Affiliation is a fast-growing business model in the world of digital marketing. It offers the opportunity to generate revenue by promoting a company's products or services and receiving a commission on sales made. Whether you're a media outlet, blogger, social network influencer, content or video creator, Twitch streamer, website builder or simply looking for ways to diversify your revenue streams, affiliation is a powerful strategy to explore.
In this comprehensive guide to affiliate marketing, we'll explore in depth everything you need to know to get started, succeed and optimize your affiliate business. We'll review basic concepts, best practices, essential tools and platforms, as well as advanced tips for maximizing your earning potential.
Whether you're new to the business or looking to refine your existing strategy, this guide will provide you with the knowledge and resources you need to excel in affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a marketing model in which a company pays referral partners (called affiliates) for each visitor, prospect or customer generated by the affiliate's efforts.
In concrete terms, the affiliate talks about the company's products or services through various channels such as its website, social networks, newsletters, etc., using special tracking links. When Internet users click on these links, then make purchases or perform specific actions (registration, form-filling, etc.), the affiliate receives a pre-determined commission.
The mechanics of affiliation are based on four players : the advertiser, the affiliation platform, the affiliate and the web surfer.
When a web surfer clicks on a tracked link provided by an affiliate (you, that is!) on their website or social networks, they arrive on the advertiser's site, but have passed through an affiliation platform without realizing it, which has created a record, in the form of a cookie or footprint.
If the affiliate makes a purchase (or performs another specific action) from the advertiser, the advertiser will pay the affiliate for this business . For the web surfer, the price of the product or service remains unchanged.
The affiliation platform acts as an intermediary between affiliates and advertisers. It provides the tools and technologies needed to monitor affiliate performance, generate tracked links, manage payments and reports, etc.
Affilizz is a 5th player in this process, bringing together feeds and data from all affiliate platforms in a single tool, which also enables the creation of high-performance affiliate widgets. It enables media and content creators to manage their affiliation from A to Z in a single place.
The history of affiliate marketing dates back to the early days of the Internet, but its modern form began to emerge in the 1990s. In the USA, Amazon launched its affiliate program as early as 1996. By comparison, the French version of the site was not launched until 2000. At that time, only 14% of the French population (8 million people) had access to the Internet, compared with 43% of the American population (112 million people).
In the years that followed, the development of e-commerce in France was slowed by the low level of computer equipment in French households. Half the population still didn't have a home computer in 2005! It wasn't until the arrival of the iPhone in 2007 that we saw a rapid increase in the level of equipment, stimulating growth in online traffic for content publishers.
Market consolidation with the emergence of new affiliation platforms such as Awin, Digital River and Affilae.
Emergence of new media specializing in themed content, such as WireCutter.
Price comparison sites have all but disappeared.
Media expansion into content-to-commerce, where sites such as kinja.com, NYT Wirecutter, Les Numériques and Le Parisien have integrated affiliate links into their content.
The emergence of new players in the good deals sector, such as Dealabs and ChocoBonPlan.
Rise of influencers who include affiliate links in their content.
By 2023, affiliation accounted for around 40% of bloggers' revenues in the USA. In France, the affiliate market is growing steadily each year, with forecasts indicating a significant increase in revenues between 2021 and 2027.
Affiliate marketing offers unique opportunities to monetize your audience and your content creation and marketing efforts. However, it also brings certain challenges to consider. Here's a chart summarizing the pros and cons of affiliate marketing:
Affiliates can generate passive income by promoting products or services and receiving commissions on sales.
Affiliation enables anyone to diversify their sources of income by monetizing their audience. It can also vary an existing monetization strategy, such as advertising or sponsored partnerships.
There are a multitude of affiliate programs in various niches and industries, allowing you to create content on topics that interest you.
Affiliation offers great flexibility in terms of managing your schedule, choosing the products to promote, marketing strategies... It allows you to create additional income while pursuing other professional or personal activities.
Affiliates are subject to advertisers' policies and decisions, which can affect their revenues and strategy.
Affiliate revenues can vary according to many factors, such as seasons, market trends, platform algorithm changes, etc... which can make financial predictability difficult.
Whether on social networks or on the web, competition for traffic and audience attention can be fierce, making it difficult to differentiate and generate revenue.
Although affiliate marketing is profitable in the long term, it requires an initial investment in terms of time, effort and sometimes financial resources to build an audience, create quality content, test different strategies and so on.
Affiliate marketing offers the opportunity to generate passive income and diversify your sources of monetization, while remaining free to use your own time in relation to an online business. However, it comes with its own challenges. By understanding these aspects and developing effective strategies, affiliates can maximize their earning potential and succeed in affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is a collaborative model between an advertiser (often a company selling products or services) and affiliates (people or companies promoting those products or services). The process takes place in several stages:
The affiliate signs up for an affiliation program offered by an advertiser. This can be done via an affiliation platform that manages several programs, or directly on the advertiser's website.
Once registered, the affiliate creates unique links (called affiliate links) that can be used to promote the advertiser's products or services. These links can be used to track visitors and sales generated by the affiliate.
The affiliate uses a variety of means to promote the affiliate links. This can include blog posts, social media posts, videos, newsletters, etc.
When an Internet user clicks on an affiliate link and then performs a predefined action (such as a purchase or registration), this action is recorded by the affiliate program's tracking system. Affiliates can track their performance via a dashboard provided by the advertiser or affiliate platform.
Depending on the actions performed by users, the affiliate receives a commission. The structure of this commission varies according to the different remuneration models, detailed below.
Affilizz is an all-in-one solution, providing immediate access to over 1,500 affiliate programs, the ability to create affiliate links, track performance and generate invoices all in one place.
There are various affiliate revenue models: cost-per-action (CPA), cost-per-lead (CPL), cost-per-click (CPC), opt-in (SOI or DOI) and cost-per-install (CPI). Each of these models offers different types of remuneration, with their own validation procedures.
The affiliate receives a commission when the Internet user carries out the desired action, generally a sale on a merchant site. Remuneration often consists of a variable commission, i.e. a percentage of the sale made. For subscription-based products, the advertiser may decide to pay a commission for each monthly subscription payment.
The affiliate receives a fixed commission when the user provides their contact details, for example by filling in a form. For a bank account opening, commissions can range from a few dozen euros to over €50 for investor leads, or even over €100 for B2B leads.
The affiliate receives a fixed commission, usually a few cents, every time a surfer clicks on a link to the advertiser's site. This model is widespread among price comparison sites, but less common in affiliation, due to the risk of the advertiser paying before being able to assess the quality of the traffic.
In the case of SOI (Single Opt-In), the Internet user registers by leaving his or her e-mail address or filling in a form. With DOI (Double Opt-In), the advertiser wishes to verify that the subscriber is who he or she claims to be: after registering, the person must validate the process, usually by clicking on a link received by e-mail. This model is widespread in newsletter subscriptions and online games.
To validate commissions, the user must not only install the software or app, but also launch it (double opt-in mechanism). On average, for registrations, models can earn you between €0.10 and €5 for double opt-in.
Remuneration models are based on the prospect's progress through the advertiser's conversion tunnel:
Most advertisers who work with CPC, CPL, CPI and opt-in have a high level of traffic monitoring. Unlike CPA, they've already paid even though they haven't yet received any money from the visitor. So they're paying you in exchange for a promise of business, and if the quality of the traffic isn't there, the advertisers won't hesitate to end the partnership.
There are also hybrid models: for example, in the case of an online game, an advertiser can combine opt-in with cost-per-action (CPA). In this way, you receive remuneration both when a player registers and when they purchase paid game content.
Remuneration models are often chosen by advertisers according to their sector of activity:
In most cases, these models are not negotiable with advertisers, unless you are a major affiliate.
Regardless of the model chosen, the general mechanism remains constant: when an Internet user clicks on an affiliate link and is redirected to the advertiser's site, a unique identifier is generated. This identifier enables the advertiser to track the actions carried out (clicks, purchases or registrations) and to determine whether a commission is due to the affiliate:
Although the system is designed to allocate commissions automatically, several obstacles can disrupt this process:
There are also several attribution mechanisms used by affiliate platforms. Most affiliate programs use the "last click" model, where the commission is attributed to the last affiliate link clicked by the surfer. So, if the surfer, after clicking on your affiliate link, is looking for a promo code, it's the site that provides this code that will be taken into account for the attribution of commissions, as it occupies the last position in the attribution chain.
Affilizz allows you to integrate widgets that display coupon codes on your site, to overcome this problem.
Affiliates therefore need to keep a close eye on their commissions and the terms and conditions of affiliate programs in order to maximize their revenues and anticipate any tracking interruptions.
In France, some online media have adopted affiliation as an important source of revenue. Here's a non-exhaustive list of French media outlets involved in affiliation:
Les Numériques
Reference site for tests and reviews of high-tech products. It generates a significant proportion of its revenues through affiliation, redirecting readers to partner merchant sites when they purchase products via links in the articles.
Clubic
A site specializing in technology news and product testing. It uses affiliate links to monetize its content, earning commissions on sales made via its recommendations.
JeuxVideo.com
JV is a media outlet dedicated to video games, gadgets and new technologies. Like Les Numériques, it derives a significant part of its revenues from affiliation, directing readers to merchant sites via links integrated into its articles and tests.
CNET
CNET France offers buying guides, product tests and comparisons. The site uses affiliate links to generate revenue, profiting from purchases made by users via its recommendations.
Le Point
Although Le Point is a generalist media outlet, it sometimes includes sponsored articles and affiliate links in its content, particularly in its sections dedicated to shopping, bargains and product recommendations.
Madmoizelle
Information site that regularly publishes articles on trends and good deals. The site uses affiliate links to generate revenue, particularly in its product recommendation articles.
Europe 1
Radio is also a free online daily newspaper and includes affiliate links in some of its articles, particularly those about good deals, new technologies or trendy products.
Au Féminin
Although primarily a fashion and lifestyle magazine, includes affiliate links in its articles, particularly those related to fashion, beauty and shopping tips.
Labo Maison and Transition Vélo
Twotypical examples of new media, hyper-specialized, with high added value because they are experts in their field, relying first and foremost on affiliation and the trust of their readers to develop, before advertising, which will come gradually.
These media exploit affiliate links to supplement their traditional advertising revenues, offering a diversity of content financed by commissions on sales generated via their recommendations.
Now that we've explained how affiliate marketing works in general, and how you can earn money, here are the four steps you need to take to get started as an affiliate.
Choosing a profitable niche is an important step in implementing your affiliate marketing strategy. This involves identifying a specific market segment, in which you have an interest, that offers high revenue potential while having manageable competition. Here are the main elements to consider when choosing a niche.
The first step in choosing a lucrative niche is to assess the size of the market. It's important to ask questions like: Is the product or service I want to promote commonly used by a large majority of people? Is there a specific but substantial group of consumers interested in this product?
Using free tools such as Google Trends and Google Ads can help you validate your hunches. These tools provide statistical data on search volumes and market trends.
Next, it's essential to understand the potential income you can generate per sale. This depends on the price of the product and the commission rate offered by the affiliate program.
For example, promoting a product such as Rainbow Loom bracelets at €25 with a 5% commission yields only €1.25 per sale. To reach €1,000 in commission, you'd need to sell 800 units.
On the other hand, promoting more expensive products, such as €1,200 3D TVs at 4% commission, could yield €48 per sale. In this case, you'd only need to sell 21 units to reach a commission of €1,000.
Products like game consoles, which are both expensive and popular, can offer a good compromise. A PlayStation 5 at €550 with a 4% commission yields €22 per sale, requiring the sale of 45 units to reach €1,000 in commission. However, you won't be alone in this market!
To find a profitable niche, a good technique may be to specialize from a broader sector. Here are a few examples.
When targeting a niche, it's crucial to produce high-quality, well-informed content. Niche members are often experts or enthusiasts looking for precise, in-depth information.
Example of content
To sum up, it's important to :
Once you've chosen your niche, the next step is to identify relevant affiliate programs:
Make sure the affiliate programs you choose have a good reputation and offer good affiliate support!
By creating an account with Affilizz, you gain immediate access to over 1,500 affiliate programs from Awin, TradeDoubler, CJ... No need to spend hours registering with multiple platforms or searching for programs online!
Not all affiliate programs are created equal. Here are a few essential criteria for selecting the best programs:
A high-performance website is essential for affiliate marketing. You'll need lots of visitors to your site to generate clicks on your affiliate content and receive commissions. Your site must therefore be :
A high-performance website is essential for affiliate marketing. You'll need lots of visitors to your site to generate clicks on your affiliate content and receive commissions. Your site needs to be :
In addition to having an audience via your website, developing an engaged community on social networks is also synonymous with affiliate success. Indeed, you can share affiliate links on social networks, and generate commissions from related sales. An active and loyal community can significantly increase your reach and maximize your revenues. Here are a few key steps to achieve this:
By following these steps, you'll build a strong, engaged community on social networks!
Discord, the up-and-coming social network
Initially popular with gamers, Discord communities can now be found on a variety of themes. To take advantage of this opportunity, Affilizz's Discord Bot lets you automatically affiliate any link posted to a server you manage, so you can generate revenue from your Discord.
To succeed in the affiliate business, you need the right tools. Here's a list of tools that will help you maximize your chances of success as an affiliate.
Affiliate marketing platforms are intermediaries that bring together advertisers and affiliates. They offer a variety of affiliate programs from which to choose, and provide tools for tracking performance. Here are a few examples of popular platforms:
Affilizz brings together all the affiliation programs available on the main affiliation platforms.
By creating an account on Affilizz, you don't need to create an account on the other platforms.
Having a website or blog is the foundation of any affiliation strategy. It enables you to create quality content, gain the trust of visitors and generate organic traffic through search engine optimization (SEO). You'll need a CMS (one of the best-known being WordPress) and web hosting.
Content creation is at the heart of affiliation. Here are some useful tools:
SEO is essential for attracting organic traffic. SEO tools help optimize your content for search engines:
These tools are essential for measuring and analyzing your performance:
E-mail marketing helps you keep in touch with your visitors and convert them into customers. The following tools can help:
Social networks are an excellent channel for promoting your affiliate links. These tools can help you manage your accounts:
By using these tools, you can optimize your affiliation strategy, improve the quality of your content and increase your revenues. But don't hesitate to equip yourself gradually, according to your specific needs!
Now that we've covered the 4 steps to getting started in affiliate marketing, and the tools you'll need to get started, let's get down to the nitty-gritty and see what strategy you need to put in place to develop your income as an affiliate.
The regular creation of quality content is the cornerstone of any successful affiliate strategy. Relevant, engaging content not only attracts more visitors, it also converts better. To achieve this, start by understanding the needs and interests of your target audience. Then carry out in-depth research to provide accurate, valuable information.
Affilizz lets you create a variety of CTA design formats, 100% customizable, SEO-friendly and integrated in just one click.
In addition to the creation of "cold content", i.e. content that lasts over time (buying guides, product tests, comparisons...), the creation of "hot content "(good deals and highlights) is also essential.
Annual events, such as end-of-year parties, sales, vacations, etc., are golden opportunities to maximize your affiliate revenues. Prepare specific content in advance, highlighting promotions and special offers linked to these periods. For example, a Christmas shopping guide or a list of the best Black Friday offers can attract a lot of traffic and generate high conversions.
Anticipate your audience's needs during these periods and adapt your content accordingly. By being proactive and capitalizing on these key moments, you can significantly increase your affiliate commissions.
Social networks are powerful tools for promoting your affiliate links. Use platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, but also Discord, Twitch and Youtube to share your content and engage your audience. Each social network has its own characteristics and audience, so adapt your strategy according to the platform you're using.
Email marketing is another effective channel for promoting your affiliate links. Build a mailing list by offering free content or exclusive benefits to entice visitors to your site to sign up. Once you have a list of contacts, send out regular newsletters containing relevant information, useful tips and pertinent affiliate links.
Make sure your emails are well-written, personalized and optimized for mobile devices. Use eye-catching email subject lines to increase open rates, and include clear CTAs to encourage clicks on your affiliate links. Test different emailing strategies to find the ones that work best for your audience.
By integrating these four techniques into your affiliate marketing strategy, you'll be well equipped to maximize your revenues and succeed in this competitive field. Remember, the key lies in creating value for your audience, being honest about the products or services you recommend, and being personable.
To succeed in affiliate marketing, it's essential to keep up to date with the latest trends and techniques. Here are a few resources you can consult on a regular basis:
One of the most common pitfalls in affiliate marketing is choosing the wrong products to promote. It's crucial to select products or services that are relevant to your audience. Promoting poor-quality articles or irrelevant products can not only damage your credibility, but also considerably reduce your chances of success. Before promoting a product or service, research it thoroughly, check consumer reviews and make sure it matches the needs and expectations of your target audience.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a key element in attracting organic traffic to your affiliate content. If you spend hours writing your content but your website is slow or poorly optimized for smartphone browsing, then your efforts will have been for nothing! So it's essential to understand the basics of SEO and put them into practice.
Another major mistake is failing to monitor the performance of your affiliate content and your various channels. Without regular analysis of your statistics, you won't know what's working or what needs improving, nor will you be able to detect abnormal drops in commissions. Use analysis tools to monitor clicks, conversions and revenue generated. Identify the best-performing pages or products and adjust your strategy accordingly. A data-driven approach will enable you to continually optimize your efforts and maximize your earnings.
Affiliation is based on the reader's trust in what he or she reads or views. Readers recognize the prescriber's expertise and follow his or her advice. It's important not to mislead them, but rather to cultivate this trust and make it grow over time.
Consumer behavior is evolving rapidly, influenced by technology and new trends. A recent study, for example, showed that the use of TikTok as a search engine is becoming increasingly systematic among generation Z.
Internet users are also looking for personalized experiences and authentic recommendations. They are increasingly sensitive to brand ethics and prefer sustainable products.
So be ready to adapt your affiliation strategy to the latest trends!
Affiliate marketing continues to grow and evolve year on year. Experts predict an increase in the use of artificial intelligence to further personalize product recommendations. Influencers will also play an increasingly important role, as consumers trust the opinions and recommendations of the celebrities they follow. Social networking platforms will continue to be major channels for affiliate marketing, with integrated shopping features that will simplify the purchasing process.
Google Search Generative Experience (SGE) is a recent innovation that could transform the affiliate landscape. SGE uses artificial intelligence to provide comprehensive, contextualized answers to users' queries, going beyond the display of search results as we know it today.
For affiliates, this means an opportunity to position themselves differently in search results. Adapting your content strategies to meet SGE's requirements and taking advantage of its advanced contextual understanding capabilities will be essential to remain competitive in the future.
As an affiliate, you now have all the keys you need to succeed in the world of affiliation and make money online. You understand the importance of choosing the right programs, regularly creating quality content and closely monitoring your performance. Remember that transparency and trust are essential to creating a quality relationship with your audience and being credible. Keep learning, experimenting and refining your strategy to maximize your revenues. The world of affiliation is dynamic and full of opportunities - it's up to you to seize them!
