How to Learn Affiliate Marketing for Free

Here at Digistore24, we've put together a comprehensive guide on how to learn affiliate marketing for free. Throughout the article, we explore a variety of topics that will help you get started and put you on the right path to earning money online.

Affiliate marketing remains one of the most accessible ways to build income online — you don't need a product, a warehouse, or a big budget to get started. But with so much information out there, knowing where to begin can feel overwhelming.

How to Learn Affiliate Marketing for Free

These days, doesn’t it seem like everyone you know is on a mission to find the next best side-hustle that will help them make money online and land them a stable, reliable, and passive income source?

And let’s be honest, you’re probably searching too, right? So, whether you’re taking an interest in stocks, crypto, or affiliate marketing, you first turn to the internet and try to find free content to educate yourself on any given topic before investing money in workshops or online courses.

If your search brought you here, you're in the right place. This guide walks you through everything from the basics of how affiliate marketing works, to the channels you can use to promote offers, to the best free resources available to start learning today.

What Will You Learn About in This Free Affiliate Marketing Guide?

In this free affiliate marketing guide, we will cover everything you need to know about this industry, including: 

In addition, we’re going to let you in on why networking is so important in this industry, key affiliate marketing terms you need to know NOW to talk-the-talk, and of course, tips and tricks on how to actually make money in this industry…

We know that’s a lot of information, but don’t worry, we’ll take it one step at a time and explain everything. Let’s start at the beginning…

What is Affiliate Marketing and How Does It Work?

Affiliate marketing is any form of marketing where an affiliate (a specific person, company, or brand) promotes someone else’s products or services for a commission through various advertising channels. These channels can include email, paid advertising such as Facebook or Google ads, YouTube, social media pages, blogs, and more. Essentially, affiliate marketing enables you to earn money online by driving interested buyers to a company’s website or landing page.

Commission rates vary, and depend on things like whether the product is a physical or digital product. If you want to get a sense of what some of the best affiliate marketing products look like, check out an affiliate network, like the Digistore24 Marketplace where we have a wide range of offers you can choose from and start promoting right away.

What is an Affiliate Network?

An affiliate network is like a middleman between a product owner and an affiliate. Rather than going straight to a vendor or company and trying to promote their product, you can run the entire process through a platform. Affiliate networks like Digistore24 allow affiliate marketers access to a multitude of physical and digital products, as well as tools to support their affiliate marketing efforts. Integrated payment processing and accounting automation are also available, features that some competitors do not offer.

We may be biased, but going through an affiliate marketing network is the easiest way to get started. Typically, these platforms have a solid knowledge base and onboarding process that you can take advantage of to further your affiliate marketing efforts. It’s as easy as creating an account with your preferred email address, browsing the affiliate marketplace, and choosing a product from a specific category to promote. You’ll decide how to best promote that offer with an advertising channel (using some of our tips below), and before you know it, you’re on your way to making sales and getting paid juicy ccommissions.

When it comes to choosing the right niche, always gravitate towards things you’re already familiar with, or even better, passionate about! When you already have a fair amount of knowledge about something, chances are, it will be way easier to promote affiliate products from that niche. Rather than venturing into an affiliate niche that is completely new to you, and spending a ton of time researching - you should aim to promote something that is already familiar to you and your lifestyle so that your time can be spent earning money.

For example: If you are a workout enthusiast, choose the health and fitness niche and find a workout plan or supplement to promote. If you want to learn more about the best affiliate marketing niches, we wrote article about that too!

Where Can Affiliates Promote Offers?

As an affiliate marketer, you have a wide variety of options to choose from when it comes to promoting an offer. You can advertise on different websites or blogs, social media platforms, through email marketing… you name it. All you need is your affiliate link, and you’re ready to get started! 

Let’s go through all of the marketing channels you can promote on:

1. Social Media

Let’s face it, we’re all on social media. Starting with social media affiliate marketing first makes sense because the space is already familiar. However, there’s still a lot to learn about each platform. First of all, there are two ways you can approach advertising on social media: organic or paid. 

Basically, organic advertising means you’re doing everything without paying money - you are simply creating and promoting content on your personal or business page, groups, stories, and more. And of course, sneaking in a promolink. 

Paid advertising, on the other hand, requires you to invest money in ads. To have success, you also have to learn how to maneuver each social media platforms’ advertising tools. These tools aren’t hard to master, but you do need to put in some time to learn how they work.

So, which platforms are the best for promoting affiliate offers?

2. Blog

If you’ve been blogging for some time already and have a decent audience, promoting offers in your posts is the way to go. Just make sure the offers you choose to promote are in line with the topics you usually tackle in your articles. 

If you run a personal development blog, for example, you may consider writing a top 10 listicle of products that could help your readers better help themselves, and link to the sales pages of the offers you’re promoting. Don’t forget to also make use of affiliate banners.

In case you don’t have a blog, you may consider starting one. All you need to do is choose a niche you’d enjoy writing about - preferably something you’re already passionate about, and keep posting content consistently. Also, make sure you do a little keyword research beforehand for search engine optimization.

You can then share this content on social media, as well as email.

3. Email

Building a strong email list for affiliate marketing is key. Let’s say you’ve already made a few sales by promoting offers on social media and your blog; that means you probably now have email addresses you can work with and promote other offers to. It’s time to start doing email marketing.

You can leverage the power of email by sending your subscribers valuable content, while also squeezing in a few offers that your subscribers might find useful. Make sure to keep it balanced though, and always be relevant and informative. Also, avoid being spammy at all costs and don’t forget to keep those subject lines and headlines snappy.

4. YouTube

YouTube is among the best traffic sources for affiliate marketing to send organic and paid traffic to offers. You can either create video ads and target specific audiences, or create a YouTube channel, become a content creator and post entertaining or educational videos, while carefully sliding in products in your videos and promoting them.

If you’re a content creator, the key to success is to integrate products in your videos naturally, without the audience feeling that you’re forcing something onto them. And don’t forget to add affiliate links in your description, either!

There are a lot of ways to earn money with YouTube affiliate marketing... You just need to find something you enjoy making videos about.

5. Ads

We already established that using ads on YouTube and on social media for affiliate marketing can be lucrative. But you can take your affiliate marketing a step further by promoting offers with Google Ads, native ads or solo ads.

Remember to also include remarketing into your ad strategy. Remarketing is essentially retargeting potential customers that have already interacted with one of your ads, but left the buyer's journey at some point. 

6. Forums

As an affiliate marketer, you can easily join online forums and start providing value to the community by answering questions and providing insight. Once you gain a little bit of credibility, you can slowly start promoting using your affiliate links.

What Are the Key Terms in Affiliate Marketing?

If you don’t know anything about this industry or digital marketing in general, getting started with affiliate marketing can be a bit overwhelming. Apart from learning about offers, promolinks, niches, and different advertising strategies, you’ll also need to understand at least a few terms and abbreviations.

So, let’s go over the most common ones, in alphabetical order:

AOV - AOV reflects the average order value of a purchase. This metric is calculated by dividing the total revenue value of orders within a specified time period by the number of orders.

API - API is short for application programming interface. It basically allows apps to communicate with each other, and affiliates use it to access real-time statistics and data in order to improve their targeting and affiliate efforts. 

CPA - CPA refers to cost per action, or cost per acquisition. It’s a payment model where an affiliate gets paid a specified dollar amount when a certain action is completed by a customer - a purchase, for example.

CPM - Cost per thousand, or cost per mile, CPM is a marketing term used to indicate the price of 1,000 impressions on one web page - a sales page or landing page, for instance, or an ad.

CPC - CPC refers to cost per click, and is a payment method where an advertiser, who can also be an affiliate marketer, is charged for each click their online ad generates.

CR - CR is the abbreviation for conversion rate. Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors who take a desired action, for example, a purchase. If a customer clicks on your ad, goes through the buyer’s journey, orders, and checks out, that can be considered a conversion.

CTR - Click-through rate, or click-through ratio, is a metric used to measure the percentage of visitors who click on a particular link, like your promolink, for example.

EPC - EPC refers to earnings per click, and is calculated based on 100 clicks. EPC is used to assess how profitable an affiliate program actually is. It’s an important metric for reporting both affiliate and merchant performance.

LP - LP is short for landing page. A landing page is a standalone web page where a customer "lands" after clicking on your affiliate promo link. A landing page can also act as a “middle man” between your ad and an offer sales page. You can create your own landing pages using Pagewheel.

ROI - ROI, or return on investment, is a measure of your profitability. It's the measurement of how your investment generated profit. Basically, ROI shows how much money you made off of your investment.

Which Are the Most Popular Niches in Affiliate Marketing?

Fortunately, when it comes to affiliate marketing, there are more than enough niches to choose from… The hard part is actually choosing the right one for you, and committing to it. We extensively covered a ton of niches in one of our blog articles, so make sure you check that out if you’re having difficulty deciding which one to run with.

Being indecisive and having to choose a niche is just like watching Netflix: you are presented with a lot of diversity, and you spend way too much time contemplating what to choose, and when you finally do pick one, you can’t commit, and you go back to browsing. But thankfully, there’s a solution to get out of this loop.

Before choosing anything, ask yourself: “What do I personally like?”

Instead of choosing what’s popular or a profitable niche that happens to be in the top 5 of a list, go with something that you are comfortable with, or passionate about. Promoting offers surrounding topics you actually like can make the entire marketing process much more enjoyable - and also authentic. However, we know that choosing your first niche can be difficult.

Best Affiliate Marketing Niches: Shortlist

If you need help deciding, check out this shortlist below. Currently, these are the most popular and profitable niches, and who knows, there might be one or two in here you actually like. Keep in mind, these are all broad niches, so we strongly recommend you read our best affiliate marketing niches article for more guidance and inspiration.

How to Make Money with Affiliate Marketing

Now that we’ve presented you with all this information about affiliate marketing, you might wonder… How can someone actually start making money in this industry? 

Well, we essentially walked you through each step of the beginner affiliate marketer’s journey, so if you follow the steps in this article, you, yes YOU can actually start earning money right away!

Of course, besides studying affiliate marketing, you also have to familiarize yourself with certain digital marketing tools, and get comfortable with networking. As long as you take it one step at a time, and don’t put too much pressure on yourself to learn everything at once, we’re confident you’ll do great!

To recap, here is a quick rundown on how to start making money online with affiliate marketing:

That’s pretty much it! It sounds pretty simple, doesn’t it? Affiliate marketing isn’t rocket science; anyone can do it. All it takes is patience and a willingness to learn. Persistence is the key.

And the best part is, you can easily make money with affiliate marketing without a website, just by using social media or email, for example. If you’re curious about how to make money with affiliate marketing without an affiliate website, make sure to check out this article.

Start Learning with These Affiliate Marketing Resources

The best way to accelerate your affiliate marketing education is to learn from people who've already built what you're trying to build. Here are two of the best free and low-cost resources to get started — both created in partnership with Digistore24.

1. Launch Pad — The Beginner Affiliate Training Community

If you're starting from zero, Launch Pad is one of the most beginner-friendly affiliate marketing programs available. Built by Rachel Miller and Holly Homer — two experts who have collectively helped over 27,000 beginners make their first money online — it's designed for real people with full-time jobs and limited hours.

For just $1 to start, you get:

👉 Join Launch Pad here

2. Affiliate Marketing - Great Learning

This is another free affiliate marketing course that you can sign up for and also earn a learning certificate. This one is super beginner-level, and touches on the basics of affiliate marketing, as well as on different affiliate marketing strategies and methods you can use in this industry. The course lasts about an hour.

3. Free Affiliate Marketing Course for Beginners — Udemy

If you prefer video-based learning, Udemy's free affiliate marketing course for beginners is a solid starting point. It covers the fundamentals of affiliate marketing, how to set up your affiliate presence, how to attract the right audience, and how to choose a profitable niche — all broken into short, easy-to-follow video lectures.

It's completely free to enroll and ideal for anyone who wants a structured introduction before diving in.

Final Thoughts

Affiliate marketing is one of the few business models where you can genuinely start for free, learn as you go, and scale at your own pace. The fundamentals haven't changed — find a good offer, understand your audience, choose a channel, and stay consistent — but the tools available to today's affiliate marketer are more powerful than ever.

AI tools can now help you write content, build funnels, and research niches faster than was possible just a few years ago. Communities like Launch Pad give beginners real coaching and accountability from day one. And platforms like Digistore24 make it easy to find high-converting offers across dozens of niches without any upfront cost.

Start small, learn one channel well, and build from there. The affiliates who succeed aren't necessarily the ones who know the most — they're the ones who take consistent action and keep improving.

Want to become a Digistore24 affiliate? Simply go here to register for free.