Is affiliate marketing worth it in 2025?

In 2024, U.S. affiliate marketing ad spending jumped by over $1 billion, growing from $9.56 billion in 2023 to $10.72 billion. By 2028, it’s expected to hit $15 billion, according to emarketer.com.

​​This means brands are investing heavily in affiliate programs, creating new opportunities to make money online for beginner affiliate marketers like you.

This article covers the pros and cons of the industry – and, more importantly, how much you can earn – to help you decide whether affiliate marketing is worth your time and effort.

Is affiliate marketing profitable?

Given the low startup costs, the wide range of partnership options, and the easy scalability, it’s not hard to see why affiliate marketing can be profitable for budding entrepreneurs.

Beginner affiliate marketers can work their way up to earning $1,000 per month within the first year, while seasoned professionals can make over $100,000 per month.

Affiliate marketers make money by earning fees for or commissions on generated leads or completed sales of the products or services they promote. The process is straightforward:

1. Find an affiliate program in your niche
2. Create a platform to promote products
3. Publish content with affiliate links
4. Someone clicks your affiliate link
5. They make a purchase or complete an action
6. You earn a commission
7. Find ways to scale your earnings

Successful case studies in affiliate marketing

These success stories prove that affiliate marketing can be highly profitable, even for those starting with little money or no experience.

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner

Michelle Schroeder-Gardner is a personal finance blogger who founded Making Sense of Cents to share money-saving tips and to document her journey of paying off student loan debt. She successfully monetized her blog through affiliate marketing, recommending financial products and services that align with her audience’s interests.

Results: Michelle has earned over $4 million from her business, with around half coming from affiliate marketing. Her monthly earnings have exceeded $100,000 at peak times.

Spencer Mecham

Spencer Mecham is a digital entrepreneur who has achieved remarkable success in affiliate marketing, focusing on promoting software and online business tools.

Spencer points out that many assume making hundreds of thousands of dollars without a Ph.D. is impossible, but his success in affiliate marketing proves that with the right approach, virtually anyone can achieve similar results.

Results: Spencer became the first ClickFunnels affiliate to earn over $1 million in commissions and has built multiple six-figure affiliate businesses.

Priscilla Lopez

Priscilla Lopez is a TikTok creator who turned to affiliate marketing after being laid off during the pandemic. In 2023, she began sharing budget-friendly home-cooking and lifestyle content, using the TikTok Shop affiliate program to monetize her videos.

By featuring kitchen gadgets, meal-prep tools, and home essentials, she built a dedicated audience interested in affordable solutions for everyday life.

Results: Earned $77,948 in her first year, and was able to help her family pay off $10,000 in credit card debt.

Pros and cons of affiliate marketing

The affiliate marketing industry offers great earning potential with low risk, but it also presents challenges. Below, we’ve listed some pros and cons to keep in mind before getting started.

Pros of affiliate marketing

These are the top reasons why trying affiliate marketing is worth it.

• Low startup costs. Affiliate marketing is one of the most affordable online businesses to start. Unlike ecommerce or dropshipping, there’s no need to buy inventory or manage a physical or digital supply chain. All you need is a website or social media presence to promote affiliate links.
• Potential for passive income. Once your content ranks highly on search engine results pages (SERPs) and gets steady traffic, it can keep earning commissions with little ongoing effort. Well-optimized content can generate traffic for months or even years, driving consistent visitors and creating a steady income stream over time.
• Scalability. You’re not limited to a single product, niche, or affiliate program. Affiliate marketers can scale their earnings by promoting multiple products and testing different strategies, often without significantly increasing their workloads.
• Flexibility and freedom. You decide when and where to work. Whether you commit a few hours a week or go full-time, you can shape your business around your lifestyle.
• No customer service responsibilities. You only need to focus on marketing. There’s no need to deal with customer inquiries, complaints, or support issues.
• Multiple promotional channels. Affiliate marketers can earn through websites, social media, and YouTube, with websites offering the biggest earning potential. A survey from AuthorityHacker shows that 74% of U.S. internet consumers visit websites before making a purchase.

Cons of affiliate marketing

While affiliate marketing is a great way for beginners to start making money online, here are some key challenges to consider.

• Long-term commitment. It can take months or even years to see a profit. Affiliate marketers with less than three years of experience are often still considered beginners.
• High competition. Since affiliate marketing requires no previous experience or significant budget, it attracts a lot of people, making it hard to stand out. Popular and profitable niches such as education, travel, and beauty are especially crowded, leading to intense competition for visibility and customers.
• Commission dependency. As an affiliate, your earnings are entirely dependent on the fee or commission structure set by the advertiser. Merchants can reduce commissions, change payout terms, or even discontinue their programs at any time.
• SEO challenges. Ranking on Google is tough and subject to constant change. Google implements an estimated 500 to 600 algorithm updates per year, often leading to unexpected drops in ranking. This makes it challenging for affiliate marketers to maintain steady traffic and income from search engines.

Is affiliate marketing suitable for you?

We’ve analyzed top affiliate marketers across various industries, including Pat Flynn, Neil Patel, Abby Lawson, John Chow, and Adam Enfroy, to identify the key traits that contribute to long-term success.

Below, we’ve outlined these common characteristics to help you decide if you’re suited to affiliate marketing.

Passion for blogging or content creation

Successful affiliate marketers love creating content, and see it as an opportunity to educate and connect with their audiences.

Pat Flynn discovered his passion for blogging after realizing that thousands of people were using his site as a study resource for the LEED certification exam for green building. Seeing how valuable his content was to others inspired him to dive deeper into content creation and online business.

Willingness to adapt to audience needs and SEO challenges

Affiliate marketing evolves constantly due to algorithm updates, commission structure changes, and shifting consumer behaviors.

Neil Patel has remained successful by continuously adapting to SEO trends, leveraging data analytics, and diversifying his traffic sources. His ability to adjust strategies in response to search engine updates and audience needs has helped him stay ahead in the highly competitive digital marketing space.

Familiarity with the niche

Abby Lawson, founder of Just a Girl and Her Blog, built a successful affiliate business in the home organization niche. She leveraged her passion and expertise to create content on space optimization, home décor, and productivity.

Her authentic approach helped her cultivate a dedicated audience and monetize her blog through affiliate marketing, recommending products she genuinely uses and trusts.

Ability to compete in crowded niches

Adam Enfroy is an example of an affiliate marketer who has succeeded in the highly competitive blogging and online business niche. Rather than following the traditional approach of building a blog slowly over many years, he used aggressive SEO strategies, high-quality content, and strategic partnerships to scale his site quickly.

Despite the blogging and digital marketing space being incredibly saturated, Adam was able to generate over $1.5 million in affiliate revenue, as disclosed in his 2021 blog income report.

Tips to start a successful affiliate marketing website

Now that we’ve covered the profitability and pros and cons of affiliate marketing, it’s time to focus on how to build and grow a successful affiliate marketing website. Here are strategies to guide you in starting and scaling your affiliate business effectively.

Build a great affiliate marketing website

A successful affiliate marketing website needs to be fast, secure, and scalable. This starts with two key elements: a brandable domain name and a reliable hosting provider.

Choose a brandable domain name

Your domain name should be unique, memorable, and relevant to your niche. A well-chosen domain leaves a lasting impression on visitors and reinforces your brand identity.

A great example is Michelle Schroeder-Gardner’s website, Making Sense of Cents. The name is catchy, easy to remember, and cleverly plays on the word “cents,” reinforcing its financial theme.

Invest in reliable hosting

A strong domain name is just the first step. To ensure your website loads quickly and runs smoothly, you need a reliable hosting provider.

Hostinger is an excellent choice for beginner affiliate marketers because of our affordable plans, user-friendly tools, and 1-click setup. Our AI Website Builder and intuitive dashboard make it easy to design and manage your site with no coding required.

Hostinger ensures fast loading speeds, robust security, and solid uptime, all of which are essential for keeping visitors engaged and improving SEO. Plus, with 24/7 customer support, help is always available when you need it.

Pick the right niche

To achieve long-term success in affiliate marketing, you need to balance passion, profitability, and competition.

If you’re passionate about the beauty niche, whether it’s skincare, makeup, or haircare, you’ll naturally enjoy researching new trends, testing products, and sharing recommendations.

But passion alone isn’t enough. You also need to ensure there’s sustainable demand. The beauty industry is a multi-billion-dollar market, generating over $625 billion in global revenue in 2023 and projected to reach nearly $736 billion by 2028.

Other profitable niches include software and SaaS, personal finance and investment, and health and wellness, all of which offer high earning potential through affiliate marketing.

With high profitability comes intense competition, though. To stand out, you need to find a unique angle. Instead of general skincare advice, you could focus on eco-friendly beauty products, skincare routines for sensitive skin, or anti-aging treatments for different skin types.

The same applies to other niches. In personal finance, specializing in budgeting tips for freelancers or passive income strategies for retirees can help differentiate your content and attract a dedicated audience.

Focus on content creation and SEO

High-quality content is the foundation of a successful affiliate marketing website. Create blog posts, tutorials, product reviews, and videos that provide real solutions and value to your audience. Well-researched and engaging content builds credibility and increases conversion rates.

Once your content is published, optimize it for SEO to attract organic traffic. Implement meta descriptions, internal linking, and backlinks to improve search rankings.

Leverage social media, email marketing, and YouTube to drive traffic

Each channel offers a unique way to bring visitors to your website.

Social media

Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest help drive traffic by allowing you to share engaging content with your target audience.

For example, if you’re promoting a healthy meal plan delivery service, you can post an infographic on Facebook comparing your service to that of your competitors, highlighting differences in price and meal variety.

Add the link to your affiliate website in the caption to encourage your audience to learn more.

Email marketing

Email marketing encourages repeat website visits.

Collect email addresses through lead magnets, such as offering a discount. Combine this with adding a signup form to your website to build a subscriber list.

Regularly send your subscribers valuable content and exclusive deals with a link to your affiliate website.

This increases the chances that your audience will return to your website and make purchases.

YouTube

YouTube drives traffic by showcasing content that demonstrates how a product or service solves a problem.

Continuing with the meal plan service example, you can create a video explaining how it saves time on meal planning, grocery shopping, and cooking.

Include the link to your affiliate website in the video description and mention it in the recording to encourage viewers to visit your website.

With 82% of consumers purchasing after watching a product video, YouTube is a powerful tool for generating interest and conversions.

Choose high-paying and reliable affiliate programs

Look for programs with competitive commission rates, reliable payouts, and strong reputations.

Diversifying income sources is equally important. Instead of relying on a single affiliate marketing program, join multiple programs that align with your niche.

For example, Amazon Associates is a reliable and widely used program with a vast product selection across various categories. Hostinger’s Business and Cloud plans include the Amazon Affiliate Plugin and a custom-built Hostinger Affiliate theme for WordPress at no extra cost.

While Amazon’s commission rates vary by product type, affiliates earn commissions on all purchases made through their links, even if the customer buys something other than the originally promoted product.

Track performance and continuously optimize for growth

Success in affiliate marketing requires ongoing analysis and optimization. Google Analytics, affiliate dashboards, and heatmap tools provide valuable insights into audience behavior, helping you refine your strategy. Tracking key metrics like traffic sources, conversion rates, and engagement levels helps you understand what’s working and where improvements are needed.

Experimenting with different content formats, affiliate products, and promotional techniques is key to staying competitive. If blog posts aren’t driving conversions, consider video content or interactive product comparisons. If certain affiliate links perform better than others, analyze why, and then replicate that success.

Testing new keywords and improving website speed can also help maintain and grow organic traffic. By continuously optimizing and adapting, you ensure long-term success in affiliate marketing, maximizing both traffic and revenue.

Conclusion

The affiliate marketing industry continues to grow, with brands investing more in partnerships and commission-based advertising. The low startup costs, scalability, and flexibility make it an appealing online business model, especially for those willing to learn, adapt, and put in consistent effort.

While competition is high, success stories prove that it’s possible to build a profitable and sustainable income stream, even with no prior experience.

That said, affiliate marketing isn’t a shortcut to instant wealth. It requires time, strategic planning, and ongoing optimization to drive traffic, convert visitors, and scale earnings.

If you’re willing to invest in content creation, SEO, and audience engagement, affiliate marketing can be a profitable and rewarding long-term business.

Whether you’re starting a side hustle or aiming for full-time income, the opportunity is there for those who approach it with patience and the right strategy.

Is affiliate marketing worth it FAQ