When you think of affiliate marketing, you probably think of TikTok influencers talking about new makeup products and YouTube shorts about kitchen gadgets—not a 280-character tweet with a link at the end.
But the real trick to affiliate marketing is to tap into new niches and new audiences, and X has an audience of over 300 million just waiting to be tapped into.
With a bit of research and some trial and error, you can adapt your existing affiliate content to suit X’s format and add it to your list of platforms.
In this guide, I’ll show you what you need to do to set up the perfect X profile, create X-specific content, and get people clicking on your links. I also have some extra tips at the end about how you can become an affiliate marketing pro with the courses and communities available on Whop.
What is affiliate marketing on X (Twitter)?
Affiliate marketing on Twitter is pretty much the same as anywhere else: You share your personal affiliate links with your followers and gain a commission when someone makes a purchase.
It’s one of the most common and oldest ways of making money online, and it has stuck around because it works so well. I know I tend to check out many affiliate deals myself, simply because I like the knowledge that someone has actually tested the product themselves.
Unlike affiliate marketing on TikTok or Instagram, however, you won’t be making a lot of video content on X and everything you want to say has to fit into 280 characters. If you pay for Premium, that limit increases to a whopping 4,000 characters.
If you're a frequent user, you've probably seen affiliate links spammed under each popular tweet. You know all those fancy galaxy projectors or sunset lamps under viral posts? Yup, those people are posting affiliate links (or, at the very least, they've been paid by the brand).
To be a good affiliate marketer, become an expert on the category of products you promote, posting lots of related content that helps and entertains your audience.
Then, when you post a product link, followers trust your recommendation like they would trust a recommendation from a friend or family member. (I appreciate it deeply, but my wallet hates it.)
With the sheer amount of products and brands available today, people really value product experts who can try out different options, post honest reviews, and recommend the best products.
This is the main reason affiliate marketing can work so well—and also the reason brands are willing to pay good money to work with trusted affiliate content creators with big audiences.
Is affiliate marketing on X (Twitter) worth it?
There’s no denying that X isn’t the first platform that comes to mind when people think of affiliate marketing. Most people nowadays associate affiliate marketers with short-form video content, which means platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube (Shorts).
That doesn’t mean affiliate marketing doesn’t happen on X, however.
The platform has over 330 million users, after all, so of course brands and their affiliates are going to take advantage of that.
Thanks to its lack of video content and its character limit, it can actually be quite easy for affiliate marketers to add X to their list of platforms. You can rework captions from Instagram posts, snap images while you’re filming content, and put together good affiliate posts for X without putting in a lot of extra time or effort.
As for content posts, you can link to the videos you post on other platforms and engage in the easy-to-consume blogging that Twitter is so famous for.
How affiliate marketing on X (Twitter) works
While the underlying basics of affiliate marketing on X work the same as on any other platform, in practice, there are a few differences. The biggest difference is probably how fast things move on X.
People say the shelf-life of a post is short on any platform, but with Twitter, it’s on another level. News and topics move so quickly and people post multiple times an hour, so it’s easy for your link to get lost in the crowd.
There’s nothing you can do about this, so the key to succeeding on X is to always think about the next post, rather than trying to keep your last post relevant for longer.
Here’s a quick breakdown of everything you need to do to get started with affiliate marketing on X:
- Step 1: Choose your niche
- Step 2: Join affiliate programs
- Step 3: Set up your Twitter profile
- Step 4: Build your audience
- Step 5: Create engaging content
- Step 6: Share affiliate links
- Step 7: Analyze performance
- Step 9: Optimize and scale
- Step 10: Stay consistent and post a lot
Next, I’ll go into more detail on some of these steps and share some tips to help you get the best results in the shortest time.
10 tips for making money with affiliate marketing on X (Twitter)
If you want to make money on Twitter, be prepared to post frequently, create valuable content for your audience, and steer clear of the typical Twitter drama. Here are some of the most important things you need to keep in mind.
1. Choose a category or niche of products
No matter the platform, affiliate marketing only works when the audience trusts the person giving the recommendations. If you just spam people with whatever random affiliate links you can get your hands on, it won’t go down well.
The first step to gaining trust is to know what you’re talking about—and this isn’t a step you can just skip or rush. You either need to choose a niche that’s new to you and learn about it, or choose something you’re passionate about and learn even more about it.
While it’s true that choosing something you’re already knowledgeable about can save some time, it’s only worth it if that topic is also profitable. You’ll have to do some research to see if there are other affiliates making money with that niche.
If you’re going to learn about something new, you can also choose something that aligns with your tastes and interests. For example, a dancer or athlete would lean towards health products or activewear, while a travel enthusiast would do well with travel accessories and booking services.
It’s much simpler to review products if you’re interested in using them yourself, so this is a good way to make the work easier and more enjoyable.
Here are some popular niche examples that are worth looking into these days.
Health and wellness
- Fitness equipment (resistance bands, treadmills, dumbbells)
- Supplements (protein powders, vitamins, herbal remedies)
- Mental health tools (journals, mindfulness apps, therapy services)
- Healthy food and beverages (meal kits, organic snacks)
Beauty and skincare
- Skincare products (moisturizers, serums, cleansers)
- Makeup (foundations, lipsticks, brushes)
- Haircare (shampoos, hair tools like straighteners and curlers)
- Organic and cruelty-free beauty brands
Technology and gadgets
- Smartphones and accessories (cases, chargers, earphones)
- Smart home devices (Amazon Echo, Google Nest, security cameras)
- Gaming equipment (consoles, controllers, gaming chairs)
- Laptops and peripherals (keyboards, monitors, external drives)
Fashion and accessories
- Clothing (seasonal collections, sustainable fashion, activewear)
- Shoes (running shoes, formal footwear)
- Jewelry and watches
- Bags and accessories (handbags, wallets, sunglasses)
Personal finance
- Credit cards (with rewards or cashback programs)
- Investment platforms (stocks, cryptocurrencies, real estate)
- Budgeting tools and apps
- Financial education courses and books
Home and kitchen
- Kitchen appliances (blenders, air fryers, coffee makers)
- Home organization (shelves, storage bins, labels)
- Furniture and decor (desks, chairs, art, lighting)
- Cleaning products and tools (robot vacuums, eco-friendly cleaners)
Parenting and baby products
- Baby care essentials (diapers, baby monitors, feeding equipment)
- Toys and games for kids
- Educational products (books, learning apps)
- Maternity and postpartum products
Travel
- Luggage and travel gear (suitcases, travel organizers)
- Booking services (hotels, flights, tours)
- Travel accessories (adapters, portable chargers, neck pillows)
- Travel insurance and credit cards
Education and e-learning
- Online courses (programming, business, creative skills)
- Ebooks and study materials
- Language learning tools (apps, subscriptions, flashcards)
- Tutoring platforms and test prep services
Pet products
- Pet food and treats
- Toys and accessories (leashes, collars, scratching posts)
- Pet health products (vitamins, grooming tools)
- Subscription boxes for pets
Green and sustainable products
- Reusable items (water bottles, shopping bags, straws)
- Solar-powered gadgets
- Eco-friendly home products (compost bins, energy-saving devices)
- Organic and biodegradable cleaning supplies
Hobbies and entertainment
- Craft supplies (paint, yarn, DIY kits)
- Musical instruments and accessories
- Books, comics, and collectibles
- Streaming services and subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify alternatives)
Weight loss and fitness
- Diet programs and meal plans
- Fitness trackers (smartwatches, pedometers)
- Workout subscriptions or apps
- Weight loss supplements and equipment
Business and productivity tools
- Software and SaaS (email marketing, project management, accounting)
- Office supplies (ergonomic chairs, standing desks)
- Online services (freelancing platforms, resume builders)
- Professional development courses
Outdoor and adventure
- Camping gear (tents, sleeping bags, portable stoves)
- Hiking equipment (backpacks, water filters)
- Sports equipment (bicycles, kayaks, climbing gear)
- Apparel and footwear for outdoor activities
Good news if your interests don't magically slot into any of the above categories: You can still try your hand at affiliate marketing. In fact, when it comes to affiliate marketing, there’s pretty much no such thing as "too niche."
The logic behind this is that the more niche the topic, the more difficult it is for people to find good products themselves and, therefore, the more they’ll appreciate someone who can point them in the right direction.
So if you’re thinking about focusing on pet products, for example, don’t just settle for cats and dogs—go super niche and focus on something like jumping spiders (if you dare).
Of course, for this particular example, you can only really promote products for pets you actually have. Truly using the products you promote is the biggest rule of affiliate marketing, and I’ll talk more about this later.
2. Join affiliate communities and networks
Once you know what you want to focus on, you need to actually get your hands on some links. Luckily, this part is pretty easy, even if you’re just starting out. All you need to do is join some affiliate programs and use their platforms to find some products or services you want to promote.
You may want to set aside some time for this, however, since there are a lot of programs out there and they all have thousands of products you can promote. You want to choose products you’re familiar with or are willing to try yourself—and above all, they need to be good!
If you try to promote low-quality products, nothing good will come of it. Either people will ignore your content because they can see the product isn’t worth it, or they’ll buy the product, and find out it’s bad after they’ve spent money, damaging your reputation.
Never forget that, alongside making money, affiliate marketers exist to help people find the best products with less effort. Helping people should be your goal, and it’s also what will make you successful.
Here are some popular affiliate programs you can check out:
- Whop Affiliate Program
- Amazon Associates
- ShareASale
- CJ Affiliate
- ClickBank
- Rakuten Advertising
- Shopify Affiliate Program
- Awin
If you end up joining a lot of programs and using links from all sorts of places, creating a hub to keep them all organized is a good idea. With Whop, you can create a hub and add different functionalities to it based on your needs.
With the Affiliate Links app, for example, you can catalog your links and make it easy for your audience to find the perfect products. You can also add a Help Desk app in case they have any questions for you or even add some Chat apps so people can ask each other questions about shipping or other product-related things.
3. Become an expert in your niche
Now, back to the very important point I mentioned about actually using the products you promote—don’t try to cheat this rule!
To become an expert on your niche, you need to use products, develop opinions, and learn what people want. If you want to see just how particular consumers and product designers can be, take a look at the Blogilates community.
This influencer creates activewear for her followers and gives them a unique look into her design process. In return, her followers flood the comments section with detailed desires for future products and improvements they want to see in current products. From exact lengths and colors to fabric types and design shapes, people know exactly what they want.
The point is, if you tried to engage this audience as a person who has never owned any activewear and has no idea what looks or feels good, they would see right through you.
This is something you want to avoid at all costs as an affiliate marketer. You want to focus on what you know and what you care about so you can find good products and make valuable content promoting them.
4. Develop your tone of voice
Unlike video-based platforms like Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, X is all about words. That means you need to think about how you present yourself through language. This is social media, so academic prowess isn’t needed, but you do still need to be clear and concise.
Many affiliate marketers use Twitter to funnel people to their websites or other socials—like Gear Patrol. Using the custom images from their blog posts and a concise and to-the-point tagline, they create quick X posts that take followers to detailed reviews complete with affiliate links.
This is a great strategy if you’re linking out to other places, but if you want to post some X-specific content, you’ll need to say a little more. Of course, on Twitter, even "more" is only 280 characters.
To get it right, here are the top things you need to think about.
Who is your audience?
The way you "talk" on Twitter should be decided first and foremost by who you’re talking to.
For example, if you’re targeting a young audience, you’ll want to avoid making your entire tweet one block of text. Instead, you should add plenty of white space and probably some emoji as well.
If you're targeting senior-level executives, you’ll probably want to write in full sentences and standard English because this is what they’re used to. If you use too many "trendy" new words and phrases you saw on TikTok, they’re likely to get confused or annoyed.
What is your niche?
It also matters what you’re talking about.
If you’re introducing some silly gift ideas, for example, you can have as much fun as you want with your language. People will just be buying them for fun and no serious topics are being addressed.
If you’re talking about the best enclosures for keeping reptiles, however, people probably want you to sound a bit more proper. Buying the wrong product could be harmful to their pet, so they’ll react better to well-written and clear copy that addresses sensible points.
Who are you?
The last thing you need to think about is how you present your affiliate business. Are you a team of people or one person? Do you like to present as a company or as an influencer? Do you show your face or not? (Not everyone does; there's a whole subset of marketing called faceless affiliate marketing.)
All of these things affect the language you’ll use. When it comes to affiliate marketing on social media specifically, influencers usually sell the most.
No wonder. These are people who share their faces, thoughts, interests, and lives in the form of content…with their favorite products taking center stage, of course.
As an influencer, your content needs to be personable, relatable, and usually written in a chatty style similar to how you’d interact with friends on your favorite chat app. It still needs to be written well—because no one is going to buy a product if you don’t properly explain what it does—but it’s crucial to appear laidback and casual.
5. Follow the rules and be a positive influence
Although all the drama that happens on Twitter can make it feel like a pretty lawless place, it has rules and policies just like any other social platform. As an affiliate marketer, you’re not there to join in on the drama, so it’s important to stick to the rules.
It’s especially important to make sure your links follow the rules—because X will punish your account if you post links it doesn’t like. The official stance on links looks like this:
Just make sure your links always take people to trustworthy product pages and you should be fine.
As for that drama I mentioned—it really is best to stay away from those kinds of topics. It can be tempting to jump on the bandwagon just because it could help your post get lots of views but it’s never worth it.
Focus on being a source of positivity on the platform, sharing fun and valuable content and great products with all kinds of people!
6. Use hashtags—properly
It has always been a big achievement to get on Twitter’s "trending list," and it remains one of the best ways to discover what people are talking about on the platform. The list works by simply counting the number of posts that include a certain hashtag, and when people want to find posts on a certain topic, they search for related hashtags.
This is a common way for users to discover your X profile, so it’s crucial that you add relevant hashtags to your posts. Since you’re promoting products, it’s much more effective to use one or two relevant hashtags to help people find your post rather than trying to capitalize on trending hashtags.
Of course, you should always check the trending list to check what’s going on, just in case something related to your niche is trending.
Less is more when it comes to hashtags, and because you have so few characters to start with, it’s usually best to include just one or two. Experimentation is key to finding out what works, so try out new hashtags regularly and keep track of which are performing the best.
The best practice is to include one broader topic hashtag and one specific hashtag.
For instance, if you were prompting a type of mascara, you could use #mascara as the broader topic and a hashtag of the brand name of the more specific one. If you have room for one more, you could also go even broader by using a #makeup hashtag.
In my experience, however, three is the maximum number of hashtags you should use. If you add any more, they’ll start to look spammy and they’ll definitely start getting less relevant.
7. Keep an eye on your analytics
Tracking the performance of your posts is the best way to find out what works and what doesn’t.
Every X profile comes with an analytics page but you do need to pay for X Premium to access them. It won’t break the bank, however, so consider it a necessary investment for your new affiliate venture.
The analytics page will give you a range of information about your posts, your profile, and your audience. You’ll use these tools to find out which hashtags work best for you, which products people are responding to, and what kind of content people like to see the most.
If you prefer to get your analytics elsewhere, many tools can show you even more information than Twitter does. These services will cost money as well but they usually also come with other tools like a hashtag generator or a scheduling tool, so it could end up being better value for money. Here are a few examples:
- Twitonomy
- Hootsuite
- SocialPilot
- Sprout Social
- Followerwonk
In addition, it's a good idea to track analytics not just for your post but also for the affiliate links themselves. When you join the Whop Affiliate Program, you can track the creators you're sending out links for, and similarly, as a creator yourself, you can see how well your affiliates are performing.
8. Get creative with images
You might not be making videos much for X but that doesn’t mean visual content isn’t important.
Posting custom images with your tweets elevates your content in multiple ways:
It lets you show off your branding
By adding logos and color schemes to your images, you can create a brand identity that’s hard to pull off through just text. Make sure it matches your profile icon and profile banner as well for the best results.
You can raise trust quickly
Images stand out, and if someone scrolls down your profile and sees lots of images of the same person using various products, they’ll instantly know you’re a respectable affiliate marketer.
You can add extra information
If the 280-character limit is making trouble for you, you can add some text to your images to squeeze in a little extra information. I wouldn’t do this on every single post, but it’s a good trick for when you desperately need to add a few more words.
They look good
Twitter profiles can look a little boring if it’s just an endless feed of text and links, so images can really help brighten things up and make people want to spend some time looking through your profile.
While images are pretty much essential for your product posts (who is going to get excited about buying a product when they don’t even know what it looks like?), it’s also good to take advantage of them in other types of posts, too.
If you’re going down the influencer route and posting lots of selfies and blog-type content, you can even sneak future products into your images and get people curious about them. When they ask where you got said item, you can publish an affiliate link post and make your followers happy.
9. Post a lot (and use scheduling tools if you need to)
Another tip for success: Take a page out of X CEO Elon Musk’s book and post a lot. He has 59.7K posts on X and usually posts at least three or four times a day.
Twitter is and always has been a microblogging platform and, in a lot of ways, it’s a rare exception to the famous rule of quality over quantity.
People sit and watch new TV episodes with X open on their phones and tweet their ongoing reactions in real time. Others post random thoughts throughout the day, posting as much as 10 times an hour.
As an affiliate marketer, you won’t need to go this far, but it’s important to know how people use Twitter. It’s a well-known statistic that 10% of X’s users post 80% of tweets and if you want to build up a serious following on this platform, you’ll have to use it in the same way.
If this sounds like a lot of work, there is a bit of a cheat you can use—scheduling tools. With these, you can sit down and work on a range of different posts for a couple of hours and schedule them to be published at different times.
With X, even if you use a scheduling tool to plan important affiliate posts and high-quality content, for the sake of quantity, you’ll probably also want to post some random microblog-type posts throughout the day.
10. Make your profile look good
One last thing you need to do is optimize your X profile. As an affiliate marketer, it’s important to add a disclaimer where people can see it—you always have to tell people that you earn a commission when someone makes a purchase.
Your profile bio is an easy place to do this since most people will see it and it makes it very clear what you do. A nice banner with imagery related to your niche and a matching profile icon will also look good.
You can also link to any other social media or perhaps a platform where you catalog all of your affiliate links for people to access.
Whop is a great example of this—you can create a free or paid community where you share all of your affiliate links in an organized and easy-to-access hub.
Pros and cons of affiliate marketing on X (Twitter)
Affiliate marketing on X isn’t for everyone, so take a good look at these pros and cons to decide whether it will be a good fit for you or not.
Pros
- Twitter has over 300 million active users, some of which are not active at all on other social media platforms.
- If you already engage in affiliate marketing on other platforms, it’s relatively easy to add Twitter to your collection. You can link out to your other content and use the same images to create posts.
- Once you get used to creating short and snappy sales copy for your tweets, you’ll love how quick and easy it is.
- Compared to lots of other platforms, affiliates aren’t that active on Twitter. This means you can capture a bigger audience!
Cons
- People use X as a place to rant and argue with each other, so you have to take special care to stay away from that aspect of the platform.
- You need to be careful with the links you share since X will block anything it considers unsafe.
- It’s not the best platform to start out with if you’re a newbie affiliate marketer. You’d be better off creating a following with video content on TikTok or Instagram and then expanding to Twitter when you’re ready.
- Depending on your niche, 280 characters can be very limiting—it works best with simple consumer products that don’t require much explanation.
Other ways to make money with affiliate marketing
As I’ve mentioned a few times throughout this guide, the best role for X in your affiliate business is really as an "extra" platform rather than your primary platform.
There are lots of other platforms that give you more freedom to make the content you want and access lots of product-minded users.
If you want to target young people, you should definitely consider affiliate marketing on TikTok. It has a huge user base and a huge community of affiliates—plus, making 15-second-long videos to promote your products is a breeze.
If you’re targeting older people—middle-aged or older—Facebook is probably the best place to go. Here, you can write as much as you want, make use of images, and post videos.
Instagram is usually the best catch-all platform. Both young people and older people use it and there are hundreds of thousands of small brands that use it as their main website and customer service hub.
Speaking of hubs, having your own website or storefront as an affiliate marketer is also useful. The idea is to create an organized catalog of all your product links so that if someone decides they like your taste in products, they can choose to visit your hub and find things easily.
This is tons better than having to endlessly scroll through your socials with no way to properly search for what they want. Some affiliate programs give you the ability to do this—such as the Amazon Affiliates program—but if you share links from multiple programs, making your own hub is the way to go.
With Whop, you can take this a step further by making an entire community around your affiliate business. You can organize your links with the Affiliate Links app, hide some behind a paywall if you want to, sell extra content, and even add ways for people to contact you and each other.
You can use it as a place to ask your audience what kinds of products they want you to research and what reviews they want to see. You can even provide a place for them to ask super-specific questions about products that you didn’t address in your content.
Moreover, if you branch out into selling digital products or courses (such as in-depth guides to affiliate marketing!), your followers can make money by advertising your whop.
Every time you get a new subscriber, they'll get a cut—and so spins the wheel of passive income.
Learn affiliate marketing from professionals on Whop
Depending on how well-versed you are in affiliate marketing and social media in general, this guide could be either getting you super hyped to start marketing on X or just more confused than ever!
The truth is, guides on the internet can only do so much (even if they're as in-depth as this one).
If you’re serious about starting affiliate marketing and you want proper instruction on how to start, what products to promote, what kind of content to make, and all these kinds of things, it’s best to learn from professionals.
These are people who have already made hundreds of thousands in profit with affiliate marketing—sometimes even millions. If you don’t happen to have anyone like this on your contacts list, there’s no need to worry.
Whop is a social commerce platform where you can find many affiliate marketing professionals who run exclusive communities and share their expertise. You can benefit from in-depth online courses, live seminars, active Discord servers, and even one-on-one coaching from the owners.
There are platform-specific communities like Media Labs, where people learn how to make money on TikTok, and communities that focus on content across different platforms, such as Content Academy. Basically, whatever you need to learn, you’ll find a community that specializes in it.
With tried-and-tested strategies from successful entrepreneurs, you can eliminate the long and tiring period of trial and error most affiliate marketers have to go through.
Instead, you can skip straight to working with profitable products, effective content, and an expansive network that will start turning a profit quickly.
Interested? I've got you.
Join the Whop affiliate program to recommend your favorite products
Coincidentally, Whop also has an affiliate program you can make use of.
Once you’ve become an expert in affiliate marketing using one of the communities hosted on Whop, you can sign up for the program and start recommending the community to other people.
After you’ve experienced just how valuable a dedicated community of learners and experts can be, you’ll no doubt be on the lookout for another one to join. With Whop’s affiliate program, you can make recurring earnings by promoting any whop with an active affiliate program.
Some of the companies on Whop offer some pretty exclusive services, and there are opportunities for some high-ticket affiliate marketing, too. This means advertising whops that often cost thousands of dollars to join, and for you, that's a hefty cut!
When you join a program, you’ll get personal links and marketing materials you can use in your content. The reward percentage is also displayed right next to each company and you can keep track of your earnings through your referral dashboard.
You don't only get to refer people to get them to join other people's whops—you can also refer potential creators.
There's more. If you make your own whop, you’ll be able to benefit from the affiliate program as a seller, too. You can recruit affiliates and track the performance of your product in real time with Whop's extensive suite of built-in tools.
Whether you're a content creator or an affiliate marketing aficionado, there's loads of money to be made on Whop. Get involved and start making money with Whop today.
