The Affiliate Marketing world is a huge industry which is estimated to be worth around $37.3 billion and is on track to hit $48 billion by 2027 (DemandSage). A clear indication of the industry’s explosive growth and untapped potential.
According to a report by Authority Hacker the average affiliate marketer earns around $8,000 per month. This industry is full of opportunities, making it one of the most profitable and accessible ways to start earning money online.
Whether you’re an affiliate expert or just starting your journey, understanding and implementing the right strategies is essential for staying competitive in this rapidly evolving space.
Top Affiliate Marketing Strategies
While most people know that affiliate marketing involves promoting affiliate products, the majority of them don’t know that there are multiple ways of doing this.
Generally speaking, there are 3 main strategies you can implement:
1. Blogging
Blogging is one of the most popular methods for affiliate marketing. By writing posts and including affiliate links, you can generate passive income. While it won’t make you rich instantly, blogging is a low-risk, potentially high-reward activity that can be fun and financially beneficial.
Here’s a short guide to help you get started with your blog.
Further reading: How to Start an Affiliate Marketing Blog [Do follow]
Step 1: Set Up Your Website
Start by choosing a name for your website. Ideally, use your own name—it’s flexible, adaptable, and builds trust. A personal domain name allows you to pivot your content strategy easily.
Once you have your name, choose a web hosting service. WordPress is the best platform for bloggers, and Bluehost is highly recommended to host your site. It’s affordable, beginner-friendly, offers a 30-day money-back guarantee, and has collaborated with WordPress since 2005. Plus, they provide 24/7 customer support.
Step 2: Choose Your Niche
Your niche is the specific topic your blog focuses on—like photography, fashion, or gardening.
Why a niche matters:
- Google favors focused websites, improving your rankings.
- You can’t be an expert in everything—specializing adds value.
- Blogging today is less about random personal updates and more about solving readers’ problems.
Start with a sub-niche. Instead of a broad category like fitness, narrow it down (e.g., “fitness for new moms” or “bodyweight workouts for travelers”). This helps you stand out against large, well-funded competitors. Once you gain traction, you can gradually expand.
Step 3: Keyword Research
After selecting your niche, build a content strategy through keyword research. The aim is to find keywords that help your blog rank and establish topical authority.
How to research keywords:
- Free Tools and Social Media: Use platforms like X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, or LinkedIn to explore what’s trending in your niche. Writing about timely topics can give you an edge due to low initial competition.
- Paid Tools (Ahrefs, SEMRush): Focus on ranking for low-competition keywords. As a new blog, competing with big established sites is not feasible. Instead, target keywords with low search volume that others may have overlooked or poorly optimized.
By starting small and strategic, you lay the groundwork for long-term success.
2. Media Buying
If blogging isn’t your strength, media buying offers another effective route for affiliate marketing. The core idea remains the same: you earn commissions when users take specific actions via your links. The key difference is using paid ads instead of blog posts.
Here’s a simple 4-step guide to get started with media buying:
Step 1: Choose Your Traffic Source
Traffic sources are platforms where you run ads. Common types include:
- Social (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, etc.)
- Search (Google, Bing)
- Native (Sponsored content on platforms like Taboola, Mgid)
- Push (Push Notification ads from platforms like Richpush)
For beginners, Facebook (and Instagram) is the best option because they’re user-friendly, cost-effective, and powerful for ad targeting.
Step 2: Sign Up With Affiliate Networks
Affiliate networks connect marketers with advertisers and provide a wide range of offers to promote. Getting started is easy—just register, share your promotional strategy, and wait for approval. Once accepted, you gain access to affiliate links and marketing materials.
Step 3: Choose Your Vertical
A vertical is a specific industry like Ecommerce, Insurance, or Gaming. Each vertical contains various offers, such as car or health insurance. Beginners should start with familiar verticals and test a few offers to identify what works best.
Step 4: Track Your Results
Tracking is essential in affiliate marketing. While paid third-party tracking platforms exist, many affiliate networks offer built-in tools to track campaign performance. These tools help analyze metrics and optimize results. By leveraging network tracking features, affiliates can monitor data effectively before investing in external tracking solutions, which can be quite expensive.
3. Influencer Marketing
Your third option for affiliate marketing could be Influencer Marketing, although it’s probably also the hardest to pursue. But if successful, this strategy would generate money faster compared to blogging or media buying.
What is influencer marketing?
This approach involves working with individuals who have credibility and a following in a particular niche. These influencers promote products or services and earn commissions through affiliate links placed on platforms like YouTube, Instagram, or TikTok.
The main challenge of this strategy is to build a community of followers. You need a consistent flow of people engaging with your content. This requires a substantial amount of time and effort, as not everyone is a well-known Instagrammer or YouTuber with thousands of followers.
Even micro-influencers, those with 10k–20k followers, need time to grow their audience before seeing results. This makes influencer marketing more difficult to start compared to other methods.
However, if you succeed in building a community, your results can be far more rewarding. Because your followers already trust you. When promoting a product, you don’t have to work hard to convince them. This trust makes the sales process smoother and faster.
So while this strategy demands more upfront effort, it also offers the fastest route to earning money through affiliate marketing—once your audience is in place.
Guest article written by: Antonio Filograsso is a full-time performance marketer, with a profound expertise in Meta advertising and SEO. After spending years helping e-commerce brands with their marketing efforts, he started his own blog, where he teaches how to start an affiliate marketing business at startup speed. Site: filoaffiliate.com