Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing means recommending someone else's product with a tracked link and earning a commission when someone buys. No inventory, no support tickets, no fulfilment. You're paid for producing the thing that caused the purchase — usually a review, comparison, or tutorial.
It has an unusually bad reputation, and mostly for good reason: a decade of low-effort "top 10 best X" pages stuffed with Amazon links taught people to distrust it. Google's Helpful Content updates have been systematically flattening exactly that kind of page since 2022. What still works is narrower and harder — genuinely testing things, having a real opinion, and being specific enough that the recommendation is useful even to someone who doesn't buy.
The economics are worth understanding before you start. Amazon Associates pays 1–4% on most categories, which means a $40 product earns you about $1.20. Software and B2B affiliate programmes often pay 20–40% recurring. The same amount of writing effort can earn you $1.20 once or $30/month indefinitely — the difference is entirely which market you chose.
Who this is actually for
Good fit if you already have genuine expertise in something people spend money on, or an existing audience anywhere — newsletter, YouTube, a niche forum reputation. Bad fit if the plan is to write generic reviews of products you've never touched; that market is thoroughly saturated and actively targeted by Google's ranking updates.
What it really costs to start
Rough figures, current at the time of writing. Prices change and vary by country — treat these as a planning baseline rather than a quote.
| What you pay for | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Domain | $10–15/yr | Namecheap or Cloudflare Registrar; Cloudflare sells at cost |
| Hosting | $0–60/yr | Cloudflare Pages and Netlify are free for static sites; shared WordPress hosting runs $3–5/mo |
| Keyword research | $0–99/mo | Google Keyword Planner and Search Console are free and enough to start; Ahrefs/Semrush are $99+/mo and not necessary in year one |
| Affiliate programme entry | $0 | Amazon Associates, Impact, ShareASale and most direct programmes are free to join |
| Realistic month 1 total | $10–25 | This is one of the genuinely cheapest hustles to start |
What you can realistically earn
Commission rates vary more than almost any other variable. Amazon Associates sits at 1–4% for most physical categories. Physical-product programmes run 5–15%. Software and SaaS typically pay 20–40%, and often recurring for the lifetime of the customer — which is where the real money is.
Content-driven affiliate income is slow and then sudden. New sites face what most people call the sandbox: 4–8 months of near-zero traffic while Google establishes trust. Sites that survive that window often see a step change rather than a gradual climb.
A realistic trajectory for someone writing consistently in a narrow niche: nothing for months 1–5, first commissions around month 6, and somewhere between $200 and $2,000/month by month 12–18 if the niche has commercial intent and the content is genuinely better than what already ranks. Plenty of sites never reach that. The variance here is enormous and anyone quoting a reliable figure is selling something.
Your first 30 days
A concrete week-by-week plan. It assumes a few hours a week, not a full-time commitment.
Week 1 Pick a niche with actual margin
- List 5 topics you genuinely know something about
- For each, find the affiliate programmes that exist and write down their commission rates
- Discard anything where the only option is Amazon at 3%
- Pick the one with real commissions and products you can actually access
Week 2 Find low-competition entry points
- Use Google Keyword Planner to find 20 long-tail questions in your niche
- Search each one and note whether page 1 is dominated by major publishers
- Keep only the ones where a small site is currently ranking — that's proof of an opening
- Pick the 5 easiest to start with
Week 3 Publish genuinely useful content
- Write 3 articles that answer the question completely, without padding
- Include something nobody else has — your own photos, your own test results, a specific detail
- Add clear FTC disclosure above the first affiliate link
- Set up Google Search Console and submit the sitemap
Week 4 Build the habit
- Publish 3 more articles
- Apply to the affiliate programmes you identified in week 1
- Internally link the new articles to each other
- Accept that traffic will be near zero and plan the next 3 months anyway
Honest pros and cons
What genuinely works
- No inventory, no shipping, no customer support, no refunds — you are never responsible for the product
- Genuinely compounds: an article written in year 1 can still earn in year 4 with no further work
- Recurring SaaS commissions mean one good article can produce income every month indefinitely
- Startup cost is roughly the price of a domain, which makes the downside almost nil
What people don't tell you
- Brutally slow — 6+ months of writing with zero revenue is the normal case, not the bad case
- You're renting your traffic from Google; a single core update can remove most of your income overnight
- Amazon has unilaterally cut commission rates before, with days of notice and no recourse
- The low-effort version of this is the single most saturated content category on the internet
Mistakes that kill most attempts
Reviewing products you've never used
This is the default failure. It produces text that reads like every other page, contains no information that isn't already on the manufacturer's site, and is precisely what Helpful Content updates target. If you can't buy it, borrow it, or have genuine hands-on experience, write about something else.
Choosing Amazon for everything
Amazon is the easiest programme to join and among the worst-paying. A 3% commission on a $30 item is 90 cents. The same article recommending a $40/month SaaS at 30% recurring is worth $12/month forever. Same effort, wildly different outcome.
Going broad instead of narrow
A site about 'gadgets' competes with every publisher on earth. A site about left-handed ergonomic keyboards competes with almost nobody, and the people searching for that are far closer to buying.
Writing only 'best X' listicles
Comparison pages convert well but are the most contested pages on the internet. The sites that survive build genuine topical depth — troubleshooting guides, setup tutorials, and comparison pages — so they're not betting everything on one page type.
Skipping FTC disclosure
Affiliate relationships must be disclosed clearly and before the link, not in a footer. It's a legal requirement in the US, and both Google and most affiliate programmes will act on non-compliance.
Tools worth using
Frequently asked questions
How long before affiliate marketing makes money?
For a new site relying on search traffic, expect 6–12 months before meaningful commissions. New domains go through a long trust-building period with Google. If you already have an audience — a newsletter, a YouTube channel, a community — you can see commissions in weeks instead, because you're not waiting on search rankings.
Is Amazon Associates worth it?
It's worth it for convenience and for products that only exist on Amazon, but the rates are poor — 1–4% in most categories. Use it as a supplement. Direct programmes and SaaS affiliates paying 20–40%, especially recurring, are where the actual income is.
Do I need a website?
No, but it's the only channel you own. You can run affiliate marketing through YouTube, a newsletter, or Pinterest. The risk with platform-only approaches is that the platform can change the rules or remove you, and you have no way to reach your audience afterwards.
Do I have to disclose affiliate links?
Yes. In the US the FTC requires clear and conspicuous disclosure, positioned before the link rather than buried in a footer. It's also required by most affiliate programmes' terms, and failing to do it can get you removed from the programme entirely.
Is affiliate marketing dead?
The low-effort version is — mass-produced reviews of untested products have been the explicit target of Google's Helpful Content updates since 2022. Genuine expertise, real testing and a narrow niche still work, because that's expensive to fake at scale.
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Written as general information, not financial advice. Costs and earnings vary significantly by country, market and effort, and the figures here are planning estimates rather than promises. Check local licensing, insurance and tax rules before starting any business.