How to authentically promote affiliate links and make money: 9 strategies and examples

Affiliate marketing incentivizes creators to link to and promote products or services from other businesses in exchange for a commission.

This way, you can monetize your expertise and the audience you’ve worked hard to build without creating your own products.

But simply adding an affiliate link to an occasional article or social media post isn’t enough to make a real income from it.

This guide gives you everything you need to promote your affiliate links and thrive while doing it.

How to incorporate integrity into your affiliate marketing practices

You can be an affiliate marketer who promotes any products you can think of as long as they make you money. If you choose this path, your audience members are nothing more than dollar signs.

Or you can deeply believe in the products you promote while transparently stating your affiliate relationship with the companies that make them.

Of course, the latter option is the core to a long-term, ethical affiliate link promotion strategy—and the foundation for a growing audience that trusts you.

Put simply, it’s what makes you an authentic creator.

Here’s how to promote your affiliate links with integrity:

• Choose products that fit your niche: If you teach your audience to sow their own clothes, sharing affiliate links to your favorite fiction books will dilute your hard work and confuse them. People come to you for guidance on specific topics and issues—make the most of it.
• Pick products you’ve used before or tested thoroughly: Saying, “This is the best [type of product] ever!” will feel a lot more genuine when you can support it with your ‘why’… And that comes from personal experience or in-depth product testing.
• Only promote companies you can stand behind: Protect your business by researching the values of companies you want to promote. Your credibility will tank if you often talk about sustainability but promote companies that test their products on animals or support fast fashion.
• Don’t commit “affiliate link stuffing”: More affiliate links don’t necessarily mean more clicks or higher income. Include links where they naturally blend in with your content, and go for quality over quantity—this will ensure an excellent experience for your readers.
• Use affiliate disclosures: Be transparent about the fact you’re earning a commission if someone buys a product through your link. It’s not just good for establishing and maintaining trust from your audience—it’s legally required.

General rules for affiliate disclosures

Keep these FTC (Federal Trade Commission) rules and guidelines for affiliate disclosures in mind:

Disclosures must be in hard-to-miss places. They must be near the link to the endorsed product rather than only in your header, footer, or ‘about me’ page. Tiny fonts and hard-to-see colors are against the rules.

Disclosures have to be clear and conspicuous. “Advertisement,” “ad,” “sponsored,” “paid link,” or “[brand] partner” is sufficient, as well as a statement such as “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post”. Using “spon” or “collab” is too vague, as is “affiliate link”—not everyone knows what an affiliate link means, so consider adding context and a more specific disclosure.

Audio and video content need a spoken and written disclosure. Some viewers may be watching without sound, and others might not be looking at your video or podcast descriptions—so covering both is key.

Jump into the affiliate disclosures dos and don’ts by Brilliant Affiliate, along with copy/paste disclosures and full guidelines from the latest FTC updates.

9 ideas on where to promote your affiliate links

The best platform and place to promote your affiliate links is the one where your audience hangs out regularly

And just like with any other content promotion, doing it in several places helps. For example, if a YouTube subscriber misses your link in a video, they might see it on your blog or Instagram.

Here are nine ideas and platforms for strategic affiliate link promotion:

1. Insert affiliate links in your blog posts and website
2. Embed promotional links in your newsletter and emails
3. Market affiliate products on your podcast
4. Combine affiliate links with video marketing
5. Add affiliate links to your online course
6. Include promotional links in your lead magnets
7. Share affiliate links on social media
8. Market your affiliate site in forums and online communities
9. Use paid ads to scale your affiliate marketing

The best place to start is the one that feels easiest for you. And don’t forget: whichever platform you choose, you must disclose you’re an affiliate for the product.

1. Insert affiliate links in your blog posts and website

Blog posts that match your readers’ needs are a brilliant place to embed your affiliate links.

Your audience is looking for a solution, a product review, a comparison to alternatives, a step-by-step guide—your affiliate links give them an easy next action they can take to meet their goals.

This strategy works particularly well if your blog attracts plenty of organic traffic with a rich library of relevant articles.

The 4 types of blog posts perfect for affiliate links

• Product reviews: Dive into what you love about the product, why you chose it, and any specific tips and strategies that have helped you make the most of it.
• Case studies: Show real results you’ve achieved with a product—for example, a business result from a software product or a skin transformation from a skincare product.
• Tutorials: Guide your reader through the exact steps, along with photos, screenshots, or even a video to showcase exactly how you used the product to achieve your results.
• Product comparisons: Compare a product you love using with another one you’ve tried in the past. People often struggle to make up their mind between two similar options—your comparison can help them make the jump.
• [Bonus tip] Resource page: Build a central, go-to directory of the tools you recommend to your ideal audience. This can be a shortcut for them—instead of reading your blog for hours, they can find the right tool for everything they need in one place.

Tutorial blog post example: Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn, the creator behind Smart Passive Income, built his affiliate links into a live streaming setup and equipment tutorial.

Here’s why this works:

• The tutorial is divided into easy-to-digest sections
• Each piece of equipment is accompanied by Pat’s own image of it
• Pat added tips based on his personal experience with the gear

2. Embed promotional links in your newsletter and emails

Your email list already trusts you.

They want your words in their inbox on a regular basis because they know that what you create is worth their time.

Affiliate links are no exception, so don’t miss the chance to place them in the right place and within the right topic.

Keep in mind that some email service providers, as well as some affiliate networks, don’t allow embedding affiliate links in emails. The good news? Kit does!

The only condition is that your emails are primarily based on your own business (rather than purely affiliate links promotion, and that your affiliate links aren’t related to education, loans, online pharmacies, or “get rich quick” types of software.

Make sure you’re following email marketing best practices, and you’re golden.

3 ways to integrate affiliate promotion in emails

• Write emails that center around promoting the link: Think about the email you’d write if you were promoting a product launch or a new podcast episode—you can do the same for an affiliate link.
• Promote links organically: You can write an email about a specific goal—for example, purchasing an airplane-friendly baby stroller. As you cover in-depth tips, you can include affiliate links in places you mention specific items.
• Add related videos in your emails: If you have a related video about a product you’re talking about, include it in your email. Kit even lets you embed your video to ensure a smooth subscriber experience.

Affiliate marketing example by email: Khe Hy

Khe Hy of RadReads promoted another creator’s course using an affiliate link in the intro to one of his weekly newsletters.

The reason this worked? Here are a few:

• This type of email intro matches Khe’s usual newsletter intro style
• The copy is short, well-formatted, and easy to scan
• There’s a clear call-to-action (CTA), along with a clear affiliate link disclosure

3. Market affiliate products on your podcast

Podcasts are a fantastic affiliate promotion channel because they let you get personal about a topic and share your experience with it in-depth.

And when you do that, mentioning the products and services that helped you with that topic feels authentic and intimate.

How to integrate affiliate links in your podcast

• Talk about the product during the show: Share your experience and context about a product during your episode. Try not to casually mention it—dedicate at least a few minutes to catch as many listeners’ attention as possible.
• Add the affiliate link in the show notes: Your listeners may forget the name of the product you talked about by the time they get to the end of an episode. Make it easy for them to find it by adding your affiliate link, along with a short description, to your show notes.
• Interview the affiliate product creators on your show: If your podcast is based on interviews, an interview with a product creator (or a relevant company employee) can be a great way to promote that product to your audience naturally and organically.

Podcast show notes example: Amy Porterfield

Amy Porterfield, the podcaster behind the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast, regularly shares relevant affiliate links in her show notes. She shared her Kit affiliate link in an episode about Google and Yahoo email authentication requirements.

Here’s why this is a great approach:

• Amy interviewed Alyssa Dulin, Kit’s head of deliverability—a hyper-relevant expert for this topic
• The links section comes right after actionable written tips from the episode
• Links are easy to scan and click through

4. Combine affiliate links with video marketing

Videos let you dive into product benefits, features, and real-life use cases. They create context.

You can show the product on camera or add screenshots or screen recordings with your own tips to help viewers really feel your excitement about it.

YouTube affiliate marketing done right

• Create educational videos about your product: You can dedicate a whole video to a product. For example, a winter coat that can be styled with 10 outfits, and you can demonstrate each one.
• Mention it during the video: Another option is to mention one or more products related to the video topic. For example, a book recommendation and a business tool in a video about productivity.
• Add the affiliate link to the video description: Add short, easy-to-scan lines to your YouTube video description linking to the products you covered in your video.
• Offer your viewers an exclusive discount: If you can arrange a discount code with the company you’re promoting, offer a viewer-only code to your YouTube audience.

YouTube description example: Ashlynne Eaton

Ashlynne Eaton is a YouTube creator focused on simplicity and mindfulness. Here’s how she lists affiliate links in her YouTube video descriptions:

This is an excellent approach because:

• The list is placed at the top of the description and easy to scan
• Each link is preceded by a short product name
• Links are shortened, which helps the description box look clean and uncluttered
• Products are listed in the order in which they appear in the video

5. Add affiliate links to your online course

Have an online course that teaches your audience to achieve a goal? If there are other tools and products involved in that process, your course is a perfect spot for those affiliate links.

For example, if you take your audience through the process of building their email list, a Kit affiliate link would be a great one to include.

And if you’re teaching them to weave, your links can point to Amazon links for your top recommendations for weaving looms, kits, and yarns.

Example of affiliate links within an online course: Saphia Lanier

Saphia Lanier is a freelance content writer behind the online course Research Like a Pro System. In it, she outlines an article research process that mentions several tools—among them Frase, a tool she provided an affiliate link for:

Here’s why Saphia’s approach works:

• It makes a strong case for why students should use Frase
• The affiliate link disclosure is obvious and impossible to miss
• There’s a benefit to signing up through her link (a 5-day trial for $1)

6. Include promotional links in your lead magnets

Lead magnets are value-builders. They help your audience implement what they learned in your article, video, or social media post which helps build your email list.

Just like with your online course, you should position affiliate links in lead magnets as added value rather than make them the center of your lead magnet.

Ideal lead magnets for affiliate promotion

• Ebooks: Ebooks explore a topic more deeply and usually guide your readers through a step-by-step process. Create an irresistible educational ebook and embed affiliate links into relevant steps and tips.
• Email courses: An email course is another way to teach a process, this time through emails rather than ebook chapters. Make sure your emails are well-formatted, and that affiliate links don’t make them hard to read or take action from.
• Checklists: A checklist works as a ‘take action’ tool. For example, if your checklist is about starting an email list, one item could be starting a free trial on Kit, pointing to an affiliate link.
• Templates: You might create templates for a specific tool, like design templates for Canva, or those more applicable to a range of tools, like templates for email or social media. Affiliate links fit right in.

7. Share affiliate links on social media

Social media moves fast—and that can be both bad and good. For many creators, the downside is that their carefully crafted posts go unnoticed, and their hard work goes to waste.

But there’s another way to look at the speed of social media: it lets you promote your content, your message, and your affiliate links multiple times per day or week to maximize your reach. And that’s without annoying your followers because they rarely see every single thing you post.

For this strategy to work, you need to share your links authentically and within posts your followers find valuable.

For example, an outfit inspiration post will work well with affiliate links as they naturally fit in, while a “This is the best jumpsuit ever!” post out of the blue with nothing more than your affiliate link might feel pushy and out of place.

Affiliate links work on any social media platform you already use, including X/Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest.

Here are some examples to inspire you.

X/Twitter affiliate marketing example: Maddy Osman

Maddy Osman is an author and an SEO agency owner. In her affiliate link promotion strategy, she shares her favorite things about software tools on X/Twitter:

Maddy’s approach works because:

• Her audience of marketers loves tool recommendations
• She personalizes the post by mentioning her favorite feature or benefit
• Her tweet style takes up plenty of space on the feed, which helps grab attention

Instagram affiliate marketing example: Megan Williams (@mimipluswill)

Megan Williams is a petite fashion creator. Her followers can find her product recommendations in her link in bio, as well as on her stories based on the topic she covers that day:

Here’s why Megan’s strategy works:

• She shows her enthusiasm by talking about and showing the product instead of just posting photos
• The link is hard to miss
• There’s an attractive discount code that’s also easy to spot

Pinterest affiliate marketing example: Assa Cisse

Assa Cisse is a plus-size fashion and lifestyle blogger. She shares her outfits and individual pieces on Pinterest by using links from LTK, a platform that lets creators collaborate with brands through affiliate links:

This works because:

• Assa shows her outfits through photos and videos rather than generic brand images
• There’s a wide mix of boards and outfit types to get followers to browse
• LTK is a well-known and trusted platform in the fashion world

8. Market your affiliate site in forums and online communities

Millions of people visit forums like Quora and Reddit every month. Same goes for Facebook groups. If there are forum threads or Facebook communities related to your niche, chances are your ideal audience spends time browsing them.

That makes forums and online communities another strong affiliate link promotion channel. But there’s a caveat: you can’t just show up once, drop an affiliate link, and never show up again. That won’t sit well with either the moderators of the forum or group or the visitors.

Instead, you need to be an active member: regularly participate in discussions and share insightful tips and responses for the pure benefit of visitors and community members.

Only then can you consider adding a link to promote a company you’re an affiliate for—again, ideally within a valuable post or response to another member—and that’s if a specific forum, community, or group allows affiliate links.

If affiliate links are NOT permitted, your best bet is promoting your own resource that has affiliate links in it. For example, a product review blog post, a resource page on your website, or a YouTube video that mentions your affiliate links. Be sure to follow promotion rules with those links, too!

If affiliate links are permitted, embed your affiliate link into your personal experience with the product, a screenshot or photo, and tips you have when it comes to the product.

9. Use paid ads to scale your affiliate marketing

Once you get the hang of several organic strategies to promote your affiliate links, consider running paid ads for affiliate links. This part of affiliate marketing can come with a big learning curve, so focus on other strategies first.

You’ll want to make sure your ad investment is less than your payout—otherwise, this strategy won’t make financial sense.

Before you implement it, double check the company you want to promote allows running paid ads to promote affiliate links. If it does, you can drive traffic to your own resource with affiliate links or to the affiliate link directly.

Best paid traffic sources for affiliate marketing

• Google Ads: Google makes up the majority of online searches, so it’s worth trying. People who are ready to buy will often search for product reviews and tips.
• Facebook and Instagram ads: Facebook’s ad capabilities let you build specific audiences to target across Facebook and Instagram (including the feed, stories, Messenger, and more). You can also retarget your website visitors using the Facebook Pixel.
• TikTok ads: According to TikTok, 65% of users have followed or purchased from a brand they found through the platform. You can be their starting point by targeting the right people.

How to successfully utilize paid traffic for affiliate marketing

• Target the right audience: Your ad copy and design are important, but the only way they’ll make an impact is if they reach the right person. Explore and tweak your targeting options across platforms to find the sweet spot.
• Optimize for the right keywords: Look for keywords with the strongest purchase intent, like “[product name] review” or “best [niche product]”. Google’s Keyword Planner is a good place to start.
• Test, tweak, and experiment: You’ll rarely get things right on your first try. Change up your targeting, keywords, copy, or design (one at a time!) to find what works best.

Best practices for new affiliate marketers

If you want to start off on the right foot with your affiliate marketing, here are some final best practices and tips to keep in mind:

Understand the three roles in affiliate marketing

There are three roles in affiliate marketing: the company that manufactures and ships the product, you as its promoter, and the end customer.

Your partnership with the company is only successful if you speak to the right customers the right way, so always keep that in mind.

Narrow down your niche

Your specificity, personal experience, perspective, and depth of knowledge will help you become the go-to person for the topics you cover.

Becoming specific about your niche gives you an advantage over competitors that create broad content.

For example, you’ll benefit from focusing on spaniels in your content and affiliate partnerships instead of dogs in general.

Select your affiliate products

We’ve already touched on this, but it’s worth repeating: choose products you already use or have tested thoroughly and would recommend to a friend. You’ll have the easiest time genuinely reviewing and recommending them.

And with that, choose companies you’re excited to stand behind and support.

Research affiliate programs

There are two main ways to sign up for affiliate programs: directly through a brand you love or by signing up through an affiliate platform (like CJ Affiliate or PartnerStack) that offer dozens or hundreds of programs.

The most popular place to start if you promote physical products is the Amazon affiliate program. And if you create content specifically for online creators, you’ll love Kit’s affiliate program.

Set up a blog or website

Social media is a fantastic place for affiliate link promotion, but nothing beats a central content hub—a blog or a website—that lets you showcase your brand and acts as a home base for all your educational content.

It’s the easiest way to pair education and value with affiliate links—and increase your revenue in the long run.

Be clear on your goals and numbers

You need actions and goals to keep you towards your dream affiliate income.

Vague ideas won’t work on their own.

Here’s how to work out your goals:

• Know how much money you want to make
• Know how much time and effort you want to invest
• Know if affiliate marketing will be your key income stream
• Know what conversion rate you are shooting for (conversion rates for online products vary from 1%-4%)

Start promoting your affiliate products with Kit

By now you know: valuable, educational content is the key to affiliate link promotion success. It’s the type of content that makes your audience take instant action.

Email marketing is exactly that. Your subscribers want your expertise, personal experience, and hands-on tips in their inbox—it’s a perfect chance to recommend the products you deeply believe in.

Lean on Kit to promote your affiliate links with confidence.