how-to-start-affiliate-marketing-for-beginners-in-2023

How to Start Affiliate Marketing For Beginners in 2023 [Step-by-Step]

In this article, I’m showing you how to start affiliate marketing for beginners in 2023. With little to no money, I’ve been able to generate over $10,000 per month in affiliate income. Just using these strategies. We’ll go through all the different ways that you can drive traffic to your platform. The best niches to be in as well as the best-paying affiliate networks and platforms are out there.

So make sure to read all the way through because I’m going to tell you step-by-step how you can start building your own affiliate marketing business. 

Table of Contents

Affiliate Marketing: Get Your Audience

affiliate-marketing-get-audience
Affiliate Marketing: Get Audience

The first step is to get your audience. And a lot of people think like, hey, I don’t have a big audience right now. There’s no way I can get started in affiliate marketing. Well, the truth is that almost everyone has an audience. And if you think about it, you have your own Facebook, right? If you have a Facebook, that means you have X amount of friends on there and you are allowed to post on your timeline. And when you do that, other people can see what you post. So this is in itself a form of affiliate marketing. 

You might also have like a personal website, an Instagram, a TikTok, a YouTube channel, or anything where you have followers or an audience. This is going to make it possible for you to start affiliate marketing. 

Affiliate Marketing: Find an Affiliate Network

affiliate-marketing-network
affiliate marketing network

The second step of starting your own affiliate marketing business is to find an affiliate network or platform. So what is an affiliate network? Well, it’s a platform that has a bunch of different companies and brands on it. And once you join that affiliate network, you can apply to all these brands and companies in one spot. And on that website you can track all your stats, you can see your referrals, and it just makes it a lot easier than going out there and joining multiple different affiliate programs and just sort of losing track of all of them. 

So I will say that for beginners, this is the first thing you have to do to get your affiliate marketing business set up. And like I said before, anyone can start doing this. You don’t have to be a famous influencer, you don’t have to have like 10,000 followers on Instagram. As long as you have some type of audience, you can start today. And I’m not saying that you’re going to be extremely successful with a small audience, you probably won’t. But the key to any business is just getting started, learning as you do it, and then building your audience creatively. 

There are tons of different affiliate networks and platforms out there. Some of them include Amazon Associates, Commission Junction, PartnerStack, and Impact

Amazon Associates Affiliate Network

amazon-associates-affiliate-network
amazon associates affiliate network

This is the one platform that you guys can just sign up for today and start doing right now. Amazon is not the best-paying affiliate marketing network out there. It’s the most beginner-friendly platform that you guys can join today. And literally, anyone can share products that are available on Amazon.com to buy and have their audience purchase them, right? Like everyone can make content that relates to products available on Amazon and be able to get a commission out of that. So the program itself is called Amazon Associates. And if you just Google it, you can see it’s the first link that shows up. It’s one of the largest affiliate marketing programs in the world and it’s very easy to sign up

Anyone can join. And so there is no requirement for how many. Viewers you have, how many people see your blog, or anything like that. And this program allows you to do if you have any products that you use yourself or that you recommend. You can put your customized affiliate links in the description of your videos or post them on your Facebook wall or just send it out to your email list. Whatever audience it is you have. You can send out these links that are tracked to your account.

So whenever someone clicks on that link and sees the product that you have a link to and then they purchase it, you will get a small commission based on the product type and the specific industry of that product. And the cool thing is that even if you, let’s say, link to a rice cooker or a computer and click on that link but they end up purchasing something else, you will still get a commission for that other product. 

So you just click sign up, you use your existing account and yeah, the signup process is quite easy. They’ll ask what your platforms are like, and what you want to do with the program, but everyone gets approved.

This is the most versatile of affiliate programs, I think because you can find any type of product out there and it’s probably going to relate to your niche and make sense for you to promote. And like I said before, the product that they end up buying link doesn’t necessarily have to be the one that you link to. If they click on your link to a MacBook Pro, but they buy a different computer or they buy energy drinks or they buy a water filter, you still get a commission on those products. 

PartnerStack Affiliate Network

partnerstack
partnerstack

The next affiliate network that I think is great that anyone can join, and I think this is actually where most of my revenue comes through, is PartnerStack

Partner Stack is an awesome platform. They have so many different companies available in their network that you can partner with, and I just think that the interface is extremely good. They have great commissions and you know, the companies that they have in their network, they’re all very reliable. They’re all companies that people want to use, which you will see is very important. And you have the payouts with Partner Stack, you just connect it with your stripe account and then that’s very easily transferred into your bank account. 

In the marketplace dashboard, you can find all the different companies and brands that you could potentially be an affiliate with. 

You can find that there are tons and tons of different big-name brands and then that bench right there is a really good one that a lot of people promote and $200 for every paid referral, that’s good. 

There are all different types of affiliates in this marketplace and that’s what makes an affiliate network like this so good. It takes out so much legwork in actually going out directly and finding all these affiliate programs, just get all of them in one centralized place, which makes it a lot easier. So I just recommend you guys, if you want to start affiliate marketing, join an affiliate network like this. It’s going to make everything a lot easier. 

There are some other ones I also recommend, like commission, junction, and impact radius. Those are also very good, very similar to Partner Stack. And I will say you guys don’t have to join an affiliate network, even though I recommend it. You can also reach out and sign up directly with companies that have affiliate programs.

For example, when we were looking through Partnerstacks Affiliates, you saw that there was Bench Co. Right? They paid $200 per referral, and they also have their direct affiliate program that you can access on their website. So you could, if you wanted to, just sign up directly with Bench and do it that way. But going back to these direct affiliate programs with companies, some really good ones, Are, for example, Bluehost. 

I know they pay about $65 per referral. Teachable and Thinkific and Kajabi are all great. These are online course platforms that payout, I think, about 25, 30%. There’s Cabbage, which does personal loans. There’s Weebly for stocks. There’s M One’s Finance for stocks, and there’s also Real Estate Express for real estate courses. So let’s just dive into two of these direct affiliate programs. 

Teachable Affiliate Programs

teachable-affiliate-programs
Teachable

Let’s start with Teachable, which I think is a great, great program. So here we’re on the Teachable affiliate website, and all these websites, just give you a good introduction to what the program is, what their terms are, and how much they pay. So you can see that with Teachable. Yeah, they say that they’re one of the best affiliate programs in the industry. I don’t doubt that. And they currently pay out 30% commissions with a 90-day cookie. 

What that means is that if someone clicks on your link but they don’t make the purchase right away, they’ll track that for 90 days. So let’s say that two months later they’re like, hey, I want to sign up for Teachable. If they go ahead and sign up for Teachable, then you still will get that 30% commission. Another really good thing about this affiliate is that it has recurring revenue.

So for these monthly plans, people are paying them every single month. And for a program like Teachable, well, they’re going to give you 30% of the revenue that they get for the lifetime of that client. So you can easily see just how much money you could potentially make by getting a lot of these affiliates, getting people to click on them and actually sign up, and just making a lot of recurring revenue like that.

Bluehost’s Affiliate Program

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bluehost affiliate marketing

Okay, let’s also check out Bluehost’s affiliate program, which I know is very popular for people that do content about personal branding or building websites. Like, Bluehost is one of the biggest website hostesses in the world. So the conversion for them is extremely, extremely good. So if we look at the website, we can see that they pay $65 for each qualified signup, which is very good. Their branding is on point, and I think almost everyone that wants to make a website already knows about them.

So if they’re clicking on your link and they’re seeing Bluehost and there’s a good deal or something, there is a pretty good chance that they will sign up. So we can see that they are free to join. Anyone can join the program. And that’s why I recommend Bluehost. 

Affiliate Marketing: Types of Products

affiliate-marketing-types-of-products
affiliate marketing types of products.

All right, so now let’s talk about what types of products sell the best and what types of products will make you the most amount of money. Services and courses. Anything that doesn’t have a physical product will offer the best commission plan. Sense. I mean, it makes a lot of sense, right? Like when you have a lot of overhead, when you have a lot of fixed product costs, you just can’t offer affiliates that big of a commission.

However, when you have, let’s say, a course that sells for $500 and each copy of that course costs you $0 extra, then you can’t afford to pay affiliates a lot of money. And I know that a lot of courses will pay affiliates up to like 50, 60, or even 70% commissions. One thing that separates the people that make not too much money from affiliate marketing and those that make a lot of money from affiliate marketing is the types of products and brands that they work with.

You just have to find the high-paying programs because in any industry, there are affiliate programs that aren’t good and there are good. So once you find those high-paying affiliate programs and you pair that with making really valuable and targeted content, that is when you can scale your affiliate marketing business and make over six figures per year. 

Affiliate Marketing: Niches

affiliate-marketing-niche
affiliate marketing niche

Now, let’s talk about what niches are good to get into. And I will say that any niche with money is probably going to be a better fit for you if your goal with affiliate marketing is to make money. The reason for this is that the average sale is a lot higher. And since commissions are almost always based on a flat fee that is directly correlated with the sales price or a percentage, you will make more money for each sale.

So think about you having one person that makes, let’s say, a website about teddy bears and they have affiliate links to different teddy bears on the website versus someone that has a website about, let’s say, camera equipment, right? These things cost thousands and thousands of dollars. And when they put affiliate links to these types of products, they’re going to get a lot more commission income than the person that is making content about teddy bears.

So that’s why niches like online education, technology, camera, video, investing, and all that stuff with lots of money in them, pay extremely well. However, I will say that you can make a lot of money literally in any niche as long as you have enough volume. I just want to say that it is probably and likely a lot easier to make more money in a high-paying niche. So if you don’t have a niche yet, definitely consider that when choosing what type of content you want to make. 

So as I mentioned before, Amazon Associates, can’t make too much money. I think that is the lowest-paying affiliate network that I am part of. However, you can get smart with it and make more money. I just haven’t prioritized that because I have other affiliates that I think pay me a lot better. But Amazon is one that anyone can make content about and place those links in it and have it make sense. You want to be successful.

On Amazon Associates, I recommend pitching expensive products that generate between fifty dollars to one hundred dollars per sale. It’s much better than pitching products like books that cost like eight. And then you make $0.20 from the sale. 

Affiliate Marketing: The right type of content

affiliate-marketing-content
Affiliate marketing content

All right, the next really important step for affiliate marketing is being able to make the right type of content. There’s one keyword that I just want you guys all to remember, and anytime you’re making content, literally have this word at the front of your mind. So that word is value. And value is something that any content creator should just really strive to give. If you’re not giving value, then there’s no chance that anyone is going to want to share your content, watch your content, and be engaged with your content.

I think a lot of content creators start out making a lot of personal content about their lives. But in my experience, I think most people just don’t care about your personal life until you become a pretty big name. 

So that’s why I recommend just starting and making searchable evergreen content that people can get a lot of value on. And this can come in many different ways. 

So on YouTube, what you like to do is you make these evergreen videos that people can search and find about how to do something or top five something. The best part about this is that when you’re helping people out, the viewers on that video are extremely targeted, right? They clicked on that video to learn about one specific thing. And when you have a target audience like that, it makes it a lot easier for you to take advantage of affiliate links, place them in the description of your view, and get conversions. 

My guideline is if you’re just starting with YouTube, or you’re just starting out making content, HowTo content is the best thing to start with because that way you automatically have to give value, right? If you’re telling someone how to do something, you’re giving them some type of value. And oftentimes when you’re giving value, there is also going to be some type of service that can be connected to it. 

So, for example, if I’m making a video about how to start a YouTube channel, that Amazon Associates is going to be one of the perfect types of links to put in my description. When you’re making YouTube videos, you will likely have to buy camera equipment, gear, storage, and all that stuff. So literally put in your description, this is the computer I use. This is the light that I use. This is the camera that I use. It just flows well, and I find that the better the affiliate link relates to the type of content, the better it does. 

Now, this doesn’t only work for YouTube, it also works for websites, which you guys can start right now for $10. The cost of a domain. The best type of websites for affiliate marketing. In my opinion. Our product review websites. Blog. Websites that share a lot of information. And yet just any website that offers targeted value is where you can get creative. Because I know a lot of people are already doing stuff like this. But there’s just so much more untapped market for this that you guys can take advantage of.

So just thinking, like, right now, I’m facing my kitchen and I see a bunch of pots. You can make a website that reviews different types of stainless steel pots, nonstick pots, and all that stuff and put affiliate links to Amazon in the actual blog or article itself. That is the type of website where people on your website, either found your website through word of mouth or through Google, and they’re actively searching for that stuff. So the chances of them buying a pot that you review and recommend Are quite high. And this works for social media too. 

A lot of people don’t realize that they can connect these affiliate links to their social media profiles. What you can do is you can make something like a link tree or a custom links page and put that link in your profile. What I’ll do is, let’s say, for example, on my TikTok, I will pitch a certain product or certain service and I’ll tell people to go to my profile and then click on the link there.

Now in that link, that is where you can have a bunch of different affiliate links and that is where people can click on it and go and make the purchase. Yeah, if you guys just get creative, there are so many different ways that you can add value and then put a link that also helps people out but gets you some type of commission. I will say that once you get your affiliate marketing companies and brands that you’re working with set up.

Affiliate Marketing: Build your audience

affiliate-marketing-audience
affiliate marketing audience

The next biggest thing is just to scale your audience and build your audience. The only way that you can have a successful affiliate marketing business is by having a lot of eyes. So that could mean building up your YouTube channel, that could mean getting more ranking pages for your blog on Google, that could be getting more Instagram and TikTok followers. Whatever it is, just work on building that audience. And the income you make with affiliate marketing will scale with your audience size. 

Conclusion

So yeah, those are the best ways to start getting into affiliate marketing and starting to make money in this amazing, amazing industry. You do not have to be an influencer to start with this. But I will say that starting affiliate marketing is much, much different than being successful at it.

Anyone can start, but not a lot of people can get creative enough or build a big enough audience where the income from affiliate marketing is significant. It takes a lot of time, consistency, and a lot of creativity in making content. But literally, you guys can start today. I just recommend getting on one of those affiliate networks, and finding different products that you could recommend.

And yeah, if your goal is to make money in affiliate marketing, pick more profitable niches, pick more profitable products, and then just continue to make a lot of consistent and targeted content that gives a lot of value to your audience. And if you’re smart with it and you’re consistent with it, it’s an income stream that you guys can start working on today and build into a six or seven-figure business.

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