How to Get Started With Online Affiliate Marketing

Last updated: 6 Mar 2025

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A little birdie told us that you're looking to start online affiliate marketing. And honestly, that is a good call on your part. Now when the job market is pretty unstable, having a passive income is a great option. And when you make it big with your earnings, you might as well turn affiliate marketing into a full-time role for yourself.

Now you're probably thinking if it's easier to get started with affiliate marketing. The answer is yes. But you do need to follow a few steps to ensure that you see some impact from your promotions and earn a decent amount of commissions.

Understanding Online Affiliate Marketing

Online affiliate marketing is an activity that involves promoting another company's products or services in return for a commission. These commissions are often a percentage of the sale price or a fixed amount, received only when someone uses the unique affiliate code or link to make a purchase.

Let's understand this with an example. Suppose you're promoting sneakers by posting a review blog about them. Now if someone makes a purchase via your affiliate code or link attached to the blog, then you will become eligible to earn some percentage of commission.

Affiliate marketing is considered to be one of the income sources for most bloggers, social media influencers, and marketers. It's a great way for them to earn by monetizing their audience base.

>> Make money with Affiliate <<

Why Affiliate Marketing?

In addition to earning an extra income, there are multiple benefits that come with indulging in online affiliate marketing.

Little to zero investment: You don't need to spend money on starting a business or delivering a service. All you need to do is to promote other companies' products or services. You might require a bit of investment for the promotions, such as advertising cost, website creation, and maintenance cost.

Low risk: Since there is not much investment, risks are also low. There's not much to lose if your promotions and efforts don't work out.

Easy to execute: Affiliate marketing is easy to start and execute. You don't require any fancy tactics and tools. Having an audience and decent convincing power is enough to get conversions.

Niche-based: Every niche and industry has its own affiliate programs running, giving you the freedom to choose one that interests you and will be easier to promote.

Provides flexibility: Affiliate marketing provides immense flexibility. You can promote whatever products or services you want at any time and in any way.

Passive earnings: Affiliate marketing is a great source of earning passive income. After some experience, affiliate marketers can expect to gain anything between a hundred dollars and six figures.

Get Started With The Following Steps

Choose a niche

Ask any affiliate marketer one advice they could give and they will tell you to niche down. Get established and become known for one area so that people trust your recommendations more.

Some of the most popular online affiliate marketing niches include finance, travel, health, nutra, technology, online education, e-commerce, and iGaming. They are abundant in the number of affiliate programs and are fairly easy to promote. Choosing among these (and a hundred other niches) will depend on factors like:

what interests you
what you are good at
what's trending
what has a future scope
what will be easier to promote
what has a broad target audience

Keep in mind that it's not necessary to depend on one niche alone. You can opt for a combination of two complementary ones or change up when required.

Find a traffic source/platform

Once you're done finding your niche, it's time to find a platform where you're going to find traffic and establish yourself.

Start thinking about what you're good at. If you like writing and convincing people with your words, blogging is for you. If you're confident enough to face the camera, social media platforms can be the answer. If you have some money to spare, advertising can work. If you know some people in real life who are easier to convince, the word-of-mouth approach will be good enough.

The amount of traffic you are able to attain from these sources will indirectly determine how many conversions you can expect to get.

Create Content

If you've chosen blogging and social media routes, it's time to make content and find your audience. You need authority and credibility in your niche somehow, and you're going to get it by creating content that adds value to your user's time on the internet.

Bloggers can gain authority by publishing content about evergreen and trending topics, tutorials, how-to guides, tips and tricks, the latest news, personal opinions, and so on. They can also implement SEO techniques and tactics to increase their visibility by ranking higher for search terms.

Those who have opted for social media can either become influencers or naturally increase their following. This will involve jumping onto trends, actively interacting with your audience, and creating engaging posts. For advertising, your ad creatives are what matter.

Stay consistent with your postings so as not to lose out on your traffic in the long run.

Find affiliate programs

Now that you have established yourself on a platform and have some consistent traffic, it's time to find affiliate programs. Look for ones that:

lie within your niche
include high commission rates
have products with a large target audience
have multiple payout methods and an easy payout criteria
promotion criteria available
longer cookie durations (at least 30 to 60 days) to not miss out on your referrals

Joining some of the best affiliate marketing platforms is also an option if you want to find a huge inventory of affiliate programs under one roof. Comparisons will become easier, and you can easily find a program that matches all your needs.

Start Promoting

One of the major steps of online affiliate marketing is the promotion. Commission you earn will directly depend on how well you are able to promote a product in order to bring in more customers and conversions.

Now if you're wondering where you should promote, the answer is simple: on the platform you have built an audience for yourself. Talk and create content about the product or service you are promoting. Highlight the benefits, give a tutorial, and be prepared to answer any questions the audience might have.

This can either be a social media platform or your blog/website. Running ads and placing banners on your website is another option. If you have an available pool of personal contacts who are interested, then that can work too. However, make sure that you're following the promotion methods allowed by the affiliate program.

Optimize and Update

Not all the affiliate programs you come across will be a perfect fit. Some will require changes in the promotion strategies, some might need a revamp, others might have to be scrapped.

This can only be figured out when you start tracking your affiliate promotions and programs. See how each one has performed and find gaps that can be filled. For instance, if you see your promo blog not ranking high up, work on its SEO. If ads aren't getting impressions, then switch up the targeting or ad creatives.

Keep optimizing your promotions and diversifying your affiliate portfolio every once in a while for the best results.

7Search PPC's Affiliate Marketing Program

If you've just started with online affiliate marketing, then it's probably best to stick with easy to promote affiliate programs for now. One such program we have for you is 7Search PPC's affiliate program. 7Search PPC is a popular advertising network that buys ad inventory from premium publishers and sells it to advertisers. They have recently started their affiliate program, which is easy to promote and free for everyone to join. You can easily turn your connections into commissions with minimal effort.

Here are some of its highlights:

Commission rate: Upto 10% on every deposit made by your referral
Referrals also receive up to 35% welcome bonus
No entry requirements, everyone is free to join
Dedicated affiliate account for tracking transactions and commissions
Promote any way you want: blogging, display advertising, social networking, or through a word of mouth approach
Payout methods: PayPal, Payoneer, Bitcoin, Wire Transfer
No cookie duration

One of the best parts about this affiliate program is that it's a win-win deal for both advertisers and affiliates, making it easier to promote and gain commission from.

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Conclusion

One thing that's left to say is that affiliate marketing requires a heavy amount of patience and time. You won't start earning six-figures from it overnight. Begin by deciding your niche first, building authority around it on a platform of your choice by creating content, opting for lucrative affiliate programs through the best affiliate networks, and promoting and optimizing them. Keep in mind that the end goal is earning commission. So if you don't see a platform working out for you, or a program paying well enough, then it's time to switch.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How can I start affiliate marketing as a beginner?

Ans: To start with online affiliate marketing, choose a niche, build your audience on a platform, opt for high-paying commission programs, and promote. You will earn commission for every conversion you bring in.

Can I become an affiliate marketer with no experience?

Ans: Yes, you can become an affiliate marketer even with no experience. Proper research about the audience and great convincing power are all it takes.

How much can I make with online affiliate marketing?

Ans: Affiliate earnings depend on what the programs offer and how much time you dedicate to it. But on an average, you can expect to make between 100 to 500 USD a month.

Is online affiliate marketing legal?

Ans: Yes, online affiliate marketing is completely legal as you comply with the necessary disclosure requirements and comply with all the general laws of advertising.

Is affiliate marketing easy?

Ans: Online affiliate marketing is relatively easy to start compared to other businesses. However, consistent efforts are required to build an audience and promote them to earn commissions.

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