I’ve been a full-time affiliate marketer for 10 years.
I’ve also coached 1,000s of beginners, some of which have gone on to become millionaires.
So let me make your life easier by giving you the 11 top affiliate marketing tips the gurus won’t tell you (but should).
Please don’t skim-read this.
I could have easily turned this list into “101 affiliate marketing tips” but I want to focus on the biggest game-changers for you that are going to make the difference between whether you fail or succeed.
Each tip here could save you years of meandering and bucketloads of cash.
So get comfy, grab a notebook 📓 and pen 🖋️ or open up your notetaking app 📱 and let’s do this.
1. Get The Best Training Possible
It can be super disorientating trying to get a handle on how affiliate marketing works.
Even in 2024, the internet is littered with get-rich-quick scams and phoney done-for-you systems…
But let’s skip the part where you fall for the hype and spend $97 on some “autopilot profit machine” promising $10,000s that does nothing to move you forward.
“If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
What you need is a track you can run on, a proven step-by-step that works for:
- Your online income goals
- Your schedule
- Your hopes and aspirations
You need straightforward, practical affiliate marketing training that’s going to show you how it is without all the fluff and BS.
The good news is:
There are a lot of decent courses out there created by people who know what they’re doing.
The better news is:
You don’t have to pay an arm and a leg to get the strongest start possible.
Join the Commission Academy course right here and we’ll equip you with the right know-how you need to be uber-successful at this – for free.
2. Master One Skill At A Time
There’s a lot you need to learn to become a successful affiliate marketer.
And a lot of skills you need to master.
You need to get good at:
- Proper keyword research
- Content creation
- Finding affiliate products
- Email marketing
- Converting visits into sales
Plus about a dozen more.
And each skill has a subset of at least a dozen skills within it.
So it’s no wonder so many newbies start keen only to get demotivated and quit.
They dive into creating an affiliate marketing website, launching a YouTube channel, going on TikTok and starting a podcast within a week.
They try to take on too many challenges at a time which is beyond their capability and that just leads to stress and overwhelm.
This video describes the process perfectly:
The solution to this?
Focus on mastering one skill set at a time.
One day at a time.
One lesson at a time.
One action step at a time.
That’s what I did. I got good at blogging and building an email list before ever showing my face on YouTube. Then, after plenty of practice, I ventured into YouTube shorts and TikTok.
And if you ever find yourself overwhelmed, close your laptop and take a break. There’s nothing wrong with that.
And tomorrow is always a new day! 😊
3. Pursue Your Passion
The affiliates who earn more than $150k a year are the ones who enjoy the process of building an online business.
Yes, affiliate marketing is hard work, but it’s also important to have fun on the journey.
Why?
Get a kick out of what you do and you’re more likely to stick with it, dedicate more time to it, get better at it and end up making more money as a result.
And pursuing your passion when choosing your affiliate niche is a surefire way to love what you do.
Whatever your reason for starting affiliate marketing, the last thing you want to do is replace one dull job with another.
So don’t pick a niche or topic because that’s where you think the money is.
That’s an all-too-common mistake.
It’s not a one-size-fits-all here – the right niche for you is one that’s going to keep you motivated enough to jump out of bed in the morning excited that you “get to” build your business!
4. Use Multiple Affiliate Programs
I lost $35,000 because the main affiliate program I was promoting got shut down.
Thankfully by that point, I had started promoting several different affiliate products so I had other income streams to fall back on.
But I learned an important lesson:
You don’t want more than 50% of your total income coming from a single affiliate program.
“Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”
You want to start with a handful of affiliate programs and add more gradually over time.
It means you’ll be less reliant on one particular program but it also opens you up to higher earning potential and probably higher conversion rates as the products you recommend become more relevant to your audience.
5. Start With SEO
SEO is when you simply attract free traffic to your website from search engines like Google.
And it’s the traffic generation we focus on in the Commission Academy training.
While we cover paid ads later in the more advanced training, we want our students to master the art of converting free traffic before splurging out on an expensive ads campaign.
Why?
Because paid ads are high-risk if you don’t know what you’re doing.
But the beauty of using free and organic traffic first is you get to hone your skills and track what’s working and what’s not.
Then, when you’re finally ready to progress to paid ads, there’s less guesswork involved as you already have a decent idea of conversion rates and ROI.
6. Understand Search Intent
If you can identify the 4 types of search intent then you’ll be way ahead of the pack.
Seriously, this one took me years to get my head around – and it’s not complex really!
Search intent is just the reason behind someone googling something.
Sometimes they’re:
- Looking for information
- Looking for a specific website
- Looking to buy a product or service
The last types of keywords are the ones we as affiliate marketers want to target if we want to generate commissions online.
If all your posts are informational then you might get a ton of website visits but little to no sales.
If that’s the case you might need to mix it up a bit and add more transactional or commercial intent keywords to your content strategy.
7. Get Obsessed About Helping
This tip is probably the biggest in terms of mindset and it really will catapult you to the top 10% of successful affiliates if you get this right.
Here it is in a nutshell:
The more helpful you are as an affiliate, the more dollars you will make.
Really.
Put people before profits every time and the traffic, clicks, sales and commissions will absolutely follow.
I promise.
Ask yourself:
- Who is your target audience?
- What do they want or need?
- What can you do to help them get to where they want to be?
Then set out from the start to become the most helpful affiliate marketer on the planet.
Make every blog post the most useful and practical blog post ever created.
Offer up the best possible solutions to people’s problems.
Give them the best answers to their questions.
It’s not only the right thing to do, but it’s also smart. You’ll become the go-to in your industry and people will be far more willing to click your affiliate links and buy because they trust you.
8. Stick To Products You Know
One of the great things about affiliate marketing is you can promote as many products as you want.
But since you’re here asking my advice, let me say this:
Stick to promoting products you use and love.
I get it. It’s not always possible to buy every product before writing a product review, but if you can, you will make more sales.
The reason for this is you’ll have more to say. Instead of going off what the Amazon reviews say, you’ll be able to more easily identify the real-life solutions the product offers and tell people what you like about the product in your own words.
You can take photos or videos of yourself with the product which will give you more credibility and add more weight to your recommendations.
9. Protect Your Reputation
I’ve already hinted at this a couple of times but now let me address honesty directly.
Your reputation online is paramount. It’s all you’ve got.
Tell people what they want to hear to try and maximise your commissions and they’ll smell it a mile off.
Sleazy sales tactics like these give affiliate marketers a bad name.
Promote a crappy product or make misleading claims and you could tarnish your online reputation.
And once you break that trust, it’s almost always irreversible. People won’t listen to you, won’t buy from you but worse than that:
Angry customers who feel like they’ve been duped will get all evangelical on your ass and start spreading the word about just how untrustworthy you are.
Coffeezilla is a prime example of this. He’s outing the internet scammers every week and you don’t want to get on his radar!
So make the decision right from the outset that you’ll always be upfront about your affiliate associations, you’re going to recommend products you wholeheartedly believe in and you’re going to run your business with integrity because you’re in this for the long term.
10. Keep Your Costs Low
At some point or other, we all catch shiny object syndrome.
You know, where you’re following one strategy and then hear about some fancy new way of doing things and you end up spending $300 a month for some pointless landing page software.
Or you pay $250 a month for a super duper keyword tool when a $29 a month one is all you need…
Or you max out your credit card for a $2,500 course that’s no different to what we teach here for free…
The truth is all you need to earn passive income with affiliate marketing is:
- Good training
- A domain and web hosting
- A keyword tool
And that shouldn’t total more than $100 a month.
Watch this video for a full cost breakdown:
11. Give Yourself A Year
95% of aspiring affiliate marketers fail.
Not because they don’t have the intelligence or ability, but because they quit too soon.
Affiliate marketing takes time and most just don’t have the patience to stick it out.
I’ve lost count of how many people I’ve seen delete their website or call it day right before they were due their big breakthrough.
So my final tip for you is this:
Commit to investing at least 12 months in learning affiliate marketing and applying it to give you and your business enough time to grow.
You’ll be glad you did.
“Commitment unlocks the doors of imagination, allows vision, and gives us the “right stuff” to turn our dreams into reality.”
James Womack
