Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular channels companies use to drive sales, leads, and brand awareness.
As an affiliate marketer, you partner with other companies to promote their products. Every time your advertising efforts generate sales for a company you partner with, you earn a commission.
You don’t need experience or money to start (see how to start affiliate marketing with no money), but you do need a plan. In this step-by-step guide, you will learn how to become an affiliate marketer, from choosing your channels to joining affiliate programs and creating content that converts.
What Does An Affiliate Marketer Do?
Affiliate marketers promote specific products or services on behalf of another brand and earn a commission every time a sale is made. You don’t sell your products but encourage others to check out the companies you’re partnering with.
Generally, your affiliate partner will track your connection to a sale by giving you a special link or discount code that ties you to each affiliate transaction.
You can work with dozens of smaller brands as an affiliate marketer or pluck particular products you want to promote from a marketplace like Amazon.
While some companies require specific advertising methods, others allow you to spread awareness through various channels, including emails, blogs, and videos.
10 Steps to Become an Affiliate Marketer
- Learn affiliate marketing fundamentals
- Choose your marketing channels
- Find products to promote and join affiliate programs
- Calculate how much money you can make
- Find your unique angle
- Learn how to write great product reviews
- Learn from competitors
- Create a content marketing strategy
- Start creating content
- Rinse and repeat
1. Learn affiliate marketing fundamentals
Before you can make money with affiliate marketing, you need to understand the fundamentals. While affiliate marketing is widely regarded as one of the most accessible ways to make money online, it does require a certain level of commitment and expertise.
Enrolling in an affiliate marketing course will help to get you on the right track. You can start with our free affiliate marketing course, which teaches the basics step by step. Make sure your course covers everything you need to know about becoming an affiliate. Important topics to cover include:
- The essential skills of affiliate marketing, like content creation and communication.
- How to research and choose the right affiliate products to promote.
- Where to build your reputation as an affiliate.
- How to find and use the best platforms for affiliate marketing.
- Which affiliate marketing programs are the most successful.
- How to create and use links as an affiliate.
As the digital marketing world evolves, you may need to update your education from time to time.
Investing in additional courses every so often will ensure you’re staying ahead of the curve with things like new market trends, promotional techniques, and even industry rule changes.
2. Choose your marketing channels
The course you choose to learn affiliate marketing basics will outline some of the available marketing channels you can use.
Many affiliates use a combination of platforms to improve their chances of reaching a wider audience. The most common platforms are:
Your own website: With your own website and blog you can create a community of loyal followers to direct and share your affiliate links with.
Blogs are ideal for affiliate marketing because they can offer a source of passive income. Your blogs, when written well, and optimized for the search engines, can constantly attract, and convert new customers, long after you’re finished writing them.
Social media: Affiliate marketing is extremely common on social media. You’ve probably noticed professional “influencers” suggesting products to their followers on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. This is a form of affiliate marketing.
The right social channels can be a fantastic environment for building relationships with your affiliate community.
Email marketing: If you have an email list, you’ll be able to send suggestions of potential products and services to customers you segment by interest or location. Of course, you’ll need to build your email list first. Often, blogging and email affiliate marketing go hand-in-hand.
3. Find products to promote and join affiliate programs
Most affiliate marketing experts recommend choosing products you’re genuinely interested in to promote. It’s much easier to generate excitement for a product or service if you’re passionate about it. However, it’s important to think about what’s going to generate the most income too.
Start by considering what kind of industries you’re interested in, such as health and beauty, sports, technology, or pet supplies. From there, you can look into specific niches where you can build an engaged audience of potential customers.
Once you have a basic industry in mind, there are a few ways you can look for trending products:
Google search: Looking for “affiliate marketing program + your niche” in Google will show you some of the available programs you may be able to join. Even if you don’t choose to interact with any of these projects, you might get an idea of what kind of products companies are looking for affiliates to help them sell.
Check Amazon and eBay: The best-seller and trending sections of Amazon and eBay show what kind of products people are buying right now.
Both also have their own affiliate programs (Amazon Associates and the eBay Partner Network), so you can begin your new career with them too.
Look at Google Trends: Google Trends can help you to see whether interest in a particular search, such as “glitter eye shadow” is increasing or decreasing over time.
Search popular affiliate networks: Some of the largest affiliate networks include Awin (which absorbed ShareASale in 2025), CJ, Rakuten, and Impact. Between them, they list thousands of merchants and products to promote.
Join the affiliate programs
Once you know what you want to promote, apply to the programs. There are two ways to join:
- Brand programs: Many companies run their own affiliate program. Look for an “Affiliates” or “Partners” link in the website footer.
- Affiliate networks: One account on a network such as Awin, CJ, or Impact lets you apply to many brands and track them in one place.
Many beginners start with Amazon Associates, because almost any physical product is on Amazon. The trade-off is low commission rates.
Most programs review your application and ask for the website or social media profile where you’ll promote their products, so build your platform before you apply. Once you’re approved, you get your own tracking links or discount codes to share.
4. Calculate how much money you can make
Estimating how much money you can make as an affiliate with certain products is important because it helps you to determine whether your business opportunity is viable.
You’ll need to calculate how many sales you need to make each day, week, and month to maintain a good profit and a reasonable income. Notably, there are various ways to make money as an affiliate, such as:
- Pay per sales: The standard affiliate marketing structure. Here, the merchant pays you a percentage of the sale price of a product after they confirm your marketing efforts prompted a conversion.
- Pay per lead: These programs compensate affiliates based on the conversion of leads. Rather than being paid exclusively for sales, you earn an income every time the lead signs up to a newsletter, gets a trial of a product, or downloads a file.
- Pay per click: With a pay per click campaign, you’re compensated whenever someone clicks onto the merchant’s website using your unique link. It’s less common to find these kinds of programs today, as most merchants want to ensure they’re only paying for conversions.
5. Find your unique angle
It’s difficult to calculate the exact number of affiliate marketers working around the world today, but in almost every niche, you have a lot of competition.
If you’re going to captivate and convert your audience, you’ll need an angle. The more you can connect with your customers and build relationships with them, the more revenue you can potentially earn.
For instance, if you’re promoting keyboards for computers, and you notice most other keyboard affiliates write product reviews. Perhaps you could do something a little different? Instead of just publishing written reviews, why not make videos and podcasts too?
A wider range of content will help you to connect to a broader selection of customers. Not everyone in your target market will want to read articles, after all. It’s also important to demonstrate your expertise in a way that generates trust. For instance, you can:
- Highlight your background in your industry, talking about your time working at a keyboard manufacturing plant, or with one of the biggest brands in the industry.
- Work with influencers and other thought leaders to demonstrate your expertise through association. Doing co-reviews with influencers can also help to improve your reach.
- Stay authentic by only reviewing products you’re genuinely interested in. Don’t suddenly change the nature of your affiliate site just because of a change in market trends.
6. Learn how to write great product reviews
As you learn affiliate marketing techniques, you’ll discover a number of ways to showcase your products. You can make video how-to’s or write listicles showing off a number of items. One of the most effective tools you’ll have, however, is the product review.
A review allows your customers to see exactly how a service or product works, and it’s a chance to highlight your authority.
However, it takes time to learn how to write an excellent review. A good tip is to follow the guidelines given by Google, as this should boost your ranking potential. For instance:
- Evaluate the product from a user’s perspective: Design your review to make the reader or viewer feel like they’re stepping into your shoes and experimenting with the item themselves. The review should be completely authentic and demonstrate your own unique experiences.
- Demonstrate your knowledge: Highlight your expertise and explain why your customers should trust your insights. What’s your background in the industry? How does this product compare to other items you’ve reviewed?
- Use different kinds of media: Visuals, audio, links, and videos can all help to improve the authenticity of your review. You can also consider using quantitative data, like ratings, to help your customers better understand your feelings about a product.
- Compare and contrast: Highlight how the product is similar to other items in the same industry and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of that specific item. You can also discuss how a product has evolved from previous models or made improvements over the years.
- Try to answer customer questions: Identify the kind of decision-making factors that might drive your intended audience. Creating user personas and buyer profiles should help with this. For instance, a car review might highlight fuel economy or safety for family-oriented buyers.
Google also advises you to:
- Include links to other useful resources, your own or from other sites, to help readers make a decision.
- Consider linking to more than one seller, so readers can buy from the merchant they prefer.
- When you call something the best overall or the best for a certain purpose, explain why, with first-hand evidence.
7. Learn from competitors
If you’re new to affiliate marketing, one of the best ways to improve your skills is to learn from already successful people. Seek out the top affiliate marketing experts in your industry and find out how they promote particular products.
If you’re not sure who your competitors are, you can start by looking at influencers in your niche. Any influencer who also partners with companies and promotes their products is also an affiliate.
Competitor analysis tools are handy too. Semrush helps you to find other websites ranking for the same keywords as you, which may direct you to other affiliates.
You can also try tools like SpyFu, for insights into ranking companies in paid and organic search or Similarweb to check out similar sites to yours.
Industry directories are excellent for finding competitors too, or you can simply type keywords into Google, or the names of the products you want to sell to see what pops up.
However, try not to simply copy-paste what other brands are doing. Add your own spin to any affiliate campaigns you create yourself.
8. Create a content marketing strategy
Affiliate marketing thrives on content. Unfortunately, amazing content doesn’t happen overnight, you need to work on it consistently. You’re going to need a plan for how you’re going to produce and promote your content. You can start with:
Getting to know your customers: Use customer personas and profiles for your target audience to determine what kind of content they’re likely to respond best to. Your buyer personas will also give you an idea of where you should be sharing your content.
Researching keywords: Learn how to perform keyword research to find competitive keywords for your niche and target audience. These keywords will help to drive your paid marketing campaigns and your search engine optimization strategies. Ideally, your content should be ranked as high as possible in the search results.
Creating a calendar: Plan how and when you’re going to publish your content. Your customer buyer personas should give you a decent idea of how frequently your customers are likely to be online on different channels, checking for content. Remember to plan for not just articles, but videos, social media posts, email marketing campaigns, and podcasts too.
Have in mind that your content calendar and plan may change over time as you learn more about your audience.
9. Start creating content
With your plan in place, you can begin creating content. Remember, the key here is making sure your content is as valuable and engaging as possible. Don’t just produce reviews sharing the same insights and information as countless other examples on the web. Give your content its own unique spin.
Look at NerdWallet, for instance. The site is an affiliate website for financial products, covering everything from insurance to credit cards.
However, the business doesn’t just roll out boring reviews. It offers a host of valuable guides, calculators, and tools intended to help people make better financial decisions. The NerdWallet “how much house can I afford” calculator is a great example of how the company brings value to its followers.
Disclose your affiliate links
Whenever you promote a product as an affiliate, tell your audience. In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requires you to disclose any material connection with a brand you recommend, and an affiliate commission counts. Place the disclosure close to the link or recommendation, not only in a footer, and use plain language, such as “I earn a commission if you buy through this link.” Read more about the affiliate disclosure rules.
10. Rinse and repeat
As you roll out your affiliate marketing content, make sure you have tools to track your campaigns' success. Google Analytics, Semrush, and similar solutions will help you to evaluate which of your content is performing best, so you know what you need to produce in the future.
Tracking everything from your traffic to the number of clicks you get on each link, your sales numbers, and even your brand awareness will give you insights into where you need to improve.
How Hard is it to Become an Affiliate Marketer?
Becoming an affiliate marketer is not hard. There are so many programs and tools to help you in today’s digital world.
However, it does take time, dedication, and commitment to make sure you’re a success. As an affiliate marketer, you need to be fully invested in connecting with your audience, building credibility for your brand, and reaching new customers.
Anyone can become an affiliate marketer with the right support. Just don’t underestimate the work you need to put in to earn a real income.
How much do affiliate marketers make? It varies widely. Most beginners earn little or nothing in their first months, because it takes time for content to rank and for an audience to trust you. Income grows with your traffic and the commissions of the products you promote. See our guide on how to make money with affiliate marketing for what it takes to reach $100 a day.
Do you need an LLC to be an affiliate marketer? No, you don’t need a company to start. Many affiliates start as individuals and set up a business later, once they earn a steady income. Affiliate income is usually taxable, so check the rules where you live.
