Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing

Are you ready to increase your income as a creator? Affiliate marketing may be a viable stream to do so. Although Investopedia reports that just 9% of affiliate marketers generate over $50K/year, Findstack found that upwards of 80% of brands offer an affiliate program. Not to mention, according to Statista, affiliate marketing in the US alone is expected to be an $8 billion industry by 2022. To help you get started, we’ve created this resource with affiliate platforms for you to join, where you can start leveraging your affiliate links, and tools that can help make affiliate marketing a breeze.

Affiliate Platforms

Each of the below platforms offers a variety of different retailers and product types you can create affiliate links for. While some platforms may accept you, granting access to a variety of retailers at once, others may have you apply to individual retailers with acceptance determined directly by the retailer. Most platforms also allow you to see what brands provide the highest commission rates to help you increase your revenue from affiliate marketing.

1. Magic Links
2. Share a Sale
3. LTK
4. Amazon
5. ShopStyle
6. AWIN

Where to use affiliate links

Resource page

Do you have a list of go-to products or services you frequently recommend? A resource page is a great way to provide your audience with value by sharing some of your go-to products for your niche! Adding in your affiliate links to these pages is a great way to drive additional revenue for recommendations you would have been making anyway.

Product reviews

Product reviews are another way to bring value to your audience by helping them solve a problem they are struggling with by sharing what has helped you. Below is a great example from Willa Community Member Megan of @MeganRaeOfLight sharing how she has solved her skin insecurities thanks to Agency skincare.

Solving Skin Insecurities with Agency's Personalized Prescription Skincare

TikTok

TikTok has been known to sell out products with viral videos! Make sure to include links to products you’re using or wearing in your TikTok videos to help drive more affiliate commissions should your audience be looking for that product!

Instagram stories/highlight

Instagram stories are a great option for sharing affiliate links for products that you use on a day to day basis. Everything from your iPhone case to your favorite coffee mug has the potential to drive revenue if you have access to the link sticker!

YouTube

If you regularly publish to YouTube, you can simply add affiliate links to any products or services that you may mention in your video. Not discussing any products? Link to equipment you use or decor in the background of your video!

Blog Posts

Blog posts are a great opportunity to integrate affiliate links into your content strategy. Not to mention, optimizing them for SEO and pinning them to Pinterest gives the content a longer lifespan to generate income via those links! Aim for products you know will stay in stock to maximize the longevity of the content and limit the need for regular updates.

Monthly favorites

Share a roundup of some of your favorite products from the last month with your audience! This post can be created in a variety of formats as well from a YouTube video or IGTV to a blog post or quick TikTok video!

Tools to use affiliate links more easily

While there is no universal method for updating links across platforms, these tools help keep them up to date on your blog. Having them updated in one location allows for your blog to serve as a landing page for all of your content.

Pretty Links

If you are looking to make keeping track of your different affiliate links, Pretty Links is a great plugin to consider. They offer link cloaking, tracking, redirects, and the ability to automatically insert affiliate links based on keywords. This makes for easy updates to articles and is great if you’re looking to add affiliate links to existing posts.

Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin

Amazon affiliate links tend to be more restricted in how they are used than some other platforms, hence a specific tool for them! If you plan to mostly use Amazon links, the Amazon Affiliate WordPress Plugin may be best for you. It allows similar features as other affiliate link plugins and added features specifically for Amazon such as automatic price updates!

Thirsty Affiliates

A similar service to pretty links, thirsty affiliates allows you to cloak affiliate links, automatically add links based on keywords, and keep track of how your affiliate links are performing. You can even use Thirsty Affiliates to add your affiliate links to a Shopify storefront.

Remember to provide a disclosure when using affiliate links!

Regardless of where you utilize your affiliate links, be sure to include a disclosure for your audience to know that the affiliate link is there. This provides greater transparency for your audience and ensures you meet FTC guidelines when posting your affiliate links.