Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide for Beginners
Many of us are interested in earning some extra money online but don’t know where to start. Affiliate marketing can be a great way for beginners to start making money online without needing to create our own products or services.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll walk through everything we need to know to get started with affiliate marketing from scratch.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing involves promoting someone else’s products or services online and earning a commission when one of our referrals makes a purchase.
As affiliates, we partner with brands and businesses and receive a tracker link that we can share. When someone clicks our link and completes the desired action like making a purchase or signing up for something, we earn a percentage of that transaction as compensation.
Some key benefits of affiliate marketing are:
- Low barrier to get started: We don’t need to create our own products which requires a lot of upfront work.
- Earn passive income: After we set up our campaigns, we can continue earning money from our content as people click our links and convert without needing ongoing active work.
- Be our own bosses: We have control over how much time we spend on affiliate marketing and what types of products or services we choose to promote.
The potential to earn income passively is what attracts many of us beginners to affiliate marketing. The startup costs are minimal and the risk is low compared to other types of businesses we might start.
How Affiliate Marketing Works
Now that we know the basics of what affiliate marketing is, let’s look at how the full process works from start to finish:
- A merchant creates a product or service and opens an affiliate program. This allows other people to promote their product for a commission.
- As affiliates, we join the merchant’s affiliate program once we identify a relevant product aligned with our website, audience, and niche.
- We promote the product on our website through special affiliate links, on social media, on YouTube, or through any other platform where we create content and have an audience.
- When one of our readers or followers clicks on our special affiliate link and completes the desired action – like making a purchase – we earn an agreed upon commission, usually a percentage of the sale or a set bounty amount.
- The merchant then tracks that the sale came from our link and pays us our earned commissions per their payment schedule and thresholds. Depending on the program, commissions may be paid out weekly, monthly, or even quarterly.
That’s the basic process that repeats itself every time one of our affiliate links brings in a conversion. As we can see, the merchant handles most of the heavy work like creating the product, fulfilling the orders, managing returns, and paying affiliates on time.
As affiliates, our core goal is to drive conversions by promoting great products aligned with our goals and audience interests.
Choosing a Profitable Affiliate Marketing Niche
One of the most important parts of becoming a successful affiliate marketer is choosing the right niche. Our niche dictates the products we promote and the target audience we attract.
The more targeted our niche is to our interests and audience, the better our chances of driving conversions from our links.
As beginners, we’ll improve our chances of success by sticking to just one or two niches instead of promoting random products.
Some examples of potential profitable niches include:
- Health and wellness
- Personal finance and investing
- Software, tech and SaaS products
- Digital marketing tools
- eCommerce and retail
- Travel and hospitality
- Pet supplies
We want to choose niches and verticals that offer affiliate programs with good commissions and are relevant to the audience we have or can build.
For example, if we already create content around budgeting and saving money, financial services affiliate programs could align very well with the traffic coming to our website already.
Let’s walk through a simple process for choosing our initial affiliate marketing niche:
- Make a list of our interests and passions: Hobbies, topics we love learning about, areas we have experience in, etc.
- Identify affiliate programs and products in those interest areas: Use Affiliate Networks (more below) or Google to find potential affiliate offers.
- Evaluate demand and profitability: Use Google Keyword Planner and Affiliate Network data to assess interest levels and monetization potential.
- Pick 1-2 niches to focus on: Choose the ones that intersect with our interests AND have good earning potential.
By aligning our niche and affiliate promotions with our interests and audience, we’re setting ourselves up for long-term affiliate success by choosing sustainable niches with products that are a natural fit for us to promote.
How to Find Affiliate Programs to Promote
Once we’ve chosen our initial niche(s), the next step is discovering reputable merchants and affiliate programs in that space to work with.
The easiest way for beginners to quickly find lots of relevant affiliate programs is to leverage Affiliate Networks. Some top affiliate networks include:
These networks already have thousands of affiliate programs across nearly every category that we can browse and filter to narrow down affiliate products matching our niche.
The major affiliate networks also vet the merchants on their platform to ensure they are legitimate businesses paying their affiliates reliably. So we can trust in getting paid on time when we use reputable networks.
Beyond networks, we can also find individual affiliate programs by:
- Googling “[our niche] + affiliate program”: For example, “makeup affiliate program”. Going directly through brands can get us some of the highest commissions.
- Getting approved for the Amazon Associates Program: All we need is an existing website and we can promote any products on Amazon and earn up to 10% commission.
- Using affiliate program aggregators like Abakus to find programs across many niche verticals to join.
Once we’ve compiled a list of potential merchants to work with, we’ll want to compare factors like commission rates they offer, cookie duration, payment terms, available promotional creatives, etc. to choose the best programs that reward us for driving conversions from our efforts.
Creating Content to Promote Affiliate Products
Driving traffic to our affiliate links via helpful, engaging content provides the fuel for earning affiliate commissions at scale.
Without some existing audience and traffic sources to tap into, affiliate promotions can be a slow path forward.
The good news is we don’t need millions of visitors right away. We can start small by promoting to our friends, family, and existing audiences on social channels.
As we’re getting started, focus first on establishing those initial content sources and distribution channels, not worrying about volumes yet.
Once the fundamentals are in place driving conversions, it gets easier to scale up our reach and traffic.
Here are some beginner friendly types of content and promotion tactics we can use:
Blog Posts
Blog posts and article content are an easy way for anyone to start content marketing. We can self-host a blog on WordPress or leverage free options like
Medium to avoid any expenses or website setup. Choose topics and angles aligned with the affiliate offers and products we want to promote. Send traffic to our posts via social media, email lists, and related communities.
For example if we join the Amazon Associates program, we could write reviews of useful products on Amazon localized to our country and niche.
Include our affiliate links so when readers click and purchase anything on Amazon after clicking our link, we earn up to 10% commission.
Social Media
Platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok enable us to tap into existing connections and social graphs to expose our affiliate content and links to friends who may be interested. Hashtag research can help us identify related conversations to engage with.
For example, pet supply merchants often have affiliate programs for their ecommerce sites.
As a pet parent, we could share cute photos of our dogs on Instagram and recommend our favorite toys and treats with affiliate links in our profiles for followers to discover and click through to those sites we partner with.
YouTube Videos
Video content can help us demonstrate and review products we’re promoting while showcasing affiliate links in the description below each video.
Recording and editing videos has a higher learning curve but the platform’s massive scale makes it worthwhile for some niches. We can even repurpose written content into simple slideshow style videos using free tools.
For example if we join the CJ Affiliate network for their large directory of home, garden and DIY merchants, we could create a YouTube channel focused on tutorials for improvement projects like painting techniques.
Our videos can showcase specific tools and materials available from our affiliate partners.
Email Lists
Building our own email subscriber list lets us market directly to prospects who have already expressed interest.
Email automation tools make it easy to trigger customized affiliate promotions and recommendations matching their preferences for products they are most likely to engage with and purchase.
For example software merchants commonly have affiliate programs rewarding up to 40% commission rates. If we drive conversions promoting tools for marketers and creators, we could offer a lead magnet like a free toolkit report in exchange for emails.
Use email sequences to profile subscribers based on their specific roles and suggest relevant software affiliate products they are likely to find valuable and convert on.
The key is to ensure we’re providing genuine value for our audience first and integrating affiliate links secondarily into helpful recommendations.
Eventually the passive income from conversions earned will enable us to scale our content reach further.
Top Affiliate Marketing Strategies to Increase Our Earnings
While getting setup with affiliate links is relatively straightforward, actually driving conversions takes some strategy and effort.
Here are some of the most effective promotional tactics leveraged by top affiliate marketers:
1. Create Dedicated Landing Pages:
Sending all our traffic directly to a merchant’s website cuts our chances of earning commissions nearly in half according industry benchmarks.
By creating standalone landing pages focused specifically around promoting the affiliate offer at hand, we can explain the key details of the product and influence readers to click through using our affiliate link.
Tools like ClickFunnels make building custom landing pages easy without any coding skills required.
While promoting a new SaaS tool for example, our pre-frame landing page could highlight the product’s key benefits, features, pricing details and have a strong call to action to click our affiliate link to sign up for a free trial of the software through our partnership.
2. Always Disclose Affiliate Relationships
Being transparent that we earn commission for promoting certain products establishes trust and credibility with our audiences. The last thing we want is for readers to feel misled or tricked into clicking affiliate links.
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires disclosure language like “This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking my links” though exact wording can vary. Check our niche for common phrasing used by other reputable sites we may want to model.
3. Promote Affiliate Links Visually
While written content is certainly effective, adding visual cues highlighting our affiliate links can capture more attention and clicks from readers scanning our sites and social posts.
For example using call-out boxes around affiliate links, arrows pointing to them, labeling them as “Editor’s Choice” or our “#1 Recommendation”, etc.
We want them to stand out clearly against other basic body text links so readers recognize them as our endorsed recommendations.
4. Always Search for Coupon Codes
One of the easiest ways to drive more conversions is by providing extra incentives for our audiences.
Seek out exclusive coupon codes and current promo deals from the merchants we’ve partnered with so we can pass additional savings onto customers.
For example we can include language like “As a special bonus only for our readers, save 25% off your entire order today with our exclusive coupon code WHENYOUCLICKHERE” next to any affiliate links we share. Sweetening each deal beyond just our baseline commission gives readers more reason to click and buy.
5. Make Content Shareable
Insert social sharing buttons for every major platform on each page featuring our affiliate links.
The more people share and spread our content for us the better. Social platforms like Pinterest, Reddit and Quora can drive massive referral traffic sources to amplify our influence and conversions.
For example creating condensed “list post” style affiliate content calibrated for different channels can encourage easy recommends. Imagine a Pinterest-friendly post title like “Top 10 Items to Have for New Dog Parents” allows readers to easily pin and share dog affiliate links relevant to their followers.
The more shoppers purchase using our shared affiliate links the more money we stand to earn over time as an affiliate. Setting up the ability to tap into viral social sharing and word of mouth is key for passive income growth.
Tracking, Analyzing and Improving Our Affiliate Promotions
Part of sustaining affiliate income involves diligently tracking our links using affiliate software to measure performance and continuously test improvements.
Dedicated affiliate tracking platforms like Refersion and ClickMeter help us properly monitor vitals like:
- Clicks generated
- Conversions driven
- Commissions earned
- Top converting offers
- Referral sources
Monitoring metrics helps us double down on what’s working and prune what’s not. We want to have clear visibility detecting our highest ROI affiliate offers and channels to optimize.
We can also A/B test elements like:
- Headlines and call-to-action copy
- Visual styling and placement
- Incentives and coupons
- Email/funnel flows
- Landing pages
incrementally improving each component through split testing.
Analytics insights coupled with an optimization mindset are pivotal for taking our affiliate revenue to the next level through continual refinement and learning.
Top Mistakes to Avoid as Affiliate Marketing Beginners
While affiliate marketing represents an enticing business model for beginners with low barriers to get started, we still have to avoid common pitfalls that frequently limit income growth.
Here are key mistakes to dodge:
Choosing overly broad niches: Sticking to laser-focused, high-intent niches and verticals related to our existing interests and assets gives our content and links the best chance to convert.
Not disclosing affiliate disclaimers: Being transparent about financial incentives builds reader trust and protects our reputations long term.
Promoting too many products simultaneously: Recommending 1-3 highly aligned affiliate offers using dedicated landing pages and email funnels drives higher conversions than randomly scattering links.
Failing to track data adequately: Monitoring performance metrics and testing improvements often gets overlooked initially but is required for optimizing earnings.
Quitting too early: Affiliate marketing rewards persistence. As we continually hone our skills and assets month after month, our influence and commissions earned compound over time.
Avoiding these common mistakes that frequently discourage beginners will set us up for sustainable affiliate success if we stick with the fundamentals.
Ready to Get Started with Affiliate Marketing?
We’ve now covered the core basics of how affiliate marketing works along with best practices leveraged by experienced affiliates to maximize their earnings.
Here’s a condensed checklist as we prepare to set up our initial affiliate campaigns as beginners:
- Choose a niche aligned with our interests and assets
- Find relevant affiliate programs via networks or merchants directly
- Create content like blog posts/videos to start driving traffic
- Generate leads & build email lists to directly market to
- Set up affiliate links & landing pages user friendly flows
- Promote strategically with incentives and social shares
- Track data & optimize through continual testing
While affiliate marketing takes consistency over time, it’s one of the most beginner friendly online business models due to low costs and risk.
Following core best practices from the start accelerates our path to generating sustainable passive income from promotional efforts.
Interested in more details on execution? Check out my recommended resources:
- Affiliate Marketing for Beginners 2023 top selling starter guide on JVZoo
- How I Make $10k/Month With Affiliate Marketing case study from ASCOT affiliate
- Affiliate Marketing Mastery Podcast interviews with 7-figure earners
Hopefully this guide covered the basics well for those looking for actionable guidance getting started.
Let me know in the comments any other topics we should be covering related to affiliate marketing! Our goal is to help as many others achieve financial freedom with results-backed training.
Disclaimer: The information provided on MoneyBert.com is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of the information. Investments carry risks, including potential loss of principal. For detailed information, please read our full disclaimer here.
