6 Best Places to Do Affiliate Marketing (Ranked): How to Make $10K Faster

When Alston first got into affiliate marketing he did what a lot of people do: watched a bunch of YouTube videos, got excited about Quora and Reddit, and started dropping affiliate links into answers all over those platforms. It actually worked for a little while. Targeted audiences, common interests, people actively looking for help. The problem? He collected strikes. Quora and Reddit have strict policies against raw affiliate links in responses, and those platforms will shut you down fast. That was lesson one: not every place that feels like it should work for affiliate marketing actually plays by rules that let you win long-term.

So what actually works? In this video Alston ranks all six major channels for affiliate marketing, from worst to best, and explains exactly why the order matters. If you are trying to hit your first $10,000 in commissions, or you are already earning and want to scale, the sequence and the logic behind the ranking will change how you build your business.

What You Will Walk Out With

The complete ranking of all 6 affiliate marketing platforms, from least to most effective
Why Quora and Reddit strikes happen and the only safe way to use community sites
The one thing podcasters skip that kills their conversion rate
How Facebook lets you target by parenting status, entrepreneur status, and income bracket for paid affiliate ads
Why owning your own domain costs less than $100 a year and why it is non-negotiable
How Google and YouTube can rank the same video in two separate search results, doubling your traffic with one piece of content
Why email converts twice as high as every other channel and what a lead magnet actually needs to do
How to figure out which niche and offer is right for you at finder.platformproof.com

#6: Quora, Reddit, and Online Forums

Community platforms sit at the bottom of the list not because the audiences are bad but because the rules make long-term affiliate marketing almost impossible. Quora, Reddit, and most topic-specific forums attract people who already have a question and are actively searching for an answer. That is genuinely valuable. If you are promoting a fitness supplement, finding a thread full of people asking how to lose ten pounds is about as targeted as paid traffic gets.

The problem is that those platforms exist to protect their own credibility. When you drop a bare affiliate link into a response, the moderators and the algorithm both flag it as spam. Quora gave Alston strikes for doing exactly what he had been taught to do. Reddit subreddits have rules pinned at the top of every community: no promotional links, no affiliate URLs, and sometimes a ban on linking to your own content entirely.

There is a workaround, and it is the only sustainable one: use these platforms to build authority and send people to your own website, not directly to an affiliate offer. Answer the question thoroughly. Establish yourself as someone who knows what they are talking about. Then, at the end of a genuinely helpful post, mention that you have a more detailed breakdown on your site. That keeps you inside the rules and builds your audience at the same time. It requires more patience, but it does not end in a strike.

#5: Podcasts

Podcasts rank fifth because they work, but they come with a built-in limitation that most new affiliate marketers do not think about until they are already recording. Unlike a YouTube video, a podcast episode has no clickable description visible to someone listening through Spotify or Apple Podcasts. The listener hears your recommendation, maybe feels some interest, and then has to remember a URL long enough to type it in later. Most of them do not.

The fix is to pair your podcast with an accompanying website or landing page. Every episode that mentions a product or a recommendation should have show notes with a direct link. When you talk about a solution on air, you send the listener somewhere specific: “grab the link in the show notes at my website.” That combination, audio content plus a web page with actual clickable links, closes the gap between interest and commission.

The format of podcasting also plays in your favor over time. Episodes come in seasons. Listeners subscribe and return week after week. If you have a niche podcast about personal finance, home improvement, or fitness, you can dedicate individual episodes to the exact products and services your audience is most likely to buy. That recurring attention is the kind of relationship that converts at a much higher rate than a single social media post. The trade-off is that building a podcast audience takes months, not days.

#4: Social Media

Social media sits at number four on the list because it offers something the other options below it do not: both free and paid traffic from the same platform. LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and similar platforms let you publish content at no cost and also run targeted paid ads when you are ready to invest.

The free side of social media requires upfront work before any affiliate offer makes sense. If someone wants to lose ten pounds and you show up in their feed saying “take this pill and lose ten pounds tomorrow,” they scroll past. You have not earned their trust. The approach that actually converts is building value first. Post a few pieces of content about realistic weight loss options: reducing calorie intake, walking a mile a day, combining exercise with nutrition. Once that foundation exists, introducing an affiliate product as a solution to accelerate results lands very differently.

Facebook’s paid advertising tools give you a level of targeting that is hard to match anywhere else. When Alston ran a Facebook ad, he found he could target users based on whether they are a parent, how many children they have, whether they identify as an entrepreneur, their approximate income range, and dozens of other data points. That specificity means your affiliate offer gets in front of people who are already in the market for exactly what you are promoting. Paid social converts faster than free organic content because you skip the months of audience-building and go straight to a qualified audience.

The risk with social media is platform dependence. If Facebook changes its algorithm or bans your account, you lose everything you built there. That is why social media works best as a channel that feeds traffic back to something you own, not as your only asset.

#3: Your Own Website

A website of your own is number three on the list, but it is also the foundation that makes every other channel above it more effective. Without a website, you are at the mercy of every platform’s rules. Quora can ban your link. Reddit can remove your post. Facebook can shut down your page. Instagram can change its algorithm overnight. When those things happen to affiliate marketers who never built their own site, they lose everything they worked for because there is no central address that still belongs to them.

With your own website, you control what goes up and what comes down. Alston’s site at alstongodbolt.com is the hub where all of his affiliate links live in context, inside actual blog posts, on product recommendation pages, and in images that link directly to offers. That content does not disappear because a social platform updated its rules. It also compounds over time. A blog post answering “how to lose weight” can be the first article in a five-part series covering diet, exercise, supplements, timing, and tracking, and every single one of those posts can include affiliate links to relevant products.

The cost argument people make against owning a website does not hold up. Web hosting with a custom domain costs less than $100 a year. That is less than most people spend on coffee in a week. The trade-off for that small investment is a permanent home on the internet that you control, where all your other content can funnel traffic, and where you can monetize in multiple ways simultaneously: affiliate links in text, clickable product images, a dedicated recommended products page, and eventually a mailing list opt-in.

One practical content strategy Alston uses is the who-what-when-where-why-how framework. Instead of writing one post about a topic, he writes six. Each angle targets a slightly different search query, pulls in readers from different starting points, and links to affiliate products from a different angle. Six pieces of content covering one topic will almost always outperform one piece of content trying to cover everything.

#2: YouTube

YouTube lands at number two because video builds the kind of connection with an audience that text almost never can. Someone who watches a ten-minute video sees your face, hears your voice, follows your reasoning in real time, and decides whether or not they trust you. That know-like-trust process, which is the core of every affiliate sale, happens faster in video than in any other medium.

There is also a traffic math argument for YouTube that is specific to this platform. Google owns YouTube. When your video ranks in a YouTube search, it can also appear in a standard Google search for the same keywords. One video, two different search result pages, twice the potential traffic. No other content format gives you that double exposure from a single piece of work. If you spend an afternoon creating a video about the best email marketing tools for beginners, that video can show up when someone searches on YouTube directly and also when they type that same phrase into Google.

Affiliate links go in the video description box. Viewers who watch all the way through and click a description link are warm leads who have already spent several minutes with you. You can also use your YouTube channel as a way to drive traffic back to your website, where more affiliate content, a lead magnet, and an email opt-in are waiting. Running those two channels together amplifies both of them. Your website gives YouTube viewers a place to learn more; your YouTube channel gives your website posts a video companion that shows up in search.

One thing Alston points out about YouTube that most people underestimate is the accidental discovery factor. The algorithm serves videos to users based on watch history and interest patterns, not just search intent. Someone can search for their favorite song, watch three videos, and end up watching your affiliate marketing tutorial without ever having searched for it. That organic reach is impossible to buy and hard to replicate on any other platform at the same scale.

#1: Email Marketing

Email is number one, and according to Alston it is not even close. Email marketing converts at roughly twice the rate of the next best channel. That stat has held up across industries and business sizes for years, and you can see it in your own inbox right now. Amazon emails you after you browse a product. Target sends you a discount two days before you were going to buy something anyway. Walmart follows up on an abandoned cart. These billion-dollar companies invest heavily in email because the data on its conversion rate is overwhelming.

The reason email outperforms everything else comes down to one number: five. Research consistently shows it takes at least five contact points before a stranger becomes a paying customer. If someone finds your website once, reads one blog post, and leaves, the chance of a sale is low. But if they subscribe to your list, you can follow up with them on day one, day three, day seven, day fourteen, and beyond. Each message is another contact point, another opportunity to answer an objection, share a testimonial, or make the case for a product from a new angle.

Getting someone onto your email list requires two pieces of content. The first is your main helpful piece: the article, video, or post that answers their actual question. The second is a lead magnet, something valuable enough that a reader is willing to hand over their email address in exchange for it. A lead magnet can be a checklist, a short guide, a free mini-course, a template, or any resource that solves one specific problem fast. Once they opt in, the autoresponder takes over.

Alston uses ClickFunnels for his autoresponder setup, which lets him build out an email sequence in advance. The sequence gets triggered the moment someone subscribes. They receive a welcome email on day one, helpful content on day three, a product recommendation with context on day five, and so on. That sequence runs automatically whether Alston is working or not, and whether a new subscriber joins today or joins six months from now, they all start at the beginning and move through the same proven path. You can also keep adding to the end of the sequence as you find new products or develop new content, so the system improves over time without starting over.

Not sure which niche or offer to build your affiliate business around?

Answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

How to Start With All Six: A Practical Launch Order

Most beginners try to be everywhere at once and end up doing a mediocre job on all six channels. The better approach is to build in a specific order that gives each new channel a foundation to rest on.

Get your own website first. This is your home base. Every other channel you build will link back here. Pick a hosting provider, register a domain, and publish your first piece of helpful content before you do anything else.
Set up your email list and lead magnet. Install an autoresponder (ClickFunnels, ConvertKit, or similar), create a simple lead magnet related to your niche, and add an opt-in form to your website. You want this live before you start driving significant traffic so you capture every visitor.
Start a YouTube channel. Record one video per week reviewing or explaining something in your niche. Link to your website and affiliate offers in every description. Let the algorithm do its job over time.
Add social media as a distribution layer. Share clips, quotes, or takeaways from your YouTube videos on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Pinterest. Each post should direct people back to your website or YouTube channel, not to a bare affiliate link.
Use Quora and Reddit to build authority. When you have a website and YouTube channel to send people to, you can answer questions on community platforms without dropping raw affiliate links. Build your credibility there and let your website do the converting.
Add a podcast once the other channels are producing. A podcast amplifies an audience you already have. It is a harder first step than a website or a YouTube channel because there is no algorithm pushing your content to strangers. Launch it once you have content and a reason for listeners to come back.

Honest Drawbacks of Each Channel

No affiliate channel is perfect. Here is the honest version of what each one costs you beyond the initial setup.

Quora and Reddit require constant vigilance about platform rules that change without warning. What is allowed in one subreddit is a ban-worthy offense in another. The return on time invested is low unless you have a website to funnel people toward.

Podcasting has a discoverability problem. There are millions of podcasts and no Google-like algorithm that surfaces new shows to strangers. Growing a podcast audience without an existing social following takes years, not months.

Social media can eat your whole day if you let it. The engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares) feel productive but they do not always translate to clicks or sales. Paid ads fix the conversion problem but introduce a budget management problem. You need to know your numbers before spending on Facebook ads or you can lose money fast.

Your own website requires patience. SEO takes six to twelve months to produce meaningful organic traffic. In the meantime you will be writing into a void, which is discouraging. The payoff is long-term compounding traffic that does not require ongoing ad spend.

YouTube takes real production time. Even a simple talking-head video requires lighting, audio, editing, a thumbnail, a title, a description, and tags. Most beginners underestimate the time per video, especially early on. The algorithm also takes several months to start distributing a new channel widely.

Email marketing requires you to keep delivering value or your unsubscribe rate climbs. A list you have not emailed in six months has lower open rates than a list you email every week. Building the sequence is straightforward; maintaining the quality of your messages over time is the harder work.

Find Your X

Before you pick a platform to focus on, you need to be clear on what you are actually promoting and to whom. The channel matters less than the match between your offer, your audience, and the way you naturally communicate. If you hate being on camera, YouTube is going to feel like a grind every week. If you love writing, a content-heavy website is a better fit. The best channel for affiliate marketing is the one you will consistently show up on.

If you are not sure what niche or product type fits your skills and interests, the Platform Proof Finder walks you through a short set of questions and matches you with a direction based on what you already know and what you are willing to build. Find it at finder.platformproof.com.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which platform is best for a complete beginner?

Start with your own website. It is the only channel you fully control, and it acts as the destination for every other platform you build later. A simple blog on your own domain, hosted for less than $100 a year, gives you a place to publish content, collect emails, and post affiliate links without worrying about platform rules changing overnight.

Can you do affiliate marketing without a website?

Technically yes, but you will hit a ceiling fast. Social media platforms restrict or ban direct affiliate links in posts. YouTube allows links in descriptions but your audience has nowhere to go when they want to learn more about you. Without a website, you have no email list, no SEO traffic, and no safety net if a platform changes its rules. The $100 a year it costs to run a basic site is the most important investment you can make in the business.

How long does it take to make $10,000 in affiliate commissions?

There is no honest universal answer because it depends on the commission rate of your products, the size of your audience, and how consistently you publish content. High-ticket affiliate products (those paying $100 or more per sale) require 100 sales for $10,000. Low-ticket products at $10 per commission require 1,000 sales. Most affiliates who reach $10,000 total have been publishing consistent content for six to eighteen months. Email marketing shortens the timeline because it lets you reach the same audience repeatedly rather than waiting for new visitors every time.

What is a lead magnet and how do I create one?

A lead magnet is a free resource you offer in exchange for an email address. It needs to solve one specific, immediate problem for your target audience. A checklist, a short guide (three to five pages is enough), a free template, or a short video tutorial all work. The key is that the lead magnet should be directly relevant to the affiliate products you plan to recommend. If you promote email marketing software, a lead magnet called “5 Email Templates That Convert” is more valuable to your visitors than a generic “make money online” PDF.

Does Quora allow affiliate links?

Quora’s policies restrict promotional links and affiliate URLs in answers. Answers that exist primarily to drive traffic to a product or an affiliate offer are regularly removed and can result in account strikes or a permanent ban. The only sustainable approach is to answer questions genuinely without affiliate links, and then direct readers to your own website where they can find product recommendations in a more appropriate context.

Is email marketing still effective in 2024?

Yes, and the conversion data backs that up. Email consistently converts at roughly twice the rate of social media for direct product recommendations. The reason is simple: the people on your list opted in, which means they are already interested in what you have to say. A cold social media post competes with hundreds of other pieces of content. An email arrives in an inbox the subscriber checks by choice. Major retailers spend millions on email automation because the return on investment justifies every dollar.

Should I focus on one platform or build all six at once?

Build one channel well before adding the next. Most beginners who try to run all six channels simultaneously spread themselves thin and produce low-quality content everywhere. The recommended order is: website first, email list second, then YouTube, then social media as a distribution layer for your existing content. Add Quora and Reddit only once you have a website to link to, and add a podcast last, once you already have an audience who wants to hear from you in audio form.

What autoresponder should I use for affiliate email marketing?

Alston uses ClickFunnels, which handles both landing page creation and email automation in one platform. It lets you build opt-in pages for your lead magnet, set up an automated welcome sequence, and add product recommendation emails at timed intervals after someone subscribes. Other popular options include ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign, both of which are built specifically for content creators and affiliate marketers. The most important feature to look for is the ability to build a time-based sequence so your emails go out automatically without manual sending.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “6 Best Places to Do Affiliate Marketing (Ranked and How to Make $10K Faster),” YouTube, https://youtu.be/cdL_mzQSkaU
Quora Help Center: Content and Conduct policies on promotional links
Reddit Help: Self-promotion and affiliate link rules per subreddit
ClickFunnels autoresponder and landing page platform: clickfunnels.com
Income School Project 24: 60-step blogging and passive income course