ok so this is a weird one but bear with me

i have a pet blog. i don't own a pet. never have. probably never will as i travel too much. and yet every month amazon sends me enough to cover rent because people on the internet are buying stuff for their dogs and cats through my site.

bought my pet blog a few months ago from a marketplace called NicheBlogZone for $199. came already built, articles already up, amazon links already in there. i spent one afternoon doing interlinking basically just connecting related posts to each other so search engines understand the site structure and then closed my laptop and genuinely forgot about it for weeks.

here's what that's looked like:

• march: $710
• april: $995
• may: $1,461
• june: $1,647
• july: $1,461
• august so far: $1,545 (amazon pays 2 months delayed so this is june's money landing now)

march scared me. went from nearly $1k in february down to $710 and i was convinced something had broken. checked everything, found nothing wrong, did nothing. it just came back the next month on its own.

pet people spend insane amounts on their animals btw. like i knew this intellectually but seeing the commission data is something else. dog food subscriptions, orthopedic beds, grooming kits, vet supplements. and because of the 24 hour cookie i get a cut of everything in their cart not just whatever article they landed on.

i do literally nothing to maintain this. no new posts, no ads, no instagram for pets i don't have. i just own the thing and amazon does its thing.

my landlord has been getting paid every month and has no idea a pet blog is behind it. honestly sometimes i forget too until the deposit shows up.

anyone else running a niche they have zero personal connection to? curious if the detachment makes it easier or harder to care about growing it

My friend and I built a small SaaS an AI chatbot for small business websites that answers visitors and captures leads after hours. He handles the tech, I handle marketing.

Since we have no audience and no ad budget, I figured affiliates would be our best shot at distribution. So I made the offer as strong as I could justify: 40% recurring commission, every month, for as long as the customer stays. On our pricing that's real money per referral, not pocket change.

The problem: an offer means nothing if nobody sees it. I put up an affiliates page, but obviously no one is stumbling onto it.

For those of you who got affiliates before you had traction where did your first ones actually come from? Cold DMs to niche YouTubers/bloggers? Affiliate networks? Communities? Existing customers?

Did the strong commission actually matter, or did people only promote once you had social proof?

Would love to hear what worked and what was a waste of time.

I’m currently winding down a failed brick and mortar business and looking for the next thing. I’m ready to throw myself in.

The thing is, I’ve been doing my homework and it seems I need some help to get rolling. All the gurus trolling instagram seem like sketchy and expensive MLM’s.

I’m wondering if there is anyone here who can recommend some references to get started from scratch. I’m wondering if there is someone here who has been crushing it and might be interested in a little giving-back mentoring…

Thanks for any advice!

Hey, I’m thinking about getting into affiliate marketing and I keep seeing people mention ClickBank.

Does it actually still work in 2026? I know it used to be pretty popular, but I’m not sure if it’s still worth starting with now.

If anyone here is currently using ClickBank, what’s your experience been like? Are you still getting sales, and where do you get most of your traffic from?

Just trying to figure out if it’s worth learning or if there are better options nowadays.

One of the easiest ways to get stuck trying to earn online is to have ten things on your list and no idea which one actually matters first. Choose a niche. Find an offer. Build a website. Start an email list. Create content. Learn SEO. Get traffic. Set up a funnel. Track everything.

None of those things are necessarily bad advice. The problem is treating all of them like they are equally urgent. If you are starting from zero, you probably do not need to build the entire business today. You need to identify the first thing that makes the second thing possible.

For example, before worrying about traffic, it helps to know who you are trying to reach. Before choosing an offer, understand the problem you want to help with. Before building a complicated funnel, make sure you have something worth sending people toward. Before automating follow-up, make sure you actually have people to follow up with.

That creates a much simpler order.

1. Choose one audience.
2. Understand one problem.
3. Find one useful solution.
4. Choose one place to reach those people.
5. Create something helpful.
6. Observe the response.
7. Then improve whatever is preventing the next step.

You can add more tools when the process gives you a reason to need them. You can add another platform after learning the first one. You can add automation after you have something worth repeating.

Sometimes progress is not about doing more. It is about knowing what not to work on yet.

If you are trying to earn online, what is currently competing for your attention?

One frustration I see with online income training is that it can provide plenty of good information without showing you how to actually use it. You learn that you should choose a niche, understand your audience, create valuable content, build trust, generate traffic, and follow up. None of that advice is necessarily wrong, but a beginner can finish the training and still sit at their computer wondering...What am I supposed to do today?

“Create valuable content” sounds useful, but where should you post it? What should you write about? How do you find the questions people are already asking?

“Know your audience” sounds important, but how do you research them? What should you look for, and how do you turn that research into something useful?

That is the difference between information and implementation. A beginner usually needs smaller instructions. Instead of “generate traffic,” it might be:

1. Choose one platform.
2. Find five conversations where your audience is already discussing the problem.
3. Read the comments.
4. Write down the language people use.
5. Answer one question helpfully without immediately trying to sell anything.
6. Then observe the response.

That gives you something you can actually complete. The same applies to affiliate marketing.

Do not just tell someone to “choose a good offer.” Show them how to identify the problem it solves, who it is for, what the customer receives, how much it costs, and why someone might choose it over the alternatives.

Information tells you what matters. Implementation tells you what to do with it. Beginners need both.

If a training session gives you twenty pages of notes but you still do not know your next action, something important may be missing.

What piece of online business advice do you hear often but rarely see explained step by step?

A common problem in affiliate programs is that people sign up, but then nothing happens. No sales, no activity, and motivation drops fast. The main reasons are pretty simple: onboarding is too generic, affiliates don’t get enough support, and there is no plan for those critical first two weeks.

Here’s a simple activation timeline that I have seen working well:

• Day 1: Send a personalized welcome email with login details, a program overview, and some ready-to-use promotional materials. Include a link to book a short welcome call.
• Day 2: Share a “Getting Started” guide that shows how to create their first affiliate link and use the portal.
• Day 3: Send a case study or success story from another affiliate, along with specific strategies they can try right away.
• Day 7: Check in to see if they have any questions and offer support.
• Day 14: Share early performance insights (even if small) and introduce them to your affiliate community or exclusive resources.

A few other things that make a big difference:

Onboard your affiliates with all the essential information

When you onboard your affiliates, provide them with an all-inclusive guide about your program. Include details about your company, the products or services they’ll be promoting, the commission structure, and your expectations from them.

Schedule a welcome call or webinar

A welcome email is great, but a call is better. This personal interaction allows you to outline your expectations, clarify any doubts, and start building a relationship. A first call, whether it's one-to-one or in groups, helps in establishing a personal connection with your affiliates. You can use this as an opportunity to understand their needs and discuss effective strategies. You might even walk away with some fresh ideas or new insights. During the call, walk them through the affiliate dashboard, show some best examples and let them know how to reach out to you. A little goes a long way.

Provide your affiliates with promotional materials

Your affiliates likely aren't (all) great designers, and you want to stay on brand wherever your products go. Make it easy for your affiliates to start promoting your products/services in a way that truly represents your style. Provide them with a variety of promotional materials like banners, product images, and pre-written emails.

A best practice that I've been following is to build a central library with all important links, templates, testimonials, and promo materials in one place so affiliates always know where to go.

Regularly update them with helpful information

Keep your affiliates in the loop with regular updates about anything related to your affiliate program. To make this a habit, you can send out a monthly newsletter. This could contain information about new product updates, seasonal promotions, and ideas for campaigns, updates to your affiliate program, and success stories from top-performing affiliates. It doesn't always have to be long either: just make sure you share what really matters.

Nothing motivates like appreciation!

Regularly acknowledge the work your affiliates do, celebrate their achievements, and provide incentives for them to continue working hard.  You could run a quarterly "Affiliate of the Quarter" program where you spotlight an affiliate who has performed exceptionally well. Share their story in your newsletter, offer a bonus commission for the next quarter, and send them a certificate or a trophy. 

You could also create an affiliate's "Hall of Fame" in an online community, or highlight them on your social media.  Or you can revisit your commission structure and offer high performers a slightly higher commission rate once they achieve a certain number of sales.

The big idea is simple: affiliate activation is not about the number of signups, it’s about creating momentum early. Affiliates who make their first sale quickly almost always stay engaged long term.

If anyone’s working on an affiliate program and wants to see the templates for emails I used, happy to share.

I am posting amazon affiliate pins past one year in Pinterest and for first six months no growth no clicks and I dropped out of stress but later one day when I opened I had 40 plus followers and 500k monthly views then slowly i started getting clicks now but still i haven’t any clicks into sale and its based on India account. How long will it take to get earnings from amazon associates and i am looking for passive income which would help my expenses tried many platforms but still could not earn even a single penny.

Suggest me some real passive income and also clear my amazon affiliate query.

I've spent the last few years building Ethosino, a turnkey iGaming/sweepstakes platform.

I'm specifically looking to connect with casino affiliates, SEO publishers, media buyers and affiliate managers who already understand player acquisition.

The idea is different from joining another affiliate program: Ethosino provides the underlying operator platform so someone with distribution can potentially launch and operate their own branded product.

The platform currently includes 35+ games, multi-tenant operator/admin tooling, wallets, bonuses, KYC/AML tooling, geolocation controls, AMOE/free-entry flows, provably-fair systems, analytics, branding/theming, payments and other operator infrastructure.

I'm not looking for players. I'm looking for B2B partners who already work in iGaming acquisition/affiliate marketing.

I'd especially like to talk to:

• Casino review/SEO site owners

• iGaming affiliate managers

• Media buyers with gambling traffic

• Affiliates with existing audiences

• People interested in moving from affiliate → operator

Happy to show the live platform privately. I'm also interested in hearing whether the affiliate-to-operator angle actually appeals to people already in this industry.

We just launched an affiliate program for ConvinceIQ, our AI sales roleplay and coaching tool. That was the easy part. Now I actually need to find affiliates... have posted on LinkedIn and that gives some traction but I wonder how to promote this further.

Most advice out there is written for ecom coupon sites, deal aggregators, review blogs. B2B feels different. Our buyer is a sales manager, and the people who could genuinely recommend us are B2B or enterprise sales people, or sales trainers and consultants, not traditional affiliate marketers.

- Where do B2B affiliates actually hang out?

- Network vs. direct outreach at small scale , worth it?

Any other advice you have for me?

so im interested in beginning affiliate marketing as a business and I've been doing research on youtube the last week and i keep coming across the same programs of click bank and amazon affiliates. I made a click bank account and went through the products but everything there seems eh not great. I assume that it works because everyone says to use it but why? are their other programs with more known brands ? are people getting commissions to promote click bank? idk im just curious

Hi. I run a writing and coaching service, and I've been thinking about offering an affiliate service to help drive business, but I'm not sure where to start/ am looking for options that don't involve a big cash buy-in and a big chunk of money going to a third party off every transaction. I'd rather pay the affiliate fee to the company that brings me sales directly.

Any advice or feedback would be appreciated.

One reason affiliate marketing can feel so complicated is that beginners are introduced to almost every part of the business at once.

You hear about niches, affiliate networks, landing pages, bridge pages, funnels, email lists, SEO, social media, tracking, copywriting, paid traffic, organic traffic, automation, and AI.

Suddenly, something that sounded simple feels like you need ten different skills before you can earn your first commission.

I think that is where many beginners get stuck.

Most of those things can become useful, but they do not all deserve your attention at the same time.

The basic process is much smaller.

Find a group of people with a problem you understand. Find a legitimate product that helps solve that problem.

Then learn how to reach those people and explain the solution in a useful way.

That is the foundation.

You can learn better copy after you start writing.

You can improve your landing pages after people start visiting them. You can build an email sequence after you have leads worth following up with.

You can improve tracking once there is activity worth measuring.

The mistake is trying to build the advanced version of the business before you understand the basic loop.

Audience.

Problem.

Offer.

Traffic.

Useful message.

Next step.

Then you observe what happens and improve the weakest part.

Affiliate marketing still requires work, and there is plenty to learn. But you do not have to learn everything this week.

Sometimes the best thing a beginner can do is stop asking, “What else do I need?”

Ask instead, “What is the next part of the process I actually need to understand?”

What part of affiliate marketing felt the most overwhelming when you started?

Hi! if one of you could help me understand these requirements I would really appreciate it.

I feel like I’m seeing conflicting information, Amazon says they’re looking for 500 subscribers /likes to qualify for their associates program when they review you after your first 3 sales but they also kind of say they’re just looking for a strong channels that will make sales plus I’m seeing people online saying they’re qualified with way less. Any of you know how hard and fast that 500 is?

Also am I understanding correctly that there’s no penalty for trying it? If I get rejected I can just grow a little more and try again?

This is for a YouTube channel teaching home maintenance, 2 months in, 20 videos, 11 subscribers, 2k views if that helps.

Thanks!

When I first heard about affiliate marketing, I genuinely thought you just get a link, post it everywhere and boom 😂

Yeah… no.

There's actually a lot more to it.....finding the right audience, knowing what people need, creating content, talking to prospects etc.

What did you think affiliate marketing was before you actually looked into it?

Hey everyone,

I'm currently learning affiliate marketing and I'm genuinely serious about building this skill properly.

Unfortunately, my current mentor hasn't been providing much guidance or support, and I'm struggling to figure out what I should focus on and what steps I should take next.

I'm not looking for a get-rich-quick scheme or someone to do the work for me. I want to actually learn the process, take action, make mistakes, and improve.

If you're an experienced affiliate marketer and you're willing to guide a beginner, answer some questions, or even let me learn by working alongside you, I would genuinely appreciate the opportunity.

I'm also open to helping with actual work in return for the guidance. If there's something I can contribute to your projects, I'm willing to learn and put in the effort.

I know everyone starts somewhere, and right now I just need someone experienced to point me in the right direction.

If anyone is willing to help, please comment or DM me. I'd be extremely grateful.

Thank you 🙏

I'm not trying to advertise, but Im a business owner and I'm trying to get some insights. I own a SaaS (Botifex.com) but, I m not here to advertise. I recently started a creators/Affiliates program and am looking for affiliates to sign up. So, like, where do creators and affiliates hang out and look for work? Do I just cold-DM a bunch of people and try to get them that way, or do I make a LinkedIn post? Idk, I just need some tips on finding the right creators and affiliates to join the program and essentially help me do my marketing.

Hey everyone,

I'm looking for some genuine advice from people who have actually built an online income from scratch.

I'm 23, based in Algeria, and I'm currently in a situation where I really need to start making money online. I don't have a budget to invest, an existing audience, or a personal brand.

A few things about my situation:

• Starting with basically $0
• No existing audience or followers
• I don't show my face on social media
• I'm comfortable speaking/writing in English, French and Arabic
• I'm willing to learn and put in a lot of work
• I'm interested in affiliate marketing, but I'm not attached to it if there's a better option
• I'm looking for something I can realistically build from where I am, not a get-rich-quick scheme

I've spent quite a bit of time researching affiliate marketing, but honestly, I'm getting overwhelmed.

There are so many options: TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, SEO, email marketing, SaaS affiliate programs, physical products, digital products, discount codes, etc.

Everyone seems to have a different answer, and a lot of the advice online feels like it's written by people trying to sell a course rather than people who actually built something.

So I'd really like to hear from people who have actually done it.

If you had to start again today with $0, no audience, no personal brand and without showing your face, what would you do?

More specifically:

• Would you still choose affiliate marketing?
• If yes, what niche would you test first?
• What platform would you focus on?
• Which affiliate programs are actually worth looking at for a beginner?
• Are there programs that offer creators exclusive discount codes?
• Would you focus on building an audience first or trying to make money immediately?
• What would your first 30–90 days look like?
• How would you personally aim to make your first $100?
• What strategies would you completely avoid if you were starting over?

I'm especially interested in hearing from people who started with very little and gradually built something real.

I'm not looking for motivation or "10k/month" screenshots. I'm looking for the uncomfortable truth.

If you were in my position today, what would you do?

Thanks to anyone willing to share their experience.

One thing that makes earning online feel difficult is the size of the question. You search “how to make money online” and suddenly you are trying to understand affiliate marketing, freelancing, ecommerce, digital products, content creation, websites, email lists, funnels, AI, and traffic.

That is a lot to figure out before earning your first dollar. I think a more useful starting question is, “What is the simplest exchange of value I could realistically complete online?” There are only a few basic possibilities.

You can sell a skill or service you already have. You can create something people are willing to buy, or you can recommend an existing product that solves a problem and earn a commission when someone purchases.

That immediately makes the decision smaller. If you already have a useful skill, freelancing may be the shortest path to testing whether someone will pay you for it. If you enjoy creating something, a simple digital product may be worth testing.

If you do not want to create or fulfill your own product, affiliate marketing may be another option because you can focus on helping people discover an existing solution. None of these methods are automatic.

They still require learning how to find the right people, communicate value, build trust, and consistently take action, but you do not need a complete business before testing the basic idea.

You need one person. One problem. One useful solution, and one clear way for that person to take the next step. Your first goal could simply be earning $1 online.

Not because $1 changes your financial situation, but because earning it forces you to complete the entire process from finding a person to creating value to receiving money. Once that happens, you have something real to study.

Where did the person come from?

Why did they pay attention?

Why did they take action?

What would you repeat or improve next time?

That is a much easier problem to solve than trying to design your future online business before you have made your first dollar.

If you are still at the starting line, what part feels most unclear right now?

Hey everyone,

I am looking for affiliate partners to promote my software, which is built for Amazon to eBay dropshipping.

If you have an audience on Youtube, Tiktok, Instagram or can post on Reddit subreddits.

There is a recurring lifetime commission of a subscriber. (30%)

We charge 200 USD per month

FYI: This isn’t a BS software. This software works!!

Interested?DM
• Country of residence
• Work History
• Alittle about yourself/who you are