How To Start Affiliate Marketing For Beginners In 2025: Follow Our Step-by-Step Guide

Understanding how to start affiliate marketing as a beginner in 2025 will help make the journey all the more rewarding, especially if you follow the right steps and strategies.

With traditional marketing becoming less effective, affiliate marketing has turned into a multibillion-dollar industry that offers beginners an exciting way to start a side hustle. And the good news is that many affiliate marketing programs are free to join, so you won’t have looming overheads to start your journey. 

This beginner’s guide will help you learn how to choose an affiliate program, create affiliate links, and start earning.

Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing for Beginners

If you’ve ever watched an influencer promote a product online, you’ve watched how affiliate marketing works. Basically, affiliate marketing is a sales strategy where you earn commissions by promoting products or services for a third party.  

In short, the affiliate (that’s you) promotes a product or service from the seller (whoever creates the product or service) to the consumer (buyer). You can promote the product or service via various online channel(s), e.g. create video reviews or tutorials. If the consumer wants to buy, then they click on your affiliate links, which direct them to the seller’s website. Once the purchase is completed, you receive the agreed commission.  

As a beginner in 2025, this model offers flexibility, scalability, and the potential to generate passive income.  

Here’s how it works in practice.

1. First, you join an affiliate program.
2. Next, the company you choose gives you a unique link to track your sales.
3. Then, you promote the company’s product on your website, social media, YouTube channel, or via email (with the affiliate link)
4. A potential buyer clicks the link.
5. The buyer makes a purchase.
6. The affiliate company records the transaction.
7. You are paid the agreed commission.

Let’s break down the process step-by-step.

Step 1: Choosing Your Niche

Your niche is the foundation of your affiliate marketing business. This helps you target a specific audience and dominate a piece of the market, reducing competition in the busy online space.

Use tools like Partner Matrix or Google Trends to identify gaps in the market and ensure demand, then aim for a niche with a good balance between demand and competition. This way you can establish yourself as a credible expert and become the go-to for your specific audience and product.

To choose the right niche, focus on areas you’re passionate about—for example, if you love cooking, promote kitchen gadgets or meal-prep services. Running an affiliate business takes commitment and time, so loving what you promote will help you stay motivated and enable you to speak about your endorsement with authority. This is important as you have to build trust and credibility to connect with your audience.

Once you’ve narrowed it down, then research the available affiliate programs and choose one with good commission rates to maximise your earning potential.

Step 2: Finding Affiliate Programs

When researching affiliate programs, start by looking at company websites that align with your niche. If the company offers an affiliate program, you will find the details under the affiliate section of the site. Try to join affiliate networks that connect multiple brands and pay good commissions, then sign up to start earning.

Only work with partners that customers trust and have a good reputation. Popular global affiliate networks include:

• Amazon Associates – Ideal for physical products.
• ShareASale – Covers various industries. (Recently acquired by Awin)
• ClickBank – Focuses on digital products.
• CJ Affiliate (Commission Junction) – Offers high-quality brands.

In South Africa, popular affiliate sites include:

• Faithful to Nature
• Mantality
• Mr Price
• Netflorist

Step 3: Setting Up Your Platform

You need a platform where you’ll create content and promote the products or services you want to market. It’s best to start where you are most comfortable – some affiliates use social media pages on Instagram, TikTok, or Pinterest. Others prefer You Tube which offers its own affiliate marketing program provided you meet specific criteria.

A website is a popular option and beginners can set this up with free tools like WordPress.com or SquareSpace. This is the perfect platform for comparing products, publishing tutorials, buyers guides or blogs to help potential buyers make a decision. Remember, it’s important to invest in a domain name that relates to your niche for credibility.

An example of this is Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s “Making Sense of Cents” site where she earns from Amazon affiliates as part of her income reports. Here is an example of article “How I Made Over $1,500,000 In One Year.“

Step 4: Creating Quality Content

Did you know that today 9 out of 10 customers use reviews as a critical factor in their purchasing decision? Over 60 percent of affiliate marketers use blogs to provide reviews or compare products. But you can rely just on social media to promote products – YouTube or TikTok videos are popular options and social media posts are effective to share quick tips with affiliate links. Also follow and tag existing influencers to increase traffic to your social media pages or website.

The key is to be authentic and build trust with your audience. To do this you have to catch their attention with engaging content that positions you as an expert and seamlessly includes affiliate links.

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is essential for driving organic traffic to an affiliate marketing blog or site. It helps increase your website to rank higher on Google searches to bring more consumers without paid ads. It also helps you to target buyers through keywords like “Best laptops under $1000.” Using hooks with the keywords will improve your chance of capturing the buyers attention, e.g. “This $50 gadget replaced ALL my kitchen tools – here’s why!”

Beyond keywords, SEO enhances user experience with fast-loading pages, mobile-friendly content and helps potential customers to purchase more easily.

Step 5: Driving Traffic to Your Platform & Promoting Affiliate Products

Without traffic, even the best content won’t convert. So, once you have content, focus on increasing visibility and conversions with the following:

• SEO: Optimise for organic search rankings.
• Social Media Marketing: Leverage Pinterest, TikTok, and Instagram.
• Email Marketing: Build a subscriber list and promote affiliate links.
• Video Marketing: YouTube is an excellent platform for affiliate sales.

Step 6: Tracking and Analysing Performance

Measuring your success helps refine strategies and boost affiliate income. Use free tools like Google Analytics or affiliate dashboards to track clicks and sales. If a blog post about “Top Gaming Headsets” isn’t converting, tweak the call-to-action or test different affiliate links. Data helps you refine your strategy to improve your performance.

• Affiliate Links Tracking: Use tools like Google Analytics, Pretty Links and Bitly.
• Performance Metrics: Monitor clicks, conversion rates, and affiliate commissions.
• Optimise Strategies: Adjust content and promotion tactics based on data insights.

How to Start Affiliate Marketing with No Money

To start affiliate marketing with no money, you need to get an affiliate link and send it to people. But you won’t make money until you network and build a trusted reputation with your audience.

The first step to setting up your business is to establish a niche. This won’t cost a cent but will require time and effort and is probably the most challenging part of the journey. You can either pick a niche you’re already interested in or look for good affiliate programs first and select your niche based on those programs. Ultimately, you need to choose something you are interested in, have some level of expertise in or are willing to learn about, as you are going to spend years writing content about this to build a profitable business.

The next step is to make sure your chosen niche is in high demand and has little competition – which is easier said than done. To figure this out, you can research your niche with tools like Google Trends or Ubersuggest to see what is in demand.

Once you have an idea of what is in demand, you need to whittle this list down to those with little competition so you improve your chances of success. Tools like SEMrush and Ahrefs offer free trials that will help you analyse competition levels.

Then, take your shortlist and investigate which option offers an affiliate program that offers a good product and good commission to maximise your earning potential.

Once you settle on your niche, you need to draw potential buyers to your chosen platform. Here, it’s important to write high-quality, engaging content to catch the buyers’ attention. Try to create your content with a focus on one channel (e.g.), and then use the others to support that channel. It gets overwhelming to manage YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Pinterest, and a blog.

Here’s a breakdown of the various channels you can use that don’t cost money:

• Email marketing – Create a list of subscribers and then use emailers to promote affiliate link products and services. The newsletters can be distributed with the help of Mailchimp, and there is a free plan as well.
• YouTube – Make sure that your videos are engaging, informative and relevant to your niche. Add the affiliate link to the video’s description, and tell people to check out the products or services that you are recommending.
• Social Media: Since Pinterest and TikTok are visual and viral social networks, you can generate eye-catching pins and short, entertaining videos related to affiliate products and append your affiliate links in the pin or video descriptions or comments.

By following this step-by-step guide, you can successfully start your affiliate marketing journey in 2025 and build a sustainable source of affiliate income.

Ready to launch your affiliate journey? Subscribe to our newsletter for weekly tips and share your questions in the comments below!

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: What is affiliate marketing for beginners?

A: Affiliate marketing involves promoting a product or service and earning a commission for every sale made through your referral links. It’s a great way to generate passive income online.

Q: How do I start affiliate marketing with no money?

A: You can start by using free platforms like WordPress, leveraging social media, and joining free affiliate programs. Focus on content marketing and organic traffic growth.

Q: What are the best affiliate programs for beginners?

A: Some beginner-friendly affiliate marketing programs include Amazon Associates, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, and ClickBank. In South Africa, try Faithful to Nature, Mantality, Mr Price or Netflorist. These platforms offer easy-to-use interfaces and a wide range of products.

Sources

• How I Made Over $1,500,000 In One Year
• You Tube Affiliate Criteria