This post about how to start affiliate marketing was updated as of March 2020 to ensure accuracy and relevancy.
It was 11pm on a dreary night in Bangkok.
It was about a week before I’d have to flee the country due to the crackdown, and I already had to leave my apartment due to gunfire and grenades going off constantly for 48 hours. (Seriously, true story).
My (now) good friends Derek and Clay had an apartment across town that they’d just moved into. Despite only knowing them for a brief period of time they let me come crash for a few days while I figured out my next steps.
While all of this was happening, Chris Guillebeau was launching his latest product called the Empire Building Kit. Among other things, it featured an email a day for a year and was designed to help you build a business during that time.
I’d hardly done anything during the previous year to monetize Location Rebel (then Location 180). But when this was released, I figured “why not?” and wrote a review talking about how cool the program was.
I went down the street to grab a coffee and when I came back and refreshed my inbox it was 11:05 – 5 minutes after the sale began.
I refreshed my email as soon as I got back, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.
There were 4 emails, each of them saying “Sean Ogle You’ve Just Referred a Sale! You’ve earned a commission of $126.99.”
In a matter of 5 minutes, I’d made $500.
I’d never made money like this via my website before. But it was that moment that I truly understood the power of building an audience and monetizing it through affiliate links.
In this post I’m going to walk you through everything you need to know to start affiliate marketing on your blog, even if you’ve never made a cent online before, don’t have a huge audience, or even if you haven’t started to build your website.
We’ve obviously got a lot of work to do, so let’s get going!
How to Start Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
This is one of the most in depth videos I’ve shot on how to start affiliate marketing, so tune in while you read this post:
What is Affiliate Marketing?
This is one of the most common questions we receive, and it’s actually quite simple:
Affiliate marketing is a way for you (the affiliate) to earn a commission for recommending products or services to your friends or readers.
To simplify it, here’s the 5 step process for how to start affiliate marketing:
- You find a product you want to promote
- Do a search for “product name” affiliate program. If it’s on Amazon, you can also promote it
- Sign up for their affiliate program
- You get a special link that allows the merchant to track the people who clicked your link
- If they buy the product, you get a commission.
Pretty simple, right?
It can get much more advanced, but in this post, we’re just going to start with the fundamentals and get you to the point where you’re ready to make your first commission.
Check out our more detailed post for a bit more about the specifics of what affiliate marketing is.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
There are a lot of different ways to track affiliates these days, but all are based on someone clicking your special tracking link.
The most common and basic type of tracking is via a cookie.
When an affiliate link is clicked, a small file called a cookie is stored on the users computer. Then they buy a product, the merchant can see that they were referred by you.
There are also more advanced methods based on the email used or IP address – but we won’t get into those here, we’ll stick to the
Here’s How to Start Affiliate Marketing on Your Blog in 8 Steps:
- Step 1: Create a Website or A Blog
- Step 2: Choose an Industry, and then Niche Down
- Step 3: Research Products in Your Niche that You Can Review
- Step 4: Sign Up for the Amazon Affiliate Program
- Step 5: Find affiliate programs for the other products you want to review
- Step 6: Create content in the form of tutorials, review posts, resource pages or emails and use your affiliate link
- Step 7: Optimize the page and track your rankings in Google
- Step 8: Rinse and Repeat!
We’ll cover all of these steps (and more) in detail in this post, but it’s important to understand the general process from the beginning.
How to Make Your First Dollar Through Affiliate Marketing
There are lots of approaches to making money with affiliate links. But if I was just beginning to learn how to become an affiliate marketer, and needed to say, make hundred bucks this week? This video shows you step by step, exactly how I’d do it:
One of the things I love about this type of monetization is that affiliate marketing for beginners is actually really easy to jump into (even without a bunch of technical knowledge).
Then as your site grows and your marketing skills grow you can begin to learn more advanced strategies and tactics.
How Much Money Can You Make With Affiliate Marketing?
The amount you can make will vary wildly – it honestly falls somewhere between zero and millions.
Your income will be directly related to the type of offers you promote, how much traffic you get to the site, and your grasp of other online marketing skills like email marketing and SEO.
But in this post you’ll get a pretty good sense of the earning potential from different types of promotions.
How Do You Become an Affiliate Marketer?
Here’s the thing, you can pick just about any product that you can buy online, and there will be an affiliate program that will pay you a finders fee for referring a sale.
However, just because you can promote anything, doesn’t mean you should.
The most important thing to consider when selecting a product to market is, “is it relevant to your audience?”
For instance, for me to try and advertise for dumbbells on Location Rebel probably isn’t the smartest thing, because 99% of my audience could care less about them.
However, for me to promote, say, WP Engine a WordPress hosting company – makes much more sense, since almost every one of my readers either has or has considered starting a website.
And just recently, we promoted Streak as an awesome tool for freelancers to use to monitor leads right from their inbox. Once again, that’s something that speaks directly to the audience.
Questions to Ask Before Promoting an Affiliate Product
When I’m trying to decide what to promote I always ask myself the following questions:
- Do I use this product?
- Will the vast majority of my readers benefit from using this product?
- Is the buying process easy?
- Is there a good affiliate commission rate? (Not always necessary)
If I answer yes to each of these questions, then it’s probably a good fit and worth promoting.
Action Item: Make a list of products that you use that you think your blog audience would benefit from using as well. Try to think of as many as you can.
And remember, these can include complementary products as well. If you write about travel, for instance, you can include tons of complementary products like luggage, headphones, backpacks, and clothing too.
Start Affiliate Marketing: Physical Products vs. Information Products vs. Services
Ok, you should have an idea of which products you might want to promote – now it’s time to decide which of those are the best fit for you and your audience.
There are three different types of affiliate products you can promote:
- Physical Products
- Information Products
- Services
Each of these has pros and cons, and we’re going to look at those now.
Amazon Affiliate Marketing: How to Market Physical Products
Physical products are probably the easiest thing to promote for one reason, and one reason only: Amazon.
Amazon has the world’s largest affiliate program, and once you sign up, you can get a link for any product on the site, and earn a commission on it!
Check it out using this example from my site Breaking Eighty, a golf bag.
So you see at the very top there I have my Amazon Associates links. What I do is type the item into the the search box and then click on the type of link I want (usually text).
Here it is in action.
I type ‘golf bag’ into the search box.
And then, once I’m on the page of the bag I want to highlight in my review I click ‘text’ from the Get Link bar at the top.
You’ll see that there will be a store and tracking ID (I’ve blocked these) and then in the text box, a shortened link that will go right to this golf bag.
Anytime someone clicks that link, their cookie is recorded in Amazon as coming from me, so when they buy something I will get a small % of commission.
Pretty cool, right?
Well, yes and no.
Commission rates on physical products are notoriously low, due to all of the factors that go into selling them (manufacturing, wholesaling, shipping, etc). And in 2017, they made a few changes to the rate structure.
Here’s a look at part of the rate table today. You can check this link for a full listing of the rate information.
So you can earn a 4% commission on a lot of stuff, as high as 10% on luxury and fashion, and as low as 1% on video games.
Even if you’re selling thousands of items a month, you’re still making less than a 10% commission. Because of this, I know a ton of people who make a little bit of money off of Amazon affiliate websites, but few who make thousands.
Average Physical Product Commissions: 1-10%. Anything over 10% is very good.
How to Sign Up for Amazon’s Partner Program
Signing up for Amazon’s affiliate program is an excellent starting point.
Why?
Because the chances are good you already use Amazon, are familiar with it, and your readers are too.
You can sign up and get links immediately from the Amazon Affiliate program right here.
If you want to find affiliate programs for specific companies, I would start with Flex Offers.
Many of the largest companies work with them (for instance many of the golf companies I work with), and building a relationship with a larger affiliate network can lead to more opportunities that you might not have found otherwise.
We did a whole post on Amazon affiliate marketing if you want to learn more about how to get started.
If you’re serious about Amazon affiliate marketing? I’d recommend you check out “The Affiliate Marketing Video Course” it’s a small investment, and the dude behind it is the smartest affiliate marketer I know. I can’t recommend the course highly enough.
Quick Tip on Promoting Physical Products
If you want to promote physical products, there’s probably a better place to do it than Amazon over the long term if your niche is somewhat specialized.
Amazon is tough because they have a 24 hour cookie. That means that if someone clicks your link, and then buys anything, anytime within the next 24 hours you get the commission.
This is an extremely short period of time. Compare it to some other affiliate programs where the time frame can be it 90 days or more.
For instance, when I’m promoting golf products for Breaking Eighty, I’ll usually earn a 6.5% commission based on how many items I refer on average each month.
I could join the Golf Galaxy affiliate program, which pays out 6-8%, but it has a 45 day cookie. So if someone clicks the link and then buys anything over the next 45 days – I get a commission.
This makes it much easier to make sales.
Action Item: If you know your niche and want to promote a physical product do a quick google search for “product name affiliate program” or “your niche affiliate program” to get an idea of what other options are out there.
Affiliate Marketing for Information Products
The next type of product you can promote is an information product.
This is usually something created by a blogger, marketer or author that teaches you how to do something.
Chris’ Empire Building Kit is a great example of an information product. As is Location Rebel Academy.
There are a lot of reasons that information products are so great to promote:
- Often they are higher priced, which means higher commissions
- They can have a personality behind them, which builds trust and makes them easier to sell
- There are often full marketing funnels behind them aiding in sales
- They solve a problem or provide a solution that your readers are looking for
Generally, it can be a little bit more work to become an affiliate for these products because often the creator is a bit more protective of who they let market the products.
There’s also no central place you can go to join like you could with Amazon. Usually, you’ll need to talk to the author directly or look for an “affiliates” page on their product site.
How to Select What Information Products to Promote
I’m pretty selective about the products I personally promote, but each year I make tens of thousands of dollars marketing information products.
The commissions are much higher than physical products which is why I like promoting them so much.
Information product commissions usually range from 30-50% – because the costs of production are so much smaller.
When I promote information products I usually look for high priced products created by people who are good at marketing. Why?
Because I send traffic to their funnel, and they convert the sale. My work is relatively minimal.
To give you an idea of the scope of this and what’s possible, over the last 2 years I’ve made over $20k in affiliate commissions from one product alone. This includes an occasional mention in a blog post, 2 webinars, and a handful of dedicated emails. That’s it.
To make things even better, I’ve seen the results people have had from the program, and they’ve been remarkable.
So if you have a course or product that you’ve personally used and seen a lot of success from, check and see if there’s an affiliate program – because if you’re going to recommend it anyway, you might as well get paid for it!
Affiliate Marketing for Service Products
The third type of product you can promote is a service. This is another big one for me, because of the nature of what I write about here.
My business doesn’t function without hosting, a theme, email software etc.
So it can be easy to make a sale on services because if I personally love and use them, there’s a good chance you will too.
One of the cool things about services, for instance, is that often there are recurring commissions. For instance, I make roughly 20% a month every time I refer someone to Sumo or Visual Website Optimizer – which are both services that I use religiously.
Over time that can add up to be a nice extra bit of income each month.
Think about which services you use and if it makes sense to promote them on your site. You can usually expect commissions between 15-30% on service products – sometimes higher or lower depending on what it is.
My Favorite Affiliate Programs for Online Services
If you have a website related to online marketing, blogging, or business, there are fortunately a lot of really solid affiliate programs out there for different services.
I wanted to share a few of my favorites so that you can get a sense of what an affiliate program entails, and start to get a feel for what might work on your site.
- BeRush – This is the affiliate program for the SEO research tool SEMrush. I use this religiously on Location Rebel, and their affiliate program gives you all the resources you need and pays a recurring fee of 40%! Good luck finding anything that compares with that. Here’s a review of the service.
- Bluehost – On top of being my favorite web host for brand new bloggers, Bluehost starts out paying generous affiliate fees of $65 for every new sign up you refer. Their affiliate managers are fantastic, and I’ve had great results with their service.
- Sumo – I use Sumo to help grow my email list, and they’ve offered some of the best affiliate promos I’ve ever seen. Karol their affiliate manager is as good as it gets, and always responds right away. Here’s my review of the service.
Why Choose Affiliate Marketing Over Other Types of Blog Monetization
Most new bloggers assume that advertising or banner ads are the best way to monetize your site.
You couldn’t be more wrong.
They often get started with Adsense because it’s easy. To be honest I can’t remember the last time I saw an Adsense advertisement – thank you Adblock!
But seriously, not only will these make your site hideous, you have to have obscene amounts of traffic to actually make any real income.
Selling ad space to sponsors is almost as bad.
A good rule of thumb I’ve always used for how much you could sell ad space for is this:
Daily visitors divided by 10 is the dollar amount you can make per month on an ad.
Example:
If you get 1,000 visitors a day, you divide that by 10 and see that you can charge $100 a month for each ad on your site.
Now keep in mind this is just a rule of thumb, and depending on your niche it could be substantially higher or substantially lower.
When you’re just starting out, $100 a month could seem pretty good, but it takes a lot of work to get up t0 1k visitors a day – and if you get that many, you’re much better off monetizing via affiliate ads or ads for your own product.
For instance, if had ad space on Location Rebel, I’d be much more likely to promote an affiliate product, or one of my own products than sell the ad space.
If someone clicks on it and buys my product I make $500 – 5 times more than I’d make for that sponsored ad. All I need is one every 5 months to make this a better option. Not only that, but it’s helping build my brand identity and reputation, rather than some random company.
Best Affiliate Products for Beginners
As you’re getting going, there are three specific types of products I recommend starting to market. These are ones that will give you the best chance of success in growing your business and actually making commissions early on.
How to Promote an Affiliate Offer
Ok, now the most important part.
By now you should have a good sense of what affiliate marketing is, have an idea of what products you want to promote and know how to get your affiliate links for them.
But if you don’t know how to properly promote them, it doesn’t really matter now, does it? Nope.
In this section, we’re going to look at some of the easiest and most successful ways to promote an affiliate offer.
Affiliate Marketing With a Resource Page
This is probably the easiest thing you can do right now to bring in a few sales over the coming weeks: create a resource page.
Regardless of what your business is, there are tools, products, and services that you use to run your blog or business. By putting together a page of all of your tools and resources, you’re creating something that’s shareable, as well as useful.
My resources page is called “60+ Essential Tools for the Location Independent Entrepreneur”.
Taking the same concept and going a step beyond is my book Location Rebel Arsenal. 
Want to grab the LR Arsenal and check it out for yourself? Click here.
I took the same idea, created a well-designed email, and then gave it to people after they joined the interest list for Location Rebel Academy.
This does dual duty in making affiliate sales, as well as growing my email list.
Affiliate Marketing with Product Reviews
If you’ve built up a lot of trust with your audience, product reviews are a fantastic way to generate some sales. This works for all three types of products you can promote, and I’ve personally seen success with each.
They key to a successful product review is honesty.
I’d generally only review things you like, but if there are drawbacks or little things that bother you – be upfront about them. Most people know that no product is perfect, so if you set expectations and are open with them, there’s a good chance they’ll buy it anyway.
Make sure you include the following items in any product review:
- Clear headline featuring your desired keyword (“product name review” for instance)
- Clear links for where to buy at both the top and bottom of the page
- A clear recommendation
- A personal story about how you use the product or why you recommend it
I’ve done this with a lot of success on my golf site.
Here’s a review a golf product that makes up to a few dozen sales a month. I said why I like it, I discussed the downfalls, and then made it clear why I’m ok with them. 
Here’s another review I did for Sumo, one of my favorite marketing tools. And another I did on Bluffworks, an awesome travel pant that I love for trips.
This post goes into way more detail about how to make money affiliate marketing through product reviews.
Affiliate Marketing with Tutorials
Tutorials are easily one of the most effective strategies for driving affiliate sales. They can take a long time to put together, but it’s also totally worth it.
So what is a tutorial exactly?
Simple, you create a post that shows people how to accomplish something step by step – you then make a product or service one of the key components to success.
I’ve done a couple of these.
With my How to Build a Niche Site post, I talk about all the steps you need to take to get a niche site up and running. So that includes some of the tools I know and love like Sumo and ConvertKit.
Check out the video: How to Create a Niche Site that Brings in $500+/Month
I have another post, How to Set Up a Blog, that brings people step by step through the process using Bluehost. That’s another product I know and use. Readers can go through that post with no website at all and by the end have a bare bones WordPress site up and running.
I make hundreds of dollars a month off of both of these posts but I know they are also really valuable to readers and we make sure to update them frequently.
Here’s also another video shows you how to easily start a blog.
Affiliate Marketing with Comparison Posts
These can be another really effective strategy for making affiliate sales.
It works well when there are either two products that are very similar and people are thinking about one or the other.
A great example would be comparing the PlayStation 4 vs the Xbox One.
If people are looking for a new game console, it’s probably going to be one of the two. That said, I don’t recommend you choose these because due to the overwhelming amount of information about both – it’d be hard to rank well in the search engines for any terms related to them.
A personal example is a post I just did about two competing golf technologies Game Golf and Arccos Golf. They both do variations of the same thing, but no one had played as many rounds with both systems as I had. So I created a definitive post which has sent a lot of traffic, and a few sales, my way over the last couple weeks.
Another type of comparison post that works well is when there are a ton of options, and people don’t know what to choose. Web hosting is a great niche for this.
Recently, I created an in-depth post that compared and contrasted all of the different options for hosting – and helped the user to select the best option for them. It didn’t really matter which one they chose because I’d get a commission no matter what.
Using an Email Series to Start Affiliate Marketing
This is probably the most effective (and most advanced) method we’ll talk about for making affiliate sales: your email list.
If you’re getting to the point where you have a sizable list, you could create a series of emails to promote a product. This works best if it’s an information product with relatively high commissions.
For this to work well you should have the following:
- A list of at least 1,000 people
- A product you’ve either used and had success with, or have a very good story/reason for promoting
- A product that converts well (talk to the creator about this)
I’ve found a 3 email series usually works well for this, but don’t start going this direction until you’ve had some experience with either email marketing or the other affiliate strategies we’ve talked about.
5 Affiliate Marketing Mistakes You Never Want to Make
Over the years, I’ve made a lot of affiliate marketing mistakes, so check out that post and make sure you don’t fall into some of the same traps I did as you’re getting started with your affiliate promotions!
Or if video is more your thing? Watch this:
A Few Last Affiliate Marketing Tips
If you follow along with the strategies above, you’ll be making affiliate sales in no time off of your blog.
To improve your chances even more, I’ve got a couple more tips for you.
Use Pretty Link
Affiliate links are generally pretty ugly. They’re long links, that often go to a secondary domain, and are pretty clear that they’re an affiliate. Download the plugin Pretty Link to make your links look much more friendly.
Develop a Good Relationship with an Affiliate Manager
Most major affiliate programs for physical products or services will have an affiliate manager, whose sole job is to help you generate more sales.
You’ll need to prove to them that you have some potential, but do your best to get them on the phone before you start doing any major promotions. They’ll be able to give you a good sense of what works, what doesn’t, and potentially even give you a boost in commissions.
One phone call nearly doubled my commissions for one hosting company in particular.
Some More Advice I’ve Learned from Years of Affiliate Marketing
So this post gives you a ton of information on getting started with affiliate marketing. But, I’ve written a lot more about this topic on the blog — and shared some of my best advice.
Here’s a collection of those posts that I think you’ll find helpful when it comes choosing a niche, getting your site up and running, and some big mistakes to avoid:
- How to Make $500+ a Month in Passive Income with a Niche Site – Creating a niche site that makes $500+ a month is totally achievable, here’s how to do it.
- How to Build Your First Online Asset in 48 Hours – Want to get up and running this weekend? This is how you can get a website up that will serve as a base for your affiliate marketing site.
- How to Create a Membership Site in 48 Hours (Without Technical Expertise) – Membership sites are an awesome way to build a niche site where you can tap into some of your affilaite marketing expertise. And I think membership sites are going to crush it in 2019.
- Three of the Best Affiliate Products for Beginners – These are the three affiliate products that I thnk are the best places for new affiliate marketers to start.
Affiliate Marketing Alternatives: 4 Other Online Businesses to Suppliment Your Affiliate Marketing Business
- Freelance Writing – The easiest way to start a business online, start building some skills, and building confidence in your ability to successfully do something like affiliate marketing.
- Niche Sites – Once you get the basics of affiliate marketing down, you can really hone in on repeating the process and creating niche sites on all sorts of different topics.
- Blogging – A huge component of every good affiliate marketing site is the blog, take that skill set and translate it into another business.
- Physical Products – Want to make a physical product that ties into your niche and then sell it online? If you want to work at it, there’s a ton of opportunity here.
What I Recommend You Do to Start Affiliate Marketing NOW
For years, I’ve thought about creating a super in-depth guide to affiliate marketing. We certainly cover it some in the Academy, and quite a bit more in Hobby Hacking – but those aren’t solely devoted to learning the ins and outs of getting started.
My friend Matt Giovanisci is probably the best affiliate marketer I know. He makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year with his affiliate sites.
Recently he released a course called “The Affiliate Marketing Video Course” (real clever name, Matt).
To put it simply, it’s the best, most user-friendly course on affiliate marketing that I know of.
So if you’re serious? Invest in the course, and you’ll be off to the races.
If after all of this, you think freelancing may be a better fit? Then snag our free 6 day course that walks you through all the basics of getting started.
This page contains affiliate links. This means that if you click a link and buy one of the products on this page, I may receive a commission (at no extra cost to you!) This doesn’t effect our opinions or our reviews. Everything we do is to benefit you as the reader, so all of our reviews are as honest and unbiased as possible.
Hi Sean. Thanks for this great resource.
I’ve been very conflicted about affiliate marketing for a long time. (I wrote about some of my concerns recently.) My concern is that the nature of the conversation between you and your community can change because of it.
For example, if I talk about how cool a product is, and then you find out that I’m an affiliate for them, wouldn’t you as a conscientious observer become skeptical as to whether my information is biased, if perhaps I’m only saying how cool something is because I can get paid for it? Wouldn’t that make you question my integrity with other things I say as well?
You see this a lot on travel blogger sites. Because so many of them make money via credit card affiliates, it often seems very suspicious when they talk about some kind of strategy that happens to involve utilizing the very credit cards that they get paid for. People in the community often get very upset when they detect a conflict of interest.
I’ve never found a way to rationalize using affiliate marketing for my site without being concerned with compromising my message, but at the same time, you’re right that it does confer lots of benefits. What are your thoughts on this?
Mike I totally agree, and I think there are a few things you can do to overcome this.
One easy option is to just provide a non-affiliate link as well for people who want something totally unbiased.
But I think the biggest deciding factor in this, goes back to the site as a whole and all of the other posts. Are the genuine? Is the blogger constantly trying to push products? I’d like to think I’ve been doing this long enough that my audience knows I’m not out to make a quick buck – and I think even relatively new bloggers can prove this based on their other content.
I also think this is why tutorial posts are so valuable. 1) Your teaching someone a skill, and even if they choose not to use the product you suggest, it can still be very valuable information. 2) If it’s a product you personally use, then it’s easy to see why you’d recommend it – you’re a customer too!
But I get it. Travel bloggers in particular have a reputation for being notorious about just trying to get free stuff or promote easy products to continue to travel – but I don’t think that’s the case for everyone.
Look at people like Pat Flynn. He makes tens of thousands of dollars every month via affiliate revenue, and I dont think many people would ever question his motives or genuineness in that regard.
Hi Sean. All good points.
To advance your argument, I think it’s fair to even say that it’s okay that some people might be put off by the marketing side of things. Some people just won’t follow along, and there’s nothing wrong with that, as long as that’s just a minority.
What makes this topic so interesting to me is that there really is no magic bullet to presenting trust and integrity, and that’s why it’s not possible to say that affiliate marketing is either “right” or “wrong”. As you say, trust needs to be shown consistently and built up over time.
Anyway, lots to figure out here (and I’ll read up on Pat Flynn) so thanks!
So true. There is no right and wrong, and everyone is going to do it slightly different. It comes down to trying a bunch of stuff, doing it with authenticity, and then seeing what your audience thinks from there!
Hi Sean
I have just started learning about affiliate marketing etc and have found your page to be most helpful and fantastic. However, as I am just starting of i do have 1 question. When in the process of setting up my own website and reviewing the diffrent affiliate programs out there, is it possible to sign up to more than one company as an affiliate marketer? to promote their products but all as one niche, and in regards to my own webpage, can i link/use more than one company to my webpage for the producst i choose to promote?
Great stuff here Sean – thanks for all of these insights and sharing some best practices when it comes to affiliate marketing. I’ve never been comfortable giving it a shot, but after reading this post and your perspective on how and when to do it, I may just have to give it a try. Especially considering I’m already mentioning and recommending services and products on my site, I’m just not getting the potential rewards associated with doing so. Thanks again.
You’ve built up your audience to the point where they know you aren’t trying to scam them or make a quick buck. If they subscribe to a service or buy a product because you suggested it, they’d love for you to get a cut!
Some brilliant information there Sean as always, I’m not at the stage yet but i have bookmarked this so i can follow along when i am at the stage of monetisation of my blog.
Same here, this post kind of fell from the sky at such a great time. Been building a great community of readers over the years but reached a point where I’m losing money maintaining the site and newsletter. As you said, the ads don’t bring much -ironically I use Adblocks too but affiliate marketing always seemed like a weird and opaque subject. I’ve read many of Chris Guillebeau’s books in the last few months (this is how I discovered your site actually!) and I didn’t realize he had affiliate links for instance. Your post opened up a new window of possibility for me. Still need to process everything and do the work behind but a big thank you to you Sean!
Thanks Nathalie! And glad to see you came over from AONC 🙂 When done the right way I think affiliate links in context are much less intrusive and offensive than having ads on your sidebar. The average non-tech reader probably wont even know its an affiliate link anyway. So just by doing everything you’ve already been doing, you can switch out links, and probably make a nice side income!
That’s a great tip Sean, thanks! I was thinking about what you said in your post about some companies not putting that they have affiliate links and you having to do some digging and there are couple of companies/authors who made products I love and keep using, but I’m not sure how to go ahead and ask about the affiliate link. I read the post you linked below about asking for guest blogging, which I thought was a must-read, and so, if you think of doing a follow-up on this one, would love to read some of your tips and do’s and don’t about this. Thanks again, Sean, you’re doing some very inspiring work here!
Nathalie, a couple ways you can find out if you dont just want to ask their support person:
-Look at the bottom of the home page and see if they have a link that says “affiliates”, “partners” or anything like that.
-Also try googling “product name affiliate program.”
Thanks Sean, did that but no luck, at least for my favorite product. I might just ask, out of curiosity 🙂
I would like to add that for information products, a lot of the time it’s pretty easy to rank for “information product review”. I recently did a review of a popular ebook that is a month long discipline program. I went about it by doing the actual program and documenting everything. At the end of the month I wrote up a 2700 word article summing up the whole experience.
I’m not sure of the exact reasons why I started to rank, but I have a few theories. It was a very long, honest, and informative post on the subject. I believe this made it stand out from all the other reviews in which the author just wrote up a basic summary of what it’s about. It also is one of the latest reviews on the book, so perhaps google freshness has something to do with it. I haven’t done any linkbuilding on this page and it currently sits at #2.
When I first published it, I put it up on reddit a few places, and on a facebook group I’m in. It was sitting at #3 the day I published it, then it slowly slipped back down the front page of google. It went all the way down to the bottom of the 2nd page, and sat there for a week or so. Then I saw it randomly just shot up to 2 again.
I have no idea why it did this, but I guess if you are going to do a review of an information product, check the competition to see what other people have done already and do something better. You could wind up ranking for something with relatively little SEO work.
Nice! Personal reviews definitely go a loooong way when trying to drive affiliate sales. People are smart, and if you’re trying to BS them they can tell.
I used to rank really well for “Empire Building Kit Review” which didnt send a whole lot of traffic, but it did send quite a few sales.
Great article as it gets me thinking about the various ways to monetize my sites. With that said, my biggest hurdle has been how to get started building traffic. You see articles all over the net talking about massive traffic techniques, but I’ve never really found a guide for a fresh blog/website and how to get to their first 100, 500, or 1,000 daily uniques. Of course writing consistent quality content is key, but writing alone an audience does not make. Any tips or articles to point us to? Thanks again Sean!
Mike, I’d start with this post. There are some great strategies for getting started in there: http://okdork.com/2014/02/09/grow-blog-100000-visitors-less-year/?hvid=1ymnEP
Maybe it works with a blog. It certainly doesn’t work without a blog; at least, not for me.
It could totally work on sites that aren’t blogs if approached the right way.
I’ve seen examples where people have used high-demand, high-fee products and done things like advertising them using Facebook ads. Lots of affiliates won’t let you compete with advertising that they’re doing, and it’s not as honest or transparent as linking via blogs etc, but it shows it can be done.
If you build a really engaged social media audience and become renowned for the value you provide, you could absolutely use that for affiliate products, too.
Hi Sean!
Thank you for the article, I found it helpful. But a question remains in my mind: the affiliate program only works if you have enough traffic going through your website. Now, my website is new and my traffic is a desgrace. Any ideas on how to tackle that?
Daniela,
Definitely! I think guest posting is one of the best ways to generate traffic and grow your SEO prowess: http://www.seanogle.com/how-to/guest-posting
Also, spend a little bit of time on your on page SEO for these review posts. My golf site hadn’t been around very long, but after becoming one of the first people to review a brand new product, I jumped way up in the rankings for terms related to them. So make sure your headlines have keywords that people would actually be searching for.
I absolutely see the value in affiliate sales (and Pay Flynn is one of the masters at doing this authentically and openly), but I got really turned off it when I saw a lot of bloggers I read and respect writing junky “How to set up a blog” posts that didn’t seem relevant to their audiences purely so that the could get the sweet Bluehost commissions in.
Moral of the story? Be honest and true to your audience!
Thats a great point, and I’ve definitely seen my fair share of those “how to start a blog” posts. That’s always been a good fit for people at Location 180, and if they do a good job on the post (truly make it useful) that’s one that doesnt bother me as much – solely because I know how valuable starting a blog can be for your life and goals. So if it’s some personal finance blogger that creates one and you start a blog from that by following their tutorial – all the better!
But those definitely are pretty transparent, and especially with other industries like credit cards it’s a very fine line.
Hi Sean,
Good writup. I have been reading up about affiliate marketing and have heard others comment that AMAZON payouts (around 4% per sale) are exactly what we should be looking at as a long time business. What is you view on that? Are there other alternatives to Amazon with higher payouts?
Jonathan
I think it really depends on what type of site you’re trying to build. For me, I don’t recommend all that much stuff on Amazon, and the payouts are low that it doesnt make a whole lot of sense to spend 8 hours on a 3,000 word tutorial blog post to try and sell a $10 book and make $.40 on it.
There are people who have success with Amazon, but those are usually the people using more advanced things like datafeeds that can end up looking really spammy and inauthentic.
Most of the Amazon alternatives are going to be niche by niche. For instance there’s a golf ball site that I can affiliate for and make 15-20% commissions vs the 4-7% on Amazon. The nice thing about Amazon however is the fact that just about everyone uses it, and its so easy to buy something.
Being open and upfront about earning affiliate commission is another way not to appear pushy or as if you’re just trying to make a sale. This very useful and informative post contained a number of affiliate links and were I to want to buy one of those products or services mentioned, I would actively seek out this post and buy it through Sean as a way of saying thank you for such top information.
I was reading an article some months back by an affiliate marketer who said that some of his readers have told him that they always make sure they click to products through his site so that he earns the commission.
If the content’s good and you’re open about the commission, readers will actually help you earn it if they want to buy what you’re promoting.
http://mrwgifs.com/i-like-it-another-thor-reaction-gif/ ^_^
I would love to get more guidance on how to increase affiliate clicks, track affiliate clicks, track actual sales (possible?), see which clicks/links produce the most sales and overall aspects of getting more out of your current traffic. The nitty gritty.
Another!
Newby here! I first knew about affiliate programs when reading Chris G book where he mention his affiliate program but never really understood what was all about.
Great post Sean full of new ( for me ) and useful information!!
cheers!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Hi Sean, a long time reader here. I am tinkering at the edges to start an affiliate website, did my homework about keyword research and product selection etc. but I am still unsure if I will be able to pursue the visitors to buy the product.
Appreciate tips or pointers that I can use to boost my confidence.
Thanks
Kashif, the best way to gain confidence is just to start doing it. Don’t worry as much about persuading people to buy. Worry first about creating something useful and genuine. The sales will come from there.
Hi Sean,
I have a couple of blogs I’d like to turn into affiliate sites. I can’t seem to even get started with CJ (Commission Junction). When I try to join a vendor, I automatically get declined. I haven’t even started, so I have idea why I may be “blacklisted” automatically.
Is there a secret to joining vendors on CJ?
A couple things to think about:
-How much time did you spend on your application? Did you just gloss over it or really answer the questions in detail.
-Is it in a related industry or something totally different?
-Try calling the affiliate manager – often if you do that they can get you approved manually.
Hey, thanks for the great post. I’ve been following Pat Flynn and love his “give and it shall be given unto you” attitude..my perception anyway. At 50, with a high school education, I’m trying to learn affiliate marketing from information online. What I’ve gleened so far is to focus on giving the best, most honest information, like your Parents would give you. In exchange for your efforts rewards will come.
I wish you much success,
Penny
I was able to make my first online dollars through Amazon Affiliate sales… It was never much and in the beginning I was just excited to make $10 in a month, which was enough for a free ebook or two. With regular updates and link inclusions in my posts over time I was able to grow the number up to like $300 a month–which I was pretty happy with. Of course the payout rates are paltry compared to a sale of an info product like one from Unconventional Guides, etc. Thing is, people seem to be more open to purchasing physical products rather than information products…
Hi Sean,
Thanks for putting this together it’s a really awesome write up. Do you have a method for finding new niches to dive into? What is your preferred method of driving traffic? Thanks!
Hi Sean,
great post about affiliate marketing here.
Definitely, it’s one of the most lucrative ways to generate a passive income online.
However, not every blogger are able to get good money out of it.
Using the right tools, producing great content, solving your audience needs and problems, choosing relevant products or services to promote are some tips to reach success with affiliate marketing.
Thanks for sharing!
Hi Sean
I’ve just got to hear about affiliate marketing and am really a newbie to this matter. The post above was so great and helpful for a person like me. I also took a look at locationrebel which seemed very exciting to me. I wonder if those courses and blueprints are still applicable because as far as I’ve seen, the reviews and testimonials all refer to the year 2013. It was the only reason that hold me back from joining the Locationrebel. I would be very thankful if you help me with this matter.
John,
They are absolutely still up to date (and I review them twice a year to make sure they stay that way. Unfortunately the one thing I haaaven’t been so good at updating are the testimonials. Will get some more recent ones up ASAP!
I can see some new FAQ and testimonials have been added to Location Rebel. Thanks for that quick response. Is there a way through which I would be able to ask some questions in private?
John, man you’re quick! Just added those this morning. Shoot me an email at [email protected]!
How neat! This makes me a bit more interested in maybe starting my own blog. Maybe for the wrong reasons though. (; Plus I’d probably have to spend time building a trusting reader base before I can start recommending them products. Hm, maybe someday… (I know, I know — “abolish someday”)
Hi Sean,
Interesting read, your article. I am a relative Newbie at AM and would like to get some real traction in the online marketplace. It is not an easy endeavor. The difficulty for me is getting traffic to my site. I have a new blog site now dedicated to Internet and Affiliate Marketing.
Now we have Google’s upcoming requirement that your website be mobile-friendly. That has caused a scrambling to comply for a lot of webmasters. Have you done anything to ensure your sites are compliant to low, mid and upper tier level cell phones?
For your info and anyone else who may be interested in finding out if their website will pass Google’s litmus test in this regard, just head on over to Google’s test site:
https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/. I hope that url was alright to post inside this message, I have no affiliation or commitment to that site).
Thanks again for the information!
See you at the top!
-DPano
Hi Sean,
thanks for your information..
I have a question,
I already signed up for affiliate in word press.
How can i get the link? that will bring the user to the WordPress site accounted to me?
Hi Sean,
great written steps and for me you have covered up all I wanted to know.
Reading this article I thought , wow thats still a lotta work and realised- if you maried me, I wouldnt have to do all the work!. Then looking at your picture I can tell I could almost be your mom, so if you dont have one, let me know! 😛
If all wife- and kiddom is covered, how about launching you in Germany? I’ve done this with a lot of bands before! 😉
Seriously.. some here are good , compared to you tho, they are just ok. And thats really not enough…
Thanks for all the info and that you freely give away a lot of advice.
Cheers!
Thank you for this awesome resource. I will do the steps and work on it.
.
Thank you for this awesome resource. I will do the steps and work on it. I have deal for the affiliate marketer sell my product on 30% commission.
Thanks Sean for your great post.
I wondering about Solo Ads, which case and which niche we should use Solo Ads? Could you share me your advices please?
I want to use that way to build my list. However, I tried it some time but without success.
I’m currently working with Edu-Profit in essay niche.
Regarding the conversion – they recently made prices update, I don’t know yet how this will impact on the envelope. After all, since the September 10-12 traffic will increase
The essence of update – they updated prices on one of their sites, and say that new prices already show a 21% and higher conversion boost. And they also made the table instead of calculator.
Someone else is working with them? There are any numbers? I don’t know, believe it or not.
Newby here! I first knew about affiliate programs when reading Chris G book where he mention his affiliate program but never really understood what was all about.
Great post Sean full of new and useful information!
Glad you got some value out of it!
i was create a affiliate marketing account and i don’t understand how to start the work&how to create the links????
Hi Sean – great post!
I need some help.
I am a solopreneur and using Wix.com for my website.
I would like to utilize affiliate marketing to jumpstart my sales.
But with the Wix platform, it’s impossible to incorporate an affiliate system (their helpdesk didn’t answer why it won’t work).
My question…
Would it make sense to create a separate landing page with a different CMS and different url in order to do affiliate marketing?
The downside for SEO would be that I wouldn’t be driving traffic to my own site.
Other than the affiliate marketing thing, Wix has been fine and I’m not that excited to switch my entire site to a new platform.
Have you come across this before?
Does a stand-alone landing page for affiliate marketing make sense or am I just being crazy?
I appreciate your time.
Thanks,
-Greg-
Thanks for the great article!
People often ask me, “Do any of these affiliate programs that you hear so much about really work?”
Yes, they can work if you keep a few things in mind:
1. Associate only with good affiliate programs that offer products your visitors will actually want to buy.
2. Look for affiliate programs that not only pay high commissions but that also provide actual value to their customers.
3. Don’t link to affiliate websites that are scams. Word will get out and you will lose credibility with your visitors.
4. Write content that is related to the affiliate program you are offering.
5. Learn about affiliate marketing from reputable websites
Great post. This post gives good insight on what we can gain from A.M. As a new marketer, we want to read positive things like this to keep us motivated.
Thanks for the ultimate guide on AM !!
I’m a newbie blogger and I am interested Affiliate marketing. I like your website and would like to know if you have any valuable tips on growing my email list. Any begginers advice would be appreciated. Thanks in advance
Thanks for this great resource! 🙂 Great tips and easily broken down for newbies! Wish I would’ve found this post years ago.
hi Sean,
thank you for the information, it helped me a lot…
can I just know how information affiliate marketing works and what are its initial steps
This is real informatic information. I found this one real meaningful, wow! you truly showing the way affiliate works. I agree ad monetize can be passive income theme while affiliate can be our primary hope…I read so many articles but feels like something is hidden..but found this one real insidefull. This is showing us how our 100 bug can be harvested from from small sources. Because newbies might want to give up blogging as they are not going to earn because they thought it’s one shot income source. Thanks Sean it will really encourage every new entrepreneurs.
Hi Sean,
This is extremely helpful information for somebody who is a newbie blogger! I’ve been looking for an all inclusive “guide” to explain affiliate marketing and this is the best I’ve found. Quick question for you – when you talk about the cookie expiration date, is that from the date that you post your review/recommendation or from the date that the reader clicks on the link? For example, the affiliate links you posted in this post are well over 90 days old but if I click on one of them now and buy that product, do you still get paid? Just curious how that works.
Thanks!
Thanks Ryan! It’s when the user clicks on the link. Cookie isnt set until the aff link is clicked.
Sean. Wow so much information to take in, really helpful, It’s nice to know that blog owners have many ways to earn extra income while they blog about what they like. Keep up the great work. I really enjoy reading this long full of information post. Will definately come back soon! Thanks!
hi sean,,,
how do I start making affiliate sites, while I do not have a product from the merchant to create review articles, because I have not joined them..thanks
this might be a dumb question but I am curious, when you have an affiliate with a product, do they actually send you the product? How will I be able to review it if I don’t actually have anything to review or show that I actually own? Or will I need to purchase the item to review it?
Hey Sean,
Great post.
Totally agree with your opinion on affiliate marketing. I’m in the same space myself and can tell you what it feels like to earn $1000 commissions while literally sitting on the sofa watching TV. It is absolutely mind-blowing. High-ticket commissions are what sets apart the affiliate marketers that scale their business up to six or even seven figures to the ones that only make a few thousand a month. I run a website based on digital marketing an entrepreneurship. You should check out our affiliate program – it is guaranteed to blow your mind. 🙂
hey sean, am a newbie who is so ethusistic about online marketing. great post , i must commend , it came in handy. through your post i clearly understand that an affiliate mustr have a website and a blog as a platform for promoting the good and services. here the thing with me , i dont have either of them and am asking ….. is it advisable for me to delve in affilate marketing peradventure i get a blog running now …?
GREAT POST SEAN, I AM VERY ENTHUSIASTIC ABOUT AFFFILIATE MARKETING. I HAVE READ A COUPLE OF ARTICLES ABOUT IT INCLUDING YOURS. THE PROBLEM I HAVE IS I DONT HAVE A WEBSITE OR A BLOG. AM ,HOWEVER, INTERESTED IN GETING ONE , BUT IS IT REALLY ADVISABLE TO DELVE INTO THE AFFILIATE BUISNESS AS A NEW BLOGGER HAVING NOT AMASSED GOOD TRAFFIC ON THE SITE ?
Hey, regarding Clickbank – do you have recommendations about improving conversions on a varied webpage? I own a file uploading site and as such it is extremely to match offers to the visitor. Best wishes
I am using Amazon affiliate marketing these tips of your will help me in making money. thanks..
I usually trying for long days for learning affiliate marketing and earning but still now I am struggling for that , Your writing is pretty helpful for that learning.
Thanks for sharing.
Hey Sean!
Nice breakdown of what and where to start affiliate marketing. I’m inclined to start service affiliate marketing as I’m starting to play around with my marketing tools myself.
One thing that I do notice is that the bloggers are mostly transparent about their affiliations with the product , I wonder what’s the conversion between not mention that he/she is affiliated with the product vs. saying that he/she is affiliated with the product.
Kate
Really good post. i will return and read it again
Major thankies for the forum. Great.
Thank you for detailed post. I am eagerly looking to start an affiliate website for Amazon products. Google search brought me on this page and I am happy to learn what the heck affiliate is all about.
Awesome article! This is jam packed with great info. I am just starting a personal finance blog with my fiance and we were a little confused about how to start monetizing. We were initially thinking about using Google AdSense but between this post and another blog I read I am surely convinced that’s not the correct route. I’m really happy you have shared this information because it’s provided an excellent starting point for creating income.
Great advise for all new affiliates. It takes a long time to get a reasonable amount of traffic. This will help a lot of people out
Great post, Sean! I have been using Adsense for the most part for two years now and each year, due to great content, my income has doubled. Thanks for all the great content, and this is sure to open my eyes a bit more to the likes of Amazon, which, I will admit, I have been ignoring due to the way they treat their affiliates. But, maybe it’s just me being a turd….
I have seen someone not use a website or a blog. They are posting Amazon links with their coupon code. The reviews are in the link and she adds her advice to the post. She posts about 20 different items a day. Thoughts?!
Wow! I just discovered your great piece through a search on Google. I appreciate the way you layed out everything step by step.
Value packed thanks so much. Bookmarked for reference!
Hi Sean,
What a great and helpful article. I had no idea the SEM rush was offering that much for their affiliate commission. It means that for every 3 people that subscribe, the basic tier will be fully paid for! That’s definitely a goal to work towards.
Whenever I am looking at a new program (for my own use) I am always searching the site for affiliation links, because really, if I find value in it, I hope that others will as well!
Matt
I’m glad to see on your list of “questions to ask yourself before promoting” that the ‘how much will I earn from this?’ is the last question… I’m paraphrasing here, but too many affiliates think about themselves first and I like that you are focusing on the audience first. Well done.
Thanks Miles. I’ve always shied away from a lot of the typical internet marketing strategies that are all about how to make as much money as possible with little regard for actually building trust and engagement with your audience. Totally agree with you, it should be audience first, profit second. And over time if you do that, you’ll come out way ahead.
Enjoyed the video, I think I’ll have a drink with you, but make mine a Bloodymary.
You got it! Bloody mary it is 🙂