Affiliate marketing is a partnership model where you earn commissions by promoting another company's products or services on your website, blog, or social media accounts. You receive a share of the sales when someone makes a purchase through your affiliate link or completes a specific action, like signing up for a newsletter. This can be a lucrative way to earn passive income, as your main role is to connect potential customers with the products or services they need, without worrying about customer service or handling inquiries.
The appeal of affiliate marketing lies in its simplicity and the potential to work from anywhere, even from home. However, many beginners struggle to make substantial profits due to challenges like inadequate promotional efforts or using ineffective tools. To succeed, it's crucial to build your authority in your chosen niche, drive traffic to your affiliate links, and turn those clicks into actual conversions.
One of the most effective ways to overcome these challenges and thrive in affiliate marketing is to learn from the best in the field. That's why we've compiled a list of the top affiliate marketers you should follow in 2024. These experts not only demonstrate successful affiliate marketing strategies but also offer invaluable digital marketing insights to enhance your promotional efforts and boost your earnings.
- Who Should Become an Affiliate Marketer?
- How Affiliate Marketers Make Money (and How Much)
- How Much Can Affiliate Marketers Make?
- Affiliate Marketers to Follow
- Matt Giovanisci
- Pat Flynn
- Matt Diggity
- Miles Beckler
- Spencer Haws
- Doug Cunnington
- Ian Fernando
- Zac Johnson
- Gael Breton and Mark Webster
- Nate O'Brien and Mike O'Brien
- Frequently Asked Questions
Who Should Become an Affiliate Marketer?
Affiliate marketing is an excellent opportunity for both newcomers and established creators. For new businesses, it's a low-cost way to start earning revenue. For seasoned creators, it offers a chance to monetize an existing audience or content library.
Here are three signs that affiliate marketing might be a perfect fit for you:
You Have Access to an Audience
If you've cultivated an engaged following, you're in a prime spot to leverage affiliate marketing. This could be a broad, diverse audience or a niche community of dedicated enthusiasts. For example, a wellness podcast might partner with brands offering products like vitamin supplements, meditation apps, or luxury mattresses that resonate with its listeners.
You’re a Content Wizard
If you're adept at pleasing platform algorithms and reaching large audiences, affiliate marketing could be your next big venture. Many affiliate marketers thrive by optimizing websites for search engines or creating viral content on platforms like Instagram Reels or YouTube.
You’re a Trusted Guru
As an expert in niche products, you can use your knowledge to succeed in affiliate marketing. Educational content is a powerful tool for persuading customers to click through to partner websites, leveraging your expertise to build trust and drive conversions.
How Affiliate Marketers Make Money (and How Much)
When joining affiliate programs, you'll encounter various payment models, also known as pricing structures, payout models, or conversion types. These models define what actions affiliates are paid for, such as generating a free trial signup for software or a purchase for physical products. Many programs use last-click attribution, meaning the affiliate who gets the final click before a sale receives full credit. Here are some examples of how affiliates get paid:
- Per Sale: Affiliates earn a commission on each sale made, a common model in e-commerce.
- Per Action: A commission is earned for specific actions like newsletter signups or form submissions.
- Per Install: Payment is made for each app or software installation.
- Per Lead: Affiliates are compensated for each lead generated.
- Per Click: Commission is paid for every click on an affiliate link, often used by larger merchants to boost brand awareness.
How Much Can Affiliate Marketers Make?
Data from 2023 shows that most affiliates can earn at least $1,000 per month from links promoted on social media. Combining this with a website or other channels, it's evident that affiliate marketing can be a lucrative full-time career. According to Payscale, the average annual salary for an affiliate marketer is over $56,000, with many earning significantly more.
The potential earnings largely depend on the niche; business-related programs typically offer higher commissions than those in books, media, or clothing. Additionally, consider the niche's conversion rate—high-value referrals can be just as profitable, even with a smaller audience. Assess the effort required against the potential value of each referral to find the right balance.
Affiliate Marketers to Follow
The success stories of more experienced affiliate marketers can teach anyone interested in earning this way about the ins and outs of the trade. Their experience can assist you in growing your own affiliate marketing business and strengthening your brand.
Matt Giovanisci
My Meta ads are showing links to my product that don't include my BOGO discount.
The offer button is the lander with the correct offer.
How do I remove these mini buttons on my ads? pic.twitter.com/ldvtz53UdR
— Matt Giovanisci (@MattGiovanisci) February 21, 2024
Matt Giovanisci is a marketing jack-of-all-trades with extensive knowledge of many aspects of the industry. In 2016, Giovanisci founded Money Lab, a much-commended website on digital marketing. Money Lab focuses on upfront online marketing and live experiments. It provides informative and entertaining content for both newbie and professional marketers, such as creating a lean online business plan and a podcast marketing guide for 2022.
Find Matt on:
✔ YouTube
Pat Flynn
What a graph! Proud investor, advisor and user over here! https://t.co/7pJBwOTwIZ
— Pat Flynn (@PatFlynn) July 25, 2024
Pat Flynn is an author, a keynote speaker, a professional blogger, and an entrepreneur. He’s the creator of the business website Smart Passive Income, or SIP, which aims to help new and experienced bloggers develop their audiences and monetize their work utilizing innovative techniques.
SIP offers growth and monetization classes focusing on email marketing, community, podcasting, and affiliate marketing. His blog is a wealth of information covering business, technology, gaming, parenting, education, and family updates.
Find Pat at:
✔ YouTube
✔ TikTok
Matt Diggity
Matt Diggity is the CEO and creator of Diggity Marketing and an SEO guru. He worked in Silicon Valley for a while before focusing on digital marketing. Diggity Marketing delivers test-based SEO techniques and offers one-on-one SEO coaching sessions. His blog also includes a monthly roundup of SEO news.
In addition, Diggity also founded Affiliate Lab and Authority Builders. Affiliate Lab offers a tried-and-true strategy for ranking, monetizing, and turning high-competition affiliate websites. On the other hand, Authority Builders provides tutorials on increasing website traffic through high-quality, natural links.
Diggity Marketing also has an SEO partnership program with The Search Initiative that provides strategies based on the practices and data from renowned SEO gurus.
Find Matt at:
✔ YouTube
Miles Beckler
Everything you need to WIN @ the money game in 1 podcast episode: https://t.co/LWGuxaqj3Z
Thanks for having me on @EllardKing
This one was 🔥🔥🔥 https://t.co/OBvWSVoTRq pic.twitter.com/dZXBc8ZVU2
— Miles Beckler (@milesbeckler) July 17, 2024
Miles Beckler is a digital marketing guru who shares strategies, ideas, and tools to develop a multi-million-dollar online venture.
As a specialist in content marketing and affiliate marketing, he offers valuable tips on keyword research and Google Trends. Beckler also brings an emphasis on social media marketing in his videos. His self-titled YouTube channel presently has over 190,000 subscribers and more than 10 million views.
On his website, Beckler also offers Million Dollar Business Blueprint, a free course on how to increase traffic, leads, and sales from both free and paid sources. His blog contains several valuable articles on affiliate marketing, Facebook advertising, and sales funnels.
Find Miles at:
Spencer Haws
Spencer Haws is the man behind Niche Pursuits. Haws created the website to explore and assess new business and marketing ideas. Niche Pursuits features a separate blogging and niche site content page that tackles various topics such as assessing affiliate marketing credibility and a list of compelling reasons why you should start a blog. Niche Pursuits also has dedicated pages for podcasts and niche business ideas.
In addition, Haws runs an NP Facebook Group where followers can communicate with coaches and students, get unique digital marketing updates, and share their strategies.
Find Spencer at:
✔ YouTube
Doug Cunnington
Doug Cunnington is a certified Project Management Professional, internet marketing expert, founder of the Niche Site Project, and creator of the Golden Keyword Ratio (GRK).
The Niche Site Project is a goldmine of affiliate marketing and SEO content. He explains how to make an Amazon Affiliate website and shares success stories with passive income in great detail.
On the other hand, the Golden Keyword Ratio is an ingenious and effective method for locating in-demand but undersupplied long-tail keywords. This shortcut is for new websites that need immediate traffic but lack the domain authority to go head-to-head against high-volume, high-competition keywords.
In his Doug Show podcast and YouTube channel, Cunnington discusses useful topics such as Amazon Affiliate Marketing and SEO development.
Find Doug at:
Ian Fernando
Available NOW! Grab your copy on Amazon - https://t.co/jNngfpUN6d and start your journey toward mastering affiliate marketing. 🌟 pic.twitter.com/iP64qa3V7T
— Ian Fernando (@ianternet) April 24, 2024
Ian Fernando is a digital multi-tasker. He has extensive experience as an online strategist, media buyer, ad manager, PPC specialist, and Amazon FBA seller, but above all, Fernando is a consummate affiliate marketer. He believes that affiliate marketing keeps him afloat and allows him to participate in all facets of online marketing.
Fernando began as an e-Commerce agent, purchasing large quantities of products from Alibaba and selling them on eBay. Soon after, he redirected his attention to affiliate marketing to avoid customer service.
During an Affiliate Summer conference, the organizer approached him and invited him to become a speaker in his niche. Since then, he has spoken about affiliate marketing at numerous conferences in the US and abroad. He also offers guidelines on getting started on affiliate marketing, blogging, and reselling.
Find Ian at:
✔ YouTube
Zac Johnson
Johnson has experimented with all things digital throughout the years to find the best methods in affiliate marketing. He used PPC marketing to grow his mailing list to over 2 million people. Today, he maintains a blog that delivers high-quality content not limited to affiliate marketing.
He hosts his podcast, Rise of the Entrepreneur, every Tuesday and Thursday. He interviews accomplished business owners and invites them to share their industry knowledge and offer advice to their audience. Johnson also provides a comprehensive resource list for blogging, affiliate marketing, and site design.
Find Zac at:
Gael Breton and Mark Webster
Filming the new @authorityhacker news video last night. Someone got confused by Barry Schwartz aka @rustybrick's twitter handle. The script said "Seo Expert Rusty Brick...". pic.twitter.com/fi1vAmamJd
— Mark Webster (@markwebster1) July 17, 2024
In 2014, Gael Breton launched Authority Hacker (AH) with Mark Webster. Breton is in charge of creating and curating content for the website and its training courses. He also manages the site's market research and strategic planning. Meanwhile, Webster is the systems expert. He takes small-scale testing and experiments and scales them up to a business degree. He provides white hat link-building strategies for AH authority sites and oversees both the business and marketing sides of the company.
Authority Hacker is one of the most popular SEO websites today, with many followers and a thriving community. Its blog is a treasure trove of case studies on keyword tools, affiliate marketing, and Amazon Affiliate programs.
These digital gems are frequent topics on the AH podcast hosted by the duo. In addition to online tutorials and vlogs, their new YouTube channel, which has over 700,000 views, provides honest yet candid content about building profitable websites.
Find Gael at:
Find Mark at:
Nate O'Brien and Mike O'Brien
I want to fund crazier startups. Looking for something that makes 99% of people scratch their heads and/or laugh at the idea. If you’re working on something ridiculous - dm me
— Nate O'Brien (@nateobrienn) August 20, 2023
Nate O'Brien is an internet personality, entrepreneur, and investor. He owns OBR Media and is best known for his personal finance and lifestyle YouTube channel. He co-founded Santrel Media with his brother Mike O'Brien, who is a digital marketer, engineer, and YouTuber.
The O'Brien brothers both contribute to the Santrel Media website and YouTube channel. They cover everything from building Wix, Weebly, and WordPress sites to explaining what GoDaddy is for. One of their most-viewed uploads is a 43-minute video on Affiliate Marketing Tutorial for Beginners, which has more than 1 million views to date.
Find Nate at:
Find Mike at:
✔ TikTok
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you succeed in affiliate marketing without a large following?
Yes, you can absolutely succeed in affiliate marketing even without a large following. Many successful affiliate marketers use strategies like leveraging multiple social media accounts, focusing on niche markets, or using paid advertising to drive traffic. It’s more about the quality and relevance of your audience than sheer numbers.
Is affiliate marketing a legitimate business model?
Absolutely, affiliate marketing is a legitimate way to earn an income. It's a business model where affiliates earn commissions by promoting products or services. The key is to partner with reputable companies and ensure transparency and honesty in your marketing efforts.
Do you need to reveal your identity to be successful in affiliate marketing?
Not necessarily. Many affiliates choose to remain anonymous for privacy or strategic reasons. The focus should be on creating quality content and driving valuable traffic to the offers you’re promoting, rather than on personal branding.
How can I get started in affiliate marketing without prior experience?
To get started, focus on choosing a niche you're passionate about, find products or services that align with that niche, and start building your online presence. Whether it's through a blog, social media, or YouTube, consistency and authenticity are key. Networking with other affiliates and learning from their experiences can also be incredibly valuable.
Is it still possible to make money with affiliate marketing in 2024?
Yes, affiliate marketing remains a viable income stream in 2024. With the growing number of online shopping platforms and social media channels, there's ample opportunity to connect with potential customers. Success in affiliate marketing depends on staying up-to-date with industry trends, adapting to changes, and continually refining your strategies.
