How to Start Affiliate Marketing for Beginners Step by Step

How to Start Affiliate Marketing in 2024 (For Total Beginners)

A week or so before I had to leave the country due to government crackdown, I had already been forced to leave my apartment after 48 hours of gunfire and grenades (true story).

My (now) best friends Derek and Clay had just moved into an apartment across town, and even though I had only known them for a short time, they let me hang out for a few days while they figured out my next steps.

Meanwhile, author Chris Guillebeau had just released his latest product, an Empire Building Kit. Specifically, it would help you send one email a day for a year and build a business while you do so.

I hadn't done anything to make money from my liberty site for a year, but when it was released, I thought, "Why not?" So I wrote a review about how cool the program was.

I went down the street to get a coffee, came back and refreshed my inbox and it was 11:05.

I came back and refreshed my emails and couldn't believe my eyes.

"Sean Ogle, you just reported a sale! You've earned $126. 99 in commission."

In 5 minutes, I made $500.

I had never made money like this with my website. But in that moment, I truly understood the power of building an audience and earning income from affiliate links.

In this article, I'll explain everything you need to know to get started with affiliate marketing on your blog, even if you've never been online for a minute before, don't have a huge audience, or even if you've taken The T and started building your website.

It's clear that there's a lot to do, so let's get started!

Table of Contents

How to Start Affiliate Marketing for Beginners: Some Common Questions Answered

This is one of the most in-depth videos I've filmed on how to get started with affiliate marketing:

What is Affiliate Marketing?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions, but it's actually very simple:

Affiliate marketing is how you (the affiliate) get paid to recommend products and services to your friends and readers.

In a nutshell, here are 5 steps to get started with affiliate marketing:

Find a product you want to promote
Search for the "product name" of an affiliate program. If it's on Amazon, you can promote it too.
If you're looking for a brand name that sells an affiliate program, you can promote it on that brand name's website
You'll get a special link that allows merchants to track who clicks on your link
If they buy the product, you get a commission.

Easy, right?

However, this article introduces how to start with the basics and to reach the place where you can get the first commission.

Can't you understand yet? For more information, see "What is Affiliate Marketing?"

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Today, there are various ways to track affiliates, most of them depend on someone clicking on a dedicated tracking link.

The most common and basic tracking method is cookies.

When the affiliate link is clicked, a small file called a cookie is saved on the user's computer. After that, when the user purchases the product, the seller can know that the user is your introduction.

There are also more advanced methods based on used emails and IP addresses, but they do not touch them here.

How Much Money Can You Make With Affiliate Marketing?

Well, you probably say, "Is it really worth spending time to understand the method?"

The great thing about affiliate marketing is that there is no limit.

There are all kinds of products that can be advertised in the world, so you can make as many as you want.

This is an example of my golf site "Breaking Eighty".

I'm not saying to be proud. I advertise dozens of products, but this product is only one. In other words, this is a commission of one product less than 6 months.

It's a pretty big number.

If this is one of the many products, you can see that there is a big possibility.

I have been doing this for years. It doesn't go overnight.

But if you are now serious about affiliate marketing and use this strategy to build your own brand, it will be a wonderful way to generate passive income, giving you freedom, flexibility and time. , I will do more what I want to do.

So I love affiliate marketing as a business.

How Do You Become an Affiliate Marketer?

There is an affiliate program that can be purchased online, where you can choose almost anything, and if you introduce sales, you will pay for the referral fee.

But just because you can advertise anything doesn't mean you should do so.

The most important thing when choosing a product to be sold is, "Is it related to your audience?" "

For example, if you try to advertise a dumbbell on a location bell, 99 % of viewers will probably not be interested in dumbbells, so it is probably not the wise way.

But promoting WP Engine, a WordPress hosting company, for example, makes more sense since most of my readers are considering or are in the process of starting a site.

We just recently promoted this series as a great tool that freelancers can use to track leads from their inbox. Again, this speaks directly to our readers.

Here’s How to Start Affiliate Marketing on Your Blog in 8 Steps:

Step 1: Create a website or blog
Step 2: Pick an industry and niche.
Step 3: Research products you can consider in your niche
Step 4: Sign up for Amazon’s affiliate program
Step 5: Find affiliate programs for other products you want to review
Step 6: Create content such as courses, review articles, resource pages, emails, etc., and use your affiliate links.
Step 7: Optimize your pages and track your Google rankings.
Step 8: Repeat

I thought I would explain this whole process in this article, but honestly, it’s all pretty easy and a lot of it you probably already know.

So instead, I want to focus on the details of how to understand a really good affiliate product and sell it well.

If you want a complete breakdown on how to build an affiliate blog or niche site and make money from it, go check it out.

Learn How to Make Your First $1, 000 as a Freelance Writer (in 30 Days or Less)

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Types of Affiliate Products: Physical vs. Information vs. Services

There are three types of affiliate products you can promote as a marketer.

Natural Products
Information Offerings
Services

Each has its pros and cons, so let's take a look.

How to Promote Physical Products as an Affiliate Marketer

Physical products are probably the easiest to promote.

Amazon has the largest affiliate program in the world, and once you sign up, you can get links to any product on their site and earn a (small) commission!

As it stands, you can earn anywhere from 1-4, 5% on any product you promote through Amazon's affiliate program. The percentage varies depending on which category you fall into. You can see the breakdown here.

Most of the products I promote earn a 3% commission.

One nice thing about advertising through Amazon is that you get a commission on every product purchased, not just the specific product link that the buyer clicked on.

For example, let's say I advertise golf balls on my golf site.

The balls cost $50, so my commission is $1. 50. But what if that same person also buys a $1, 000 set of golf clubs and a new golf rangefinder for $300?

Suddenly, that $1. 50 becomes $41. 50.

Amazon has a 24-hour cookie. This means that if someone clicks on your link, they have to make a purchase within 24 hours to receive the credit.

And it doesn't have to be the product they clicked on. What if the person who clicked on the golf ball link buys a new TV? You still got a credit!

Lately, Amazon seems to be putting some life back into their affiliate program. The bonuses are bigger than I expected, which is nice after they were cut a few years ago.

Other Ways to Promote Physical Products

Amazon is so easy and hundreds of millions of people use it daily, so in many ways it's like a gateway drug to promoting affiliate products.

But as you gain more experience, you'll realize there are more lucrative ways to promote natural products.

For example, REI's affiliate program has a 5% commission and a 15-day cookie. If you have an outdoor-themed website, you could earn almost twice as much from the products you promote, and you can give users more time to buy.

Do people buy as much at REI as they do at Amazon? No, but in your position, you might find that REI is more preferred and trusted by your readers.

Also, many companies offer their own affiliate programs and pay even higher commissions.

In the golf world, I work directly with over 30 companies that offer affiliate commissions between 5% and 20%. Most are between 10% and 15%.

To give you an example, I sell golf distance. For one brand, if you sell a $500 spacer on Amazon, you can make $15.

But if you sell the same thing directly through the company's affiliate program, you can make $50.

Not many people will buy directly from the site, but it's worth promoting them there when you can make more than three times the profit on each sale!

Last month, I sold 140 spacers from this particular brand, making $1. 377 in commission.

I also promoted it directly through their website, and I only sold 53 spacers, but earned $ 1. 687 and 83 fees.

This does not take any other product that people purchased at the same time on Amazo n-but how useful it would be to expand into other physical affiliate programs.

Registering in the Amazon affiliate program is a great starting point.

How to Sign Up for Amazon’s Partner Program

You are already using Amazon and are likely to be familiar with Amazon.

If you want to know more about Amazon Affiliate Marketing, please refer to here.

Most large companies host their products using the affiliate network. These are sites you can sign up, they may represent dozens of brands, and you get a special link or marketing material.

Other Affiliate Networks to Consider

Other small companies may do this in the company, so it is worth reaching out and doing a little research here.

However, the main affiliate networks I use are as follows:

Many large companies have partnered with partner companies (for example, many golf companies that I have partnered), and it may not have been found in other ways by building a relationship with a larger partner network. , You can get more opportunities.

Honest place? I like advertising information products.

Affiliate Marketing for Information Products

What is an information product? Digital products, courses, and communities created by experts in the field.

For example, our main product, Location Level Academy, is an information product.

There are many reasons why information products are perfect for promotion:

The price range is often high, and the commission is high

Information products have individuality, which leads to trust and easier to sell.
Marketing channels are often enriched, which is useful for sales
Solve the problem that the reader wants or provide a solution.
In general, it takes a little time to become an affiliate of such a product.

There is no place that can be registered centrally like Amazon. Usually, you need to listen directly to the author or find the "affiliate" page on the product website.

Another major advantage of advertising information products is that fees are usually higher than physical products.

30-50 % of the sales promotion of information products are common. Why? There is no difficult cost related to it.

What if a product creator would be able to pay some percentage of sales to affiliates instead of paying a large amount of advertising expenses? It is a victory for all stakeholders.

When I advertise information products, I often look for expensive products made by people who are good at marketing. Why?

What I do is just send traffic to their channels and lead to sales. My job is relatively few.

As I mentioned earlier, Bangkok's story, when I first made a big success when marketing information products for business creation software. I got more than $ 20, 000 commissions in 12 months from blog posts, two webinas, and some special emails.

So, if you have a personally successful course or product, find out if you have an affiliate program!

The third type of product you can advertise is the service. This is also a big thing for me because of what I wrote here.

Affiliate Marketing for Service Products

My business cannot be established without hosting, theme, email software, etc.

If I personally like it and use it, it's a high possibility that you will like it.

If you're lucky, you may find a service that pays regular commissions according to monthly payments.

For example, Semrush paid 40%of referral fees every month for many years, during the validity of the account. So what if the person I introduced was registered for $ 99 per month? As long as the person is a customer, I will earn nearly $ 40 every month.

Recently, we have seen many companies change into on e-time payment. Currently, Semrush has paid a uniform $ 200 per new customer. But not so cheap.

Interact Quiz Maker offers $ 40 to new registration.

Content at Scale is the only AI lighting tool that I actually recommend, and has a regular payment of 15 % for each customer introduced. Given that the basic price is $ 500, it has the potential to be a fairly serious income source.

Best AI writing tool

Per month $ 500 To put it simply, this is the only AI writing tool that I recommend for large format content. It's not perfect, but it's close to magic as an AI tool. I strongly recommend it.

If you buy, we will receive a commission.

However, if you find such a regular commission, you can create a stable and passive income flow by doing the right marketing.

Think about what kind of service you use and whether it makes sense to advertise it on your site. In the case of service products, a commission of 15 to 30 % is usually expected. In addition, if you pay one time, you can expect a 2 month payment fee.

Fortunately, if you have an online marketing, blog, or busines s-related website, there are a lot of truly solid affiliate programs for various services.

My Favorite Affiliate Programs for Online Services

I would like to introduce some of my favorite to know what the affiliate program is and what is effective on your site.

Semrus h-SEO Research tool Affiliate program of Semrush. I use Semrush eagerly in Rebel Niche. Their affiliate programs provide all the resources you need and pay $ 200 for each new referral.

BLUEHOST-In addition to being my favorite web host for new bloggers, BlueHost has begun to pay $ 65 generous affiliate fees for all new signets you introduce. Their affiliate managers were wonderful, and I had great results with their services.
All sites with many WP Engine-traffic have been hosted by WP Engine and have been a good experience for many years.
Content at Scale-This is an AI tool that is surprisingly good for writing long SEO-related content.
Interact- This is a tool that I use to increase the e-mail list of golf sites by 5 times.
Most new bloggers believe that ads and banner ads are the best way to make money from the site.

Why Choose Affiliate Marketing Over Other Types of Blog Monetization

Until a few years ago, there would be no more mistakes.

This is because a large amount of traffic requires a large amount of money, and advertising itself reduces the value of the site and makes it look bad.

Recently, it is not exactly right.

If you reach a point with 50, 000 views a month, you can actually modify it for some advertising networks (I like Mediavine) for display ads.

It is still ugly, but you can make a lot of money as the number of traffic increases. About three years ago, I decided to post an advertisement on my site for three months. I wanted to see if anyone complained and what would happen to revenue.

Meanwhile, no one complained about the ad. What about 2023? You can earn nearly $ 100, 000 without doing anything. It is difficult to refute it.

If you are interested in how to earn passive income in display ads, please watch this video:

But this article is about affiliate marketing.

So why choose affiliate marketing as your primary source of income instead of display ads?

There are many reasons, but here are some:

They don't clutter your site and ruin the aesthetic

If done the right way, affiliate links help build trust with your readers, rather than destroying it
You get to pay for products you already use and love
Over time, you can receive free products to test
These are just a handful of reasons why affiliate marketing is a great way to generate revenue from your website.
Also, remember that the two are not mutually exclusive. You can have display ads and affiliate links. Just be careful not to get so caught up in trying to make money that you lose your credibility in the process.

Below is an example of a recent post I did on Breaking Eighty. I wrote the article and shot the video. I have affiliate links for all of the products.

Not only that, but for some products, I was able to negotiate coupon codes with the companies that would give my readers a discount. The best part? If you use that coupon code, I get a commission, just like if you clicked on the link.

Now, here comes the most important part.

By now, you should understand what affiliate marketing is, have an idea of the products you want to promote, and learn how to get those affiliate links.

How to Promote an Affiliate Offer

But if you don't know how to sell them properly, it doesn't matter anymore, right? Not so.

In this section, we'll look at some of the easiest and most successful ways to promote affiliate offers.

If you have a lot of trust from your readers, product reviews are a great way to generate sales. This works with all three types of products you can promote, and I've personally seen success with each one.

The key to successful product reviews is honesty.

Affiliate Marketing with Product Reviews

I generally only review things that I like, but if there are any shortcomings or small things that annoy me, I'll be honest about them. Most people know that no product is perfect, so if you set expectations and are open about it, they're more likely to buy it anyway.

Be sure to include the following in your product review:

A clear headline that includes your desired keyword (e. g., "Product Name Review"). Here are some ideas for blog post headlines.

Clear links to where to buy at both the top and bottom of the page

Clear testimonials
Personal episodes about how they use that product or why they recommend it
I did this in "Breaking Eighty" and gained a great success.
It is a review of golf products that increase dozens of sales a month. Express what you like, what you don't like, and clarify why it is okay to have such a negative point.

And the other is about the wonderful pants I love for travel, Bruffworks.

The seminar is one of the most effective strategies to promote affiliate sales. It takes a lot of time to hold a seminar, but it's worth it.

So what is a seminar?

Affiliate Marketing with Tutorials

To put it simply, create a post that introduces a way to complete something in step by step, and make products and services as one of the important factors for success.

I went to some of these seminars.

"How to create a site" talks about all the steps you need to launch and operate a niche site. It also includes tools that I know and use, such as hosting services and ConvertKit.

I have another article, how to create a blog, people use BlueHost to bring a ste p-b y-step through processes. Readers can read this post with no website at all, and use the tutorial to be ready to skip the site within 15 minutes.

You can also do it through the video. The following is an affiliate article that introduces keyword resilts using Semrush.

These are also effective strategies to increase affiliate sales.

There are two very similar products, which is effective when people are thinking about one.

Affiliate Marketing with Comparison Posts

For example, comparing PlayStation 5 and Xbox X series.

Perhaps one of these two people is looking for a new game console. Nevertheless, it is not recommended to select these because there is an overwhelming information about bot h-it will be difficult to rank in the higher search engine with the relevant threshold.

A recent example is this post that compares Mevo Plus and Skytrak+.

Consumers try to choose one of these two golf products.

This is a detailed article that compares various options of hosting so that users can select optimal options.

This is probably not a big deal for you, but it's very easy to do, so it's good to be on your site:

Create a resort page.

Affiliate Marketing With a Resource Page

Whatever your business, you probably have tools, products, and services that you use to run your blog or business. You can make a page of tools and resources that are shareable and useful.

You can also adapt this to create a gift guide.

Our "Best Gifts for Writers" is a great example and can bring in some nice side income for the holidays.

This is one of the most effective (and most advanced) ways to increase your affiliate sales.

If you have a large enough list, you can create a series of emails to promote your products. This works best if it's an information product with a relatively high commission.

Using an Email Series to Start Affiliate Marketing

To make it work, you need:

A list of at least 1, 000 people

A product that you've used successfully or that has a good story or logo to promote.

A high-converting product (talk to the creator about this)
But don't go in this direction until you have some experience with email marketing and other affiliate strategies.
I've been doing affiliate marketing on blogs for over 10 years. Affiliate marketing is the most profitable platform out there. But there's one problem.

With the advancements in AI, we will see a ton of AI-generated competitors in 2024.

A Quick Note About Video Affiliate Marketing in 2024

And that makes building trust more important than ever.

What I see as the best winner right now is video and written content creation.

Because AI can’t copy you in video. Well, maybe it can. But for all practical purposes, it can’t yet.

So combine video and written content to serve both types of audiences.

I see this as the secret sauce for affiliate marketing in 2024 and beyond.

But what if you start an affiliate review brand and get serious about both written and video content? You’ll see a ton of growth and revenue in the coming months.

It’s been about a year and a half since I started making videos for Breaking Eighty. Since then, the brand’s traffic has more than doubled, revenue has more than doubled, and email list has quadrupled.

There’s power in that. If I were you and I was serious about making six figures through affiliate marketing, I would do things in this order:

Create and set up a website

Create a YouTube channel

Build an email list
Other social media
These first three are your priorities, and other social media can be considered secondary.
I will probably write a dedicated article on this in the near future, as it is one of the big changes in affiliate marketing in the last few years.

For now, you can make money on any platform, but if you really want to see success, I have written reviews and videos.

If you follow the strategies above, you will be able to make affiliate sales outside of your blog in a short time.

To expand your opportunities even further, I will give you a few more tips.

A Few Last Affiliate Marketing Tips

I have been using Lasso at Breaking Eighty for a few years now and I absolutely love it.

The most important benefit is that it gives you a database of affiliate links. What if a link changes? I can update it in one place and I will update it for all the links on the site.

Use a Link Management Tool (I love Lasso )

It also allows you to display your affiliate links in a more prominent and clickable way.

Here is an example:

14-day trial

By managing your links with LASSO, you will find new income opportunities, increase clicks, and measure what makes you money.

If a purchase is made, you can earn a commission at no extra cost to you.

Most of the big affiliate programs that deal with physical goods and services employ affiliate managers.

However, if you find such a regular commission, you can create a stable and passive income flow by doing the right marketing.

Develop a Good Relationship with Affiliate Managers

I've seen my commission double with just one phone call, especially with hosting companies.

There are so many pitfalls when it comes to getting started in affiliate marketing. I hope this article addresses many of them and gets you started in affiliate marketing the right way.

If you're still worried, here are five common affiliate marketing mistakes. I've made these mistakes, so you don't have to! Make sure you read them to make sure you're not missing any obvious mistakes.

Don’t Make These Affiliate Marketing Mistakes

Freelance writing - the easiest way to start an online business, and you can gain the skills and confidence to succeed in a job like affiliate marketing.

Niche Sit e-Understanding the basics of affiliate marketing, you can polish the repetition process and create a different topic niche site.

Affiliate Marketing Alternatives: 4 Other Online Businesses to Supplement Your Affiliate Marketing Business

Blo g-The huge component of the excellent affiliate marketing site is the blog.
Physical Product s-Do you want to make a physical product related to your niche and sell it online? If you want to work on it, there are many opportunities here.
In the location level Academy, there is a course called "making money on a blog". This is literally the most ste p-b y-step course as far as I know to create a niche affiliate site that makes money.
So, if you are looking for a dozen types of plans to create a community support, help from us, and online business, you'll like location hand Academy. I think you like the academy.

What I Recommend You Do to Start Affiliate Marketing NOW

If you think freelance may be better? Then take our si x-day free course.

This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you click on the link and buy one of the products on this page, I may receive a commission (you don't have any extra costs!) This is us It does not affect opinions or reviews. All of our reviews are as honest and unbalanced as possible, as everything we do is for you, the reader.

This article, which teaches beginners how to start affiliate marketing, has been updated in October 2023 and accurately contains the strategies and tactics I personally used for 2024.

Sean Ogul is the founder of the REBEL site, and has taught people how to create an online business that can be more free to do whatever he likes for over the past 12 years. If you're not at Portland's coffee shop or Bali beach, you're probably sneaking into another luxury store that is not your place.

Learn how to do $ 1, 000 free writing for the first time)

Sean Ogle

You are more than 40. 000 people who took six par t-time freelance lighting courses. Register from the following and do your best together.

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Hi, Sean. Thanks for the great source. I've been conflicted about affiliate marketing for a long time. (My concern is that affiliates will change the nature of the conversation between you and your community. For example, if I talk about how great a product is and then you find out I'm an affiliate for that product, will that make you, as a conscientious observer, suspicious that my information is biased, that maybe I'm only saying that because I can pay for it? Will that make you question my sincerity in other things I say? I see this all the time on travel blogger sites. Many of them make their money through credit card affiliates, so when they talk about a strategy that involves using a credit card that's actually being paid, it's often very suspicious. People in the community often get upset when they sense a conflict of interest. On my site, I haven't found a way to streamline my use of affiliate marketing and avoid the risk of my message, but at the same time, it's true that affiliate marketing brings a lot of benefits. What do you think about this?

259 comments on " How to Start Affiliate Marketing in 2024 (For Total Beginners) "

Sean says:

I agree with the microphone, and I think there are a few things I can do to get over it. One simple option is to provide no n-member links for those who want completely fair. However, I think the biggest decisive factor in this is found in the entire site and all other sites. Is it real? Is the blogger always pushing the product? I think I've been doing things that can be seen by viewers that I'm not trying to make money quickly, and even if it's a relatively new blogger, it is based on other content. I think you can prove it. Also, that's why the theme of this course is very valuable. 1) Teaching the skills can be valuable, even if you don't use the product you recommend. 2) If you are a product you are using personally, the reason you recommend it is easy! But I understand it. In particular, travel bloggers have a reputation for being infamous to try to get free items to continue their trips or advertise simple products, but not everyone is. Look at people like Pat Flynn. He earns tens of thousands of dollars every month with affiliate income, and I don't think many people doubt his motivation and credibility.