How to Make Money on TikTok (Affiliate Marketing Strategies)

Alston Godbolt made his first TikTok affiliate commission with fewer than 500 followers, back when TikTok did not even allow links in bios. No big audience. No fancy equipment. Just 15-second videos built around a hook, a short story, and a free offer on his website. That method still works today, and in this post you will get both that five-step system and a second path: the TikTok Shop affiliate program that Alston personally tested with a $100 investment.

Two methods, any niche, any follower count. Whether you have zero followers today or five thousand, one of these approaches fits where you are right now. Here is exactly how both work.

What You’ll Walk Out With

The exact five-step system Alston used to earn his first TikTok affiliate commission with under 500 followers
Three specific affiliate program criteria to filter for: earnings per click, commission rate, and cookie window
How to write a business plan inside your affiliate application so programs actually approve you
The hook-story-offer formula for every TikTok video you create
Exactly how to convert views into email subscribers with fewer than 1,000 followers
How TikTok Shop affiliate works, what it actually requires, and the five-video product strategy
The honest drawbacks of each method before you invest your time
A free tool to find which online income path matches your current skills at finder.platformproof.com

How Alston Made His First Affiliate Commission With 500 Followers

Before TikTok allowed YouTube links, Instagram links, or even a clickable link in your bio, Alston was already building an email list from the platform. His approach was straightforward. He created 15-second videos, which was the maximum length at the time, and pointed viewers to alstongodbolt.com where they could grab a free ebook or lead magnet.

Every video followed the same structure: a hook to keep the viewer watching, a short story addressing a real pain point, and an offer pointing to his website. Because he was speaking to people who wanted to change their lives for the better, the content resonated even without a large following. Viewers left TikTok, visited his site, joined his email list, and some of them bought the affiliate products he recommended.

That is the part most people miss. TikTok traffic is not where the commission happens. The email list is where the commission happens. TikTok is just the top of the funnel. Once Alston understood that, the follower count stopped feeling like a barrier and started feeling like a number that would naturally grow as he kept publishing. You have a slightly easier path today because at 1,000 followers TikTok allows a link in your bio, and you can also use YouTube or Instagram to accelerate that funnel even faster.

Method 1: The Five-Step TikTok Affiliate System

Step 1: Choose What You Want to Be Known For

Alston deliberately avoids the word “niche” because he finds it confusing for most people starting out. Instead, he asks a simpler question: what do you want to be known for? The answer can be a hobby, an interest, a passion, or even something you do all day at your job. He offers three examples from the video: golfing, pickleball, and Microsoft Excel. All three are legitimate, and all three have affiliate programs you can join today.

The rule in the beginning is to stay on topic. Do not branch out and talk about unrelated things. You are building what Alston calls a core following, a group of people who follow you specifically because of one clear topic. Staying focused is the fastest path to that. There is no perfect topic and every topic has competition. The only two things that matter are that the topic is genuinely important to you and that you can talk about it comfortably for weeks, months, and years without burning out.

Step 2: Find the Right Affiliate Programs

The simplest way to find affiliate programs is to Google your topic plus the words “affiliate program.” If you are in the weight loss space, search “weight loss affiliate programs” and you will get a full list of options immediately. From there, you want to filter by three specific metrics before applying.

First, look for an earnings per click of $2 or more. This tells you that other affiliates are actually converting traffic into sales with this program. Second, look for a commission rate of at least 10%. Third, look for a cookie window of at least seven days. A shorter cookie means a buyer who clicks your link on Monday but buys on Wednesday might not count toward your commission. Seven days gives you real protection.

Alston recommends applying to at least five different programs, because some will reject you, especially early on. That is not a dead end. It just means you apply to the next one, or you come back to the same program in a few months after you have built more of a presence. When you fill out the application, there will almost always be a question asking why they should partner with you. This is where most beginners write one or two vague sentences and get rejected. Instead, treat it like a business plan. Tell them your experience with affiliate marketing and money online honestly. Then lay out, step by step, exactly how you plan to market their products. You can actually use the hook-story-offer formula from Step 4 as your template for explaining your marketing approach. The more detail you provide, the better your approval odds.

Step 3: Generate Content Ideas Before You Film Anything

Before you record a single video, you need a content bank. Alston’s approach is to write down ten bullet points for each of the following categories about your target audience: their pain points, their dreams, their goals, their challenges, and the things they are thinking but are afraid to say out loud. That is fifty content ideas before you even open your camera app.

In addition to your own brainstorm, follow ten to twenty accounts in your topic area that already have at least 10,000 followers. You are not going to copy them. You are going to study them. Pay attention to which hooks get the most views and comments, because hooks are the most important variable in whether a video performs or dies. You can also use those popular accounts to grow your own following faster. When their followers leave comments on posts that the original creator has not responded to, go answer two or three of those questions per day. You will start picking up followers who appreciate you engaging with them in a space the creator left empty.

For finding trending topics, look at what videos keep appearing on your For You page in the same topic area. You can also check Google Trends for what people are searching in real time. The goal is to publish three videos per day: one from your brainstormed list, one responding to a comment someone left on your videos, and one tied to a trending topic or idea. Three per day is the minimum that generates meaningful data quickly enough to learn from.

Step 4: Build Every Video Around Hook, Story, and Offer

Every single TikTok video you create should have exactly three components. The hook, the story, and the offer. Getting any one of these wrong means losing the viewer before the commission has a chance to happen.

The hook is an audio and visual combination designed to pull the viewer in and make them want to keep watching. You have three main options: a rhetorical question, a bold statement, or something the viewer is not expecting to see. Alston gives a specific example for the golf niche: “Are you tired of your friends out-driving you by 20 yards?” or “Are you tired of your friends laughing at you because you hit off the short tees?” If you use that hook, you could pair it visually with a shot of someone struggling to hit off the tee while friends laugh in the background. The hook creates a pattern interrupt. It makes the viewer stop scrolling.

The story is the middle section where you actually answer the question or pay off the bold statement. For the golf example, Alston suggests something like: “Here are three simple ways you can out-drive your friends on your next golf outing.” Then you deliver the three tips. Short, clear, and directly connected to the hook. No padding, no tangents.

The offer is the call to action at the end. It can be as simple as “follow for more,” “check out my free lead magnet on Instagram,” or “send me a DM if you have questions.” Early on, before you have a link in your bio, the offer is usually directing people to another platform where they can find your landing page or free resource. That brings us to Step 5.

Step 5: Convert Views into Affiliate Commissions

Here is where the actual money happens, and your strategy depends entirely on how many followers you have right now.

If you have fewer than 1,000 followers, TikTok will not let you add a link to your bio or your landing page. Your path is to send viewers off the platform. If you send them to YouTube, create one longer video on that channel that functions like a short webinar. Inside that video, reference your landing page and include the link in the YouTube description. The viewer goes from TikTok to YouTube to your landing page to your email list. That is the funnel. If you send them to Instagram instead, the same principle applies: have your landing page link in your Instagram bio so anyone who clicks through from TikTok can find it.

If you have more than 1,000 followers, put a direct link to your mailing list in your TikTok bio. This shortens the funnel considerably. Viewers can click directly from your profile to your email opt-in without leaving to a middle platform first. Alston is direct about the endgame here: if you want real affiliate marketing success, you need email marketing. The platform does not matter as much as owning a list of people who have given you permission to email them. That relationship is the difference between one-time clicks and recurring commissions.

Not sure which method or niche fits your current skills and situation?

Answer seven quick questions at finder.platformproof.com and get a personalized match for the income path that makes sense for where you are right now.

Method 2: The TikTok Shop Affiliate Program

The TikTok Shop affiliate program works differently from standard affiliate marketing. Instead of promoting products from an external website and driving traffic to a landing page, you create videos about products available directly inside the TikTok Shop and add a product button to the bottom of your video. When a viewer taps that button and completes a purchase, you earn a commission without ever needing to build an email list or a separate website.

The catch is the follower requirement. You need at least 5,000 followers to join, and your account also needs to be in good standing with recent upload activity. Alston wanted to test this method on one of his accounts, so he spent $100 to buy followers to reach the threshold. He is transparent about being new to this particular program and openly invited his audience to follow his progress.

His strategy for the TikTok Shop program is built around buying products from Amazon first, because the products sold in TikTok Shop are largely the same private-label items available on Amazon. The only difference is the brand name. A manufacturer sells the same product to multiple resellers who slap their own label on it. So you can buy the Amazon version, test it, film your content, and then link to the TikTok Shop version without misrepresenting anything. The product experience is identical.

For each product, Alston plans to create five videos:

An unboxing video showing the product straight out of the package
A first features video highlighting the main benefits and use cases
A second features video going deeper on a different angle or use case
A comparison video pitting the Amazon version against the TikTok Shop version side by side
A price comparison video showing what each platform charges for the same item

He plans to maintain the same three-videos-per-day publishing schedule. Technically, you can request free product samples through the TikTok Shop program, but if you are just starting out you will almost certainly be declined. Buying the products yourself is the realistic starting point until your account builds enough traction for brands to take you seriously.

Honest Drawbacks Before You Pick a Method

Both methods work. But neither is frictionless, and you should know the real obstacles before you commit your time.

With Method 1, the biggest friction point is the early funnel. Before you hit 1,000 followers, you are asking viewers to leave TikTok, find your YouTube or Instagram, and then get to your landing page. Every additional step you add to that journey loses people. Some will follow through. Many will not. That is not a reason to quit. It is a reason to make your hook-story-offer compelling enough that the people who do follow through are genuinely interested in what you have on the other end.

Email marketing also costs money. The platform Alston references in the video starts at $99 per month. That is not a huge number once you are generating commissions, but in the first few months before you have income coming in, it is a real monthly bill. Budget for it before you start so it does not surprise you.

With Method 2, the 5,000-follower requirement is a genuine barrier. Buying followers to bypass it, as Alston did, is a shortcut that carries real risk. Purchased followers are not real people and do not engage with your content. If TikTok’s algorithm notices a sudden spike of inactive accounts following you, it can suppress your organic reach. Alston was testing this openly and honestly with one account, not presenting it as the recommended path. Organic growth to 5,000 through consistent posting is slower but much more stable.

Three videos per day is also a real time commitment regardless of which method you choose. Factor in filming, editing, uploading, and engaging with comments, and you are looking at two to four hours per day depending on your production style. That is not a deal-breaker, but it is not passive either. TikTok affiliate marketing is active work, at least in the building phase.

Find Your X

TikTok affiliate marketing is one path to your first online income. But it is not the only path, and it is not right for everyone. If you are unsure whether this method fits your skills, your schedule, or your personality, there is a faster way to figure that out than guessing.

Head to finder.platformproof.com and answer seven short questions about what you already know, how much time you have, and what kind of work you actually want to do. The tool matches you to the income approach most likely to work for your specific situation. No generic advice. Just a honest match based on where you actually are right now.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a following to start TikTok affiliate marketing?

No. Alston made his first affiliate commission with fewer than 500 followers before TikTok even allowed links anywhere on the platform. The workaround was creating content that drove viewers to his personal website, where the affiliate offer lived. You do not need a big audience. You need a functional funnel and consistent content.

What affiliate program criteria should I look for?

Alston uses three filters. First, earnings per click of $2 or more, which tells you the program actually converts. Second, a commission rate of at least 10%. Third, a cookie window of at least seven days so late buyers still count toward your commission. Apply to at least five programs and expect some rejections, especially early on.

How do I get my affiliate application approved?

Most people write one vague sentence about why they want to be an affiliate and get rejected. Instead, treat the application like a real business plan. Explain your experience honestly. Then describe step by step how you plan to market their product, using the hook-story-offer formula as your framework. The more specific you are, the more seriously they take your application.

What exactly is the hook-story-offer formula?

Every TikTok video needs three parts. The hook is an audio and visual pattern interrupt at the start, either a rhetorical question, a bold statement, or something visually unexpected, that stops the viewer from scrolling. The story is the short middle section that actually answers or pays off the hook with useful content. The offer is the call to action at the end, telling the viewer what to do next, such as follow you, check your free resource, or send a DM.

How do I get people to my affiliate offer when I have under 1,000 followers?

Since TikTok does not allow a bio link until you reach 1,000 followers, your call to action sends viewers to YouTube or Instagram. On YouTube, create one longer video that works like a short webinar and include your landing page link in the description. On Instagram, put your landing page link in your bio. The viewer goes TikTok to YouTube or Instagram to your landing page to your email list, and then your email sequence closes the affiliate sale.

How is TikTok Shop affiliate different from regular affiliate marketing?

With standard affiliate marketing, you promote products from external websites and send traffic to a separate landing page. With TikTok Shop affiliate, the entire transaction happens inside TikTok. You add a product button to your video, the viewer taps it, purchases within the app, and you earn a commission. There is no email list required and no separate website needed. The trade-off is the 5,000-follower requirement to join the program at all.

Why does Alston recommend buying products from Amazon for TikTok Shop content?

Most TikTok Shop products are private-label items, meaning the same manufacturer produces the same product and sells it to multiple brands under different names. The Amazon version and the TikTok Shop version of a product are often identical except for the branding. Buying from Amazon lets you get the product in hand to review and film content without waiting on free sample approvals, which are very difficult to get when your account is new.

Is email marketing really necessary for affiliate success?

Alston says yes, clearly and directly. Social platforms change their algorithms, suppress accounts, and remove features without warning. Your TikTok following is rented audience. Your email list is an asset you own and control. When you have someone’s email address and their permission to contact them, you can promote affiliate offers on your schedule, not TikTok’s. That is the difference between sustainable affiliate income and income that disappears the next time a platform changes its rules.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “How to Make Money on TikTok (Affiliate Marketing Strategies)”, YouTube, alstongodbolt.com
TikTok Creator Marketplace: TikTok Shop affiliate program requirements and eligibility
Google Trends: google.com/trends for identifying trending content topics

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.