Learn Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

Affiliate marketing is one of the easiest ways to give yourself a remote job. Why? Because there are no gatekeepers to tell you “no”. As long as you’re dedicated enough to learn affiliate marketing, you can create a remote job for yourself – with no experience and at no cost!

But, first, let’s talk a little bit about how it works…

What is affiliate marketing and how does it work?

Affiliate marketing is a way to earn money by promoting other people’s products or services. When you join an affiliate program, you’re given a unique affiliate link. You share this link on your blog, YouTube, Pinterest, or social media. Whenever someone clicks your link and makes a purchase, you earn a commission—sometimes a percentage of the sale or a fixed amount. It’s like getting paid for recommending products you already love or believe in, without needing to handle inventory or customer service.

How do you Get started with Affiliate marketing

Choose a Niche

The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of products you want to promote. If you choose a product you already use this will be much easier and more fun. But, there’s two problems to watch out for here..

1.) Some products are really, really difficult to promote!

Web hosting and financial products can pay you $100+ per sale. Why would they pay so much? Because this space is fiercely competitive and it’s very hard to generate any sales. If you are a new affiliate marketer… avoid niches like this at first.

That is unless you are already well established in those spaces and can promote it to your existing audience or know how to do so on TikTok or YouTube.

2.) Some niches pay very, very poorly

Video games, for example, are fun and you might love to promote them, but it likely will not be worth your time to do so. They have painfully low commissions, we’re talking 1%! As you can imagine, it’s really hard to make any kind of substantial income with payments that low.

The truth is, boring products often pay a lot more. Think things like home goods, lawn and garden equipment, and stuff like that.

You can also make really good commissions promoting digital products, such as software products that a business might use. However, these are often also very high competition and not a great idea for a beginner to start out with.

Need a tip? Try starting out with making content about products you already have! That way you can make genuine review content without spending any additional money. And, even perhaps subsidize your naughty shopping habits (oops!).

Sign Up for an Affiliate Program

The next step is to sign up with an affiliate program. Here are a few newbie-friendly affiliate programs you can use to get started.

Amazon Associates

While Amazon associates has drastically reduced their commissions in recent years, it’s still a decent program. They have pretty much every product in existence for you to promote, all under one roof, and they are quick to approve new accounts.

Amazon affiliate marketing is also really easy. Much easier than promoting lesser known brands. People won’t hesitate to click buy when they land on the site, and you’ll get paid for anything they buy within a 24 hour period. Even if it’s not the product you referred them for.

Shareasale (Awin)

This is one of my favorite programs, because they pay you after only 30 days. They also typically have a 30+ day cookie duration. What this means is that unlike Amazon, you’ll still get a commission as long as they buy within 30 days of the click. This is important for bigger purchases that people might have to think about!

However, you have to apply to merchants individually and not all of them are worth promoting. You can generally make a lot more money per sale here and 8-10% commissions are standard for physical products on this network. Look for merchants that say “auto-approval” and you can start promoting them right away.

Choose merchants that have good sales data. If there are no recent sales there could be a problem with their product or checkout and it could be difficult for you to make any sales!

Commission Junction

Similar to Shareasale, but they have a lot more programs. Again, not all merchants will approve you if you are new. But, there are many great programs here with good rates you can begin promoting right away as a beginner.

TikTok Shop

TikTok actually has its own marketplace where you can generate sales directly from their in-app setup. You will need at least 5,000 followers to sign up, but you can request product samples and you’ll get paid automatically when sales are generated.

I have not personally used this one. But, it seems like a no-brainer if you like to make TikTok videos and want an easy way to earn money.

Find a Way to Generate Traffic

This is the hardest but most important part, and it’s why these companies are willing to pay you for sales. Generating traffic on a consistent basis is harder than it seems. If you just throw up a website and wait for the sales to roll in I can pretty much guarantee you’ll make $0.

Devising an affiliate marketing strategy can be tough, but here are a few tips to get you pointed in the right direction and start generating traffic to your links.

Short Form Videos

Short form videos are the kind you find on places like TikTok and YouTube shorts. These bite-sized videos are a quick way to get views, and a great way to experiment with affiliate links.

Some popular templates you can try are:

• Buy this not that: Offer a more affordable alternative to a pricey product
• Fit Checks: Show off your fashion skills and drop the product link
• Product Reviews: Review a product you’ve purchased and help fellow shoppers
• Gadgets: Found a cool gadget? Short-form video loves them. Show it off!

Long Form Videos

The problem with short-form video is that they disappear quickly. This means that you’ll need to constantly be creating new content to generate sales. However, long-form videos (YouTube) stick around a lot longer, sometimes generating sales for years.

While YouTube can be tough to crack, it’s certainly worthwhile as part of your long-term affiliate marketing strategy. Here are a few ideas:

• Product Reviews: Review a product on camera
• Unboxing Videos: Weirdly popular! Just unbox so they can see the product better!
• Product Demos: Great for software products and electronics.
• Product Recommendations: Use your expertise to help people pick the right item!
• Tutorial/How To: Show people how to do something and link the products!

Pinterest Pins

While Pinterest is much more limited in terms of the niches you can promote due to their audience, it is a great way to generate long-term traffic. Similarly to YouTube, good Pinterest pins can generate traffic to your blog for months or even years.

You can do this through blog posts, or even directly linking to products. Pinterest is actually very affiliate friendly! And, they’ll go directly to the link, they don’t need to visit your bio, like on Instagram or TikTok which cuts down on your click throughs. Pinterest affiliate marketing ideas:

• Product Re-Pins: Re-pin products to your boards with your affiliate links
• How to guides: Create a how to guide on your blog and link to relevant products
• Product Recommendations: Use your expertise to help people pick the right product!

Take Your Affiliate Marketing to the Next Level

Ready to go beyond just learning the basics? For just $1, you can get access to a proven affiliate marketing course that teaches you how to drive free, organic traffic to your affiliate offers and start earning real commissions.

Click here to start your $1 trial and level up your affiliate marketing game today!