What Is Affiliate Marketing and How to Get Started

Most people who hear “affiliate marketing” picture someone in a headset selling energy drinks to teenagers. That is not what this is. Affiliate marketing is simply connecting customers to products with your content. You answer questions people are already searching for, and when those people buy through your link, you earn a commission. No inventory. No customer service calls. No product to ship.

In this video, Alston breaks it down using one physical product as a case study: a lavalier microphone you can find on TikTok Shop. By the end of this post you will understand exactly how affiliate marketing works, why content creators are built for it, and the specific funnel strategy Alston teaches every student and client he works with.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A plain-English definition of affiliate marketing that you can actually explain at dinner
The exact mechanism: how a piece of content turns into a commission
Which platforms host affiliate programs you can join today (including free ones)
The five content types that drive affiliate sales
The funnel strategy Alston teaches: start at the bottom, work your way up
Why bottom-of-funnel content is easier to win even when you are brand new
A step-by-step plan for publishing your first affiliate piece of content
A free tool to match your current skills to the right online income path at finder.platformproof.com

Affiliate Marketing in Plain English

Here is the one-sentence definition Alston uses: affiliate marketing is connecting customers to products with your content. That is the whole model. Three moving parts. A customer who has a problem. A product or service that solves the problem. And content you create that sits between those two things and makes the introduction.

When a customer clicks your affiliate link and buys, the retailer pays you a percentage. You never handle money directly. You never ship anything. You never staff a support inbox. Your job is to create the content. The retailer handles everything downstream.

This is why affiliate marketing is so well-suited to people who already make content online. If you have a TikTok channel, a YouTube channel, a blog, or even an active Instagram account, you already have the distribution channel. You just need to point it at products your audience genuinely needs.

The Microphone Example: How It Works in the Real World

To make this concrete, Alston uses a lavalier microphone he found on TikTok Shop as his running example throughout the video. A lavalier mic is a small clip-on microphone people use to get better audio on their videos. It is a physical product with a clear use case: you want to make better TikTok or YouTube content, and your phone’s built-in microphone is not cutting it.

Now imagine you are an affiliate marketer who creates content around TikTok and video creation. You pick up that lavalier mic, you become an affiliate for a retailer that carries it, and you start creating content that helps people who are looking for exactly that product. Every time someone watches your video or reads your blog post and clicks through to buy, you earn a commission.

The customer wins because they found a trusted recommendation. The retailer wins because they got a sale they might not have found otherwise. You win because you earn a cut for making that introduction. Everyone gets something.

Where to Find Affiliate Programs

One of the most common questions new affiliate marketers ask is: where do I actually sign up? The answer is that almost every major retailer has a free affiliate program you can join. Alston specifically names Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, and Target in this video. Those four alone cover the vast majority of physical products on the market.

Amazon’s affiliate program is called Amazon Associates and it is probably the easiest to get started with. You sign up, you get a unique tracking link for any product in their catalog, and you earn a commission when someone buys through that link. Best Buy, Walmart, and Target run similar programs through affiliate networks. TikTok Shop also has its own creator affiliate program built directly into the platform, which is especially useful if TikTok is your primary content channel.

Beyond those big-box retailers, there are affiliate programs for software products, digital courses, financial services, travel, fashion, and almost every other vertical you can think of. The key is to choose products that are genuinely relevant to the audience you are already building content for.

The Content Types That Drive Affiliate Sales

Alston identifies several specific types of content that consistently work for affiliate marketing. Each one maps to a different kind of buyer. Understanding all of them is how you build a content strategy instead of just publishing random posts and hoping something sticks.

Reviews, unboxings, and first impressions. These target people who already know what product they want and are looking for one final confirmation before they buy. If someone searches “lavalier microphone review,” they are very close to purchasing. Your job is to give them an honest, detailed take on the product.

Comparisons. Alston specifically uses the example of his lavalier mic versus a Road wireless microphone. When someone searches “lavalier mic vs Road wireless,” they have narrowed their choices down to two options and want help deciding. Comparison content works because it meets the buyer at exactly that decision point.

Alternatives content. “Five best alternatives to [product name]” is a search query that shows up constantly. Some buyers have already decided they do not want the obvious market leader and are looking for something different. Alternatives articles capture that traffic.

Best X for Y lists. These are the classic affiliate content format. “Best microphone for TikTok videos.” “Best lavalier mic for podcasting.” “Best microphone for outdoor content.” Each of these queries represents a buyer who knows what problem they have and wants a curated recommendation. These posts can rank for multiple products and earn commissions from many different links in the same piece of content.

Best X under a price point. Alston mentions “best microphones under $100” as a specific example. Price-gated searches attract buyers who have a firm budget constraint. A list post that filters by price is immediately useful to that reader, which means higher trust and higher conversion rates on the affiliate links you include.

The Affiliate Funnel: Why Alston Starts at the Bottom

The single most tactical thing in this video is Alston’s funnel framework, and it is the opposite of what most new affiliate marketers do instinctively. Most beginners want to create broad, high-traffic content first. Alston teaches his students and clients to do the opposite: start at the bottom and work your way up.

The bottom of the funnel is where people are searching the name of a specific product plus review, unboxing, or first impression. These are buyers who already know they have a problem, already know the category of solution, and have often already picked the product they want. They are looking for confirmation. The pool of people searching is smaller, but the percentage who are ready to buy is much higher. That means less competition for your content and better conversion rates on your links.

As you move up the funnel, the audience gets larger but also more diffuse. “How to monetize TikTok” gets searched far more often than “[specific mic name] review,” but most of those searchers are nowhere near a purchase decision. They need more education first. That content is harder to write, harder to rank for, and converts to affiliate sales more slowly.

Starting at the bottom gives you wins faster, teaches you what your audience actually responds to, and builds the credibility you need before you tackle the more competitive, top-of-funnel topics.

Bottom of Funnel: Reviews, Unboxings, and First Impressions

This is step one in Alston’s framework. You create content around the product name plus words like review, unboxing, or first impression. If you are using the lavalier microphone example, your first piece of content might be “Lavalier Mic [Model Name] Review: Is It Worth It for TikTok?”

The person searching that query already knows the product exists. They have already done their initial research. They are on the final step of their decision. Your content just needs to answer the question they already have: should I buy this or not? Give them an honest answer, show them the product in use if you can, and include your affiliate link in a natural way. That is the whole job at this stage.

These posts also tend to have low competition because they are so specific. Fewer creators bother to target a precise product name search, which means you have a real shot at ranking even without a huge existing audience.

Middle of Funnel: Comparisons and Alternatives

Once you have some bottom-of-funnel content live, you move up a step. Comparison content pits two products against each other. Alston’s example: his lavalier mic versus the Road wireless microphone. The buyer who searches that query is considering both options and wants someone to do the side-by-side work for them.

Good comparison content is direct. You pick a winner, you explain why, and you acknowledge what the losing option is still good for. Wishy-washy comparisons that refuse to make a recommendation are not useful to the reader and tend not to convert well on affiliate links. People come to these posts wanting a decision made easier, not more complicated.

Alternatives content works similarly. “Five best alternatives to [product name]” captures the buyer who has already ruled out the market leader and wants to see what else exists. These posts are useful because you can include affiliate links for multiple products in a single article. You are essentially giving the reader a curated shortlist instead of sending them back to a cold product page.

Upper-Middle Funnel: Best X for Y and Price Lists

“Best microphone for TikTok videos” is a different kind of search than a product review. The buyer here knows their use case but has not committed to a product yet. They want someone to do the research and hand them a ranked list. This is slightly higher up the funnel than a direct product review, but these buyers are still close enough to purchasing that affiliate content converts well.

Price-point lists take a similar approach but filter by budget instead of use case. “Best microphones under $100” tells you immediately that the buyer has a firm ceiling. A well-organized list post that respects that constraint and includes honest recommendations at different price points within that range is immediately valuable. You can include affiliate links for several products and earn commissions from whichever one the reader picks.

These formats also have strong longevity. A “best microphones under $100” article can stay relevant for a long time with minor updates, continuing to earn commissions long after you published it.

Top of Funnel: How-To and Monetization Content

The top of the funnel is where Alston ends, not where he begins. “How to start a TikTok channel and monetize it” is a broad, high-traffic question with millions of potential readers. But most of those readers are at the very beginning of their journey. They are not ready to buy a specific mic yet. They are still figuring out if they want to do TikTok at all.

The affiliate opportunity at this level is to embed product recommendations naturally inside a broader educational piece. You lay out a step-by-step plan for monetizing TikTok, one of the steps is “create quality content,” and inside that step you explain that good audio makes a major difference, which gives you a natural place to recommend the lavalier mic with an affiliate link.

This works, but it is harder to pull off well than bottom-of-funnel content. The competition is higher, the buyer intent per reader is lower, and you need to earn trust across a long article before the product recommendation lands. That is why Alston saves it for later, after you have built your chops at the lower levels of the funnel.

Not sure which online income model fits your situation?

Take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com and get a match based on your skills, schedule, and goals in under two minutes.

You Do Not Have to Be a Salesperson

One thing Alston is explicit about in the video: you do not have to be sleazy, slimy, or a salesperson to do affiliate marketing well. The whole model works because you are answering questions people are already asking. When someone searches “best lavalier mic for TikTok,” they want an answer. They are not waiting to be sold to. They already decided they need a microphone. Your job is to help them pick the right one.

Think about the last time you looked something up before buying. You were searching across Google, YouTube, maybe TikTok. The person who made the video you watched or the article you read helped you decide. That is affiliate marketing. You were the customer. The creator earned a commission when you bought. Nobody felt tricked or pressured because the content was genuinely useful.

That framing changes how you approach the work. You are not a commission-chasing sales rep. You are a researcher who happens to get paid when your recommendations lead to purchases. That is a fundamentally different posture, and it shows up in the quality of the content you create.

Step-by-Step Plan to Start Your First Affiliate Content

Here is a concrete starting plan based on what Alston teaches. Each step is small enough to complete in a single session.

Pick one product in a niche you already know. Do not start by trying to find the highest-commission product. Start with something you have used or understand well enough to explain honestly.
Sign up for one affiliate program that carries that product. Amazon Associates is the fastest to set up. If the product is available on Amazon, that is your starting point. Get your affiliate link before you create any content.
Create one piece of bottom-of-funnel content. Write a review, film an unboxing, or record a first impressions video. Be honest. Cover the actual experience of using the product, not just the marketing copy from the product page.
Publish it on a platform your target buyer uses. Google searches favor blog posts and YouTube videos. TikTok and Instagram favor short-form video. Pick the format your audience is already searching on.
Include your affiliate link with a clear disclosure. FTC guidelines require you to disclose when you have an affiliate relationship with a product. A simple “this post contains affiliate links” at the top is sufficient and builds trust with your audience anyway.
Create one comparison or alternatives piece next. Use what you learned from step three to write a comparison of your product versus a close competitor, or put together a list of the best alternatives. This is your first step up the funnel.
Repeat and expand. Add a “best X for Y” article. Add a price-point list. Eventually work up to broader how-to content that embeds your product recommendations naturally. Each piece you add creates another path for buyers to find your affiliate links.

Honest Drawbacks Worth Knowing Before You Start

Affiliate marketing is a real income model, but it has real constraints too. Being honest about them upfront saves you a lot of frustration later.

It takes time to see results. Content-based affiliate marketing is not a fast income source. You need to publish content, let it index or gain traction, and build enough traffic before your commissions add up to anything meaningful. Most people who quit early quit because they expected faster results than the model actually delivers.

Commission rates vary widely. Physical product programs like Amazon Associates pay relatively low percentages, often in the single digits. Digital products and software programs can pay much higher commissions but are more competitive to rank for. Knowing the commission structure before you invest time in content helps you prioritize the right products.

You are dependent on the retailer’s program terms. Amazon, for example, has changed its commission structure multiple times over the years. If your income is tied to one program and that program cuts rates, your revenue drops overnight. Diversifying across multiple affiliate programs gives you more stability.

The bottom-of-funnel strategy helps here. Because you are starting with specific, buyer-ready searches, you do not need massive traffic to earn your first commissions. Even a small trickle of the right visitors converts better than a flood of people who are not close to buying.

Find Your X

Affiliate marketing is one of several ways working adults are earning their first real income online. It is well-suited to people who already create content, have deep knowledge in a specific niche, or like research and writing. But it is not the right fit for everyone.

If you want to know which online income model matches your actual skills, schedule, and situation, the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com gives you a specific match in under two minutes. No email required to see your result.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a website to do affiliate marketing?

No. You can publish affiliate content on YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, or a blog. A website gives you more control and better long-term SEO positioning, but it is not a prerequisite to getting started. Many successful affiliate marketers started on a single platform they already used before building out a website later.

How much does it cost to start affiliate marketing?

It can cost nothing if you already have a device to create content and use free platforms. The main investment is time. If you want to speed things up, you might invest in basic equipment like a microphone or lighting, a domain and hosting for a website, or tools to help with keyword research. None of these are required to publish your first piece of content.

How long before I see my first commission?

This depends entirely on how much content you publish, which platforms you use, and how well the content matches buyer searches. Some people earn their first commission within weeks on TikTok Shop where content can get traction quickly. Others using SEO-focused blog posts may wait several months before organic traffic picks up. There is no universal timeline, but consistent output shortens the wait significantly.

Do I need to disclose that I’m an affiliate?

Yes. FTC guidelines in the United States require disclosure whenever you have a material connection to a product you are recommending, which includes earning a commission. The disclosure needs to be clear and prominent, not buried in fine print. A simple sentence at the top of a blog post or at the beginning of a video is the standard approach and also tends to build trust with your audience.

What niche should I pick for affiliate marketing?

Start with a niche you already know something about. The mistake most beginners make is chasing high-commission niches they have no experience in. If you have to fake expertise or rely entirely on recycled product descriptions, your content will not stand out from the thousands of other affiliate articles on the same topic. Genuine knowledge makes your reviews and comparisons more useful, which means more people trust your recommendations and click your links.

Is affiliate marketing still worth starting in 2025?

Yes, because the fundamental behavior it relies on has not changed: people search for product recommendations before they buy. They do this on Google, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and every other platform. As long as people buy things online and research those purchases first, there is a role for honest affiliate content. The platforms change. The content formats evolve. The underlying dynamic does not.

What is TikTok Shop’s affiliate program and how does it differ?

TikTok Shop has a built-in affiliate system where creators can pick products directly from the app and earn a commission when viewers buy through their content. The difference from programs like Amazon Associates is that the entire purchase happens inside TikTok, which removes friction for the buyer. Alston uses a lavalier microphone from TikTok Shop as his main example in this video, which shows how naturally the platform fits the affiliate marketing model for product-focused content creators.

What is the difference between affiliate marketing and dropshipping?

In affiliate marketing, you send buyers to someone else’s store and earn a commission on what they buy. You never touch the product, handle payments, or manage returns. In dropshipping, you run your own store, collect payment from the customer, and have a supplier ship the order. Dropshipping involves more operational complexity and customer service responsibility. Affiliate marketing trades a lower revenue percentage for dramatically simpler operations.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, “What is affiliate marketing and how to get started,” YouTube, youtu.be/_vxmNy7dHEs
Amazon Associates affiliate program: affiliate-program.amazon.com
TikTok Shop creator affiliate program: seller-us.tiktok.com/university/article (Creator affiliate overview)
FTC Endorsement Guides (disclosure requirements): ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking