Beginners Affiliate Marketing Guide For Bloggers & YouTubers – 2024 Tutorial

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What is Affiliate Marketing
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In making money online, affiliate marketing is a skill-based approach, anyone could learn that. It is one of those segments of the online world, that doesn’t require any degree or formal education.

Want to understand what is Affiliate marketing?

Keep reading to learn everything about this popular passive income method.

My Journey with affiliate marketing started in 2008 when I accidentally read about it on a discussion forum. I was surprised to know how something so simple and powerful is not taught in college, or very few talk about it.

With this guide, I aim to help you understand affiliate marketing, so you can apply this technique to any field you are in to make money.

But why should you listed to what I’m saying?

Because I have been into affiliate marketing since 2008, and have been passionately practicing it, talking about it, and also making life-changing money.

But, don’t trust me blindly.

Here are the proof’s

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1.2 Million Dollars and counting…

Here is a screenshot of other affiliate programs that I promote:

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The above one took about two years to accomplish.

And here is another one:

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This one was an outcome of 2 and a half years.

However, the real question is:

How did I achieve this result, and can you do it too?

The key here is your zeal to learn and how badly you want to live a free life.

I have accomplished all this by working only 10-12 hours daily on things I’m passionate about. Not even a single day of my online career has felt like pressure or something I did not want to do.

The only thing that creates a differentiator is, I did not cheat my way up. Those 6-8 hours of work were complete dedication, and based on my 14 years of experience, I could say:

Anyone with a decent IQ could start making $1000-3000 within 6-8 months by practicing every day for 2-3 hours.

How to do this?

Well, We will dwell on details and more technicalities of affiliate marketing as we move ahead in this free course, but for now, let’s learn the basics.

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“The Handbook To Affiliate Marketing By Harsh Agrawal is the only resource you will ever need to learn about Affiliate marketing” – James Rowett

Before that…

If this is your first time here at ShoutMeLoud, you should know that…

In the last 13 years, ShoutMeLoud has inspired millions of lives around the globe to help them earn passive income via blogging and affiliate marketing. 

It would not have been possible if I took the risk of living my day job to pursue my passion. When I think about this, I find it amazing as for how my life unfolded when I took the courage to start something of my own. I feel this is something you and other individuals should try once to go beyond our limitations.

The only caveat is, that this is not something you will read in academic books or a point of discussion with friends over drinks. This is one of those skills that you learn yourself by reading a guide like this or watching YouTube videos like this.

With this Affiliate marketing guide, I want to provide you with all the details about:

  • Basics of Affiliate marketing
  • How Affiliate marketing works
  • How to get started with Affiliate marketing
  • Affiliate marketing Terminologies

This is your go-to guide, and you should bookmark this one along with all linked articles to master the art of affiliate marketing. 

If you are someone who likes to read everything in the book format, you can purchase our affiliate marketing handbook from our store as well.

Alright, let’s get started.

What is affiliate marketing, and how does it work?

Affiliate marketing is one of the oldest forms of digital marketing wherein you refer someone to any online product and when that person buys the product based on your recommendation, you receive a commission.

Every big company like Amazon, Apple, and Google have an affiliate program, which is free to join by any individual across the globe. If you didn’t know about this, then pay close attention to the rest of this guide, my friend; you are about to discover one of the most exciting aspects of making money from home.

A company that offers an affiliate marketing program might call it by other names, such as “Referral Program” or “Partners program”.

This commission varies from $1 to $10,000 depending on what product you are promoting.

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Here is how affiliate marketing works in 4 simple steps:

  1. You join an affiliate program (Here is a list to get started)
  2. You pick a product to promote (You will get a unique affiliate link)
  3. You share the link via Social media, Blog, YouTube videos, Facebook ads or any other form
  4. When someone makes a purchase, you earn a handsome affiliate commission.

The below infographic will help you understand the lifecycle of affiliate marketing:

What is Affiliate Marketing
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So, in simple words:

Any company that sells products online, offers an affiliate program, which is free to join. It is as simple as creating an online profile.

You can simply sign up for the program and get your unique tracking link. Now, whenever you are writing about their product, you can simply use this unique tracking affiliate link to recommend the company’s site.  You will get a commission if your readers/traffic buy anything by clicking your affiliate link.

Is it as easy as it sounds?

Yes, and no!

Yes, because of 2 reasons:

  1. Joining an affiliate program
  2. Getting paid

Is super easy. Thanks to advancements in digital marketing, and services like PayPal and Payoneer, this all is automated.

The tough part is, how badly you want this.

To become successful in affiliate marketing, you need to train regularly (Daily). Think of this as learning to play cricket, and the only way you get better is by showing up every day on the ground.

And then there is another part, as we gain more responsibilities in life like (job, kids, parents, spouse, weekend parties), we find it hard to dedicate time for acquiring learning new skills.

This is where the question comes:

How badly do you need this?

If your want or need falls in the “unsure” segment, take a 360 view of life, and ask what is that you have to lose and what are the possible gains.

If dedicating 1-2 hours a day for few months could give you financial freedom for life, it doesnot sound like a bad deal.

Moreover, it is a proven method that works!

Moving on…

Also, see:

How to Start Affiliate marketing for beginners:

You can get started with Affiliate marketing in many ways.

Here are a few that you can pick from:

  • Start a blog in a targeted niche and use it to promote a product. This is the cheapest and easiest way to start an affiliate marketing business. For example: Start a blog about Women’s shoes, Work from home products, and so on.
  • Buy traffic from PPC sites like Google, Facebook, and Quora and drive traffic to affiliate products or services. This is called PPC marketing, and those who have taken a basic course of digital marketing could understand it better. For rest, give it a little time, and you will understand this.
  • Create a YouTube channel and promote products.
  • Create an email list by creating a mini-website. An example if Finshots
  • Start a Podcast and recommend products.

Here are steps to get started with affiliate marketing via your blog:

This is just a rough highlight, as we move ahead in this free course, you will understand everything in greater depth and length to create your own affiliate marketing system.

  1. Start a blog
  2. Select a profitable industry and then pick a niche for your blog
  3. Choose the affiliate products that you can promote
  4. Create content around those products
  5. Drive traffic to your website/affiliate post
  6. Use email-marketing services to capture email of visitors
  7. Create email-sequence to automate the funnel (We will discuss this in details soon)
  8. Focus on driving more traffic and repeating the process.

Blogging is one of the most effective ways to get started with affiliate marketing because it requires minimum investment and you can learn everything around it in no time. From here on, what matters it how much dedication, time, and smart work you put in to grow your affiliate business.

Affiliate marketing terminologies:

Here are some of the common terms associated with affiliate marketing:

  • Affiliates: Publishers like you and me who are using affiliate program links to promote and make sales.
  • Affiliate marketplace: There are many marketplaces like Shareasale, CJ, and Clickbank. These work as central databases for affiliate programs in different niches.
  • Affiliate software: Software used by companies to create an affiliate program for their product.
  • Affiliate link: Special tracking link offered by your affiliate program to track the progress of your affiliate promotion.
  • Affiliate ID: Similar to the affiliate link, but many affiliate programs offer a unique ID which you can add to any page of the product site.
  • Payment mode: Different affiliate programs offer different methods of payment.
    • Example: Cheque, wire transfer, PayPal, and others.
  • Affiliate Manager/OPM: Many companies have dedicated affiliate managers to help publishers earn more by giving them optimization tips.
  • Commission percentage/amount: The amount or percentage you will be receiving in affiliate income from every sale.
  • 2-tier affiliate marketing: This is a great way of making money from an affiliate program. With this method, you recommend that others join affiliate programs, and you receive a commission when a sub-affiliate makes a sale (similar to MLM or multi-level marketing). This income is also known as a sub-affiliate commission.
  • Landing pages: A unique product sales or demo page used for the purpose of increasing sales. Most of the programs that you will be promoting have many landing pages, and you can run A/B testing to see which pages convert best for you.
  • Custom affiliate income/account: Unlike a generic affiliate account, many companies offer custom affiliate income to people making the most affiliate sales for them.
  • Link clocking: Most of the affiliate tracking links are ugly. Using a link clocking technique like URL shorteners, Thirsty Affiliates, etc., you can turn ugly links into links that can be read and understood by your readers.
  • Custom coupons: Many programs allow affiliates to create custom coupons which are also used to track sales. Custom discount coupons help you to increase affiliate sales as well.

For companies offering an affiliate program, this is one of the best ways to receive free promotion, thus saving substantially on advertising.

For example, whenever you see coupons or discount links, most of the time these are affiliate links, and when you make a purchase, webmasters make money.

Every affiliate program has a set TOS.

For example, payout condition, cookie policy and so on.

Let me explain cookie policy as it’s an intermediate-level topic but will give you an idea about the possibilities of affiliate marketing.

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Many of the affiliate products offer a 30-150 days cookie period, which means that if a visitor clicks your affiliate link to land on an affiliate product, now even if they don’t buy anything immediately but re-visit the site in the next 30-150 days, you will earn an affiliate commission.

How to find a new Affiliate Program to join?

Finding a new affiliate program is challenging, and if you do it right, you will increase your chances of earning huge.

Here are a few ways to find new affiliate programs:

  • Affiliate Network and marketing platform: There are affiliate networks and marketplaces that would help you find new affiliate programs.
  • Affiliatizer: This is a chrome addon that would help you find the new affiliate program.
  • Competitor analysis: Analyze the top websites in the niche you are targeting, and make a list of affiliate products they promote. This will help you find high-value and profitable affiliate products.

I have also published a long list of affiliate programs that is worth looking at:

Moving on…

Affiliate Marketing: FAQ

At this point, you should understand what affiliate marketing is and how it works.

Now, let me answer some of the common questions asked by webmasters and marketers about affiliate marketing:

How much money you can make as an affiliate marketer?

“Limitless”.
There are affiliate marketers who are making millions of dollars a month via affiliate marketing. I personally make more than $30000/month from Affiliate marketing. Below you could see a screenshot of my earnings from one such affiliate program:

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The key here is how you are approaching the whole process. Are you using a blog or using PPC to market affiliate products. The one that I have been using from the past 10 years, is via blogging. This has been the most effective one so far.

Is it important to have a blog for affiliate promotion?

Not necessarily, but a blog is really the best promotional tool. With that said, you can always use methods such as PPC or advertising to promote a product.
This is another popular method to grow in affiliate marketing. For me, the best way to make the most out of affiliate marketing opportunities is to have a blog. Learn how to start a blog here.

How much does it cost to join an affiliate program?

There is no charge for joining an affiliate program, however, your total cost depends on what promotion technique you are using. For example, a blog post doesn’t cost a dime, but PPC marketing, email marketing, and advertising come with various price tags.

What qualifications do I need to become an affiliate marketer?

There is literally no qualification required to become an affiliate marketer, though having good copywriting skills and marketing skills will be an added advantage.

Is affiliate marketing harmful or illegal?

No, it is neither harmful nor illegal, as you will simply be using the affiliate link provided to you rather than a direct link to any site.
However, in a certain jurisdictions, you are supposed to disclose that you may be compensated for endorsing the product. Read our guide on Affiliate disclosure to learn more about it.

What are some of the profitable niches for affiliate marketing?
Anything related to money: such as making money online, how to save, how to invest, and making money from home.
Relationships: Business relationships, finding romantic partners, getting along better with spouse
Health: Relieving pain, weight loss, sexual health, fitness, nutrition
Learning new skills: Online courses, coaching, teaching
Cryptocurrencies
Wearables gadgets
Personal Finance
Dog care
Travel
Web-hosting (too high competition)

Not all companies offer an affiliate program, of course, but for those that do offer affiliate programs, you can check their website for related information. When searching, be sure to check the company’s FAQ page if they have one.

Another way to find this information is to do a simple Google search. For example, one could place the following phrase into Google Search:  “(product name) + affiliate program”. (Replace “product name” with the name of the product you are promoting.) There is an interesting chrome addon called Affilitizer is available which makes this process easy.

This should bring you to a landing page. Many companies use an affiliate marketplace like ShareASale, CJ, or Clickbank. These are free to use and you can create a free account.

How do I find new products to promote?

Affiliate marketplaces such as those mentioned above are the best places to start your affiliate marketing research. You can browse your niche and see the top performing affiliate programs.

Alternatively, you can keep an eye on blogs in your niche and see which products they are promoting and what methods they are using.

Affiliate marketing and AdSense: Can we use both?

You can use both as affiliate marketing does not violate any AdSense TOS. In fact, for me, affiliate marketing works better than Adsense, and that is one reason you see fewer AdSense ads here at ShoutMeLoud.

How do I get started with Affiliate marketing?

Here at ShoutMeLoud, I and many guest authors have covered some of the best guides to help you to understand in depth about getting started, and some of the pros and cons.

Read: How to start an Affiliate marketing business

Here is a list from our affiliate marketing archive which will help you to get started:

I would also highly recommend you purchase ShoutMeLoud’s The Affiliate Marketing eBook. This a comprehensive guide on getting started with affiliate marketing.

Update: ShoutUniversity Affiliate video course is live (New). Available at an introductory price of $149 (Regular price $199)

I hope this beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing will help you get started. If you have any additional questions, feel free to ask me in the comments section below.

Be sure to join ShoutMeLoud email newsletter to get more similar tips and updates.

If you find this article informative, do share it with your friends!

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Authored By
A Blogger, Author and a speaker! Harsh Agrawal is recognized as a leader in digital marketing and FinTech space. Fountainhead of ShoutMeLoud, and a Speaker at ASW, Hero Mindmine, Inorbit, IBM, India blockchain summit. Also, an award-winning blogger.

113 thoughts on “Beginners Affiliate Marketing Guide For Bloggers & YouTubers – 2024 Tutorial”

  1. Atta

    Hi Harsh,

    First of all, congratulations for writing such a wonderful post. It is always amazing to read something very useful. I have just get started with affiliate marketing since few months and this article really helps me to enhance my knowledge about what the heck is affiliate marketing all about.

    Best Regards,
    Atta

  2. Jaimin

    Hi Harsh,

    how much traffic limit required on our blog to start Affiliate Marketing? I don’t have a website yet, I have blog in blogspot, Can I use Affiliate Marketing on that and make money online usig a free blog account.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hey Jaimin,
      There is no minimum traffic requirement. yes, you can use affiliate marketing in blogspot and make money.

  3. Nirmal Kumar

    ShoutMeLoud has inspired me a lot to try out affiliate marketing. Hasn’t made anything big till now. But looks promising ! Time to try out new strategies.

  4. Himadri Saha

    Affiliate marketing is the secret of success in the field of blogging. If you want to earn real money, there is no alternative of this. Using Google Adsense or Custom ads you can earn money. But if you want to make real money, Affiliate Marketing is the only option. You need targeted traffic and need to create trust to get affiliate sales from your blog. A great post from Harsh for all those new bloggers or affiliate marketers who wants to earn money from affiliate marketing. Thank You.

  5. Mrunal

    Recently i applied for google adsense and they rejected my application for insufficient content. So i felt very bad about it and thought there is no way to earn money from blogging. So i had searched in google different ways of earning online from blog.

    I came SML and found knowledge about affiliate marketing. I signed for siteground affiliates and within 1 month i had my first sale and commision of $50. So it is clear now that affiliate is the best way to monetizing your blog rather wasting time for per CPC and impressions etc.

    Thanks Harsh your SML always saved us.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hey Mrunal,

      Congratulations on your first earning.

    2. Anup

      Hi Mrunal & Harsh
      Please can you let me know that for Siteground Affiliates does charge anything for prompting affiliate marketing ? Secondly can we published the Amazon Affiliates through Facebook ? Thanks in advance

      1. @Anup

        The SiteGround or any other affiliate program is free to join. The only cost you may wanna invest is in buying SiteGround hosting, so that you understand the product, and this will help you promote it better.

        2. You can use most affiliate links (including Amazon) in your personal or business-page posts and updates. However, you can not use Facebook Ads to promote those links. Instead, use Facebook Ads to promote content pages off of Facebook that promotes the affiliate links. <Source>

  6. Rohit Sharma

    Hey Harsh,
    i want to know that is there any limits related to minimum sell in a month or week. mean if i am not able to sell some product in month so is my account got ban ??

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hey Rohit,

      Nope. Your account will not get banned.

  7. Nitin Gupta

    Hello Harsh,

    my question is when i get unique ID for affiliate marketing. and make a pop up ads on my blog will it count or i have to create new page for that product?

  8. Punit Mathur

    Hi Harsh,

    Want to know how much traffic is required if you are promoting via a blog? My blog is 2 month old and has only 1000 visits a month so would it be advisable for me to start Affiliate Marketing?
    Also can it boost my traffic if people are searching for product if used right keywords?

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Punit
      100 is not a bad number if you are getting targeted traffic.

      1. Punit

        Thank you. I am doing research on Clickbank mentioned in one of your blog. Hopefully I will start the same by Monday 4th June. And if it works will like to share the story. I tried Amazon Affiliate but it did not pan out as I hope it would. Fingers Crossed.

  9. rajesh

    hello
    i have a coupon website and i want to make account on affiliate websites
    but i tried to find affiliate sign up link and i found only few (flipkart, amazon , snapdeal)
    i cant find sign up link for freecharge , zivame ,ask my bazar and there are many more where i cant find sing up link for affiliate account
    how to make affiliate account on these other website too and what will be best option
    please help me

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      Hey Rajesh,

      Contact them through email. If they have an affiliate program they will let you know.

  10. Tony

    Hi Harsha,
    Suggest me one best book to learn about affiliate marking (step by step)

  11. Bhupendra Sharma

    Affiliate marketing works well as long as one is getting good traffic. A lot depend on what percentage of US traffic does one get on his blog (in case he’s promoting products useful for US audience). So, it’s always good to choose right affiliate programs, write good content and do social media marketing.

  12. Pramod

    Hey Harsh, can you tell me, from your income through affiliates, what percentage is from Indian traffic? Does Indian traffic convert?

  13. Nashb

    Hi Harsh,
    I am a newbie in internet marketing and I love what you are doing here. In fact I hope to be in my country what you are in India. Your country should be proud of you.
    As it is now, I don’t have a website yet and I am working on a very low budget. Can I make money online usig a free blog account for a start? And is “yes” how can I do that?
    Thanks.

  14. pranita deshpande

    Hi Harsh,

    I started my affiliate marketing on 1st Feb, I want to know that ,Is there any limitations to keep products in our wish lists & in our cart ?

  15. Aditi Mathur Kumar

    I really want to try Affiliate Marketing after reading your posts, but I think my genre is too generic. But,maybe l give it a try now. Tha ks, great post, as always.

  16. Ahmad Ben

    Hello Harsh!

    Finally, an article with some substance to it!

    I like how you’ve broken down the most common terms into a bullet-point list, makes it easier for idiots like me to read through the post 😉

    You mentioned 2-tier affiliate marketing. I just want to highlight how lucrative this type of affiliate program can be – especially when this is combined with high-ticket products that you can sell on the back-end as an affiliate. This can be extremely lucrative for affiliates when done correctly.

    I agree that most people that are looking into affiliate marketing ask how the affiliate links actually work. I’ve actually written a similar article on my website and have an infographic that I think would be a great addition to this post. Let me know if you want to check it out….

    Cheers,
    Ahmad

  17. Mickey

    Problem is, in the 15 years I’ve been online, I’ve purchased through an affiliate link a grand total of once. Maybe twice. I’ve got nothing against them, but they don’t match my shopping style. I research stuff to death and then go directly to a retailer…most of the affiliate marketers out there just become part of the research stage. Most of the people I know are the same way.

    Which is why I don’t understand how this business model could possibly work.

    1. Ahmad Ben

      Hi Mickey,

      You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried. Affiliate marketing is a multi-billion dollar industry. Just because you and your buddies have a particular way of shopping doesn’t mean that counts for the majority of people. Most people that buy through an affiliate link don’t even realise they’re buying through someone. Starting your own affiliate marketing business is one of the lowest-risk businesses you can get into. It doesn’t require the invesment and expenditure that traditional business models do and it is something that is online increasing in popularity!

  18. Rahul

    Hello Harsh! I want to make my website on affiliate program which is based on top ten websites lists…before I can i listed these websites name can i required to get any permission before i listed these websites name..

  19. Kapil Garg

    Hi Harsh,

    I like your blog , I love to read your all posts. I have an question about Affiliate program. Can we sign up multiple affiliate websites at same time, means in a single site. Like Amazon, Snapdeal etc? Please let me know.

    1. Harsh Agrawal

      @Kapil
      Yes, you can!

  20. rahul

    hi harsh can i use google adwords for promoting affiliate program by buying the keywords ?

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