Do you want to learn how to make money with affiliate marketing, but you’re not sure where to get started?

Affiliate marketing is all about generating tons of profits without any effort, right? At least that’s what a quick Google search would have you believe, but as usual, the truth is a little more complex than that.

Yes, you can make money through affiliate marketing. Good money. And, yes, you can even make money while you sleep.

In this post, we’re going to teach you how to generate passive income with successful affiliate marketing.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?


Affiliate marketing is when an online retailer pays you a commission for traffic or sales generated from your referrals.

It’s essentially classic advertising in a less intrusive way. Rather than promoting a product on your website with visual advertisements.

You simply embed the product link in your content, like this:


In the image above, the affiliate partner is Bluehost, a company that offers self-hosting services for websites.

So does that mean you can create a website, toss in a bunch of affiliate links, and watch the affiliate commissions roll in? Not quite, but we’ll get to that.

For now, you simply need to know the basics with how affiliate marketing works:

  1. You recommend a product or service to your followers through your website, blog, or email list.
  2. Your followers purchase the product or service using your affiliate link.
  3. You get paid a commission for the sales made using your affiliate link.

Let’s break down this process into more detail to make sure you know exactly how to make a successful affiliate marketing strategy.



But first, let’s quickly look at 2 things you need before starting out with affiliate marketing.

What You Need to Start Affiliate Marketing?


There are 2 things you need to get started with affiliate marketing:

  • Create a website or blog in your niche
  • Choose affiliate products to promote

Choose Affiliate Products to Promote

If you’ve done the work to choose a niche, choosing affiliate products to promote should be easy. Choose products that fit your niche and relate to your content.

One of the best ways to select your affiliate products is by joining an affiliate network.

Affiliate networks are businesses that connect merchants and affiliate marketers so both can earn more money. Affiliate marketers use affiliate networks to make better product selections to promote on their site.

There are many affiliate networks out there, but here are a few of the most popular:

One of the benefits of affiliate networks is they typically have more data on how well a product sells. You can then use that data to increase your affiliate marketing profits.