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Affiliate marketing is a marketing strategy where an affiliate—like a content creator or publisher—promotes another brand or product in their content using an affiliate link. Affiliate links are customized links that tie back to the affiliate, like a referral code. The affiliate earns a payout when someone makes a purchase through their unique URL or discount code.
Affiliate marketing is a useful way to start earning money with your content, like blog posts, newsletters, or social media. If your content is accessible to your audience long term, then affiliate marketing can become a form of passive income for you.
How does affiliate marketing work?
Affiliate marketing works by giving affiliates a way to promote products or services to their audience. They earn a commission on each sale linked to their promotion. Brands track affiliate performance using unique URLs.
For example, if you become a Squarespace affiliate and create a social media post about Squarespace’s website builder, you get a unique affiliate link to share in your post. Every time someone clicks through on your link and subscribes to a Squarespace plan, Squarespace sees and logs that information. You earn a commission from the people you convert, which is usually tracked and paid out over set periods.
You can apply to work with brands individually through their sites or use an affiliate network. Affiliate networks allow you to browse and apply to get affiliate links to promote products from multiple brands or businesses in one place.
How do you make money with affiliate marketing?
You make money as an affiliate by maximizing the number of people you convert to customers of the brands or products you’re promoting. For every new customer you bring in, you’ll earn either a percentage of the profit from that sale, which varies by brand, or a flat fee for each conversion.
Being a successful affiliate marketer requires an engaged audience that trusts you and your recommendations. The larger your audience is and the more relevant the affiliate products or brands you promote are to them, the more you can earn.
For example, a skincare blogger might not benefit from affiliate marketing when they first launch their online presence. But after growing their audience, they could become an affiliate for brands they’d still otherwise recommend to their followers.
Learn how to build an audience
Types of affiliate marketing
There are three main categories of affiliate marketing: unattached, related, and involved.
Unattached: Unattached affiliates run promotions for brands you have no direct connection with and may not have authority on. A common example is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, where you have an open ad space on a web page and earn based on how many people click on the ads you show.
Related: Related marketing is when you promote affiliate products or services that are relevant to your content and audience, but that you can’t personally vouch for.
Involved: Involved affiliates promote brands that are related to your content and audience and that you have personally used and would recommend.
Unattached affiliate marketing is an easy way to start your marketing efforts since you don’t necessarily have to build authority around a topic before getting started. Involved affiliate marketing requires a bigger investment of time since you’ll need to build a trusted brand first. But involved marketing can be more successful since an audience that trusts you and your opinions is more likely to click through and convert on products you recommend.
Pros and cons of affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a great way to start monetizing your content. But it’s one of many ways, and it’s not the best path for everyone—especially if you have limited time to dedicate to monetization plans. Here are some pros and cons of affiliate marketing to consider when deciding if it’s something you want to explore.
Pros of affiliate marketing
Low startup cost: It doesn’t cost you anything to join a brand’s affiliate program or add PPC advertising and you don’t need to spend money to get your links in front of people.
Flexible and customizable: You can choose which brands and products you want to affiliate with and how many.
Opportunities to grow: As your own brand and audience get more established, you can expand into new types of affiliate marketing or partner with more brands and grow your earnings.
Built on existing content: Instead of creating brand new content to support an affiliate partnership, you can include affiliate links in content you’ve already created.
Cons of affiliate marketing
Time required for consistent success: The most successful affiliate marketers have a relationship with their audience. But it takes time to build trust and connection online.
Dependent on browser tracking: Affiliate marketing uses browser cookies to track whether someone completes a purchase after clicking your link. But as ad blockers become more popular and it becomes harder to track browser cookies, you might not get credit for every affiliate success.
Relies on partner brands: Every brand you affiliate with will have its own rules, commission rates, and ways of working with affiliates. And you won’t have influence over that brand’s decisions or products.
Advertising rules: As influencer marketing and brand sponsorships become more common, different locations have developed rules and guidelines around affiliate content and sponsorships. You’ll need to make sure your content is compliant with laws and rules where it appears.
If you’re looking for a simple, low-cost way to start monetizing your content and you have an engaged audience, affiliate marketing might be for you.
How to get started with affiliate marketing
You can start your affiliate marketing journey in a few steps:
Choose your area of focus or topic niche. Choosing a niche you’re interested in and have some experience in will help you create interesting content. It’ll also keep the process exciting for you.
Research your target audience. Once you know what topic or niche you’ll be targeting, do some audience research to help you make decisions about your content and the best way to reach people.
Choose your platform and affiliate marketing method. It’s best to start by choosing just one platform to focus on. Think about where you think you could find your target audience and what channels make sense for your niche. For example, fashion content is better suited to a visual social media platform, like Instagram or TikTok.
Decide which products or brands you want to affiliate with. Make a list of the brands or products in your chosen niche that you admire or personally like. Apply to those brands individually or look into an affiliate network if you feel stuck on options.
Apply to an affiliate program. Affiliate networks and brands with affiliate programs usually have an application form where you share information about your content and how you reach your audience.
As you get more familiar with the affiliate process, you can add more brands or partners to your affiliate list or explore new ways to improve your affiliate marketing.
Read our guide to affiliate marketing for bloggers
Best practices for affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing success requires some work on your part, but it’s worth spending the time if you want to invest in the income stream. Keep a few best practices in mind as you get started.
Keep your audience top of mind. As an affiliate marketer, you need your audience to be successful. Think of them as a guidepost for decisions around your content and products.
Be authentic. A genuine, tested recommendation will likely go further than one where you have no personal experience and build trust with your audience.
Have a distribution plan. Think about how you’ll get people to see your content and click through your links. Will you use search keywords to optimize your site or blog, promote your posts on social media, or offer incentives for clicking through or sharing your content?
Set goals. Setting goals helps you celebrate your successes and find ways to improve. Don’t be afraid to start small and increase your goals as you hit milestones.
Test and be adaptable. Take in audience feedback or measure the response to your affiliate links. You may see common trends in your analytics that can help you be more successful over time.
Other ways to earn money from your content
Maybe affiliate marketing isn’t for you or you’re looking for new ways to earn as you grow your audience. Consider what you enjoy doing and what your audience likes seeing from you, and see if any of these other digital products could fit those interests.
Sell online courses in your area of expertise, like a course on event photography.
Teach live lessons, like music lessons or fitness classes.
Offer coaching and consultations, like therapy sessions or design consultations.
Paywall content like recipes, blogs, podcasts, or videos on a members-only site.
Set up your own affiliate program for your content subscriptions or products.