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How affiliate marketing works: The ultimate beginner’s guide
There’s a product. There’s an audience that might need it. The question is how you connect the two without building the product yourself.
Affiliate marketing is one practical answer. You promote someone else’s offer to a relevant audience and get paid when a specific action happens—a purchase, an install, a subscription, a lead. Although it sounds simple in theory, in practice there are a few steps between signing up and actually earning: finding the right offers, sending traffic to them, tracking what works, and fixing what doesn’t.
We’ve been in this industry for more than seven years and know exactly what makes a cut and what doesn’t. Here’s a clear walk-through of how affiliate marketing works, how to start, and the mistakes that usually cost beginners the most money.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is all about promoting a product or services. Two main things about the “affiliate” component though: it’s high tech (involving ad stack, real-time bidding, and other innovations) and it has the so-called affiliates who act as middlemen between brands and website owners.
You promote another company’s product or service. When someone follows your unique link and completes the required action, you earn a commission.
That action depends on the offer: a sale, an app install, a form fill, or a subscription.
Thanks to its high-tech nature, affiliate marketing ensures that the results are measurable and trackable. That’s why affiliate marketing also involves personal links and tracking. Without it you can’t tell which traffic, creatives or placements actually produced the conversions.
How it works in practice
Generally, affiliate marketing has a few foundational steps to it:
Who are the main participants?
So far, we’ve mentioned users, brands, website owners, and affiliates. There are two more intermediaries: affiliate and ad networks.
Affiliate marketing is one practical answer. You promote someone else’s offer to a relevant audience and get paid when a specific action happens—a purchase, an install, a subscription, a lead. Although it sounds simple in theory, in practice there are a few steps between signing up and actually earning: finding the right offers, sending traffic to them, tracking what works, and fixing what doesn’t.
We’ve been in this industry for more than seven years and know exactly what makes a cut and what doesn’t. Here’s a clear walk-through of how affiliate marketing works, how to start, and the mistakes that usually cost beginners the most money.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is all about promoting a product or services. Two main things about the “affiliate” component though: it’s high tech (involving ad stack, real-time bidding, and other innovations) and it has the so-called affiliates who act as middlemen between brands and website owners.
You promote another company’s product or service. When someone follows your unique link and completes the required action, you earn a commission.
That action depends on the offer: a sale, an app install, a form fill, or a subscription.
Thanks to its high-tech nature, affiliate marketing ensures that the results are measurable and trackable. That’s why affiliate marketing also involves personal links and tracking. Without it you can’t tell which traffic, creatives or placements actually produced the conversions.
How it works in practice
Generally, affiliate marketing has a few foundational steps to it:
- A brand or network creates an offer—product, payout, allowed countries, devices, and the exact conversion event.
- You choose an offer and receive a unique tracking link.
- You send traffic to that link (your own site, social, or paid ads). This requires you to come up with a marketing funnel that connects the source of traffic (user flow) to the brand’s website.
- A user clicks, completes the required action, and the tracking system records the conversion.
- The payout eventually is added to your balance. Rinse and repeat, the more users flow in and convert, the better you’re doing.
Who are the main participants?
So far, we’ve mentioned users, brands, website owners, and affiliates. There are two more intermediaries: affiliate and ad networks.
- Users and potential audience—the target of any affiliate campaign.
- Brands—they’ve got the offers that affiliates can pick and promote.
- Affiliates—the main drivers of affiliate marketing, looking for the offers and promoting them in any way they like and allowed.
- Website owners—they provide traffic for a price. A popular website is in higher demand, so webmasters focus on developing it to attract more advertisers.
- Affiliate networks—sitting between brands and affiliates, these provide a centralized hub for business activities, like aggregating the offers, providing support, ensuring stability of payments, and more. Please note that affiliate networks label “brands” and “affiliates” as advertisers and publishers, respectively.
- Ad networks—another kind of centralized hub, connecting affiliates and website owners. These are all about promotion, providing tools, traffic sources, practical insights, tracking, ad formats, and even creatives. Ad networks also have advertisers and publishers, but for us they are affiliates and website owners.
Source: RollerAds blog
RollerAds used to be purely an ad network, but now we’re bigger than that—we’ve become a full-cycle platform, merging the functions of affiliate and ad network.
How advertisers make money
Once again, advertisers imply affiliates, since we’ve historically been an ad network. You earn when the revenue from conversions is higher than the cost of the traffic that produced them. The difference is your profit.
Here’s a real example from our own traffic. We took a browser-install offer from the RollerAds catalog and ran it with OnClick traffic in Brazil on desktop for 15 days:
A pitfall to avoid: first days don’t have to bring in immediate profits. Experienced affiliates use early budgets for testing to find the combinations and angles that convert. Once the right approach is found, that’s when scaling up happens and the real money pours in.
RollerAds used to be purely an ad network, but now we’re bigger than that—we’ve become a full-cycle platform, merging the functions of affiliate and ad network.
How advertisers make money
Once again, advertisers imply affiliates, since we’ve historically been an ad network. You earn when the revenue from conversions is higher than the cost of the traffic that produced them. The difference is your profit.
Here’s a real example from our own traffic. We took a browser-install offer from the RollerAds catalog and ran it with OnClick traffic in Brazil on desktop for 15 days:
- Ad spend: $439.02
- Revenue: $755
- Profit: $315.98
- ROI: 71.97%
A pitfall to avoid: first days don’t have to bring in immediate profits. Experienced affiliates use early budgets for testing to find the combinations and angles that convert. Once the right approach is found, that’s when scaling up happens and the real money pours in.
Source: RollerAds blog
One more thing, there are various payout programs available. So far, we’ve been implying CPA, where you get paid once for a conversion. But there are Revenue Share and hybrid models available as well. They provide a percentage-based income, which pays off over time.
How publishers earn from their traffic
If you already have a website or app with visitors, you can monetize that traffic through an ad network. You provide the ad space; the network fills it with relevant ads (or should we say advertisers via the network). You get paid when users see (CPM) or interact with the ads (CPC or CPV).
Ultimately, revenue depends on GEO, audience quality, traffic volume and the monetization strategy you choose.
One RollerAds publisher runs a network of more than 1,000 news sites aimed at a French audience (60+ million users per month). They launched push-notification monetization in January 2024:
How to get started in affiliate marketing
You don’t need five GEOs, four formats and ten networks on day one. Start smaller and gradually scale up, but only if you feel confident: The more is not always better and can mess up your progress.
1. Choose a niche (vertical)
Software & Utilities is a common starting point, with things like VPNs, antivirus, PDF tools, browser extensions. Stick with one or two verticals long enough to learn how they behave. The problem with switching is twofold: the data gets distorted, but, more importantly, your attention span gets thinner and can lead to burnouts.
2. Find affiliate programs or networks
The affiliate program enables working directly with the brand. It’s a department assigned by the brand itself, so there are less mediators, enabling higher commissions.
But affiliate networks are just bigger and more diverse. You can get more offers, more tools, unique conditions, and full-scale support there. Look at payment terms, minimum payout, available methods, and whether the catalog actually has offers that match the traffic you plan to buy or obtain any other way (SEO).
3. Choose offers that fit your traffic
Read the full requirements: allowed GEOs, devices, OS, traffic types, and what counts as a conversion.
Some products are limited to just mainstream sites, while others are okay with adult traffic. You need to walk through the offer yourself, like a normal user would. Ideally, you should walk the path to conversion and see if it’s doable in the first place. And in case it’s not… you can’t really promote it and should switch to something else.
4. Pick your sources of traffic
Traffic can be acquired in several ways, but one of the most common ones is the paid one. When working with an ad network, you can obtain paid traffic in bulk and with a bunch of targeting options to find your perfect fit.
Don’t forget that ad networks support a number of ad formats. For example: Push reaches opted-in users, OnClick is a full-page pop-style interaction, Direct Click mixes high-intent clicks and domain traffic.
Depending on the nature of your offer, its vertical, and user base specifics, some ad formats become better than the others. But there’s only one way to find exactly the winner—test!
5. Create and launch the campaign
If you have an audience, create content that leads to the offer. If you’re buying traffic, prepare creatives, targeting, bids, budget, and landing page. Launch with more than one or two creatives. Test several versions and replace the ones that stop working.
6. Set up tracking before spending serious budget
Postback tracking (or at least proper click IDs) is lifesaver when it comes to precise targeting. Without it you know how much you spent but not which parts of the campaign produced the results.
7. Analyze the data
Look at zones, creatives, GEO, device, OS, and conversion rates separately. A campaign that looks unprofitable overall often still contains profitable segments. Alternatively, the ads might be catchy and get the user’s attention. But somewhere down the funnel there’s a bottleneck that causes them to bounce out. That’s why you need to watch all the indicators mentioned.
You need statistically significant data to jump into conclusions. Make sure, you’re running tests for long enough.
8. Optimize and scale
Move the budget away from weak zones and tired creatives toward what works. Scale only when you have something worth scaling, and change one major variable at a time. Changing GEO, OS, bid, and creative simultaneously makes the results impossible to read.
One more thing, there are various payout programs available. So far, we’ve been implying CPA, where you get paid once for a conversion. But there are Revenue Share and hybrid models available as well. They provide a percentage-based income, which pays off over time.
How publishers earn from their traffic
If you already have a website or app with visitors, you can monetize that traffic through an ad network. You provide the ad space; the network fills it with relevant ads (or should we say advertisers via the network). You get paid when users see (CPM) or interact with the ads (CPC or CPV).
Ultimately, revenue depends on GEO, audience quality, traffic volume and the monetization strategy you choose.
One RollerAds publisher runs a network of more than 1,000 news sites aimed at a French audience (60+ million users per month). They launched push-notification monetization in January 2024:
- January: $4,000
- February: $18,500
- March: $31,000
- April: $57,000
- From May onward: roughly 50,000–60,000 per month
How to get started in affiliate marketing
You don’t need five GEOs, four formats and ten networks on day one. Start smaller and gradually scale up, but only if you feel confident: The more is not always better and can mess up your progress.
1. Choose a niche (vertical)
Software & Utilities is a common starting point, with things like VPNs, antivirus, PDF tools, browser extensions. Stick with one or two verticals long enough to learn how they behave. The problem with switching is twofold: the data gets distorted, but, more importantly, your attention span gets thinner and can lead to burnouts.
2. Find affiliate programs or networks
The affiliate program enables working directly with the brand. It’s a department assigned by the brand itself, so there are less mediators, enabling higher commissions.
But affiliate networks are just bigger and more diverse. You can get more offers, more tools, unique conditions, and full-scale support there. Look at payment terms, minimum payout, available methods, and whether the catalog actually has offers that match the traffic you plan to buy or obtain any other way (SEO).
3. Choose offers that fit your traffic
Read the full requirements: allowed GEOs, devices, OS, traffic types, and what counts as a conversion.
Some products are limited to just mainstream sites, while others are okay with adult traffic. You need to walk through the offer yourself, like a normal user would. Ideally, you should walk the path to conversion and see if it’s doable in the first place. And in case it’s not… you can’t really promote it and should switch to something else.
4. Pick your sources of traffic
Traffic can be acquired in several ways, but one of the most common ones is the paid one. When working with an ad network, you can obtain paid traffic in bulk and with a bunch of targeting options to find your perfect fit.
Don’t forget that ad networks support a number of ad formats. For example: Push reaches opted-in users, OnClick is a full-page pop-style interaction, Direct Click mixes high-intent clicks and domain traffic.
Depending on the nature of your offer, its vertical, and user base specifics, some ad formats become better than the others. But there’s only one way to find exactly the winner—test!
5. Create and launch the campaign
If you have an audience, create content that leads to the offer. If you’re buying traffic, prepare creatives, targeting, bids, budget, and landing page. Launch with more than one or two creatives. Test several versions and replace the ones that stop working.
6. Set up tracking before spending serious budget
Postback tracking (or at least proper click IDs) is lifesaver when it comes to precise targeting. Without it you know how much you spent but not which parts of the campaign produced the results.
7. Analyze the data
Look at zones, creatives, GEO, device, OS, and conversion rates separately. A campaign that looks unprofitable overall often still contains profitable segments. Alternatively, the ads might be catchy and get the user’s attention. But somewhere down the funnel there’s a bottleneck that causes them to bounce out. That’s why you need to watch all the indicators mentioned.
You need statistically significant data to jump into conclusions. Make sure, you’re running tests for long enough.
8. Optimize and scale
Move the budget away from weak zones and tired creatives toward what works. Scale only when you have something worth scaling, and change one major variable at a time. Changing GEO, OS, bid, and creative simultaneously makes the results impossible to read.
Source: RollerAds blog
What makes a good ad network for beginners
The general answer is how well it suits your needs, your goals. Ask questions like:
Common beginner mistakes
As a way to wrap things up, we’d like to compile some of the most common mistakes among the beginners, as well as provide a brief FAQ. Let’s start with the former, the common mistakes:
FAQ
How much can you make?
That depends on a number of factors: whether you’re affiliate or webmaster, whether you’re on CPA or RevShare, your vertical, GEO, traffic quality, budget, and skill.
Can you start with no experience?
You can start even on your own, but with a dedicated team of professionals by your side (like from RollerAds), things should go smoother. Start small, enable postback tracking, and treat first investments as education. Affiliate marketing is a turbulent sphere, but it’s very engaging and interesting.
Do you need a website?
As a publisher—you do, as an advertiser—you don’t. Paid traffic is always an option, and if you can get it for the right price and redirect it to a brand that is ready to pay you, you can start earning.
Closing thoughts
At its simplest, a company pays for a defined result, an affiliate sends traffic that produces that result, and tracking makes sure the right person gets paid.
The hard part is figuring out which combination of offer, traffic, GEO, creative and bid actually works. That is why the real work is systematic testing—changing one thing at a time and reading the numbers honestly.
If you’re starting from zero, keep the first tests small enough that the data stays readable. Choose a niche, match the offer to the traffic, set up tracking properly, and ask questions before the budget is gone.
Most of what you need for a first campaign—offers, traffic, monetization options and support—now sits inside one RollerAds account. Create the account, start small, and talk to the team early.
What makes a good ad network for beginners
The general answer is how well it suits your needs, your goals. Ask questions like:
- Which GEOs and devices can I actually reach?
- How many formats, targeting options and bidding models are available?
- Can I track results clearly (built-in reports or third-party trackers)?
- Are moderation rules and payment terms transparent?
- Is there real support when something breaks?
- How many separate platforms do I need to run the whole workflow?
Common beginner mistakes
As a way to wrap things up, we’d like to compile some of the most common mistakes among the beginners, as well as provide a brief FAQ. Let’s start with the former, the common mistakes:
- Ignoring offer requirements (GEO, device, OS, traffic type).
- Sending traffic that cannot complete the required action.
- Running without conversion tracking.
- Testing too many variables at once.
- Using bids that are either too low (no volume) or too high (budget burns before you learn anything).
- Launching with one weak creative and never refreshing it.
- Stopping a test after the first day of data.
FAQ
How much can you make?
That depends on a number of factors: whether you’re affiliate or webmaster, whether you’re on CPA or RevShare, your vertical, GEO, traffic quality, budget, and skill.
Can you start with no experience?
You can start even on your own, but with a dedicated team of professionals by your side (like from RollerAds), things should go smoother. Start small, enable postback tracking, and treat first investments as education. Affiliate marketing is a turbulent sphere, but it’s very engaging and interesting.
Do you need a website?
As a publisher—you do, as an advertiser—you don’t. Paid traffic is always an option, and if you can get it for the right price and redirect it to a brand that is ready to pay you, you can start earning.
Closing thoughts
At its simplest, a company pays for a defined result, an affiliate sends traffic that produces that result, and tracking makes sure the right person gets paid.
The hard part is figuring out which combination of offer, traffic, GEO, creative and bid actually works. That is why the real work is systematic testing—changing one thing at a time and reading the numbers honestly.
If you’re starting from zero, keep the first tests small enough that the data stays readable. Choose a niche, match the offer to the traffic, set up tracking properly, and ask questions before the budget is gone.
Most of what you need for a first campaign—offers, traffic, monetization options and support—now sits inside one RollerAds account. Create the account, start small, and talk to the team early.