Affiliate marketing is a partnership between marketers and brands. For new or growing businesses, having access to bloggers, podcasters and social media influencers can be a priceless tool.
But once you've decided to delve into affiliate marketing, it's crucial that you understand affiliate links, how they work, and the steps required to grow your income as an affiliate.
In this guide, we'll cover all aspects of affiliate links, including best practices, structure, density, and the channels for promoting products. We'll even examine potential affiliate marketing networks and programs to further your reach.
So let's jump in.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where publishers — aka affiliates — earn a commission by promoting specific products or services. Often the affiliate is rewarded after providing a specific result for a retailer or advertiser, which is often a sale, website traffic, or sales leads.
Through the power of affiliate links, affiliates encourage customers to visit an online store or marketplace — with the link itself tracking where the customer came from.
Primarily, affiliates earn through referrals that result in a sale. However, some affiliate programs reward affiliates in other ways.
For creators and entrepreneurs looking for a side hustle to supplement their income, affiliate marketing can be a lucrative online marketing strategy.
What are affiliate links?
Affiliate links are unique URLs that take visitors from your website, social media, or other content to another website — encouraging them to make a purchase.
When a customer visits the retailer and buys something, the affiliate marketer makes a commission.
You may also find these articles on affiliate marketing useful and interesting.
- Affiliate marketing 101: How to start affiliate marketing
- Whop Affiliates - Earn recurring income by referring whops
- Affiliate programs: How to market them effectively
The structure of an affiliate link
The basic structure of an affiliate link looks similar to your usual link, with the inclusion of your unique affiliate ID. This is what separates your affiliate link from other affiliates, signaling to the retailer where the sale came from.
However, while the structure of your affiliate links typically follows the same pattern, finding the right affiliate program will enable you to customize your promo offer and unique affiliate link further.
How to use an affiliate link—the right way
If you're looking to start affiliate marketing, you're going to need to know how to use your affiliate link correctly for optimal performance. Once you've got your affiliate link at the ready, you're good to go with promoting it throughout your content.
However, there are a few best practices you should take into account before diving in the deep end. Here are some of our top tips for using your affiliate link correctly.
1. Add anchors to your affiliate links
Now that you're ready to share your affiliate link in your content, it's time to use it wisely. Instead of posting the full URL of your affiliate link, opt for making certain words or phrases clickable in your content.
After all, a lengthy URL signaling an affiliate link is likely to put users off compared to one that is embedded within the text of your content. Be sure to make the anchor text of your link descriptive and relevant to where you are selling your readers.
Once you've decided where to add your affiliate link, it's time to consider how the link will open. You have two choices here:
- In a new tab
- In the same tab
Remember, if you opt for your affiliate link to open in the same tab, users will leave your website. We'd always recommend that links open in a new tab, to avoid visitors disappearing from your content.
2. Balance your affiliate link density
While it's tempting when creating a piece of content to link to your affiliate products at every opportunity, this isn't best practice.
Not only can stuffing your content with affiliate links make your work look incredibly untidy, but it also appears quite pushy to readers.
On top of this, much like the act of keyword stuffing (essentially cramming as many keywords into your content as possible), a high density of affiliate links could flag up your website for the wrong reasons to search engines.
It's important to pay attention to user experience when writing an article, review or walkthrough. Try to think of delivering value over sending your readers to an affiliate link at every opportunity.
3. Keep your affiliate links tidy
As we mentioned earlier, lengthy affiliate links can be off-putting when used in your content, rather than embedded behind anchor text. But there are other ways to keep your links even tidier.
Even if your affiliate link is hidden behind anchor text, the link itself can be kept tidy and brief with the help of link-shortening tools. However, while it's important to keep your affiliate links readable for users, your merchant will still need to be able to recognize them as yours.
Long affiliate links filled with dynamic parameters can often look unappealing, which can put users off from visiting them with fears of spam. Plus, some can be put off from visiting links that look too salesy or promotional.
With the help of link shorteners such as bit.ly, you can tidy up your affiliate links while maintaining crucial affiliating cookies that associate sales with you as the affiliate.
Here are a few other options for shortening, and even tracking your links:
- Rebrandly
- Pretty Links
- Lasso
4. Use nofollow affiliate links
A nofollow attribute signals to search engines to ignore the link, therefore not providing any upvote. Google isn't a major fan of affiliate links, so it's always wise to add the nofollow attribute (rel=”nofollow”) to prevent your website from being penalized.
In WordPress, this is super easy to do. When you add a link in your copy, you can select several options when editing, including:
- Open in a new tab
- Add "nofollow" to the link
5. Use your affiliate links wisely
While it might be tempting to sprinkle your affiliate links around your website and social media at every opportunity, less often means more when encouraging users to buy.
It's important to align your affiliate marketing strategy with your overall content marketing campaigns for ultimate success.
We've already covered the density of your affiliate links, but it's time to work out where to put them to increase your click-through rate. While they can technically be used wherever you like, you need to hit the right balance to achieve those sales.
The last thing you want here is to appear spammy, as this will only increase your website's bounce rate instead and send shoppers elsewhere. So, where can you leverage your affiliate links for maximum results?
Blog posts
Throughout your blog content, it's important to only include your affiliate link where relevant. This doesn't mean you need to only feature your link once or twice, but it's important to not bombard the text with anchor links.
Think of the user experience when deciding where to insert your affiliate links and where's best to provide helpful information.
Sidebars
As well as in the copy of your articles, there are also opportunities to include your affiliate links within the design elements of your website. This might be a clickable banner on the sidebar of your content, midway through your content or even at the end.
Adding your affiliate links within a sidebar can complement the links in the article itself, without being too intrusive.
Images
If you're promoting products, visuals are going to play a key part in your affiliate marketing strategy. This is also a great opportunity to include clickable images within your content, directing users to a specific product page.
YouTube video description
Thinking about creating video content to promote your affiliate products? Whether you're recording a review or a simple tutorial, it's important to be transparent about being an affiliate.
You can mention in your video that you have a special offer available while promoting your products, and simply drop your affiliate link in the video description.
Want to get started with affiliate marketing but don’t want to show your face? Don’t worry, there are plenty of ways to still get involved when you’re feeling camera shy, like faceless YouTube channels!
Here's how affiliate marketing works
Here's the process broken down into simple steps:
- An affiliate promotes a product via an affiliate link on their website, social media or blog etc
- The reader clicks your affiliate link
- They then make a purchase
- The affiliate network records the transaction via your unique affiliate link
- You (the affiliate) then get paid a commission for that sale
The rate of your commission can vary depending on the product and industry you choose to promote. This percentage can sometimes be negotiated between yourself
The different types of affiliate marketing
As an affiliate marketer, there are several routes you can take. Here are the three types to consider when you're looking to start affiliate marketing.
1. Unattached affiliate marketing
If you'd prefer not to niche down or attach yourself to a specific industry, product or brand, working as an unattached affiliate marketer might be the answer.
This is typically an affiliate that is a general advertiser promoting a wide range of affiliate products to several audiences.
Some unattached affiliate marketers choose to use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on social media and SERPs to gain interest.
2. Related affiliate marketing
Related affiliate marketing is the method of promoting products or services to your existing audience. Often affiliates in this category have already invested time and resources into building an audience through content marketing efforts — such as blogging, YouTube videos, and TikTok.
3. Involved affiliate marketing
For this type of affiliating marketing, marketers create content around an affiliated product or service. This could be in the form of a review, walkthrough or other type of content that demonstrates the product's benefits.
However, it isn't about writing a biased review to promote a specific product or service. In fact, many involved affiliate marketers build a reputation for providing impartial product recommendations.
Who should become an affiliate marketer?
Now that you know how affiliate marketing works, it's time to decide if this area of marketing works for you. Here are three signs that affiliate marketing could be a great match:
You have access to a specific audience
If you already have an engaged following, you've pretty much done the legwork to become an affiliate marketer.
Whether you have a broad audience with different interests and hobbies or a small, niche group of enthusiasts — these groups could quickly align with a wide range of affiliate products.
You're a content whizz
Whether you've grown organic traffic on your website or built a strong following on social media, affiliate marketing could be the obvious next step. It might be that you already blog about a specific industry but you're unsure how to monetize your content — this is where affiliate links come in.
If you have a loyal following and high search engine rankings behind you, promoting affiliate products could earn you a solid commission relatively quickly.
However, not every content whizz has a website. If you've got a knack for creating viral content for YouTube, TikTok or Instagram — why not leverage these platforms as an affiliate marketer?
You're a trusted expert
If you have a very specific interest, you've no doubt built up a strong knowledge of an industry already. So why not take advantage of that knowledge and encourage your website visitors to buy through affiliate links?
Whether you choose to create educational content, publish articles to review sites or create YouTube videos, if you're a trusted expert, consumers will shop via your recommendations.
How affiliate marketers make money
Once you start looking at available affiliate networks, you'll soon notice how different they are in terms of payment models. This can often also be called their 'pricing structure', 'payout model' or 'conversion type'.
Essentially, this is an affiliate network's way of working — and how you'll get paid as an affiliate marketer. While many associate affiliate links with a simple product sale, there are some other models around to explore. For example, if you were to promote a specific software, the goal could be to attract more free trial sign-ups.
It's also worth paying attention to each affiliate network's method of commission. For example, many run on last-click marketing attribution, which means that the affiliate marketer who receives the last click before a purchase gets 100% credit for the sale.
Does affiliate marketing really work? And can you make some serious cash doing it? We take a closer look.
5 ways affiliates get paid
As we touched upon above, not every affiliate link is designed to sell a product. Here are five different ways affiliate marketers get paid:
- 💰 Per sale - Affiliates earn a commission for each sale completed
- 📩 Per action - Commission is earned for a specific action, such as a newsletter sign up
- 💿 Per install - Affiliates earn a commission for every app or software install
- 🧲 Per lead - For every lead that is generated, the affiliate earns a commission
- 🔗 Per click - For every click on an affiliate link, you'll earn a commission, this is often used to build brand awareness
How to get started with affiliate marketing
1. Find your channel and format
Every successful affiliate marketer has chosen their channel and format to create content for. If you're just starting out with affiliate marketing, you'll need to decide what type of content you'd like to create.
Here are some common marketing channels to consider:
- Organic search (building your own website, or potentially writing for another)
- Email marketing
- TikTok
- YouTube videos
Once you've decided on the channel for your content, you'll also need to work out the format. Popular content formats include:
- Product reviews and walkthroughs
- Listicle product guides
- Curated product recommendations
- Product comparisons
- Lifestyle content
In order to crack your marketing campaigns, it's important to not spread yourself too thin. While it might be tempting to create accounts across all social media platforms, this can be a lot of work to keep up with.
Instead, start your affiliate marketing journey by nailing one channel and trialing different formats of content to see what works best.
For example, you might dive into creating blog content for your website, but find that snippets work well as Instagram Reels.
No matter which route you choose to take, it's important to be authentic with your affiliate marketing strategy. It's crucial to build an engaged audience that trusts and values your content, giving you a higher chance of converting that community into buyers.
2. Work out your niche
As an affiliate marketer, you're going to want to choose a niche for your content and associated affiliate products or services. Typically, marketers follow one of these two routes:
- A niche you're interested and passionate about
- A niche based on audience analysis and opportunities
If you're looking to hit the ground running and achieve affiliate sales relatively quickly, the quickest way to create a lot of content is to choose a niche you're already interested in.
This will reduce the time it takes to research your chosen industry since you're already clued up on your niche.
Plus, if you opt for a niche that genuinely interests you, creating content and defining your affiliate marketing strategy becomes a lot easier.
If you prefer to find a gap in the market by audience analysis, this may require greater amounts of research in order to provide truly valuable content. However, it can also uncover new affiliate sales opportunities in untapped areas with few competitors.
To get to grips with industry insights, you can use a variety of online tools like social listening, website analytics and social media insights. Websites such as AnswerThePublic can help you to gain an understanding of search traffic and new potential areas you can tap into.
3. Find an affiliate marketing program
Once you've carved out your potential content strategy and decided on the channels, format and niche you'd like to work in — it's time to find relevant affiliate programs.
By browsing affiliate networks, you can quickly explore products and brands to partner with. Affiliate networks such as Health Nutrition offer plenty of products within a specific industry. So if you're interested in the health space, this could be a great route to dive into and promote a variety of products.
If you prefer to work with a specific product or service — especially one you may use already — you can visit their website directly to see if they work with affiliate marketers. Many different businesses offer affiliate programs — such as Whop or Shopify.
At Whop, you can get paid by referring customers or creators to our platform. Simply share your affiliate link with your audience and get paid when a customer purchases a product or a creator makes a sale.
4. Choose your first product
Whether you have an already-engaged audience, or you're at the very start of building your own website and creating content — choosing your first product is an important decision. As you browse affiliate networks, keep in mind how these products align with your existing audience, or the one you intend to build.
If you have an existing community, ask yourself if the product is something your target audience would find valuable to them — and does it match your niche and brand? It's also important to ensure that your chosen product or service is suitable for your channels and format.
While image and video-heavy platforms like Instagram or TikTok are perfect for clothing items, it might not be suitable for, say, complex software or online tools.
Our top 9 tips for becoming a successful affiliate marketer
If you're new to affiliate marketing and just learning the ropes, there are a few things you should know to set yourself up for success. Here are our top tips to take forward as an affiliate marketer.
1. Build trust
One of the key elements of being an affiliate marketer is being trustworthy. Why should consumers trust you?
It's incredibly important to build trust with your audience, giving honest advice and opinions whilst promoting your affiliate products.
The more open you are with your audience, and the more value you have to offer — the greater chance of success. For some industries and products, trust becomes the most vital attribute. Remember, there's a huge difference between promoting a $500 course to selling a $15 sweatshirt.
While some customers may return to buy more clothing items, the repeat customer could be a lot harder to come by when you're promoting more expensive products and services. After all, customers need to trust your opinion in order to part with a larger amount of cash.
As you build trust within a certain industry, putting your effort into this one direction is also key.
While it might be tempting to dip your toe into new audiences, niching down and not promoting every product imaginable will set you up for greater success.
2. Talk to experts and real users
As well as helping you gain valuable insights into your product or service, speaking to those in the know can also be beneficial for context in your content.
This may be speaking directly to customers who use the products or service you aim to promote, or other industry experts.
When you're able to dig deep and offer a new level of value to your audience, your reviews, comparisons or general content suddenly has a lot more depth than other content available online.
3. Build your email marketing list
Email marketing is a great channel to leverage as an affiliate marketer. Once you've built your mailing list, this gives you plenty of opportunities to offer valuable content whilst promoting your affiliate products.
Whether you aim to send a weekly newsletter to supplement your online marketing, or produce a monthly round-up of your content — email marketing can be an excellent resource to promote your affiliate partners.
Remember, not every email marketing campaign has to be packed with sales and promo offers. You should aim to provide a solid mix of valuable content and promotions to your subscribers, such as:
- Free downloads
- Reports
- Entertaining content
- Updates and news
- Exclusive offers
While there's no fixed rule on how often to send your email campaigns, it's important to avoid sending every email packed with affiliate links. If you start to bombard your readers, you could quickly come across spammy and lose subscribers — while also damaging your trustworthiness.
Not sure which email marketing tool to use? Don't worry, there are plenty to choose from. Here are some of our top picks:
Want to explore email marketing opportunities? Here’s how to create and launch your very first newsletter step-by-step.
4. Find relevant keywords
If you're planning on building your own website, you're going to want to take a closer look into relevant keywords to help optimize your content.
There are many online tools available to help you find relevant search times, including Google Ads Keyword Planner — which is totally free. Here are a few others you can also explore:
5. Use the product yourself
A great way to offer value to your audience is to experience a product or service first-hand. You can then use this knowledge to create tutorial content and how-tos, giving greater user insight that helps to build trust with your readers.
Not only will your personal experience add greater depth to your content, but it will also make it more relatable — which can be key for becoming a successful affiliate marketer.
Here are just a few examples where using a product yourself can benefit your affiliate marketing:
- Unboxing videos - Document opening the product and discovering its features for the first time
- Tutorial content
- First-hand reviews
6. Create a product tutorial
Not every piece of content you create has to necessarily be a direct promotion of your affiliate product. There are plenty of ways to be quite subtle with your approach, which can help to build trust with your audience.
For example, a quick look via keyword research tools will help you to find areas where users search for "how to..." type content.
This might be how to save money, or how to fix something around the house — if your product solves a problem, this will quickly highlight its value, providing a greater incentive for customers to make a purchase via your affiliate link.
7. Work on your distribution strategy
Once you've started creating content, now's the time to determine your distribution strategy. These are the steps you'll take to get your content seen.
For example, if you've written an online guide, you might want to share it on social media, or take snippets for Instagram Reels or TikTok videos. If you have a mailing list, take full advantage of this to promote your latest content.
8. Leverage discount codes and offers
We've all been tempted into making a purchase by freebies, right? Often affiliate marketers will give something a little extra for free to sweeten the deal.
This could be as simple as a digital download such as an ebook, or access to an exclusive piece of content.
These types of promotions can be incredibly persuasive when used correctly. Plus, if you're already creating content around your affiliate product or service, why not keep a little back and offer it as a freebie to new customers?
9. Be transparent about affiliate links
Although affiliate marketing is well known, it's important to be transparent in your content when it contains affiliate links. This could just be a small notice at the top of an article to inform readers that you may earn a commission for any purchases made through your content.
Example affiliate marketing programs
There are so many different affiliate networks available, finding one that suits your interests will better your chances of becoming a successful affiliate marketer.
Here are a few of the best ones you might want to check out.
Whop's affiliate program
Here at Whop, we make it easy to earn commission as an affiliate marketer. Whether you want to refer customers to buy products on Whop, or encourage new creators to start selling — we've got you covered.
However you choose to promote Whop, you'll get a cash reward for your work when a customer purchases a product or a creator makes a sale — it's that easy.
With a wide range of whops to choose from, you could be promoting anything from travel communities to personal finance courses — so what are you waiting for? Explore Whop's affiliate program today.
Elementor
If you have an interest in digital marketing and web design, you might want to consider opting for a specific affiliate program such as Elementor.
With up to 50% commission on every new sale, applying to become an affiliate is pretty simple — but you will need to specify how you plan to promote the web builder and share links to your main content channel.
Once you're signed up, you'll also gain access to Elementor's creative assets library, which can support you in creating your promotional content.
Shopify
There are two ways to earn when you choose to become a Shopify affiliate:
- Get paid when you refer new merchants to use a Shopify plan
- Earn up to $150 for every eligible Point of Sale Pro referral
Whether you're running an online store already, creating content or educating an audience, this type of affiliate program can be a great route to take for those looking to inspire new and growing businesses.
In order to apply, you will need to meet the following criteria:
- Own and run an active website
- Have an established audience
- Create original content, such as online courses, seminars, blog posts, or videos
- Have experience with Shopify or other ecommerce platforms
- Have read and agreed to the Shopify Partner Program Agreement
Amazon Associates
With so many of us using Amazon almost daily, this type of affiliate marketing program offers a whole world of opportunities. Since there are millions of products and programs available on Amazon, the world is your oyster when it comes to choosing what to promote.
As a renowned affiliate program, Amazon offers affiliates access to customized linking tools to support their affiliate strategy.
Although one of the largest affiliate marketing programs around, it's worth noting that the platform offers only up to 12% commission on qualifying purchases and programs.
Pros and cons of affiliate marketing
Still wondering if affiliate marketing is for you? Let's uncover the pros and cons of becoming an affiliate.
What are the advantages of affiliate marketing?
Straightforward to execute
The goal of affiliate marketing is straightforward: to refer customers to affiliate partners and earn money through sales.
Similarly to dropshipping, you can focus on marketing these products without any input in product development or fulfilling orders.
Speaking of dropshipping. Dropshipping vs affiliate marketing. Which is better and which makes you more money? Check out our guide here.
Low-risk and investment
Your typical affiliating marketing program won't cost you anything to get started. Once you've built your audience, as an affiliate marketer you can start to earn money by promoting a product or service.
Although it's not necessarily an entirely passive income, there are some opportunities here to continue to earn money from existing content — especially if you can master search engine optimization.
For example, if you were to write a well-optimized article or review that ranks high in search engines, you could continue to receive a commission this way. But it's unlikely that this one article alone would earn a high amount of money consistently to eliminate the need for further marketing.
Opportunities to scale
Once you're up and running as an affiliate marketer, there's plenty of room to increase your earnings without the need for employees or expensive resources.
This means that affiliate marketing done right is quite easy to scale, giving you plenty of opportunities to earn money.
As your audience grows, you can even start to introduce new products, negotiate new commission rates or reinvest your earnings to further your reach.
New to affiliate marketing? Here are the best affiliate marketing programs for beginners looking to make passive income.
What are the potential drawbacks?
Takes time
While many online affiliate networks will tell you how easily you can get rich quick with affiliate marketing, growing your audience and gaining influence takes time.
Unless you already have a website with a strong amount of traffic, building a trustworthy hub to promote your products may take years of creating and publishing content.
Limited control
With any affiliate marketing program, there are some rules to follow. This can dictate slightly how you are able to promote a product — as well as how much your commission may be.
Once you've built a strong audience of steady website visitors, you may be able to renegotiate for a higher commission or even bonuses.
Learn affiliate marketing and start making money today
Affiliate marketing is growing by the day, so it's no surprise you'd like a slice of the action. With no special skills or qualifications needed, affiliate programs are incredibly tempting for eager marketers.
If you're already a content creator, you'll likely find it easy to get started with affiliate links — especially when it comes to social media.
There's no denying that affiliate marketing is one of the original forms of making money online, and it's an ever-changing landscape that requires a mixture of marketing efforts for ultimate success.
Here at Whop, we have many courses and communities to help you learn every angle of affiliate marketing — whether user-generated content, social media or creating your first blog.
From the Affiliate Marketing Elites community to the WebStar Club, Whop makes it easy to discover new ways to learn how to become an affiliate marketer — covering everything from buying domains to SEO and email marketing.
Our community is packed with resources, so you'll be well-equipped to get started with affiliate links and know exactly how to build your audience and start earning a commission in no time. Whop also has its own affiliate program, where you can get paid for both referring customers and creators to our platform.
Join Whop today and unlock everything you need to start earning through affiliate marketing — from expert-led courses to an affiliate program that pays you to share the platform.
FAQs
Still got questions about affiliate links and everything affiliate marketing? We've got you covered.
Do I need a different affiliate link for every product?
Yes, for every product or service you promote, you will need a unique affiliate link. This will ensure that your affiliate partners understand where traffic and sales have come from — therefore earning you a commission.
Can I customize my affiliate link?
Many affiliate platforms will allow you to customize your affiliate links. You can also use a URL shortening tool such as Bit.ly or Google URL Shortener to tidy up your affiliate links.
Do I have to have my own website to get started with affiliate marketing?
Although it's incredibly beneficial to have your own channel to promote your affiliate links, it isn't 100% necessary to have your own site. However, some affiliate programs will require this, such as Shopify.
By having your own platform to create content via, you will also have greater control over your organic traffic, search engine optimization and overall affiliate marketing strategy.
Do I have to find a niche I'm interested in?
If you have zero experience in tech, you're likely not going to want to write about it. Finding the right affiliate marketing program is made a lot easier when you choose an industry you're interested in.
While it's beneficial if you do use the products or services yourself, this isn't a must to be an affiliate marketer. However, being able to speak openly and honestly about a product will benefit you when it comes to creating content and promoting your affiliate campaigns.
Spend some time to look around and find the right affiliate program for you and your interests. There are so many different programs available, you'll be sure to find a niche that works for you. You also need to pay close attention to the commission you'll receive to ensure it is worth your time.
Is affiliate marketing worth it?
If you already enjoy creating content, affiliate marketing may be the obvious next step for you — especially if you have an existing audience. However, it is definitely not a quick get-rich scheme, and it does require hard work and dedication to make money.
There is certainly potential for high earnings with affiliate marketing, especially as your audience grows. But it's worth bearing in mind that income can vary greatly, due to different payment models.
How can beginners get started with affiliate marketing?
For any beginner affiliate marketer, one of the best routes to take is to explore a topic you're interested in and have a passion for. This will certainly make it easier when it comes to creating content. Plus, if you're promoting products or services you already use, you'll already have first-hand experience that is invaluable to your audience.
As we mentioned earlier on in this guide, you'll need to determine your niche, form and channel for your content and then find a suitable affiliate program.
Do I have to show my face to be successful in affiliate marketing?
No, not necessarily. Affiliate marketing isn't all about creating YouTube videos or Instagram Reels. If you're feeling a little camera shy, you'll be pleased to hear there are plenty of other ways to get involved.
Here are just a few ideas you can explore:
Blogging
Well-optimized written content can help your website to become a hub of information, building trust with an audience. While creating helpful and valuable content, you can also incorporate affiliate links via product recommendations, reviews and guides
Podcasts
If you're happy to speak into a microphone, you can still keep your face hidden when creating podcast content. This can be a great way to build an audience and develop passive income, promoting products and services in a subtle way throughout your content.
Once listeners begin to follow your podcast and tune in regularly, you'll quickly earn their trust and have a higher chance of converting them into paying customers via your affiliate links.
Social media
Not everything on social media requires face-to-camera video content. Whether you leverage Instagram Stories or create X (Twitter) threads, social media can be an exciting channel to promote your affiliate links.
You can choose to build a personal brand via social media, or use it as an extension of your website to promote written content — this is entirely up to you.
Email marketing
If you're already creating online content, why not convert those readers into regular subscribers? Building a mailing list is a great way to reach your audience directly, with opportunities to offer promos, freebies and exclusive content.