How To Promote Affiliate Links Through Email

Everyone tells you to build an email list. Podcasters, YouTubers, bloggers — they all say it. But the moment you actually have one, the advice dries up. What do you put in those emails? How often do you send them? And how do you bring up your affiliate links without sounding like a used car salesman?

This post walks through the exact method Alston Godbolt uses to promote affiliate links through email marketing. There are two types of emails you need to understand, one automated sequence that earns far more than any one-off send, and a day-by-day framework you can plug any product into. By the end you will know how to write emails that sell without feeling like you are selling.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear distinction between broadcast emails and autoresponder emails
Why autoresponders consistently earn more than one-off broadcast sends
The Soap Opera Sequence (also called the Moana Sequence) explained step by step
A day-by-day breakdown of a five-day affiliate email sequence
How to open and close story loops so readers keep coming back for the next email
Real examples using Bluehost, WordPress themes, and affiliate marketing courses
How to reuse the same sequence structure across every product you promote
Ready to find the right platform or product to promote first? Start at finder.platformproof.com

The Two Types of Affiliate Emails You Need to Know

Before you can write a single email, you have to understand that not all marketing emails are built the same. There are two distinct types, and they serve completely different purposes in an affiliate business.

The first type is the broadcast email. A broadcast is a one-off send that goes out to everyone on your list at the same time. You write it, you schedule it, and it goes out once. These are the emails you send when you have a new YouTube video published, a new blog post live, or a new affiliate product you want to recommend. If you have ever subscribed to a newsletter and received an email that said something like “hey, new video just dropped,” that was a broadcast. Broadcasts are useful for staying top of mind and sharing time-sensitive updates, but they are not where the majority of your affiliate income comes from.

The second type is the autoresponder email, and this is where the real money is made in affiliate marketing. An autoresponder is a sequence of emails you set up in advance inside your email marketing software. Whether you use GetResponse, AWeber, ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, or any other platform, the automation feature is what allows you to do this. Once a subscriber joins your list, the sequence kicks off automatically on a schedule you determine. Every new subscriber gets the same series of emails in the same order. You write them once and they work for you forever without any additional effort on your part.

The key difference is this: broadcasts require you to show up and write something every time you want to reach your list. Autoresponder sequences work whether you are at your desk, asleep, or traveling. That is why getting your autoresponder built correctly is one of the highest-return activities in affiliate marketing. Alston is direct about this in the video: when you do it correctly, autoresponder emails can bring you the most amount of money by far.

Why Autoresponders Earn More Than Broadcasts

A broadcast email catches people at whatever point they happen to be in their life when it lands. Maybe they are busy. Maybe they opened it on a distracted commute. The message gets read once and forgotten, and you have to start over the next time you send.

An autoresponder sequence is different because it meets subscribers at the moment of highest interest. When someone signs up for your list, they have just expressed curiosity about something specific. That is the moment they are most open. An autoresponder sequence lets you build on that curiosity over multiple days, deepening the relationship before you ever make a direct pitch. By the time the offer comes, the subscriber feels like they already know you.

Because the emails arrive in a planned order, you can structure them as a story. You can open questions in one email that only get answered in the next, pulling readers through the sequence the same way a well-paced TV show pulls you from episode to episode. This is the core of what Russell Brunson calls the Soap Opera Sequence, and it is the single most effective framework Alston recommends for promoting affiliate products by email.

The Soap Opera Sequence (Also Called the Moana Sequence)

Russell Brunson introduced the Soap Opera Sequence in his work on email marketing strategy, and Alston has adapted it into something he calls the Moana Sequence or the Disney Princess Sequence. The name comes from how Disney tells stories.

Think about Moana. She lives on a beautiful island, life is decent, but something is missing. The fish are gone, the island is dying. She realizes she has to go out and restore the heart of Te Fiti. The journey she takes is never a straight line. She runs into the demigod Maui, a massive crab named Tamatoa, and finally a lava monster guarding her destination. Every obstacle she overcomes is followed by a new one. That structure is why you cannot stop watching.

Your email sequence works the same way. You are Moana. The product you are promoting is the heart of Te Fiti. And the obstacles you describe along the way are the real experiences that your reader recognizes because they are going through the same thing. The journey is the trust-builder. The product is the resolution.

The technical name for what keeps readers opening email after email is the loop. In each email, you open a loop by raising a question or hinting at a problem that has not been solved yet. You close the previous email’s loop but immediately open a new one. Because the reader’s mind cannot rest on an open question, they feel compelled to open the next email to find out what happens. By the time you make your affiliate offer, they already trust you because you have walked them through a genuine, relatable journey.

Day-by-Day: How a Five-Day Soap Opera Sequence Works

Here is how a five-day sequence looks when built out in practice. Alston uses the example of promoting Bluehost web hosting throughout the video, but this structure can be applied to any affiliate product.

Day One: Set the Stage

The very first email does two things: it introduces who you are, and it opens the first story loop. You do not start by pitching anything.

You welcome the subscriber and tell them what kind of content they are going to receive from you. Then you open the loop. In the Bluehost example, day one might go something like this: “Thanks for joining my email list. Over the next few days I want to share the exact path I took to get my blog up and running. It was not a clean ride. I tried three different platforms before I found something that actually worked. If you have been frustrated trying to figure this out, you are not alone.” The subscriber now has a question they want answered: what platforms did you try, and why did they fail? They will open tomorrow’s email to find out. That is the loop working. Day one plants the seed without resolving anything.

Day Two: Hit the First Brick Wall

Day two closes the loop from day one and opens a new, bigger one. This is where you tell them about the first real obstacle. Not a vague difficulty — a specific, named failure with a clear consequence.

In the Bluehost example, day two might read like this: “Yesterday I mentioned I tried three platforms before finding what worked. Here is where it started. I wanted to become a professional blogger and make $10,000 a month. So I started researching free options. I found Medium. I spent weeks writing blog posts on Medium, ten posts total, and then I got an email from them. Medium told me I could not include affiliate links. My account was at risk of being suspended. All of that work, and I had to start from zero.” That is the brick wall. Then the day two loop opens: now you are back at the drawing board — and the reader wants to know where you went from there.

Day Three: Another Dead End

Day three closes the day two loop and opens a third one. The story is still not resolved. You ran into another obstacle before getting to the answer.

Continuing the example: “After Medium, I tried Wix. People said Wix was beginner-friendly and I could have a site up in minutes. That part was true. But when I started adding affiliate links, my Wix account got flagged too. Back to the drawing board again. At that point I figured I needed to invest some money into a paid platform, so I tried Squarespace. They marketed it as done-for-you, an all-in-one solution. But as I started building, I realized the features I actually needed required a higher-tier plan. The monthly cost was climbing fast, and I still did not have full control over my site the way I needed.” Loop three is now open: where did you go after Squarespace let you down?

Day Four: The Solution Appears

Day four is where you finally resolve the story arc by introducing the product. This is where the pitch lives, and because the reader has followed three days of real obstacles, the solution feels like genuine relief rather than a sales pitch. You have earned this moment.

In the Bluehost example: “After Squarespace, I went back to researching web hosting. I looked at a few providers but kept reading about poor customer support and security problems. Then I found Bluehost. Here is what changed for me. First, I was able to install WordPress in under 20 minutes. Second, I got a free domain name for the first year — a real personalized URL, not something ending in dot wix dot com or dot medium dot com. My own domain. Third, the customer support was actually helpful when I got stuck.” You can include your affiliate link here and begin building toward the close, but you do not go full urgency yet. That comes on day five.

Day Five: Make the Offer with Urgency

Day five closes the sequence and creates real urgency around taking action today rather than waiting indefinitely. This is where you make the direct offer and attach a meaningful reason to act now.

In the Bluehost example: “Look, I wasted months testing platforms that did not work for affiliate marketing. You do not have to repeat that. If you want to get your blog set up the right way, I recommend starting with Bluehost today. And if you get started this week, I will personally walk you through the setup in a step-by-step training. This training is not available anywhere else online. I will show you exactly how to install WordPress, how to pick your domain name, and how to publish your first blog post by the end of the day. But this only makes sense if you act now, because I am only offering this training to people who get started this week.” That is the complete offer. Five days, one product, one sequence — and the entire thing runs automatically for every new subscriber who joins your list, forever.

Opening and Closing Loops: The Core Mechanic

The loop mechanic is the engine that makes the Soap Opera Sequence work, and it is worth understanding it clearly so you can apply it on purpose rather than by accident.

The simple rule: end every email before the problem is fully resolved. Give just enough to satisfy the question from the previous email, then introduce a new unresolved situation before you sign off. Think of it the way a well-written TV drama handles episode endings. A good episode does not resolve everything. It ends right before the most interesting moment. “I tried Squarespace and it almost worked, but then something unexpected happened. I will tell you about it tomorrow.” Your reader’s curiosity does the rest of the work. They open the next email because they cannot stand leaving that question unanswered.

What makes the loops work in practice is that they mirror actual human experience. No one gets from point A to point B in a straight line. Your reader knows this from their own life. When you describe your zigzag path — the free tools that failed, the paid tools that disappointed, the time wasted, the money spent — they recognize it. They see themselves in your story. That recognition is what builds trust faster than any list of product features ever could. You are not just a person recommending a product. You are someone who went through what they are going through right now.

How to Apply This Sequence to Any Affiliate Product

One of the most practical aspects of the Soap Opera Sequence is that the structure is not tied to any single product or niche. Once you understand it, you can apply it to any affiliate product you promote, and you can stack multiple sequences together to build a longer automated campaign that promotes several products in sequence.

Say you finish the five-day Bluehost sequence. Your subscriber now has web hosting. But maybe they look at their new WordPress site and it is plain and unappealing. That is the opening for a new sequence about premium WordPress themes. Day one of the new sequence: “Now that I had my hosting and WordPress installed, I ran into my next problem. My site looked terrible. The default theme was bland, and everything I tried to fix it made it look worse.” You have opened a new loop and the framework repeats itself with a new product as the solution.

After the theme sequence, you can roll into a sequence about an affiliate marketing course. “I had hosting. I had a good-looking site. But I still did not actually know how to make money from it.” The same structure, a new chapter in a longer story. The key insight Alston shares in the video is that each product you promote occupies one chapter in a journey the subscriber is already on. You are their guide at each stage, and every time you solve one problem for them, there is naturally a next problem to address.

You do not have to limit yourself to five days. Alston mentions in the video that you can run a three-day sequence, a five-day sequence, or longer depending on the product and how much story there is to tell honestly. Higher-ticket products generally warrant longer sequences because the subscriber needs more trust established before they are ready to invest more money. Lower-ticket products with a simpler buying decision can often close in three days without leaving anything important out.

Not sure which product or platform to promote first?

Answer a few questions about your skills and audience at finder.platformproof.com and get a clear recommendation built for your specific situation.

Honest Drawbacks of the Soap Opera Sequence

The Soap Opera Sequence is a proven framework, but it comes with real requirements that catch beginners off guard.

First, it requires a genuine story. If you have never actually used the product you are promoting, the sequence falls apart quickly. Readers can tell the difference between a story drawn from experience and one invented to fit a framework. If you are promoting Bluehost but you have never touched it, you cannot honestly write about the moment Wix shut down your account or the specific relief you felt when WordPress installed in 20 minutes. You have to have skin in the game. The sequence is a story framework, not a fiction-writing tool.

Second, it takes meaningful time upfront. You are writing five or more emails before a single subscriber reads a single word. For someone just starting out, that is a real investment of time before you see any return. The payoff is that once it is built, it runs on its own indefinitely. But the upfront cost is real and should be planned for.

Third, the sequence assumes subscribers read every email in order. In practice, email open rates typically run somewhere between 20 and 40 percent depending on your list and niche. Some subscribers will miss an email or two and arrive at day four without context for what happened on day two. This is not a dealbreaker, but it is worth writing each email to make reasonable sense on its own, even if the previous one was not opened. Think of the sequence as a TV show where someone might have missed last week’s episode.

Fourth, the automation feature that powers autoresponder sequences is not always available on free tiers of email marketing software. Platforms like GetResponse and AWeber both offer this, but free accounts on some platforms limit the number of automations or the list size before automation becomes available. Budget for a paid plan from the start if you are serious about building sequences.

Step Plan: Build Your First Soap Opera Sequence

Choose one affiliate product you have personally used and can honestly speak about from experience.
Write down three real obstacles you ran into before finding that product. Be specific — name the platforms you tried, the money or time you lost, the emails you received telling you something was not working.
Outline five email topics: day one (set the stage and open the first loop), day two (first obstacle and brick wall), day three (second obstacle and back to the drawing board), day four (solution introduced and soft pitch), day five (direct offer with a real reason to act today).
Write each email to end on an unresolved question that will only be answered in the next one. The cliffhanger does not need to be dramatic — it just needs to leave something genuinely open.
Load all five emails into your autoresponder software and set the delivery schedule to one email per day starting from the moment of signup.
Test the sequence yourself by subscribing from a secondary email address and reading all five emails from the subscriber’s perspective. Fix anything that feels forced or disconnected.
Turn on your lead generation and let the automation run. Check open rates and click rates weekly. Rewrite subject lines on any email with an open rate below 25 percent before assuming the offer or content is the problem.

Find Your X

Email sequences are only as good as the product at the end of them. If you are not clear on what to promote, the first step is figuring out which platform or product actually fits your situation, your skills, and the audience you are building. Sending people to the wrong thing will damage your open rates and your credibility, and there is no sequence structure that can fix a product mismatch.

Alston built finder.platformproof.com to solve this specific problem. Answer a few questions about what you are already doing online, what skills you have, and what kind of income you are trying to build, and the tool will point you toward the product or platform most likely to convert for your specific situation. Then you can build your Soap Opera Sequence around something you can honestly recommend and stand behind.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many emails should a soap opera sequence have?

Alston uses five days as the standard, but the range is flexible depending on the product and audience. Three days works for lower-ticket products where the buying decision is simpler and trust can be built faster. Seven to ten days works for higher-ticket products where the subscriber needs more time to develop confidence. The right length is however many emails it takes to tell a complete and honest story with enough obstacles that the solution feels genuinely earned.

What is the difference between a broadcast and an autoresponder?

A broadcast is a one-time email sent to your whole list at once, useful for news, new content, or timely offers. An autoresponder is a pre-written sequence that triggers automatically when someone subscribes. Autoresponders reach every new subscriber in order without you writing anything new, which is what makes them far more scalable than broadcast-only strategies.

Do I have to use the Bluehost example from the video?

No. The Bluehost example is a template to illustrate the structure, not a blueprint you have to copy. The same sequence works for any affiliate product: online courses, software subscriptions, physical products, financial tools, or any other category. Swap out the product and the specific obstacles, and the framework stays intact. What matters is that your obstacles are real and your solution is genuine.

What email marketing software should I use for autoresponders?

Alston mentions GetResponse and AWeber in the video as platforms that support automation sequences. ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, and MailerLite are also solid options that affiliate marketers commonly use. The specific platform matters less than confirming the one you choose supports automation sequences on the pricing tier you can afford. Check before you commit to any plan.

Can I promote multiple affiliate products in one sequence?

Yes, and Alston specifically recommends this approach. Each product gets its own mini-sequence, and you chain them together in your autoresponder. Finish one five-day sequence promoting web hosting, then immediately begin a new sequence about a premium WordPress theme, then another about an affiliate marketing course. Each sequence is a chapter in a longer subscriber journey. The trick is making sure each new sequence follows naturally from where the previous one left off.

What if I have never used the product I want to promote?

This is a real problem specifically with the Soap Opera Sequence. The framework relies on authentic personal story. If you have not used the product, you cannot honestly describe the moment you discovered it or the specific results you saw. The options are: use the product first before building the sequence, choose a different product you already have experience with, or write a sequence from a perspective that is honest about what you know (such as reviewing it as a researcher rather than a user). Fabricating personal experience destroys trust quickly and permanently with anyone who checks your claims.

Where does the affiliate link go in the sequence?

You can include the link subtly starting on day four when you introduce the solution, and then more directly on day five when you make the full offer. Some email marketers also include a soft link in the day two and day three emails where it fits naturally — something like “if you want to skip the mistakes I made and go straight to what worked, here is the link.” The key is not forcing it into places where it interrupts the story. The link should appear as a natural continuation of the narrative, not a detour from it.

How do I make the day five offer feel genuine and not pushy?

The urgency on day five needs to be tied to something real. A bonus you are personally offering for a limited time. A live training happening this week. A price increase the product is about to go through. Made-up scarcity — “this offer expires in 24 hours” when it does not — damages your credibility with anyone who comes back a week later and finds the same offer still open. Build real reasons to act today, and if you cannot find a real reason, do not manufacture a fake one. A genuine offer without a deadline will often outperform a dishonest deadline.

Sources

YouTube: “How To Promote Affiliate Links Through Email 2022” by Alston Godbolt — youtu.be/1NHs5ncoRI0
Russell Brunson, DotCom Secrets — origin of the Soap Opera Sequence framework referenced in the video
Email marketing platforms mentioned: GetResponse, AWeber
Affiliate products discussed as examples: Bluehost web hosting, premium WordPress themes, affiliate marketing courses