Maybe you run a website reviewing the latest tech gadgets, or you share travel adventures and cooking experiments on social media.
Whatever type of content you create, affiliate marketing is a great way to turn your influence into income. By partnering with brands and promoting products through affiliate links, you can earn a commission on every sale.
Want to get more clicks and higher commissions? This guide covers 16 affiliate marketing tips to help you boost your performance and maximize your earnings.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a way to earn money by recommending products or services you believe in. Instead of creating your own product, you partner with a company and earn a commission every time someone buys through your unique link.
As an affiliate marketer, you don’t need to handle inventory, customer support, or logistics. Your job is to share useful recommendations with the right audience, whether through a blog, social media, or email.
16 affiliate marketing tips to make more money
- Launch your affiliate site with existing content
- Diversify your affiliate partners
- Own the relationship with your audience
- Become an affiliate for audience-recommended products
- Know the ins and outs of the products you’re recommending
- Disclose affiliate links
- Share discount codes
- Become a creator on Instagram
- Write product reviews and tutorials
- Try comparative formats
- On-page summaries and roundups
- Consider search intent
- Keep an eye on trending topics
- Link to localized landing pages
- Run ads during peak shopping times
- Report on affiliate link conversions
These affiliate marketing tips are designed for affiliate marketers looking to get the most from their affiliate marketing efforts. Get advice from experts on how to pick an affiliate program, serve your target audience, and make more affiliate income.
1. Launch your affiliate site with existing content
While affiliate marketing is a good option to start making money online, you need a portfolio of existing content. If you don’t have a library of content on your site already, prep at least a dozen articles before you launch your affiliate marketing platform and seek affiliate partners.
Affiliate marketer Stacey MacNaught shares that her best-performing sites in recent years have been those for which her team “created 20-plus pieces of content before putting a website live.”
“My personal golden rule is to have a whole list of content pieces researched in advance, and a good number written up, so the site is launching with content,” she adds.
Facing writer’s block? Get inspired with blog post ideas for an array of topic categories.
2. Diversify your affiliate partners
One of the best affiliate marketing tips to follow is don’t put all your eggs into one basket. A company may choose to close down its affiliate program, deny payouts, or slash commission rates.
For example, the Amazon Associates program notably cut commissions in April 2020 across numerous product categories. Amazon affiliates promoting home improvement items had their commissions cut from 8% to 3%—with just a week’s notice.
A good rule of thumb: One affiliate partner shouldn’t make up more than 50% of your revenue. That way, if an affiliate network cuts rates or shutters its affiliate marketing program, your affiliate marketing business doesn’t sustain a significant financial hit. It’s easier to replace half of your revenue than all of it.
Looking for more ways to boost your affiliate income? Explore high-ticket affiliate programs.
3. Own the relationship with your audience
The key to making money as an affiliate marketer is to have a loyal, engaged audience who cares about what you have to say. That’s hard to do if your content marketing campaigns are struggling to reach them.
Social media and YouTube are standard ways to expand your reach. For example, TikTok influencer Maddie Borge uses a link aggregator in her TikTok bio to direct followers to her affiliate links.
But social media marketing may be less effective than direct lines of communication with your target audience—such as an email list. When you build a list of contacts, you control how and when your content is delivered.
Simply add a pop-up box to your website that gives people something in return for subscribing to your newsletter, like a free checklist or discount code.
4. Become an affiliate for audience-recommended products
An affiliate marketer’s audience is key to their success. A simple way to align your content with your audience is to become an affiliate for products that your audience recommends.
Michael Keenan, co-founder of Peak Freelance, did this with his freelance writing community. He recognized members were looking for a new customer relationship management tool, so he tested a bunch of popular options and joined the affiliate marketing program of the most impressive tool.
“Keeping your ear to the ground is especially important as an affiliate marketer,” Michael says. “Host natural conversations with your audience. Then, sign up to the best affiliate program and get paid to help your audience succeed.”
5. Know the ins and outs of the products you’re recommending
Demonstrating deep knowledge of the products you’re recommending as an affiliate is the best way to build a trustworthy reputation.
For example, eBike Generation founder John Murphy was able to successfully leverage affiliate marketing for his ebike dropshipping business because he knew his products and the customers he served.
“Because I was writing all of my product descriptions, I was getting very familiar with all the types of components, what they do and how they perform, the different types of bikes,” John says. This knowledge proved key in effectively reaching his niche audience and providing them with genuinely helpful content.
6. Disclose affiliate links
Disclosure is an absolute must when recommending products in return for commission.
If you don’t disclose that you’re earning commission for mentioning a product and customers discover this fact elsewhere, you risk alienating your audience and losing brand loyalty.
“When your audience believes you have their best interests at heart and trusts your recommendations, then everyone in the affiliate marketing relationship ultimately benefits,” says affiliate marketer Pat Flynn.
The Federal Trade Commission also has strict rules on product endorsements that prevent affiliate marketers from misleading customers. You need to disclose any relationships you have with a retailer—including products you’re incentivized to sell.
7. Share discount codes
Retailers often compile a list of online marketing materials for their affiliates to use as part of their program. Typically, banner graphics and email marketing copy make the shortlist. But it doesn’t hurt to ask your affiliate partners if they have active discount codes that are redeemable on the products you’re promoting. These coupon codes do a brilliant job of converting people who haven’t yet tried the products you’re recommending.
Once you have a discount code to share with your audience, spread the word by:
- Sharing it on social media with direct affiliate links to shop
- Sending an email to your audience that directs them toward the sale
- Updating any affiliate-related website content to reference the discount code
- Adding “discount” to the meta description of your review pages to encourage searchers to click through
8. Become a creator on Instagram
Not all affiliates need a website to start making money. Social media platforms like Instagram are another channel through which to build an audience.
Sign up for a creator account on Instagram to unlock affiliate marketing business features, such as analytics to help you find retail partners and promote your links.
9. Write product reviews and tutorials
Did you know that online reviews make a difference when buying a product? One survey found that 93% of consumers look at product reviews when making a purchasing decision. By writing reviews for affiliate products that are optimized for search engines, you’ll reach people already in the purchasing process for the item.
In this example, Instagram affiliate marketer Emma Louise reviews books in her content. A link in Emma’s bio sends her followers to her affiliate.
10. Try comparative formats
Comparison pages are a popular type of product review content. They pit two options against each other and help a shopper determine which one best fits their needs.
Get people clicking your affiliate links by publishing comparison pages on your website. Optimize pages for comparison keywords and push people through your links by guiding them in their purchase decision.
YouTuber Hot & Flashy produces topical review content that appeals to her target audience. In this YouTube video, she compares several sunscreen brands, including affiliate links in the description.
Within the video description, this link for BK Beauty takes users to a dedicated page for the affiliate partnership.
Affiliate marketer Ryan Robinson also takes this approach to writing affiliate content. He notes that, while comparison articles may attract fewer readers than more popular topics, readers are “primed to make a purchase decision right after they get the answer they’re looking for.”
Comparison articles let the affiliate earn commission on both (or all) the options featured in content—even if the audience picks a product that isn’t recommended.
“I have the opportunity to generate a sale even if a reader resonates with something about the company I’m less ecstatic about,” Ryan says.
11. On-page summaries and roundups
While a product review can be extensive—running thousands of words—you can take steps to quickly capture your reader’s attention. Do this by first including a product summary, advises Monica Lent, founder of Affilimate.
“You can optimize your click-through rate by including a summary of the product early in the post for the skimmers,” Monica writes. Along with an affiliate link, she recommends that summaries contain three pieces of information:
- Your personal opinion of the product
- Who the product is for
- The product price
12. Consider search intent
Keyword research informs the topics you should be writing about on your affiliate website.
Alongside monthly search volume and keyword competition, consider the search intent of the user. This is the reason a user makes a search query on a search engine. They could be looking for information, looking to buy something, or looking to find something.
Even within the “looking to buy” category of intent, there are varying degrees—someone could just be starting their search for a product, or they could be ready to buy it now. Your job as an affiliate marketer is to align your content with their intent.
Search marketing specialist Ted French of Content Plans explains how to put this into practice. If a user has found a page by searching for “best TVs,” it’s safe to assume they’re close to making a purchase. In these cases, he expects users to be receptive to “offers and recommendations,” so recommends being “super aggressive with your affiliate links.”
Jake Thomas, founder of affiliate website Golden Hearts, took this approach with his affiliate content. He had Google’s auto-suggest do the legwork on finding new content ideas by typing “best _ for golden retrievers” into the search bar. At the time, the term “best brushes for golden retrievers” came up as the first suggestion.
“After looking at which posts ranked on the first page of Google, I saw that they were all list posts, so I made a list post as well,” Jake says. “To make my article more helpful, and therefore rank higher, I thought about what question the reader would have next.”
With this approach, his post covering best brushes for golden retrievers shot to the top spot on Google and still ranks among the top search results today.
13. Keep an eye on trending topics
Consumer tastes often follow product trends, so as an affiliate marketer, it’s important to keep up to date. Keyword research tools can help you keep current by showing you trends in search activity. Subscribing to relevant newsletters and reading industry resources is also crucial to make sure you’re on top of trends.
For example, TikTok trends can give you a snapshot of what’s trending at any given moment in your specific industry or niche.
14. Link to localized landing pages
The beauty of running a successful affiliate marketing business is that you can reach customers all over the world, so long as the partners you’re working with distribute inventory there. The chances of this are high, especially if you’re partnering with Shopify stores. More than one-third of all Shopify traffic comes from international visitors.
Global shoppers have different requirements that need to be met throughout the purchasing process. The most important? Prices in a local currency—something most international shoppers need to see before considering making a purchase.
Provide country-specific content by linking to localized landing pages. Many affiliate networks will create them for you.
15. Run ads during peak shopping times
While your affiliate marketing business doesn’t work by selling your own products directly to the consumer, you’re still an online business. You make commission on another retailer’s products and the end goal is the same: generate revenue.
Draw inspiration from successful ecommerce marketing strategies and tie in your affiliate promotions with peak shopping seasons such as:
- Valentine’s Day
- Mother’s and Father’s Day
- 4th of July
- Black Friday and Cyber Monday
- Christmas and New Year’s
If you have the cash to spare, put some money behind social media and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
While customer acquisition costs shoot up during competitive periods, it’s a great way to maximize your chances of building an audience—and your email list—at a time when shoppers are actively looking for products to buy.
16. Report on affiliate link conversions
How do you know the products in your affiliate marketing strategy are selling?
Much like any digital marketing campaign, set regular reminders to review your most important metrics, including:
- Clicks. A low click volume for a heavily promoted product could indicate your audience isn’t interested in the item you’re sharing.
- Conversion rate. The percentage of people who clicked your affiliate link and purchased something. The higher, the better.
- Earned income. The amount of money you’ve earned by promoting a product.
You can find most of this data inside Google Analytics. Affiliate networks and partners will also have a dashboard that shows this information.
The goal with reporting is to uncover the most popular and profitable products so you can continue promoting them—and deprioritize those your audience isn’t purchasing.
Bonus affiliate marketing tip: Find your most popular product and ask the brand for a higher commission. Show them how valuable you are as an affiliate. Promise to continue doing great work—and drive more revenue—if they can give your audience a super special discount code.
Essential affiliate marketing tools
- Link shorteners. Affiliate links can be long and messy. ThirstyAffiliates (for WordPress) and Pretty Links let you shorten and organize them into clean, branded links (like yourwebsite.com/tool). This makes them look more trustworthy and easier to share.
- Keyword research tools. If you’re using a blog to drive traffic, search engine optimization (SEO) is key. SEMRush and Ahrefs help you find the best keywords, track rankings, and see what’s working for competitors. More organic traffic means more clicks on your affiliate links.
- Analytics. You need to know where your traffic is coming from and what’s converting. Google Analytics gives you insight into which content is driving affiliate sales, so you can do more of what works. If Google Analytics feels overwhelming, something like Plausible offers simple, privacy-focused website analytics.
- Email marketing platform. Email marketing is one of the best ways to build trust and recommend affiliate products over time. Kit and MailerLite help you create automated email sequences, so you can nurture your audience without constantly sending manual emails.
- Design tools. Good visuals make a difference, especially on social media or in blog posts. Canva is an easy-to-use design tool that helps you create graphics, Pinterest pins, and social media posts to promote your affiliate links in a way that stands out.
- Internal linking tools. Internal linking is underrated but powerful for affiliate marketers. LinkWhisper suggests internal links as you write, helping you connect relevant content and keep people on your site longer.
Make more revenue as a Shopify affiliate
The Shopify affiliate program helps marketers make money by recommending Shopify to new entrepreneurs and existing businesses.
Best suited to educators and influencers, Shopify affiliates earn generous commission on any paid customer they drive to Shopify’s suite of commerce products. Use these affiliate marketing tips to create a solid affiliate marketing business that generates sales all year round.
Affiliate marketing tips FAQ
How can I increase my affiliate marketing conversions?
Focus on trust and relevance. People are more likely to buy if they believe your recommendation is genuine, so only promote products you actually like and that fit your audience’s needs. Use clear calls to action, test different placements for your links, and create content that naturally leads to a purchase, like in-depth reviews, comparisons, or tutorials.
What does the 80/20 rule of affiliate programs mean?
It means that around 80% of your affiliate income will likely come from 20% of the products you promote. Instead of spreading yourself too thin, double down on the top-performing programs. Identify which products resonate most with your audience and focus your efforts there to maximize your earnings.
How many followers do you need to make money from affiliate marketing?
There’s no magic number. You don’t need a huge following, but you do need an engaged one. Even with a small audience, you can earn if your recommendations are valuable and well-targeted. Some people make money with just a few hundred engaged email subscribers, while others need thousands of social media followers to see results.
How can I be successful in affiliate marketing?
To make the most of your affiliate marketing strategy, try these affiliate marketing tips:
- Diversify your affiliate partners.
- Own the relationship with your audience.
- Become an affiliate for audience-recommended products.
- Know the ins and outs of the products you’re recommending.
- Disclose affiliate links.
- Share discount codes.
- Create an Instagram affiliate shop.
- Write product reviews and tutorials.
- Publish comparison pages.
- Write a product review summary.
- Consider search intent.
- Keep an eye on trending topics.
- Link to localized landing pages.
- Run ads around peak shopping times.
- Report on affiliate link conversions.
How can I grow faster in affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing can take time, but you’ll grow faster by having a solid affiliate marketing strategy where you test out different channels and identify the best ways to connect with your target audience. It also helps to have a large audience, so you’ll grow faster in affiliate marketing if you also spend time growing your social media following.
What type of affiliate marketing is best?
No type of affiliate marketing is best for every scenario, but certain types of affiliate marketing are best for certain audiences. Becoming an affiliate for a product that your audience is genuinely interested in will be best in the long term.
