Affiliate marketers are always on the hunt for ways to scale their businesses and boost their income.

If 80% of brands use affiliate marketing, there’s a big opportunity to get into the space and work with top players.

With the right affiliate marketing strategy, you can earn passive income (and lots of it). Maybe you’ll even work your way to becoming an industry leader. But before you can do that, you’ll need the knowledge, expertise, and strategic thinking to make it happen.

So how do you start affiliate marketing with zero skills? If you’re just starting affiliate marketing, we want to help. Keep reading for tips on how to level up your skills and build and execute a strategy that works.

Let’s get to it!

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing that allows individuals to receive a commission each time they make a sale on behalf of a brand or company. The sale could be a service, product, sign-up, trial, or any action that generates a new customer for the brand you’re partnered with.

Most affiliate programs are free to join and prove beneficial for brands and affiliates looking for customer and revenue growth.

Brands with affiliate programs have dedicated portals for you. Those portals provide affiliate links to help you track clicks and conversions, making it easier for you to manage affiliate partnerships and get paid.

The 3 Types of Affiliate Marketing

There are three main types of affiliate marketing: unattached, related, and involved. 

Each one can help you determine what kind of affiliate marketing you intend to do.

Unattached

For unattached affiliate marketing, the marketer has little connection or expertise to the product or service they’re gaining commissions from. 

For example, you may promote a product or service in an ad campaign. This could mean using Adwords, Facebook ads, and other avenues to get clicks and possibly generate revenue. Marketers tend to like this option because their commissions can be obtained through Adsense.

Of the three types of affiliate marketing, this one is the most hands-off. It frees the affiliate marketer from any obligation to recommend or praise a product in their content. The downside of this option is you won’t always know about the product, so you can’t speak on it passionately.

Related

Related affiliate marketing is great for individuals who can position themselves as a trusted source or authority in their niche, but haven’t necessarily tried the product or service they’re promoting.

They usually have advanced experience or expertise in the industry. Because of this, they can more easily influence their users to buy whatever they’re promoting, even if they don’t know much about the product or service. 

For example, a reputable all-things-marketing blogger with a large following may promote two different social media platform subscriptions even though they’ve never used them before. The Semrush Affiliate Program requires you to have expertise in digital marketing, but you don’t have to be involved in Semrush products to promote the tools. 

Involved

And finally, there’s involved affiliate marketing. 

This type usually comes with a much deeper connection and partnership with the product or service being promoted. The affiliate believes in the product and is confident it can be useful to others. 

With involved affiliate marketing, the marketer shares their experience as a way to influence users to buy. A great example of this is any make-up enthusiast on Instagram or TikTok. The products they **** are often shared and hyped on their channels to convince users to make a purchase. They simply have to own the product, without question.

While this approach can offer users more trust and value, there’s an important risk: the affiliate’s reputation is tied to the product or service they promote. So people who find success in involved affiliate marketing truly believe in the product or service they are promoting.

The Pros and Cons of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has plenty of benefits, but it’s important to understand the pros and cons as it will help you build a good strategy and keep you on track toward meeting your goals.

Pros of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has excellent benefits if you have the right tools and drive. 

Some of the main benefits include:

• It’s easy to start on your own
• You’ll build long-term passive income
• You can establish partnerships with leading companies
• Low (or no) cost to become an affiliate marketer—most programs are free to enter
• Many channels to use = various sources of income
• No earning limit—make as much profit as you can 

There are ample opportunities to grow a fulfilling and profitable career in affiliate marketing.

As your affiliate marketing network and reputation grow, so could the opportunities you encounter along the way. 

For example, you could start out as a blogger with a modest follower count talking about your favorite products and end up with an entire TikTok channel dedicated to praising products through dedicated partnerships with brands. 

The affiliate opportunities are endless, especially if you find quality affiliate programs in your niche. Focus on finding quality programs with track records for providing the revenue. 

Cons of Affiliate Marketing

With the triumphs come the challenges. And even with all the amazing benefits of affiliate marketing, there are some shortcomings you should be aware of.

Here are some main challenges you might face when getting into affiliate marketing:

• It relies on building a good strategy
• There is a high chance of failure if you’re not fully invested
• It’s a competitive industry with many affiliate marketers
• Unreliable, inconsistent payouts from some affiliate programs
• Promoting the wrong product could jeopardize your brand’s image
• High chance of scams or fraud if affiliate programs are not selected properly

Don’t take these cons as reasons to never begin. Instead, use them as ways to anticipate any challenges you might face as you build your affiliate network and business. These cons can also help you find solutions and acquire new skills that will make your affiliate marketing adventures more successful.

For example, to avoid things like unreliable and inconsistent payouts, work with trusted brands with proven track records of excellence. If you’re promoting Semrush, we’ll give you everything you need so you’re confident in showcasing our tools.

When getting into affiliate marketing, make sure to focus on the long game. Affiliate marketing isn’t a get-rich-quick career path. 

How to Generate More Revenue with Affiliate Marketing

Now that we know the types of affiliate marketing and its pros and cons, let’s get into the fun part—getting paid.

In this study, beginner to advanced affiliate marketers (80%) can make up to $100,000 monthly. 15% of successful affiliate marketers can garner $80,001 to $1 million a year.

The most common ways to get paid are:

• Sale: In order to collect this payout, the brand or company would need to collect a sale from a customer
• Lead/Trial: For this payout, you will need to secure a new prospect or trial for the brand or company you’re affiliated with
• Click: Sometimes, affiliates will pay you a small commission if users just click on the link or an ad that appears on your website

Each affiliate program is different. Some affiliate programs pay per trial, download, install, or registration. Some may be a combination of multiple types of payouts. Be sure to review the benefits and how you receive payouts before signing up for an affiliate program. 

Knowing how you’re getting paid can also influence your strategy. It will help you figure out which programs to select, how much time and effort to maximize ROI, and help set financial goals.

Top Affiliate Marketing Channels

Chances are, you’ve been on TikTok and scrolled past a video of someone recommending a trendy product from Amazon. 

That’s just one example of the type of marketing channel you can choose when building your affiliate marketing strategy.

Other affiliate marketing channels and opportunities include:

• Bloggers/Vloggers: Bloggers or vloggers with large followings can secure partnerships with brands or companies. They can promote a product or service through their channels and accept a commission in return. 
• Review sites: Over 80% of customers are more likely to make a purchase based on reviews. If you have a review site, a company or brand may try partnering with you to generate more revenue so they can grant their products more exposure.
• Email lists: A great channel to use if you’re trying to grow your email list and reach a specific audience more directly. You can include affiliate links or links to posts you’ve created containing affiliate links.
• Courses: People creating webinars or teaching specific subjects can use those times as opportunities to promote a product or service. They can easily introduce affiliate links during and after the course to whoever participated.
• Large media sites: This could include sites like Amazon Associates, eBay Affiliate, ShareASale, and Awin. While Amazon Associates and eBay Affiliate let you grab links for products on their sites, ShareASale and Awin give access to thousands of potential merchants, expanding your potential reach. 
• Industry-specific affiliates: If you’re loyal to a product that you can’t help but share with others, see if those brands have affiliate programs. Then you can earn money by promoting a product you **** and trust. The Semrush Affiliate Program, for example, pays $200 per sale and $10 per trial.

Be sure to properly research and vet your affiliate marketing channels before investing too much time and effort. This is mostly to prevent fraud or scams. 

Avoid affiliate programs that encourage things like:

• Fake leads
• Get-rich-quick schemes
• Cookie stuffing
• Website cloning
• Transaction fraud
• False products or services

Do your research. Choose trusted sites with track records for creating a seamless affiliate experience to reduce any cons you might face.

10 Tips for Being a Successful Affiliate Marketer

So you know everything else there is to know about affiliate marketing—the channels to use, the programs to pursue—but how do you start your affiliate marketing journey?

This next section will help you construct a step-by-step plan to become a successful affiliate marketer.

1. Choose a Niche

Selecting the right niche or industry is the foundation of a successful affiliate marketing venture. 

Because without your audience, you can’t make sales. 

Your chosen niche should align with the interests, expertise, and preferences of your target audience. Try finding a unique angle. For example, if you’re a travel blogger, see if you can narrow your focus. You could be a neurodivergent travel blogger hiking solo around Nova Scotia with your pet husky. Find a way to make your niche different from what everyone else brings to the table.

Conduct thorough research about everything pertaining to that niche. This will help identify profitable niches with a significant demand for products or services. 

It will also lead you toward your target audience. 

2. Get to Know Your Audience

Understanding your audience’s needs, preferences, and pain points is essential for effective affiliate marketing. You can do this by conducting market research and engaging with your audience through social media, surveys, and email campaigns. 

For example, you can see where they hang out online. Perhaps they spend a lot of time on Quora or Reddit having conversations about an issue. 

Intimately learning about your target audience tailors your marketing efforts to address the specific needs of your audience. This can improve your connections with online users and increase the likelihood of successful conversions.

3. Create Valuable Content

Compelling and engaging content is at the heart of successful affiliate marketing because it drives traffic and conversions. Create various types of content, including product reviews, vlog reviews, and comparison articles. 

These forms of content offer valuable insights to your audience, influencing their purchasing decisions and driving them to click on your affiliate links. 

The best types of content for affiliate marketing are:

• Product reviews or comparisons
• Tutorials 
• Ebooks
• Social media posts
• Emails
• Landing pages
• Videos
• Blog listicles

For detailed guidance on content creation, check out this informative guide to creating engaging content.

4. Disclose Affiliate Links

Audiences **** authenticity. 

By maintaining transparency with your audience and clearly disclosing your use of affiliate links, you can gain their trust. Trust is a vital component of affiliate marketing, and being honest about your affiliations helps build credibility and fosters a genuine relationship with your audience. In addition to being best practice, these disclosures are also the law.

You can disclose that your content contains affiliate links at the beginning of blog posts or videos when you’re promoting content. 

5. Market on Multiple Channels

Diversifying your marketing channels can significantly boost your affiliate marketing efforts and expand your reach to different areas of your audience. Utilize various platforms such as blogs, email marketing, and social media platforms like Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok to reach a broader audience. 

Look to your niche and audience to decide which channels will be most effective for your strategy. Each channel has its unique advantages and caters to different types of users, allowing you to maximize your outreach.

6. Try Paid Advertising

Experiment with paid ads on platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, or Instagram Ads to target a specific audience and drive more traffic to your affiliate links. 

Be sure to set a budget so you prevent overspending and do appropriate market research to see how you compare to others. From there, optimize your ad campaigns using keyword research and performance metrics to ensure cost-effectiveness and higher conversions.

Ads can also help launch your brand or company to the top of the SERPs and give you a little bit of exposure.

7. Optimize Your Website or Channels for SEO

You want your website to be running well when you start affiliate marketing. To do this, make sure your website is mobile-friendly and your content is well-optimized. 

Doing keyword research, spending time on link building, and focusing on your website’s health will help you show up in search engines more frequently. Optimized sites generate more traffic, and more traffic means more commissions. 

8. Update and Repurpose Old Content

Revitalizing your existing content to keep it relevant is attractive to both your audience and search engines. 

Updating product reviews, optimizing keywords, and repurposing old articles into different formats can increase their visibility and effectiveness. This could be using content from a blog to make a video or create an eblast. In doing so, you can extend your content’s longevity and continuously generate affiliate revenue from it.

To develop your content to its full potential, a content marketing toolkit may also be a good way to improve affiliate marketing skills. It can help you optimize content, manage a marketing calendar, and do topic research to better focus content for the audience.

9. Focus on Quality Leads

While attracting a large audience is important, it’s crucial to prioritize quality leads over quantity. Buying things like leads or clicks via bots may seem like a good idea for quick wins, but won’t serve you in the long run.

Be sure to tailor your content and other marketing efforts to attract individuals genuinely interested in the products or services you promote. 

Quality leads are also more likely to convert. In turn, this will maximize your affiliate earnings and foster long-term relationships with customers. It can also help build you up as a reputable brand or individual. 

10. Track Progress Using Smart Marketing Tools

Even after you’ve launched an affiliate marketing strategy, you should always monitor and update your plan. Remember to utilize effective tracking and analytics tools to monitor the performance of your affiliate marketing efforts—blogs, email, social posts, video, etc. 

With smart marketing tools, you can track clicks, conversions, revenue, and user behavior. Analyzing this data can provide valuable insights into what strategies are working and what needs improvement, allowing you to refine your approach for better results.

Generate More Revenue with Semrush’s Affiliate Program

Marketing is a crucial part of any online business, including affiliate marketing. 

And with the right tools and strategies, you can generate the revenue you desire. As long as you’re always learning and upskilling, we’re sure the long-term benefits will be great.

If you know and **** Semrush products—or are intrigued by the powers of our toolkit—apply to join our Semrush Affiliate Program. We reward affiliates $200 for every paid subscription and $10 for every trial. 

To learn more about Semrush products and all they can do, go here.