In a glance.
What is affiliate marketing? It’s a performance-based business model where you earn commissions by promoting other companies’ products or services using unique tracking links. You don’t need to create products, handle inventory, or deal with customer service. You simply recommend products you trust and get paid when people buy through your links.
Here’s how affiliate marketing works in three simple steps:
1. You share a product recommendation on your website, blog, social media, or email list
2. Someone clicks your unique affiliate link and makes a purchase
3. You earn a commission, anywhere from 5% to 50% depending on the program
The beauty of affiliate marketing? You can earn passive income 24/7. While you’re sleeping, your content continues working for you, generating clicks and conversions.
In this comprehensive guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about affiliate marketing, from understanding the core mechanics to implementing proven strategies that drive real revenue.
We’re (Humbly) One of the World’s Best Affiliate Marketers
Unlike other wannabe experts and marketing gurus, we practice what we preach and have done so for decades.
Our CEO, Syed Balkhi, is one of the top affiliate marketers in the world. We’ve built and managed several high-profile publications that attract millions of monthly visitors. These are sites you’re familiar with, like WPBeginner and IsItWP.
But let me tell you a secret about those sites:
They don’t actually sell anything.
So how do they earn money?
2 words: affiliate marketing.
That’s why we’re excited to teach you everything about affiliate marketing so you, too, can become an affiliate marketer and start making money while you’re asleep 😉
If you’re already a seasoned pro, feel free to jump straight to our section on How to Start Affiliate Marketing and Make Money.
What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based strategy where companies partner with independent marketers—called affiliates—to promote their products or services.
When someone clicks an affiliate’s unique tracking link and makes a purchase (or completes a specific action), the affiliate earns a commission.
It’s a win-win model: businesses get more exposure with minimal upfront costs, and affiliates get a chance to earn income by recommending products they trust.
It’s classic advertising in a less intrusive way. Rather than promoting a product on your website with visual advertisements like this:
You embed the product link in your content like this:
In the image above, the affiliate partner is Bluehost, which offers website self-hosting services. In fact, the link in the previous sentence is actually an affiliate link. If you were to click that link and make a purchase from Bluehost, our company would receive a commission.
Does that mean you can create a website, toss in a bunch of affiliate links, and watch the affiliate commissions roll in? Not quite, but I’ll get to that.
For now, you need to know the basics of how affiliate marketing works:
- You recommend a product or service to your followers through your website, blog, or email list.
- Your followers purchase the product or service using your affiliate link.
- You get paid a commission for the sales made using your affiliate link.
Let’s break down this process into more detail to make sure you know exactly how to make a successful affiliate marketing strategy.
P.S. There has been a growing concern: Is affiliate marketing legit?
Yes, affiliate marketing is a legitimate form of online marketing. The success of programs like Amazon’s affiliate marketing program, Amazon Associates, is a strong testimony to its legitimacy. As one of the world’s largest and most reputable companies, Amazon effectively utilizes affiliate marketing to promote its extensive range of products and services.
How Does Affiliate Marketing Work
The 4 Key Players
To understand how affiliate marketing works, it’s important first to understand the several essential components of the affiliate marketing system.
| Role | Description |
|---|---|
| Merchant | The product creator or service provider |
| Affiliate | The marketer who promotes the product |
| Consumer | The person who clicks and buys |
| Affiliate Program | The network that tracks links and pays commissions |
1. Merchants
A merchant might also be called a brand, seller, creator, retailer, or vendor. They create the product or service that needs promotion. They can be an individual, a large corporation, or anything in between. For merchants, affiliate marketing is both low-cost and low risk. They usually only pay when the affiliate when a sale is made.
2. Affiliate
Affiliates, or marketers promote the merchant’s products and attempt to persuade potential customers to buy them. They’re often publishers or content creators. Through these partnerships, marketers receive payment for successfully promoting the merchant’s products.
3. Consumers
The people who click the affiliate links and ultimately purchase the product. The affiliate receives a commission based on the sale.
4. Affiliate Marketing Programs
Affiliate networks, or affiliate marketing programs, are intermediaries between the affiliate and the merchant. They offer a database of products for affiliates to promote. The affiliate network connects a merchant with affiliate marketers. They also generate unique, trackable links for each product or service.
For instance, Amazon Affiliate Marketing Program is the largest affiliate network for promoting consumer products. You can use the Amazon Associates program to create a custom affiliate link for any item sold on their platform. You likely see Amazon affiliate links regularly on various blogs and social media pages.
In short, affiliate marketers use affiliate networks to find products they can promote and to get unique affiliate links for those products. The marketer then includes that link in their website’s content. Consumers read this content and click the affiliate links. The network keeps track of all those clicks, plus any sales made through the link. Then, the merchant pays a commission to the marketer based on the number of clicks and sales.
How Affiliates Get Paid (Commission Models) + 2025 earnings data
Affiliates can get paid in various ways, depending on the program. Some common payment structures include:
| Model | Description |
|---|---|
| Pay Per Sale | Commission for each product sold |
| Pay Per Click | Commission per click |
| Pay Per Lead | Commission for form submissions |
| Revenue Share | % of total sale |
| CPA | Paid for specific actions |
- Pay per sale (PPS): In this model, the affiliate receives a commission for every sale they generate for the merchant. This is the most common payment method used in affiliate marketing.
- Pay per click (PPC): The affiliate earns a commission each time a user clicks on their affiliate link, regardless of whether they purchase.
- Pay per lead (PPL): The affiliate gets paid when a referred user fills out a form, signs up for a trial, or takes any other action the merchant considers a lead.
- Revenue sharing: The affiliate receives a percentage of the revenue generated by the sale rather than a flat fee per sale.
- Cost per action (CPA): The affiliate is paid when a specific action is taken by the consumer, such as filling out a form, subscribing to a service, or downloading software.
- Tiered commission: Affiliates receive a higher commission rate once they reach a certain level of sales or referrals.
Check out this article for more affiliate marketing tips to earn more income through affiliate marketing.
Types of Affiliate Marketing Strategies (Unattached/Related/Involved)
Not all affiliate marketers operate the same way. In fact, your level of connection to the product can significantly impact your credibility and your conversion rate.
Pat Flynn, a well-known affiliate marketer, categorized affiliate strategies into three types: Unattached, Related, and Involved. Understanding these can help you choose the right approach for your audience and goals.
| Type | Product Familiarity | Trust Factor | Typical Strategy | Risk Level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unattached | None | Low | Paid ads, no content connection | Low |
| Related | Moderate | Medium | Blog/social mentions, niche overlap | Medium |
| Involved | High (first-hand use) | High | Reviews, tutorials, endorsements | High (but highest ROI) |
In More Detail:
1. Unattached Affiliate Marketing
You’re promoting a product without any personal connection or content relevance. It’s often used with pay-per-click ads or cold traffic. It requires less effort upfront, but it’s harder to build long-term trust or authority.
2. Related Affiliate Marketing
You know the niche, even if you haven’t personally used the product. Influencers and bloggers often promote relevant tools or services they haven’t tested. It’s more authentic than unattached, but there’s still a trust gap if the product fails to deliver.
3. Involved Affiliate Marketing
You’ve used the product, love it, and are recommending it based on real experience. This is where affiliate marketing shines. People trust your recommendations, and you’re more likely to see repeat commissions from loyal readers.
Further reading: How Pat Flynn Categorized Affiliate Marketing
How to Start Affiliate Marketing
Step 1: Choose Your Niche
Before you build anything, you need to pick your lane. Your niche determines which products you’ll promote, what content you’ll create, and ultimately, how much you’ll earn.
The best niches combine three things:
- Your genuine interest or expertise (you’ll be creating a lot of content)
- Proven buyer demand (people actively spending money)
- Available affiliate programs (merchants willing to pay commissions)
Based on current market data, these verticals offer the highest earning potential:
Education & Online Learning – Booming with a 30.15% CAGR, offering high-ticket recurring commissions up to $1,700 per referral
Travel – Average earnings of $13,847/month with 5-10%+ commissions on luxury bookings
Beauty & Skincare – Strong mobile traffic (62% of purchases) and seasonal content opportunities
SaaS & Software – Recurring revenue models with 20-70% lifetime commissions
Health & Fitness – Particularly fitness tech, with strong performance on visual platforms
Retail continues to dominate overall affiliate marketing spend at 48% of total affiliate-driven sales.
Pro Tip: Don’t just chase money. If you pick a niche solely for the commissions but have zero interest in the topic, you’ll burn out before you see results. Choose something you can talk about authentically for years, not months.
Step 2: Build Your Platform
To make money with affiliate marketing, you need a platform where you can share content and drive traffic to your affiliate links.
Option A: Build a Website or Blog (Recommended)
A website gives you the most control, credibility, and long-term earning potential. While you can use social media (we’ll get to that), a website is your home base.
Why WordPress?
When it comes to building your website, you have tons of options. But I highly recommend using WordPress.
With WordPress, anyone can quickly build a professional-looking website in minutes, even if you don’t know how to code. WordPress has more tools to help their sites perform at a higher level than other website builders. That means more functionality across your site and a better user experience (UX) for your visitors.
What you need to get started:
- Domain name ($10-15/year)
- Web hosting ($3-10/month)
- WordPress (free)
- Basic theme (free or $50-100)
Total startup cost: Under $100 for your first year.
Helpful Resources:
- How to start a WordPress blog
- How to make a website with WordPress (step-by-step guide)
Option B: Social Media Platforms
You don’t absolutely need a website to start. Influencers successfully use affiliate links on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and other social platforms.
However, having a website builds long-term credibility, gives you more control over content, and improves your chances of ranking in search results and AI Overviews. Social platforms can change their algorithms or policies overnight. Your website? That’s yours.
Pro Strategy: Use both. Build a website as your hub, then use social media to drive traffic to it.
Step 3: Join Affiliate Networks and Choose Products
Once your platform is built, you need to find products worth promoting. That’s where affiliate networks come in.
Affiliate networks are businesses that connect merchants and affiliate marketers so both can earn more money. They provide a database of products, generate unique tracking links, handle commission payments, and track your performance.
One of the benefits of these affiliate marketing services is they typically provide more sales data on the different promotional products. You can then use that data to increase your affiliate marketing profits and make data-driven decisions.
Top Affiliate Networks Comparison
Not all affiliate networks are created equal. Each has its strengths, ideal niches, and unique features that can make or break your affiliate strategy.
| Network | Best For | Merchants | Avg. Commission | Cookie Duration | Key Strengths |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Amazon Associates | Beginners, all niches | Millions | 1-10% (most 3-4%) | 24 hours | Massive catalog, trusted brand |
| ShareASale | Physical products, diverse niches | 30,000+ | 5-20% | 30-90 days | Huge variety, reliable tracking |
| CJ Affiliate | Established sites, premium brands | 20,000+ | 5-15% | Varies | Top-tier brands, robust analytics |
| Rakuten Advertising | High-traffic sites, global reach | 1,000+ | 5-15% | Varies | Elite brands, AI matchmaking |
| Awin | European market, global brands | 25,000+ | Varies | Varies | Strong international presence |
| PartnerStack | B2B SaaS, software | 300+ | 20-70% recurring | 90 days | High recurring commissions |
| Impact | Enterprises, influencers | 2,000+ | Varies | Varies | Advanced tracking, influencer tools |
| ClickBank | Digital products, info products | 6,000+ | 50-75% | 60 days | Extremely high commissions |
| FlexOffers | Bloggers, content creators | 12,000+ | 5-25% | Varies | Good variety, dedicated support |
| Admitad | International marketers, travel | 3,000+ | Varies | Varies | Fast payouts, no website required |
Quick Recommendations by Experience Level
If you’re just starting out: Begin with Amazon Associates and ShareASale. Both offer easy approval and massive product selection.
If you’re in B2B/SaaS: PartnerStack is non-negotiable. The recurring commissions transform your income model.
If you have established traffic: Apply to CJ Affiliate and Rakuten for premium brand partnerships and higher payouts.
If you’re international: Awin and Admitad offer better global coverage and multi-currency support.
If you promote digital products: ClickBank’s 50-75% commissions can’t be beaten, but vet products carefully.
Network Spotlight: Amazon Associates
Amazon Associates remains the world’s largest affiliate program and is the perfect starting point for beginners in 2026.
Commission Rates by Category:
- Luxury Beauty: 10%
- Digital Music, Physical Music, Handmade: 5%
- Amazon Devices, Fashion, Jewelry, Watches: 4%
- Home, Kitchen, Automotive: 3%
- Electronics, Video Games: 2-3%
- Amazon Fresh, Groceries: 1%
The catch? Amazon’s 24-hour cookie window is short compared to other networks. But here’s the good news: you earn commissions on the entire shopping cart, not just the linked product. If someone clicks your link for a $20 book, then adds a $500 TV to their cart and checks out within 24 hours, you get commission on both.
Pro Tip: Amazon works best when you focus on review content that drives immediate purchases. The short cookie window means you need to catch buyers when they’re ready to click “Add to Cart.”
How to Choose Products Within Networks
Once you join a network, you’ll see thousands of products. Don’t promote everything. Instead:
- Choose products that fit your niche and relate to your content. If you run a fitness blog, promote workout equipment, supplements, and activewear—not random kitchen gadgets.
- Prioritize products you’ve actually used. Your recommendations carry more weight when you can speak from experience. Authenticity converts better than generic promotion.
- Check the numbers. Look for products with:
- Higher commission rates
- Good cookie duration (30+ days is ideal)
- Strong merchant reputation
- Positive reviews from other affiliates
Pro Strategy: Don’t limit yourself to one network. Most successful affiliates use 3-5 networks simultaneously to access the best products across all niches, compare commission rates for similar products, diversify income streams, and avoid being dependent on a single network’s policies.
Step 4: Create High-Converting Content
Here’s the truth: building enough traffic to generate significant income takes time and effort.
Many beginners publish random content and insert affiliate links within the article. That strategy may or may not work, but if you genuinely want to boost your affiliate revenue, you must ensure your published content reaches your target audience.
Understanding Your Target Audience
Your target audience is someone who wants to buy a product but is wondering whether or not the product is worth it. They’re searching for product reviews, lists, and ratings to help them make their choice. Sometimes, the user may need help knowing which product will fulfill their needs.
As an affiliate marketer, it’s your job to help users discover the right product for their needs. By producing high-quality content, you can help them make a purchasing decision, and then you can navigate them to the product website to complete the purchase.
Target Investigational Intent Keywords
This is critical. Your articles should target investigational intent keywords. These are the Google search terms that your target audience uses to research the product they’re interested in.
Examples of investigational keywords:
- “Best running shoes for flat feet”
- “Bluehost vs SiteGround comparison”
- “Is NordVPN worth it?”
- “Top email marketing software for small business”
- “Peloton bike review”
Notice the pattern? These aren’t just informational (“what is email marketing”) or transactional (“buy Peloton”). They’re research queries from people who are close to making a purchase decision.
Types of Content That Convert
Product Reviews: In-depth, honest reviews of specific products. Include pros, cons, pricing, and who it’s best for.
Comparison Posts: “Product A vs Product B” posts help readers decide between popular options.
Best Of Lists: “Top 10 [Product Category] for [Specific Use Case]” posts capture broad search traffic.
How-To Guides: “How to [Achieve Goal] Using [Product]” positions products as solutions.
Resource Pages: Curated lists of tools and products you actually use in your business.
The goal is to create content that ranks for investigational keywords and positions affiliate links where users are most likely to convert.
Step 5: Place Affiliate Links Strategically
Creating great content is half the battle. The other half is placing your affiliate links where they’ll actually get clicked.
How you insert your affiliate links will depend on the specific article you’re writing.
Strategic Placement Rules
For single product reviews: Don’t add 5 different affiliate links scattered randomly. Instead, your entire post should focus on driving traffic to that 1 product’s affiliate link. Place the link:
- In the introduction (after you establish credibility)
- After each major pro/con section
- In a clear call-to-action at the end
For “Top 10” or comparison posts: Include affiliate links for each list item. This increases your chances of making more sales since readers have different preferences.
For how-to guides: Place links naturally where the product solves the problem you’re explaining.
Link Placement Best Practices
Only link where appropriate. Don’t add an affiliate link if it doesn’t fit your content. Irrelevant links will negatively impact the user experience (UX) and cost you more lost sales in the long run.
Add links as early as possible. If you’re showcasing many products in 1 article, add your affiliate products at the top of the list. Most people won’t take the time to read an entire article. You want to make sure they see your affiliate links early on.
Get more out of your site’s space. You can use floating bars, inline banners, and sidebar widgets to promote your affiliate products. These enhance the impact of your content and lead to more sales over time.
Use an Affiliate Link Management Plugin
Here’s a nightmare scenario: You have 200 affiliate links spread across 50 blog posts. One of your affiliate partners changes their tracking link structure. Now you need to manually find and update every single link.
Fortunately, this is one nightmare that can be avoided with an affiliate management plugin. One of the best options on the market is Pretty Links.
What Pretty Links Does:
Pretty Links is an affiliate marketing management plugin that lets you keep track of your affiliate links. It’s easy to set up and super user-friendly, even for beginners.
Key features:
- Centralized link management: Update one link, and it changes everywhere on your site
- Link cloaking: Turn ugly affiliate links into clean, branded URLs (yoursite.com/recommends/bluehost instead of affiliate.com?id=12345&ref=xyz)
- Click tracking: See which links get the most clicks so you can optimize
- Auto-linking: Automatically turn keywords into affiliate links across your site
Whenever you need to update your old affiliate links from your partners, you’ll be able to accomplish it in minutes, not days.
Step 6: Optimize for Conversions
One of the biggest mistakes new affiliate marketers make is assuming they need 10x the traffic to get 10x the profit.
It doesn’t work that way, which is excellent news for you.
Let’s say you’re promoting a product that pays a $50 affiliate commission for every sale. Out of every 100 visitors who click your affiliate link, 2 of them buy the product. This gives you an affiliate conversion rate of 2%.
That means the CPC (cost per click) you earn is $1 per click.
CPC = Total affiliate revenue / total traffic you sent
If you send 2X more visitors to the affiliate product site, you could also double your affiliate revenue. But here’s the thing: you don’t have to drastically increase traffic to double your affiliate clicks.
Instead, you can boost your revenue with a conversion optimization campaign.
With conversion software like OptinMonster, you can increase your revenue by converting more of your existing traffic into affiliate customers. Without a doubt, this strategy is much easier than doubling your traffic.
How OptinMonster Boosts Affiliate Income
Strategy 1: Create Popup Campaigns That Promote Affiliate Products
Lightbox popups are one of the best ways to catch your user’s attention.
Creating a popup campaign is the easiest method to convert more of your visitors into affiliate customers.
OptinMonster provides over 700+ pre-built templates to help you make the right campaign for your affiliate product. We also offer many targeting rules and campaign triggers to ensure you’re showing the right message to the right people at the right time.
Real Results: This is the exact strategy Top 6 Digital used to increase their affiliate revenue by 30%.
The company had a webpage to help parents choose the right car seats for their children. When the reader tries to leave this page, a targeted campaign would appear on their screen promoting the top-rated car seat with an affiliate link.
This simple popup campaign was hugely successful. It grabbed the audience’s attention, and over 17% of users clicked the affiliate link. That’s a 30% increase in affiliate revenue without changing a single word of the original content.
Strategy 2: Display Campaigns When Users Are Most Likely to Buy
When it comes to popup campaigns, targeting is everything. Targeting lets you control who sees your popups, as well as when they see them.
Exit-Intent Technology
Studies show that the best time to show a popup is when a user is about to leave your site. With OptinMonster’s Exit-Intent technology, you can show a popup that promotes an affiliate offer when your users are about to leave.
Exit-Intent detects the exact moment a visitor is about to abandon your page and triggers a targeted campaign. This is your last chance to convert them, and it works incredibly well.
Page-Level Targeting
Our customers use Exit-Intent along with Page-Level Targeting and see massive results.
Page-level targeting allows you to create affiliate offers for specific pages on your site. So when a visitor is reading an article about the best hiking boots for winter, you can show them a campaign that highlights the EXACT affiliate product you’re promoting in that article.
Since the offer you promote in that campaign is highly targeted, it’s more likely to convert than a generic campaign.
Real Results:
The WordPress hosting company Flywheel used page-level targeting to increase engagement by 660%. They showed popups offering guides to increasing freelance revenue, but only on blog posts related to running a business.
Or take the fitness company Crossrope, for example. They grew their email list by over 900% by catching abandoning traffic with exit-intent popups.
The 80/20 Rule: Focus on Your Winners
This next optimization strategy comes from something called “the 80/20 rule.”
The 80/20 rule, in this case, suggests that 80% of your profits will come from 20% of your content. While it’s not an exact metric, the basic principle stands firm:
Identify your highest converting content. Make those posts the priority for your affiliate campaigns.
Once you know that a particular post or video is resonating with your audience, you can create a targeted campaign with OptinMonster to increase affiliate sales.
This is a much better plan of action than blindly making campaigns for every page on your site.
How do you get started?
Jump into your Google Analytics dashboard, identify the articles that bring in the most traffic, and then create targeted campaigns for those URLs.
Level Up with MonsterInsights
And if you really want to level up your game, you should consider getting MonsterInsights.
MonsterInsights is the world’s #1 Google Analytics (GA) plugin. Many marketers love the idea of gathering data from Google Analytics, but they get confused, annoyed, or intimidated by GA’s user interface.
Rather than letting all that valuable information go to waste each month, you can get the same data delivered straight to your WordPress dashboard. This data includes a review of your site’s top posts.
Once you’ve identified which posts bring the most traffic, you can optimize your content and conversion campaigns to generate more affiliate revenue.
This strategy will ensure that you’re always prioritizing your most profitable content. That means you can save time and increase revenue as efficiently as possible.
The takeaway: You’re not starting from scratch. Optimize content that already performs well to earn more with less effort.
Step 7: Leverage Email Marketing
No matter how you look at it, email marketing is still the best way to earn passive income. All of the other methods fall short in some way.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is great until Google changes its algorithm and your rankings tank. Paid ads can bring quick results, but only if you have the budget for a lot of trial and error. Paid ads also require constant care and attention to keep conversion rates high.
But your email list gives you a direct route to your target audience.
It’s full of people who are interested in your niche and have already engaged with your content. That means they’ll make an ideal audience for your affiliate marketing campaigns.
Unfortunately, many businesses struggle to grow their contact list to the point where monetization is possible.
How to Build Your Email List
OptinMonster is hands down the best way to generate leads for your affiliate email campaigns.
Similar to how you use conversion campaigns to send traffic to your affiliate links, you can also use them to grow your email list.
You can create targeted popups, floating bars, fullscreen welcome mats, and more to entice your website visitors to join your list.
Offer a Lead Magnet
Offer a lead magnet to convert even more visitors into subscribers. Lead magnets can be special offers, free ebooks or PDF guides, or coupon codes that users only receive by giving you their email address.
How to Monetize Your Email List
Once you’ve built an email list, you can send email campaigns with your affiliate links embedded in them.
Two primary strategies:
- Drive traffic to high-converting posts: Use your email list to send subscribers to your best-performing articles with affiliate links
- Include affiliate links directly in emails: Recommend products in your newsletters with contextual affiliate links
The power of email: Email gives you direct, repeat access to your audience. Use it to drive recurring affiliate traffic and boost passive income.
Real Success Stories
Here are just a few examples of businesses that grew their lists with OptinMonster and generated more affiliate revenue:
- How Adam Enfroy Got Over 11k Subscribers
- American Bird Conservancy Grew Their Lead Collection by 1000%
- AutoAnything Increased Daily Email Optins 2.5x
You can have similar results and make even more money with affiliate marketing.
Step 8: Track Performance and Optimize
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Tracking your affiliate performance is essential for long-term success.
What to Track
Click-through rates (CTR): Which links get clicked most often?
Conversion rates: Which products actually generate sales?
Traffic sources: Where are your best visitors coming from?
Top-performing content: Which articles drive the most affiliate revenue?
Earnings per click (EPC): How much you earn per click on average across different products
Tools for Tracking
Pretty Links: Built-in click tracking shows you exactly which affiliate links perform best
Google Analytics: Track traffic sources, user behavior, and conversion paths
MonsterInsights: Simplified GA reporting right in your WordPress dashboard
Affiliate Network Dashboards: Each network provides detailed performance reports
The Optimization Loop
- Identify winners: Find your top 20% of content that drives 80% of revenue
- Double down: Create more content targeting similar keywords and topics
- Update old content: Refresh underperforming posts with better affiliate link placement
- Test and iterate: Try different CTAs, link placements, and conversion campaigns
- Cut losers: Stop promoting products with low conversion rates
This continuous optimization process is what separates affiliate marketers making $500/month from those making $5,000/month or more.
Ready to Start?
You now have the complete roadmap to start affiliate marketing in 2026. The eight steps we’ve covered will take you from absolute beginner to generating your first affiliate commissions:
✅ Choose your niche
✅ Build your platform
✅ Join affiliate networks
✅ Create high-converting content
✅ Place links strategically
✅ Optimize for conversions
✅ Build your email list
✅ Track and optimize
The affiliate marketing industry reached $17 billion globally in 2025. There’s never been a better time to start building passive income through strategic partnerships.
FAQs
1. Can you make $100 a day with affiliate marketing?
Yes, many affiliate marketers earn $100 a day or more once they have steady traffic and a solid strategy. The key is publishing content that targets high-converting keywords and includes affiliate links your audience actually clicks.
2. How do I get into affiliate marketing?
Start by choosing a niche you care about. Then, create a blog or website (WordPress is a great choice), join affiliate programs like Amazon Associates or ShareASale, and start publishing helpful content with affiliate links.
3. Does affiliate marketing really pay?
Absolutely. Affiliate marketing is a proven income stream for thousands of bloggers, YouTubers, and influencers. With the right strategy and consistent traffic, you can generate real revenue—even while you sleep.
4. How much do Amazon affiliates make?
It depends on your traffic and niche. Amazon’s commission rates vary by category, ranging from 1% to 10%. Some affiliates earn a few extra dollars a month, while others bring in thousands by targeting high-volume, high-intent keywords.
5. Is affiliate marketing still profitable in 2025?
Yes—more than ever. As online shopping continues to grow, businesses are investing more in affiliate partnerships. With the right tools and content strategy, affiliate marketing remains one of the most accessible ways to make money online.
6. Can I do affiliate marketing without a website?
You can! Affiliate links can be shared on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms. However, having a website builds long-term credibility, gives you more control over content, and improves your chances of ranking in search results and AI Overviews.
Email marketing is a great way to improve your revenue. You can use your email list to drive more traffic to your high-converting posts, or you can include your affiliate link in your emails. Either way, more people will see your affiliate links.
And, again, to grow your list, the best tool for the job is OptinMonster.
OptinMonster can help you capture more leads. More leads mean a bigger subscriber and customer base, which means a higher revenue potential.
In fact, check out these success stories from some of the businesses that use OptinMonster with great success:
- How Adam Enfroy Got Over 11k Subscribers
- American Bird Conservancy Grew Their Lead Collection by 1000%
- AutoAnything Increased Daley Email Optins 2.5x
Get Started With OptinMonster Today!
Our conversion experts will design 1 free campaign for you to get maximum results – absolutely FREE! Click here to get started →
These are just a few examples of people who grew their list with OptinMonster. You can have similar results and make even more money with online marketing.
I hope you found this article helpful. If so, you may be interested in reading the following posts:
- Affiliate Marketing Statistics All Marketers Must Know
- Best Tools for Affiliate Marketers
- How to Increase Affiliate Sales by 30% With 1 Simple Strategy
- Content Marketing Examples
- Sales Promotion Examples
Are you ready to start making more money with affiliate marketing? Sign up for your risk-free OptinMonster account today!
How This Article Was Created
This guide was written by a senior content strategist with over a decade of hands-on experience in affiliate marketing. Every strategy shared here is based on real-world results from high-traffic sites like WPBeginner and IsItWP.
Before publishing, this article was peer-reviewed by our in-house SEO and content team to ensure accuracy, clarity, and alignment with Google’s latest content guidelines.
We regularly update our content based on industry shifts, algorithm changes, and performance insights to keep it as helpful and relevant as possible.
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