How to start affiliate marketing (the order I'm following)

To start affiliate marketing, pick one topic you can write or talk about for a year, join two or three affiliate programs that sell tools or products in it, and build one place you control (a simple website plus an email list). Then publish content that answers the questions buyers ask before they buy, put your tracked links where they genuinely help, and measure which pages make sales. Don't pay for traffic until a page converts on free traffic. That last rule cost me about $4,600 to learn.

The order I'd do it in now

1. 1Pick a lanea topic you can cover for a year
2. 2Choose offerslike a buyer, not a gambler
3. 3Build a homea site plus an email list
4. 4Write buyer pagesanswer the question before the purchase
5. 5Track clicksper page, per link
6. 6Free trafficGoogle, short videos, Pinterest
7. 7Disclosesay how you get paid

The one offer that flopped

By 2020 I'd been an affiliate marketer for about ten years, and I wanted to test something new to me: paid traffic. I found an online course on ClickBank with a decent commission, built a funnel in ClickFunnels, opened Facebook Ads Manager and started spending.

Over the next year or so I put roughly $4,600 into ads. Clicks came in. A few sales came in. Profit never did.

Here's the part that still stings. The same idea, done in the right order, costs a tiny fraction of that today:

What that flop cost me vs. a lean start now

What that flop cost me vs. a lean start now

One offer, 2020-21 (ads alone)	4,600 $
A lean first year, 2026	84 $

Looking back, the problem wasn't Facebook, ClickBank or ClickFunnels. It was the order I did things in:

• I paid for strangers' attention before I had anything that kept them around, like an email list.
• I couldn't tell which ad, page or audience made which sale, so I couldn't fix anything. I just spent more.
• I picked the offer first and tried to find buyers second.

This guide is the order I'd hand anyone starting today. It's also the exact order I'm following on this brand-new site, in public.

Step 1: pick a lane you can stay in for a year

Your topic (people call it a niche) needs three things:

1. People actively looking for help. You can see this in search volume, in YouTube comments, in forums.
2. Things to buy along the way. Software, courses, gear, services. Ideally a few, so one program changing its terms doesn't sink you.
3. You can keep showing up. You'll make a lot of content. If the topic bores you by week six, the content will show it.

A quick test: can you list 30 questions a beginner in this topic asks? If yes, you've got a year of content. If you're stuck at 8, keep looking.

My lane, for example: the tools and skills behind online income (funnels, email, SEO, AI tools), shown with my real numbers. I use most of these tools anyway, so every article starts from real use.

Step 2: choose offers like a buyer, not a gambler

An affiliate program pays you a commission when someone buys through your tracked link. Some pay once, some pay every month the customer stays (recurring), and the difference matters a lot over a year.

When I compare programs I look at:

• Would I recommend it to a friend without the commission? If not, stop here.
• One-time or recurring? Ten customers paying you every month adds up quietly. A one-off payout has to be won again next month.
• Cookie length. How long after a click you still get credit for the sale. Longer is friendlier for products people think about first.
• Payout rules. Minimum payout, payment methods, and whether they hold commissions for refunds.
• The fine print. Some programs ban bidding on their brand name in Google Ads, or ban certain kinds of promotion. Read the terms before you join, not after an account gets closed.

Start with two or three programs in one lane. Not twenty.

Step 3: build a home you control

Social platforms are great for reaching people and terrible as a place to live. Accounts get restricted, reach drops, rules change. You need two things you own:

• A simple website. It's where your best answers live, where Google can find you, and where your links sit next to genuinely useful information.
• An email list. The one audience no algorithm can take away. Start collecting emails from day one, even if you only have five subscribers for a month.

You don't need to be technical. Plenty of tools now do pages and email in one place, and several have free plans. (I list what I use, and what it costs, on my toolkit page.)

Step 4: write the page a buyer is looking for

Most people searching before a purchase type something like:

• "is [tool] worth it"
• "[tool] pricing" or "[tool] free plan"
• "[tool A] vs [tool B]"
• "best [type of tool] for beginners"

These searches are much smaller than the big beginner questions, but the people typing them are close to buying. A clear, honest page that answers one of these questions better than anything on page one can keep bringing in sales for years.

What "better" means in practice:

• Answer first. Don't make them scroll past your life story. (Put the story further down. People do like a good story, they just like the answer more.)
• Show proof you've used it. Your own screenshots, your own numbers, what annoyed you.
• Be fair. Say who should skip it. Nothing builds trust faster than telling some readers "this isn't for you".
• Make the next step obvious. A clear button where the reader is ready for it, not twelve banners.

Step 5: track every click before you scale anything

If there's one rule that flop taught me, it's this. Before you spend a dollar to grow, you should be able to answer:

• Which page or video sent the click?
• Which link on that page (top button, middle, bottom)?
• Did it turn into a sale, and how much was it worth?

At a minimum, use each program's own tracking IDs or sub-IDs per page. Even a spreadsheet beats guessing. On this site, every link runs through my own tracking system, which is how I can publish real results per page instead of a vague "it's going great".

Step 6: get traffic for free first

Free traffic is slower, but it's honest feedback. If people won't click when the click is free, paying for more of them won't fix it.

The three free sources I'm putting the most into:

• Google search. Slow to start (new sites often wait months), then it compounds.
• Short videos. TikTok, Reels and Shorts can move fast. Teach one useful thing per video, and point people to the full guide or your free resource.
• Pinterest. Good for how-to content. Send pins to a helpful page or an email sign-up rather than straight to a sales page.

Paid ads come later, and only for pages that already convert on free traffic. That's when ads stop being a gamble and start being a multiplier.

Step 7: say how you get paid

In the US, the Federal Trade Commission expects you to make it clear when you get paid for a recommendation, and the disclosure should be easy to notice and easy to understand.^[1] A clear disclosure page, linked from your site, plus honest wording near your recommendations, keeps you on the right side of that and keeps readers' trust.

What it really takes (the honest part)

Affiliate marketing is a real business model, and it's also slower than the screenshots suggest. Most new sites take months before Google sends steady traffic. Most first pages earn nothing. The people who make it are mostly the ones who keep publishing useful pages, measure what works, and do more of that.

That's the whole plan here: useful pages, real numbers, and doing more of whatever the numbers say works. Each month I publish what this business brought in and spent, including the misses.

Your first week, as a checklist

• Day 1: write down your lane and 30 beginner questions in it.
• Day 2: shortlist five programs, read their terms, join two or three.
• Day 3: set up a simple site and an email sign-up (free plans are fine).
• Day 4: write a disclosure page and an about page that tells your real story.
• Day 5 to 7: write your first buyer-intent page ("is X worth it" or "X vs Y") and make it the best answer on the internet.

Then do it again next week. And the week after.