How to start affiliate marketing:
- Step 1 - Pick a high-performing affiliate marketing niche.
- Step 2 - Select the best affiliate programs.
- Step 3 - Build an affiliate website.
- Step 4 - Establish a solid audience base.
- Step 5 - Maximize affiliate marketing tools, software, and platforms.
- Step 6 - Generate high-quality affiliate content.
- Step 7 - Drive the right affiliate traffic.
- Step 8 - Monitor and optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns.
- Step 9 - Cultivate your affiliate marketing skills.
Starting an affiliate marketing business entails in-depth research on the market, target audience, and competitors. Influencer Marketing Hub reported the success rate for affiliate marketing is around 1%. This can go up to 5%, depending on your industry experience, and marketing and digital skills. Jason Stone and Pat Flynn are successful affiliate marketers, now earning 7-figures. Alternatively, 95%-99% of people fail in affiliate marketing, as per Entrepreneurs Unstuck. In a YouTube video, ODi Productions listed the most common reasons of failing, which are:
- lack of digital skills
- choosing the wrong niche and strategies
- using low-performing platforms
Quora user Chris Abdey said starting affiliate marketing isn't just about picking a niche and creating a website. He suggests building an email and social list, creating high-quality content, and advertising. Chris stresses growing your affiliate marketing business entails significant time, money, and effort.
Affiliate marketing businesses are becoming more popular. According to a Rakuten-Forrester study, 81% of businesses runs an affiliate marketing program. And 16% of online purchases in the U.S. come from affiliate marketing, as mentioned by DemandSage. Brands seek affiliate marketers to help advertise their offerings and boost online conversions. This trend is pushing aspiring affiliates to start their own affiliate marketing business. They can choose from hundreds of affiliate programs, platforms, and networks.
You can earn $10,000 monthly as an affiliate marketer. According to affiliate marketer Chad Bartlett, you can even scale it to $110,000. However, beginners usually earn $100 to $500 per month, as per Richa Sharma's LinkedIn study. Although it takes 6 to 12 months to earn your first paycheck. Becoming an affiliate marketer can be easy today because of free resources online. It has a low barrier to entry that most people dive headfirst after learning the basics. A LinkedIn search of "affiliate marketer" and "affiliate marketing" shows 672,000 current affiliates.
I've successfully built a 6-figure affiliate marketing business. It's a lucrative venture if you find the right program, product, and market. However, that's also the pitfall of this business model. You're always on the lookout for the next best product to promote and always creating content. Which is why I moved to a more lucrative but has passive income potential of building digital assets. In this article, you'll learn 9 steps to start an affiliate marketing business and its pros and cons. You'll find tips for software, platforms and programs to join. So by the end, you can decide if affiliate marketing is the business you want to start in 2024.
How To Start Affiliate Marketing
Step 1 - Pick a High-Performing Affiliate Marketing Niche.
Pick a high-performing affiliate marketing niche since it already has a steady demand. Some of the top performing niches are:
According to Hostinger, aspiring affiliate marketers should focus on scalability, profitability, and sustainability. These factors will help you choose a niche and make money with affiliate marketing. You should also consider:
- Your knowledge
- Interests
- Target audience
- Potential market
- Competition
Wisdom Speaks, an affiliate marketer, says your niche shouldn’t be based on passion alone. According to him, an ideal niche is relevant to your interest to create valuable content. It should also have a high demand and offer products that can bring recurring income.
You can use tools like Ahrefs and Google Trends to do in-depth research on keywords. Another great platform to use is Flippa. You’ll get an insight into the profitable industries, and their monetization type. These methods will help you determine what affiliate marketing niches best suit you.
Step 2 - Select the Best Affiliate Programs.
Select the best programs to join based on their cookie duration, payout history and commission rates. This requires extensive research on the affiliate products you want to promote. The most reputable and profitable brands in the U.S. and globally are:
- Alibaba
- Amazon Associates
- eBay Partner Network
- Rakuten Advertising
Affiliate networks are useful in starting affiliate marketing because of their product catalog. Beginner affiliates can easily browse through them. According to Hanson Cheng, founder of Freedom to Ascend, these networks help connect affiliates to legit and global brands. It simplifies finding profitable affiliate offers, tracking campaigns, and monitoring commissions and payments.
Marina Mogilko, more popular as Silicon Valley Girl, is an entrepreneur, creator and language expert. According to her, affiliates can also directly contact brands they want to work with. Some brands’ affiliate programs are not publicly known. Even if the brand doesn't have an affiliate program, you can still promote them. Then, you can come back to them and provide data about how you promoted them for free. And ask if they can provide affiliate links for your next contents. This way, you can negotiate higher commission after providing value.
According to DataToBiz, when choosing affiliate products, you have to consider:
- market demand,
- search volume,
- competitor sales,
- customer feedback, and
- social media trends.
Step 3 - Build an Affiliate Website.
Build an affiliate website to promote your chosen products and services. Affiliate marketers create free websites on platforms like Wix, GoDaddy, and Square Online. Although the general industry suggests WordPress because of its content management system.
According to a Quora post, an affiliate website lets you try different digital marketing strategies. So you experience creating consistent branding and monetize content using various means. Some examples of successful affiliate marketing websites include Nerdwallet, Wirecutter, and Dating Advice. These websites have high traction and a sizable audience base. However, there are other platform options you can explore, such as:
- YouTube channel
- Social media profiles (Instagram, TikTok, etc.)
- Email list
Step 4 - Establish a Solid Audience Base.
Establish a solid audience base interested in your affiliate niche and products. One way to do this is by identifying your target audience and target personas. Target audience are people who "may" purchase from you. This is typically based on age, gender, location, and income. Meanwhile, target persona or buyer persona is a fictionalized ideal customer. Target customers are useful in creating personalized content.
Chris Do is an Emmy-award winning designer, entrepreneur and founder of The Futur. According to him, you can build an audience base through reciprocity. By giving something, people form a sense of obligation or gratitude. It prompts them to give back. Affiliate marketers usually do this by giving valuable content. For example, an affiliate marketer would give a free PDF file, in exchange for an email address.
Nicolas Donovan of Synergy Metrics, stresses the importance of social proof. According to him, it fosters trust and loyalty, which leads to higher engagement rate. It’s also crucial to utilize modern technologies to help streamline the process.
Step 5 - Maximize Affiliate Marketing Tools, Software, and Platforms.
Maximize affiliate marketing tools and software to streamline your money-making journey. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter get you more engagement. In fact, Authority Hacker noted 47.5% of affiliate marketers use social media as a main traffic source. However, some affiliate programs don't support social media affiliate marketing. Agoda and Klook are examples of this.
Data-rich online tools like Google and Adobe Analytics provide insight into the latest trends. Affiliate networks like ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, and Awin offer a strategic way to connect with businesses. These platforms simplify finding the right partner program for you. Other critical tasks that you can speed up using advanced innovations include:
- Email Marketing - Mailchimp, ActiveCampaign, and GetResponse
- Keyword Research - Semrush, Ahrefs, and AnswerThePublic
- SEO - Voluum, AccuRanker, and Surfer SEO
- Content Generation - Grammarly, Canva, and ChatGPT
Step 6 - Generate High-Quality Affiliate Content.
Generate high-quality content such as blog posts and videos. According to Greg Gottfried, an affiliate marketer, blogs and videos are evergreen content. In comparison to social media posts which are short-lived. This is especially true in the recent Instagram algorithm change, where entertaining posts are pushed to everyone’s feeds. It led to a rise in concern of small business owners who rely on Instagram to nurture customer loyalty.
Generating high-quality content like vlogs also increases your credibility and engagement. The more you produce valuable content, the more you attract high-value leads. Refersion reported that quality content directly influences buyer behavior. For instance, Greg Gottfried puts out beginner-friendly content. Now, he's widely regarded as a trustworthy marketer and business owner, even though no one knows his POD company name.
According to Marina Mogilko, for visually engaging content, YouTube Shorts or Pinterest are great platforms. She also shared content types that affiliates can do, which are:
- Product reviews
- "Top 10" lists
- Tutorials or How-To guides
Some tools affiliate marketers use are HubSpot CMS Hub, Grammarly, ProWritingAid, and ChatGPT. They generate ideas, content, and comply with plagiarism and SEO guidelines. Hosting Tribunal also revealed SEO (69.22%) and blogging (64.48%) as top traffic sources of affiliates.
Step 7 - Drive the Right Affiliate Traffic.
Drive the right affiliate traffic through SEO, paid advertisements, or YouTube marketing. The right affiliate traffic refers to people who will likely buy through you. Your content should find them. According to Awin, Google and Facebook ads are a great way to promote affiliate products with a fixed set of parameters. Although this method is costly and requires technical knowledge. So, if you’re looking for a free option, you can use SEO or search engine optimization. This method ranks your content on search results for free. It is budget-friendly, but it takes time.
Also, you can try uploading videos on YouTube. As per Authority Hacker, 36.9% of affiliates use YouTube videos to boost their conversions. In fact, Wyzowl revealed 80% of consumers purchased a product after watching a brand’s video. According to affiliate marketer and dropshipper, Mike Vestil, email marketing is another option. He reasons the same time it takes to email his grandma is the same time it takes to email 95k people on his email list. And according to him, he got the email address for free. However, Mike says copywriting is an important skill in this marketing channel.
Keep in mind that whatever method you use, you must disclose your affiliate links. It can be as simple as "This post contains affiliate links" or "This site is reader-supported." This is in compliance with the Federal Trade Commission’s “Endorsement Guides”.
Step 8 - Monitor and Optimize Your Affiliate Marketing Campaigns.
Track and optimize your affiliate marketing campaigns to identify trends and areas for growth. It lets you measure campaign performance, ensure compliance and brand consistency. Metrics you can track are click-through rates, conversion rates and earnings per click. According to Shannon Fogden, marketers must use the right platform, analyze data sets, and adapt strategies. You need to monitor slight changes to adjust your affiliate campaigns accordingly. Some proven and tested platforms include Post Affiliate Pro, Everflow, and LeadDyno.
Step 9 - Cultivate Your Affiliate Marketing Skills.
Cultivate your affiliate skills to incur fewer costs in building your business. According to Smart Marketing, these skills are:
- sales
- marketing
- website management
- copywriting
- data analysis
These skills help you choose digital marketing strategies, affiliate niche, and target audience. You can also cover the critical operations of your affiliate marketing business with lower costs. Realistically, it costs around $43.98 to start affiliate marketing, according to Wealthygoals. This cost covers domain name, web hosting, and a logo for a year of operation. You can scale up as your products and traffic increase.
Adsterra also mentions that starting in affiliate marketing requires around $0 to $350. Adsterra's estimation includes traffic generation, tracking tools, creatives, training, and many more. However, you can start affiliate marketing with no money if you use free tools and platforms. There are free resources like Hostinger and Canva, and free platforms like Freenom, 000Webhost, and Looka.
Download the affiliate marketing PDF for later reading.
The Upsides and Downsides of Starting Affiliate Marketing in 2024
Affiliate Marketing Upsides
Low-Risk Business Model - You don’t need a significant amount of money to start your own business. Because of its low startup costs, affiliate marketers can earn more commissions. And since you don’t own any of the products, there’s no risk if you can’t sell your promoted
High Income Potential - You can increase your potential monthly income by partnering with multiple affiliate networks. Also, the variety of offers build your online reputation and following. The more customers you attract, the higher your affiliate sales will be.
Flexible Setup - You can work anywhere, anytime. That’s why most affiliates have multiple jobs or businesses. It gives greater career and income flexibility. Famous marketers like Pat Flynn and Jeremy Schoemaker achieved success because of this factor.
Affiliate Marketing Downsides
High Market Saturation - This industry has a low barrier to entry. Beginner affiliates can easily start their own businesses after just learning the basics. That's why marketers will struggle as this industry becomes more saturated. Competition will also rise. You need to continuously upskill and increase your knowledge and experience. The pressure to create performant campaigns and find in-demand niches and products are constant.
Unstable Commission Rates - Affiliate programs change their commission rates to adapt to industry trends and demands. A great example is the Amazon Associates program. CNBC published Amazon's announcement saying commission rates are getting slashed by April 21, 2020. This also pushed aspiring affiliates to consider other business models.
Consistent Content Creation - It’s mentally taxing to write high-quality content daily. Shortcuts and copying others’ work also lead to plagiarism hits and low-quality outputs. That’s why you need critical skills to succeed in this industry.
Matt Voegtli, owner of three successful businesses, took advantage of affiliate marketing's flexibility. According to him, he worked around 20 hours per week from any place. Affiliate marketing let him have more time with his wife and 3 children while earning. Matt has a real estate and a property preservation business, besides affiliate marketing. Nowadays, Matt can take a few weeks off while still earning passive income.
Rune Ellingsen, an internet marketer, failed in affiliate marketing because of tight competition. He also shared it takes multiple variables to maintain an affiliate business. Rune said generating content, driving traffic, and outmatching competitors are the hardest parts. To successfully engage your target market, you'll have to hone your copywriting skills.
Can You Start Affiliate Marketing With No Experience?
You can start affiliate marketing with no experience, given you do in-depth research on the business model and industry. According to Joost Boer, the free resources provide foundational knowledge and best practices. So you can pick a profitable niche, affiliate program and starting product. There are reputable YouTube channels on affiliate marketing. Some of them are:
- Matt Diggity
- Income School
- Authority Hacker
- Passive Income Geek
- Fat Stacks
Is Starting Affiliate Marketing Easy or Hard?
Starting affiliate marketing is hard because you need to juggle a lot of skills. Successful affiliates create quality content, engage their audience and drive traffic consistently. However, it's easy to go into because of its massive resource base, low risk and startup cost, and lots of affiliate programs. According to a Quora user, it takes 6 months to be skilled enough for the industry's challenges. It requires understanding of core affiliate marketing principles and the buying journey. Only then you can yield a profitable monthly income.
Is Starting an Affiliate Marketing Business Profitable?
Yes, starting an affiliate marketing business is profitable, given you earn around $2,000 to $10,000 monthly. According to Niall Roche’s article on Authority Hacker, beginner affiliates can make $0 to $1,000 per month. Your affiliate income depends on your knowledge, experience, and skills. Reddit users also mention a $10k revenue monthly is doable if you have the needed experience.
Why Local Lead Generation is Still the Best Online Business To Start in 2024
Local lead generation is still the best online business to start in 2024 because it's way more profitable and scalable. Successful affiliate marketers have 5-10 years of industry experience. They can easily navigate affiliate marketing’s saturated market. This means beginners must compete with these professionals to succeed.
The affiliate marketing industry has a low barrier to entry. Standing out from the high competition takes significant effort. Your product listings or affiliate campaigns should be more unique. According to data from Statista, this industry has grown 10% yearly since 2015. That’s why you need to drive consistent traffic to earn a sizable income through small bits of commissions. Another issue to note is the lack of control because of third-party platforms. You can instantly be removed from the program because of minute misunderstandings. The products you promote can also be canceled.
Local lead generation is simpler than starting an affiliate marketing business. You don’t have to deal with global competitors and generate unique content daily. This business model has more potential customers because of its localized niches. You just have to build websites for local services and rank them organically on the first page of Google. This is more sustainable and scalable because once you’re ranked, leads come to you. Forwarding the leads you collect to local business owners lets you earn around $5 to $1,000+ per lead. Instead of small commissions, establish a stable passive income with local lead generation.
