How To Start Affiliate Marketing in 2025

Affiliate marketing program payments vary. Some pay commissions, some offer fixed bonuses, and others provide free products or services. Examples of affiliate marketing programs include the Shopify Affiliate Program and Amazon Affiliates.

With time and hard work, successful affiliate marketing can turn your side hustle into a profitable business venture.

🌟 Looking to make money as an affiliate marketer? Here are the commission rates and payout details for the best affiliate programs.

Why is affiliate marketing a good business model?

Affiliate marketing is a reciprocal business model that works for brands and creators. Both parties benefit from a successful affiliate partnership, with brands increasing their sales, and creators earning performance-based rewards.

It’s possible to make a living from affiliate marketing because it’s a profitable business model. Here’s why:

• It’s low risk. Businesses only need to pay out when you make a successful referral (versus paying a fee for influencers). For affiliates, your costs can stay low (if there are any at all), so the only thing lost is your time if you don’t hit the right mark.
• It’s a win-win for everyone. The business benefits from the sales you bring in, and then rewards you in return. However, customers also benefit from having a trusted recommendation to satisfy their needs and wants.
• You can work from anywhere in the world. If you’ve ever dreamed of living the digital nomad life, affiliate marketing can help you call anywhere your workplace. Though be sure to obey any work-related tax or labor laws.
• You can earn passive income. A fruitful passive income idea is to create a library of quality evergreen content. While this can take time, after a while, you’ll find that content you’ve already created still generates affiliate commissions months—even years—later.

How to start affiliate marketing

1. Find a niche
2. Choose an affiliate program
3. Choose a traffic source
4. Create content to build trust
5. Grow an audience
6. Send traffic to your links
7. Respond and chat with your audience
8. Track your results

The journey to becoming a successful affiliate marketer can seem daunting at first. But if you break it down into smaller steps, achieving your goals becomes a lot easier.

1. Find a niche

The best way to succeed in affiliate marketing is by establishing yourself within a niche. “Affiliate marketing, especially when you’re a beginner with no startup money, takes long-term thinking,” says Vivian Tejeda, writer and affiliate marketer. “First you need to focus on the fundamentals, like deciding on a niche and traffic source.”

A niche is the topic you’ll become an authority on. Some popular affiliate niches include:

• Hobbies: travel, photography, golfing, outdoors
• Money: Bitcoin, personal finance, credit cards, investing
• Health: fitness, nutrition, vegan food, weight loss, yoga, sexual wellness
• Lifestyle: luxury, airlines, fashion, jewelry
• Home: baby products, pets, plants, security
• Tech: web hosting, VPN, gaming, software
• Alternative: personal development, supplements, acupuncture and meditation, herbal remedies

The reason you need a niche is that if you recommend lots of different types of products, people won’t see you as the expert they can trust. Whereas if you only recommend a specific type of product and create content about it, then people can see you have expertise in that area.

Niche marketing also helps hone your search engine optimization (SEO) on social media and your affiliate website if you choose to build one.

So how do you choose your niche?

Start with niches that have a high chance of profitability. For example, Shopify research found that business-related programs have some of the highest commissions, while clothing, books, and media have some of the lowest:

However, these aren’t your only options, and some niches work better than others on particular platforms. Keep in mind: Affiliate marketing isn’t a get-rich-quick scheme. You’ll need to have at least some personal interest in your niche to keep you going.

To narrow your options, ask these questions:

• Are you curious to learn more about your niche? Keeping up with trends and industry news in your area ensures you’re relevant to your audience.
• Do you already have experience or training in a specialized area? If you’re already knowledgeable on a subject, you can flatten your learning curve and get ahead more easily.
• Is it possible to create content without upfront investment? Some niches like technology or travel can involve a lot of upfront costs if you don’t already have the equipment or content to start with.
• Is it profitable? If your niche is either too broad, so you end up with too much competition, or too narrow, so you don’t have enough people interested in it, you’ll risk not making a profit.

Choosing a niche is a fine balance, and it can take some time and practice to hit the right spot—so don’t be put off if you don’t see success right away.

2. Choose an affiliate program

Once you’ve decided on a niche, the next step is choosing what affiliate program to join. It makes sense to choose an affiliate site or affiliate products that align with your niche.

For example, take vegan fitness and lifestyle educator Derek Simnett. He is an affiliate marketer for plant-based protein supplements. Choosing to work with a brand that aligns with his goals and content means Derek can make affiliate income promoting products he believes in.

There are two ways of finding suitable affiliate programs within your niche: directly and through marketplaces. If you’re already aware of brands in your niche with affiliate marketing programs, you can approach them and sign up (affiliate programs are usually free to join).

The other option is to join an affiliate program marketplace or affiliate network where you can browse thousands of programs and sign up to them through the marketplace.

Affiliate networks offer new marketers free and easy access to thousands of reputable affiliate programs you can join right away. Affiliate networks feature brands with affiliate programs in various niches. Some include:

• ShareASale
• ClickBank
• Awin
• FlexOffers
• Amazon Associates
• CJ (Commission Junction)
• Rakuten Advertising

These are all reputable options, but you still need to consider their commission rates and earnings per click (EPC) rates before choosing. A relevant affiliate marketing program might have a low commission rate but a high EPC, which means it can still be a worthwhile program to join.

🌟 Looking for ways to boost your income with fewer sales? Explore high-ticket affiliate programs.

3. Choose a traffic source

At this point, you’ll need to start thinking about your traffic source for your affiliate marketing efforts. According to Vivian, there are many free platforms for creators to consider when starting out as affiliate marketers. “Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, blogging—you can create an account for free on these platforms and start creating content right away,” she says.

People often make the mistake of thinking you must become a blogger with a dedicated website (which costs money). Though it may be helpful when you plan to scale the business, it’s not essential.

You can start generating affiliate income using other (free) traffic sources, such as social media platforms, YouTube, and forum-based sites like Reddit and Quora. Here are a few advantages and disadvantages of each channel:

Facebook

• Pros: The largest social media platform around. You can reach a big audience for your affiliate products.
• Cons: Less attractive to younger audiences. Poor organic reach.

Instagram

• Pros: Highly visual, excellent for showcasing affiliate products and services. Strong emphasis on video content like Reels and Stories.
• Cons: Lower organic reach for feed posts.

YouTube

• Pros: Great for search engine optimization (SEO). Global audience of over two billion people a month.
• Cons: Significant competition in most niches. Videos need to be professional and high quality to attract new and returning visitors and keep them engaged enough to click on an affiliate link.

TikTok

• Pros: Short video clips that don’t require a “professional” look and feel. More personalized content and authentic experiences. Trends start on TikTok.
• Cons: Links in descriptions are not clickable. Your affiliate link will need to live on a link in bio page.

LinkedIn

• Pros: Excellent organic reach for affiliate marketers. Established platform for professionals.
• Cons: Predominantly for B2B audiences.

You might be thinking, “But I don’t have a social media following. How will I make money?” If you don’t have a following, now is your chance to start building one. That being said, you don’t need a huge following to make money with affiliate marketing—you just need to reach the right audience.

The average affiliate marketer makes their income entirely through social media. A great example would be Papery Thoughts, a YouTube channel (among other social media accounts) that creates YouTube videos about journaling.

The channel generates affiliate sales through links to products in the video description that the creator uses onscreen. Here, the creator shares an affiliate link with her subscribers for 10% off at The Washi Tape Shop.

Other ways of using social media for affiliate marketing include joining Facebook groups in your niche and answering questions, or stitching replies to relevant TikTok videos in your industry. The key to building an audience is participation, not just spamming people with affiliate offers.

4. Create content to build trust

No matter which platform(s) you decide to use for your affiliate marketing efforts, the next step is to start creating content that builds trust with your target audience. In 2024, the average person spent, 2 hours and 24 minutes daily on social media. What keeps us online for over two hours a day? Great content. This is an affiliate marketer’s best strategy.

As The Greenspring Home owner Kelly Marohl explains, creating the best content means not being self-serving. “Focus on publishing high-quality content that teaches your audience something,” says Kelly. “Always bring value to them. Do not focus your content around yourself.

“You’re going to be excited to start earning affiliate sales and landing brand deals, but before you can do that, build a highly engaged audience. That will pay off in dividends later!”

Since building a content library takes time, it's a good idea to plan ahead and create a content calendar or strategy that matches your affiliate marketing goals. Your calendar can include outlines of what type of content you’ll publish on any given day, such as:

• Tutorials
• Q&As
• Product reviews
• How-tos
• Tips and tricks

When coming devising your content strategy, also keep in mind a keyword strategy, especially for YouTube SEO if you choose YouTube as your platform. After all, even high-quality content can get lost in the noise if you don’t optimize it for search results.

You can figure out which keywords to use with a little research. Using YouTube as an example, try searching for your competitors’ channels. See what videos are their most popular ones and pay attention to the video title, description, and hashtags they’ve used.

When engaging in affiliate marketing, don’t forget to include links to your affiliate products or services, and add a disclaimer that explains they are affiliated.

📚 Read more: Affiliate Marketing Tips and Strategies to Earn More Money

5. Grow an audience

While you’re creating content on your platform of choice, it’s also a good idea to start building an email list or SMS list. There are two main reasons for doing this:

You own your contact list

All of the major platforms have hiccups now and then, but if you maintain your own email list, you can always contact your audience.

To leverage affiliate links

Some platforms, like (Amazon’s affiliate program, don’t allow affiliate links in emails. To get around this, you can send email traffic to your content that contains affiliate links.

Using your email list is a great opportunity to add even more value to your audience and build authority in your niche. Some ideas to help you get started with content for your email list include:

• Industry reports or news
• Links to new blog posts
• Interview roundups or summaries
• Behind the scenes of your life or business
• Promotional deals (occasionally)
• Free digital downloads

When it comes to building an email list for free, there are plenty of email marketing software providers that offer free plans, including Shopify Email, Mailchimp, and MailerLite. It’s worth shopping around to see which one suits you best.

Once you build trust with an audience, you can start promoting high-ticket affiliate programs. These affiliate programs offer opportunities to make up to five figures per sale. However, you often need to have an established niche and influence to encourage people to buy more expensive products.

6. Send traffic to your links

Now that you've built trust with your audience, it's time to start driving traffic to your affiliate links. This step is where your efforts begin to pay off, but it requires a delicate balance between promotion and maintaining your audience's trust.

Start by incorporating your affiliate links naturally into your content. This could be through:

• Product reviews
• Tutorials
• "Best of" lists
• Comparison articles

For example, if you're in the fitness niche, you might create a video showcasing your workout routine, mentioning the equipment you use and linking to it in the description.

Don't forget to use clear call-to-actions (CTAs) that encourage your audience to click on your links. These could be as simple as "Learn more" or as enticing as "Get an exclusive 10% discount through my link.”

7. Respond and chat with your audience

The last tip for growing your affiliate marketing business is engaging with your audience. Generating conversation not only helps your followers or subscribers feel heard but also works in your favor for social media algorithms.

When people interact with your content, they indicate to search algorithms that it’s worth sharing with others.

On TikTok for example, when you like and respond to comments on your videos, those comments will have a special badge that says “Liked by creator” that stands out against other comments.

In this example from influencer and affiliate marketer Lauren Loveless, she’s responding to comments from fans to help them make a purchase on her recommended product from Rare Beauty. Lauren has multiple affiliate links accessed from the link-in-bio page attached to her TikTok account. When she posts content driving to these links, she is engaged in the comments.

These interactions are important, as they tell your audience that you do read and appreciate their thoughts. As a result, they’re more likely to interact with your future content (and maybe even encourage others to do so, too).

Responding to your audience also lets you find out what they might want from you in terms of future content—a win-win situation.

8. Track your results

Tracking results is an important step most beginners overlook. Without proper tracking, you're operating in the dark and missing out on earnings. 

Familiarize yourself with the analytics providers by your affiliate program. These often include metrics like:

• Clicks
• Conversions
• Earnings per click (EPC)
• Total earnings

Regularly reviewing these numbers can give you a clear picture of which products are performing well and which might need a different approach. To gain deeper insights, add UTM parameters in your links. You'll be able to understand which products are selling and which content pieces or platforms are driving those sales.

Don't forget to keep an eye on your content's performance across different platforms. High engagement often correlates with trust, which can lead to more conversions down the line.

Start your affiliate marketing business today

Affiliate marketing doesn’t require upfront investment. Taking the steps outlined in this guide can be a relatively risk-free way of starting your affiliate marketing journey. The only cost? Your time and effort.

Start thinking about what niche you could build, and work up to a passive income revenue stream, until you can work from anywhere you want.