform
- By performing a Google search
[company name] affiliate program - By contacting the company directly and asking them
The first method – affiliate platforms – is by far the easiest and quickest way to find a wide variety of options. These platforms include:
- AvantLink
- CJ
- impact
- shareasale
- ETC
Simply create an account on these platforms, head to the “Merchants” section, and start browsing the products they have to offer. Many platforms allow you to browse by category, like the one shown below on ShareASale:
Most affiliate dashboards work the same or very similarly.
But if you can’t find anything that interests you or don’t have a specific idea in mind, you can always do a Google search to see if a company has an affiliate program.
As you can see, iKamper has an affiliate program page on their website. But not every company will advertise an affiliate program anywhere on their website.
In these cases, there is still hope – some companies either don’t advertise their affiliate programs openly or can convince you to start one for you.
Pick up the phone and contact the company whose products you want to promote. Ask the customer service representative if they have an affiliate program. You may need to be transferred to the company's marketing manager or even the owner - depending on the size of the company.
Tell them you want to work with them, drive traffic and sales to them, and ask them to take a small commission from each purchase. It’s a win-win situation – they get more sales at no cost to them, and you get to earn money.
How to Create and Track Affiliate Links
As an affiliate marketer, you need to be familiar with how affiliate links work. This is where your bread and butter lies.
Most affiliate links include your unique affiliate ID. Sometimes you choose this yourself; other times it's a random string of numbers and letters. This is just a code that associates clicks and sales with your affiliate account.
For example, one of my affiliate links looks like this:
https://outdoorsyinc.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=4&aff_id=1064
You can see that section aff_id=1064 . This ID associates the sale with my account.
In addition to your affiliate ID, you can also add some advanced tracking features to help you understand where your link clicks are coming from. This is a good practice because it can help you determine which content and which products are driving the most revenue for your business.
This advanced tracking usually includes a "source," which is where the link is from. Examples of a source might be "email newsletter" or "best-vacuum-for-pet-hair-youtube." It can help you understand where clicks and sales are coming from.
So if I were to add a source to the link above it would look like this:
https://outdoorsyinc.go2cloud.org/aff_c?offer_id=4&aff_id=1064&source=ahrefs-article
Now you can see &source=ahrefs-article . In theory, if you click on that link and rent an RV through it, I will receive a commission and know that you found my link from this article thanks to the added source.
You can also usually add sub-IDs, click IDs, etc. But that's a bit too advanced for this guide.
Is affiliate marketing worth it?
Here’s the big question: Is it worth getting into affiliate marketing right now?
In my opinion, the answer is yes . I have built my life, business, and freedom on affiliate marketing.
The benefit of affiliate marketing is that you don’t have to carry any inventory, deal with customer service, ship anything, or manufacture any of your own products or services.
To make money as an affiliate marketer, all you have to do is research and promote products and services you like. That’s it.
This is one of the best business models for creating recurring passive income.
So, if you don’t mind the learning curve and are willing to work hard to grow your audience, affiliate marketing is definitely worth a try. It just takes time and dedication.
How to Become an Affiliate Marketer in Five Steps
Are you ready to become an affiliate marketer? Here are five steps to get started:
1. Choose an affiliate marketing niche
The first step is to identify your niche. That is, what category do you want to discuss and promote?
Examples of affiliate marketing niches include hobbies, broad topics, lifestyles, or just about any topic. If it’s something that people are interested in, it can be an affiliate marketing niche.
Some niches are more lucrative than others. For example, any niche in the financial field will usually have a well-paying affiliate program. But it’s also an extremely competitive field.
Historically, I have chosen all of my fields purely based on personal interest.
To be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to create a lot of content around a single topic , likely for years. If the content you choose doesn’t appeal to you — no matter how lucrative the affiliate program — you likely won’t be successful.
That being said, it's obviously your choice. You know yourself better than I do. If you think you can research and write thousands of articles on something you have no interest in as long as it makes you a ton of money, then go for it.
To think about a niche, ask yourself:
- What am I interested in studying?
- What do I know a lot about?
- What have other people told me I’m good at?
The overlap in answers can help you decide what to talk about.
But before you commit to a field, do step #2.
2. Analyze the competition
I have to warn you about this part, you can be successful in any field as long as you have enough dedication.
However, not all niches are created equal. Some niches are lucrative and highly competitive, while others are less competitive but may not be as profitable.
Your decision will largely depend on how much money you need to achieve your personal goals. Do you want this site to be your primary source of income, or just a side hustle?
In any case, analyzing the competition in a potential niche is simple. Simply go to Google and search for some general keywords that you think might bring in traffic.
For example, let’s say you wanted to start a blog about mountain biking. A lucrative keyword in this niche might be “mountain bike equipment.” If we look at the search results, we can quickly assess how difficult it is to rank for this keyword on Google:
As you can see, the #1 result is from REI — a highly reputable business.
If I scroll down, I also see that Amazon, Trek Bikes, and many other high-authority sites also rank for this keyword. At first glance, this indicates that the competition is very high.
To back this up with better data, you can install Ahrefs’ SEO Toolbar and see the Domain Rating (DR) of competing sites, as well as the difficulty score for ranking for a given keyword and how many people search for that keyword each month.
This data gives you a quick overview of how competitive your keyword (and potentially niche) is on Google.
Alternatively, you can also use a free keyword difficulty checker to check this information.
This keyword has a KD score of 29 (on a scale of 0-100, with 100 being the hardest), which is actually pretty easy compared to most keywords. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
This is a difficult keyword for a new website to rank for. Search engine optimization (SEO) takes time and effort.
If you want to learn more about how to do keyword research and determine competitiveness, check out our full guide here .
For now, all you need to know is that if you want to rank for high-value keywords on Google (bringing you free recurring traffic), you should look for niches with a KD score of less than 20 per keyword.
If you can’t find one, it doesn’t mean you can’t exploit that niche. It just means you’ll need to invest more time, effort, and learning than you would in a lower-competition niche.
The following guidelines can help you determine the competitiveness of channels other than Google:
- How to attract massive traffic from YouTube
- How to get traffic from Facebook fan page
- How to Drive Massive Referral Traffic from Pinterest
3. Choose your affiliate marketing method
Once you’ve determined that your niche isn’t too competitive, it’s time to choose which method to use to promote your affiliate links.
There are five main methods most affiliate marketers use:
- Build a website and do SEO
- Create a YouTube channel
- Increase followers on social media
- Create an Email Newsletter
- Produce a podcast
Which method you choose depends entirely on how you like to create and share content.
If you're good at writing, then websites and search engine optimization (SEO) might be your best bet. If you love photography, then social media might be a better fit for you. If you're good at taking photos, consider starting a YouTube channel. If you like talking, try podcasting.
I’ve seen successful affiliate marketers use each of these methods. I won’t try to explain the specifics of how each method works, but I will show examples of successful affiliate marketing for each method and provide links to the corresponding guides.
Website and SEO
There are countless examples of successful affiliate marketing websites. In fact, we’ve done case studies on many of them. Here are some of them:
- How to Build a Successful Amazon Affiliate Marketing Website (Step-by-Step Guide)
- SEO Keyword Research – The Ultimate Guide for Beginners
- 43 Simple SEO Tips to Help You Rank Higher
YouTube Channel
YouTube, like Google, is a search engine. This means it’s also a great source of free, recurring traffic. If you want to go this route, here are some helpful articles:
Social Media Channels
While this is my least favorite way to do affiliate marketing because it requires constant learning and content creation, it is still an option. Here are some helpful resources:
- The Impact of Social Media on Blogging
- Why do you need social media marketing? Benefits of social media for bloggers
Email Newsletter
While email newsletters are better as a supplement to other channels, you can also just publish a newsletter - like my friend Mike does on his channel The Tonic . He uses a combination of affiliate marketing and sponsored ads to monetize his list.
Here’s what you need to know:
- Email Marketing for Bloggers (Beginner’s Guide)
- Find email addresses for any domain in 1 minute with Email Hunter
podcast
From The Tim Ferriss Show to Entrepreneurs on Fire, there are many examples of successful podcasts that monetize through affiliate marketing and advertising. Here are some resources to get started:
4. Create and share world-class content
No matter which channel you choose, if your content isn’t good enough, you won’t be successful.
Becoming a successful content creator means honing your craft, going the extra mile, and creating content that’s better than everyone else. The better you become at creating world-class content, the more you’ll earn as an affiliate marketer.
I can’t teach you how to create amazing content for every possible channel with this guide. That’s what the last link is for — to show you what works and how to do it better.
What I can tell you is what it takes to create great content, no matter the channel.
I believe that all content needs to do one of two things: entertain or inform. If you’re good at one of those, you’ll succeed. If you’re good at both, you’ll thrive.
To create better content, ask yourself:
- What is my purpose in creating this content?
- How can I provide consumers with the most information using the least amount of time and effort?
- Can I take something away to make my point clearer?
- Could I make it more interesting or entertaining in some way?
- What key points can I point out that my competitors are missing?
- How can I make it more interesting?
If you think about these questions every time you write a blog post or shoot a video, the quality of your content will improve over time.
Here are some examples of what I personally consider world-class content:
- Selfie Tips: In this video, Dunna explains how to take better selfies, using superb video editing, great organization, and engaging editing techniques. He emphasizes learning and practicality first, and making money second.
- Julian Shapiro's Guide to Good Writing : This is one of the best guides to nonfiction writing I've ever read. It's clear, well-formatted, and to the point. Again, the focus is on value first and profitability second.
5. Continue to expand your audience
Affiliate marketing doesn’t end when you create some content and start making money. You have to continue to scale.
In the beginning, you'll need to do it all. Create, edit, upload, publish, and market all your content. Come up with ideas. Reach out to the right people to promote it.
But eventually, when your affiliate links start bringing in profits, it’s a good idea to reinvest those profits to expand your creative capabilities.
Examples of this include hiring a writer or video editor, spending money on paid advertising, or even building an SEO team.
Don’t rest on your laurels when it comes to passive income. Take my word for it – I got lazy after one of my sites crashed and ended up with 60% of my site down. Stay on top of things and your affiliate marketing business will continue to bring you revenue for years to come.
Final Thoughts
Starting an affiliate business is one of the most profitable ways to earn recurring passive income.
However, learning how to do this and creating all the content needed to be successful does take a lot of time and effort. You may be working long hours for very little income.
If hard work and a steep learning curve don't scare you, and you want true financial freedom, then I highly recommend this business model.
Have questions? Leave me a comment below.
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