Affiliate Marketing Tutorial for Beginners 2026 (Step By Step with AI)

[00:01] for beginners in 2026 because AI has removed almost every single barrier. The website, the content, the research, the things that used to take weeks can affiliate marketing for about 7 years [music] now. So, I built my blog and

[00:14] then my YouTube channel and then it's generated over $5 million in affiliate income alone, which is not typical by the way, but I do like to teach it. And opportunity, more excited than I've been in the last few years. So, in this

[00:26] video, I'm going to walk you through the full 2026 playbook. We're going to cover exactly what's working right now, how AI changes your strategy. I'm going to do a brand from scratch. [music] So, if you stick to the end, you'll know exactly

[00:39] affiliate marketing at its core is really simple. You promote someone else's product, someone buys it through your link, you get a commission. That's shipping, no customer service. So, you are the middle man or middle woman who

[00:52] gets paid for sending a brand customers, basically. Most major companies in the world have affiliate programs, Amazon, Target, software companies, supplement want more customers and they use affiliates as kind of a third-party

[01:06] percentage of every sale that you send them. So, how do you do it? You send it strong business model, especially in 2026, is that the upside is not capped You're just kind of starting and it's cheap to get started. Almost almost

[01:20] anywhere. Once you've built this asset that drives the consistent views and traffic, the commissions can keep coming in. So, I still have months where I get recurring affiliate commissions from years ago from single articles ranking

[01:32] that's what we're building towards. So, here's what's different in 2026 compared to just a few years ago. So, before AI, you had to build this entire affiliate marketing business and that required a serious time commitment up front. Like,

[01:45] yourself or create the YouTube videos, edit them, build a website from scratch, do all the keyword research yourself manually, figure out SEO on your own out. So, most people would quit before they ever saw the first dollar because

[01:59] money was too wide. They didn't want to wait a year. So, AI has helped kind of close that gap. So, today, you can use AI to research your niche in minutes, content immediately. You can build an entire website in under 10 minutes. You

[02:13] AI and keyword research tools to figure out where the opportunities are. So, AI expertise, but it compresses the timeline. It's a speed tool. But, I do writes your content or creates your videos for you. That is not a strategy.

[02:28] So, the sites that are winning today are the ones that combine AI efficiency with the genuine human knowledge and perspective. So, you use AI to help you value, teaching, and building real audience. That's the combination that

[02:42] building your website, I just want to set expectations on this because I think marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme, right? If someone is promising first week, it's not going to happen necessarily. selling you something. So,

[02:56] starting fresh can earn some money in their first couple of months, but it is strategy, their actual keywords, how much content they're producing. So, compounding asset. It takes time to appreciate. So, I'm going to show you a

[03:10] my blog and then from my YouTube channel. So, here's from my blog. It's the best CRM software of 2026. Very simple content. You write the companies in this list. These are all affiliate links going to the individual

[03:24] companies. This is just a simple five-column layout with a Gutenberg more information, some internal links, and then it then it kind of gets into marketing. It's like this is an H2 heading. So, H1 is the title, and that

[03:37] includes the target keyword CRM software, which is in the URL, the H1, and then it's also in H2s. And the first H2 is what is it? What is CRM software? You answer that in a way that AI can pick up on simply, right? Showing some

[03:50] expertise, very simple content. The next H2, what is the best plus your target People that they're buying through affiliate links are searching for which is the best. They want to see the

[04:04] top seven options, five to seven options so that they can make their decision. If software, you're going to see all the brands, Salesforce, ranking, HubSpot, all of those. If you're searching best

[04:16] intent that they're like they're shopping around and looking. That's channels fill the gap. So, this is a really important H2 heading. This is a reason that this can rank. And then you'll see this is an H3 heading. So,

[04:29] every brand in the list is in an H3. So, blogging has like H1 through H5. I just use H1 as the title, H2 is the main questions with the keyword, and H3 is this case is just the name of the brands themselves. And then we say this is the

[04:44] best one, a little box here giving a little score. This is just designed again with Gutenberg. And then it's just text and images. Text and images, that's all it is. Try it. And you'll see number two, the exact same layout. Number

[04:57] three, the exact same layout. So, you create the layout once, and then you literally could have hundreds of these articles on your site with different products. You could have I have like 100 articles with 10 different companies.

[05:09] That's like 1,000 companies. I was in over 287 affiliate programs. I'm not saying do that now. I The goal here is to focus on a few select ones that do well with data. But that's a very simple way to look at these really easy

[05:21] at YouTube, that's even simpler. So, here's my video on the best online course platforms of 2026. Another people looking for different stuff. Uh this one's done pretty well. It's gotten like it's very slow and steady getting like

[05:35] 200 views a day over the last 9 months or like, you know, 100 views a day and it's just still continuing to get views. It ranks on Google for a lot of stuff. It ranks on YouTube for this keyword, best online course platforms. You can

[05:47] simpler. So, YouTube with affiliate marketing, all you're doing is adding adding the link right here. So, you're talking about it, you're mentioning it, way, you can get that if you click the link below." So, you can do description

[06:01] and then the top pinned comment. Okay, so that's a couple of simple examples, landscape shifted slightly. People used to go all in on Google, 100% SEO really the case anymore. You should not do that. You can't put all your eggs in

[06:16] one basket cuz what if Google loop? They change their algorithm, they've had the AI overviews at the top now taking up like a lot of space and taking like maybe 40% of clicks that websites used to get. So, now Google can still work.

[06:29] but you should layer it in with one of two things, and that's either Pinterest or YouTube. So, having a YouTube channel is probably the number one marketers. It's the easiest, least

[06:41] simple talking head videos talking about products and do it that way. Another one pins is a complete traffic strategy outside of Google that you can use. But, the main thing here is you still need a home base. You still need a website that

[06:55] all the traffic from Pinterest, from YouTube, all of it is coming to for about how to build that actual website and the best tool to use. So, you need a don't own TikTok, you don't own YouTube or Pinterest. If those things go away or

[07:08] the algorithm shifts, you're gone. A website you actually own. You own the web hosting, you own the website, and it's like the central repository of your you can have affiliate links, you can have anything you want. You can have a

[07:22] personal brand with speaking and, you know, things for your career, or you Anything that you want can be on there. So, I've built, you know, dozens of agency. We built tons of websites. I've used every single platform over the

[07:36] starting out and you want to get the best affordable price, best web hosting is Hostinger. So, I have a link down below in the description it gets you a significant discount and a free domain for the first year. So, if you want to

[07:49] yours while we do this. So, grab that link in the uh description and pinned exactly how to do this. All right, so you click hostinger.com/adamenfroy you get 85% off web hosting. So, all you have to do is from $1.99 a month plus 3

[08:04] months free. So, you claim the deal and then I'm going to select business plus AI. This is the most popular plan. It's really easy. You can create like sites this. It's going to load and then it's going to load my cart. So, you can

[08:17] choose any number of different months. So, you can do 1 month, 12, 24, 48. The best deal that you can possibly get is 48 months. You get 4 years at $2.99 a month. That's $143 total. Or you can just lower it down to 12 and you'll see

[08:30] you know, if you want to check out with less, the best possible deal is 48 secure domains. For example, coming up with a domain name is pretty fun. I'm going to say like backpackingguy.com. That would be like an outdoor hiking

[08:43] that's kind of interesting cuz I assumed it wouldn't be. So, we'll see. Looks like it is available. 1 year free. So, I'm going to choose 1 year free, completely free. So, I get a free domain name for the year. Okay? And then you

[08:56] do email marketing yet. You can always add that later. And that's pretty much it. So, then I'm going to hit check out cuz we already have this. And then I'm going to log in, get through the steps, and then I'll show you exactly what to

[09:08] paid. So, then it takes me to this page. I'm going to say who's this website for? Myself or my business? Next. What do you want to do? I'm going to create a so this is pretty cool. You can then either do create a website with AI or

[09:21] pre-built websites and themes. I'm going to do the AI one. I'm going to hit next. audience?" I'm going to say what's the closest to me? I guess I'm going to say Massachusetts. So, you pick where the closest location in the world is to you.

[09:34] mainly your files are. And then it's going to install WordPress. Okay, then with AI it'll say, "Let's start with your website idea." So, I'm going to say it's going to be a backpacking blog. I will review and recommend outdoor

[09:49] will review and recommend outdoor products for people who like hiking, backpacking, and camping. Let's see what that does. Enter there. Okay. Now, it's going to go through this AI assistant. It says,

[10:01] style, and continue setup." What's your brand name? I'm going to say backpacking until it's ready. So, it's going to enable the plugins, generate colors, the it all out. All right, this is pretty cool. So, it's got this, which I can

[10:16] replace with my logo. And then look, it already has a video that's playing in the in the hero section, which is really nice. Looks like they're on a volcano or hikers, campers, and backpackers. Gear up for adventure. Look at this. Look at

[10:29] these images. These are amazing. Latest adventures, essential gear for your next for your next thing. And then it has a little bit about you where you can add some about section and link to an about page. Basically, then you can cover get

[10:42] the whole homepage is pretty much done. We just would change a few little go ahead and choose a color palette. So, I'm going to say colors. I like that I like that. Yeah, so let's do like if I wanted to change it a little bit I could

[10:55] I could change it and it'll give me the preview. Okay. Logo, I could upload a it. I would just use like chat GPT or Gemini or something, create a logo, and little bit you'd want it to be a little bit wider than it is tall. You wouldn't

[11:09] like kind of a little bit of a wider logo. But after that, I'm going to click me know if there's anything. So, you can do it again. Like you wanted to create give more detail, anything. But then you just click continue to setup, go right

[11:23] into your WP admin, right into WordPress. Boom, we're automatically in things I've ever seen. That's why I recommend it. You can then go to posts and pages if you wanted to create a blog post for affiliate revenue, right? All

[11:36] you would do is go to this. Let's see if they actually um have this these templates. But, if we want to create a new article, we would go to posts, add a post, welcome to the editor. And I'm going to say the top five best

[11:48] going to say the top five best backpacking backpacks of 2026, ranked and reviewed. And then I just start typing. And in in this guide, I'm covering best dot dot dot dot. Add images if you want, choose a block,

[12:00] press the plus button. You can just add an image, go to the media library, see so that's where you would upload your images, add those in, and then all of a sudden you're creating blog posts for affiliate revenue. So again, probably

[12:13] the easiest setup I've ever seen where you just check out, you add some AI writing blog posts automatically. So again, I'm leaving the hosting or link comment below. You click that, you get 85% off, you get the best possible

[12:28] business. So, let's continue with the video. Okay, so your website is live. Now, what do you actually do? Well, we can find and join affiliate programs. applying. I usually recommend um you start with Amazon Associates as it's

[12:43] approved pretty quickly. They cover every product. You earn commissions on If they buy it within 24 hours or they within a week, you can get paid for that. Again, not the best commission

[12:56] rates with Amazon, but it's a catch-all that you can get started with to build here's how I would find other affiliate programs. You just go to Google and search niche plus affiliate programs. So, in my example, I could do camping

[13:08] affiliate programs. Go to ChatGPT, say what are the top 10 backpacking commission rates, show me the sign-up links, all of it. So, you could search for that and then just go right to that page. There are also affiliate networks.

[13:22] So, networks like ShareASale, CJ, Impact, PartnerStack, they have a lot of once you're approved, and you join a network, it's kind of like a place, and you use quick buttons to join, fill in a little bit of

[13:37] approved. As you can see here, this is my PartnerStack dashboard. I've made over 1.34, 1.5 million dollars just from this affiliate network alone. You can see my pending commissions, the revenue I've

[13:51] all of that. If I wanted to go here, I'd go to discover partnerships. For example, Kit, formerly ConvertKit, ManyChat. Let's say I want to join actually, but you would just click, as you saw. Let's do one I'm not in. Uh,

[14:04] would say apply. Apply to program. It's really all you have to click. So, again, will you get approved? Not necessarily right out of the gate. If you have no traffic yet, you have no articles. I always say, create 10 to 20

[14:19] low-competition niche, and getting traffic before you apply for programs. It's much easier to say, "Hey, I have I'm I have a new website, I have a new YouTube channel, whatever it is, but I'm starting out, and I have this much

[14:33] where affiliate managers will come in, and manually review these to approve or not. So, if they see you're a brand new site, sometimes they will not approve really a numbers game. There's no point in just getting approved into a bunch of

[14:47] no traffic, cuz that will not make you any revenue. If you think of it from a probably, you know, uh, if a 2% conversion rate for a physical product is good, I mean, you need like 50 clicks on this article, at least, to generate a

[15:02] getting comfortable creating the content, building the articles, having an actual asset for yourself, learning the ins and outs of having this website, and how to do this, and just keep learning, keep growing. And then, once

[15:15] where you can start joining these affiliate networks, and the affiliate beginner, uh, just starting out, you don't want to post just random content. intentional about the type of content you create because different content

[15:29] affiliate revenue. The highest margin is this comparative content that I showed you before. Could be anything, best laptops, best credit cards, best iPads, best online course platforms,

[15:43] best protein powders for muscle building, you know, whatever it is. It could be best in any every single niche has these. So, again, you create these articles. Maybe you start with the three best, and then you publish it, and then

[15:55] you get it to five best, and then seven. And over the course of time, you then start You would just publish it with no affiliate links in it first. You just websites. And once you see a trickle of traffic, maybe it gets 50 visits a

[16:07] month, that's when you can join the affiliate programs, swap out the links have to do. Every affiliate link is a very random string of numbers and letters, right, to signify that you drove the sale. So, a uh WordPress

[16:20] plugin called Thirsty Affiliates will condense it, cloak it, make it look your WordPress site, and it'll take a few minutes, and now all of a sudden you a traffic first, then swap for affiliate links, and then you sit back and see

[16:34] this is with like with AI, creating content is now faster than ever before, so you can use AI to outline articles, pull all the research together, draft the structure, and then you add your own voice. You add your personal experience

[16:47] that a generic AI can't know. You're adding something to the conversation. So, you're using AI efficiency plus your own human expertise, that is the uh formula that drives affiliate sales. So, I want to give you the 80/20 of SEO. You

[17:01] going to be one of your traffic sources, but you just need some fundamentals. Google will rank the content based on how useful and relevant it is. So, when target the specific phrase people are actually searching for. So, you can use

[17:14] keyword research tools. You can use Ubersuggest. You can use Ahrefs, you can use Google's free keyword planner, you can just use AI as well. And then once you're looking for is decently high search volume, lower competition, which

[17:27] this is true in a lot of hobby niches, things that are around products that are necessarily things that are really competitive, business, software, finance. That would be better I say for YouTube. If it If Google is looking

[17:39] But ultimately again, like I showed you, you want the the keyword in your URL, the H2s. So you don't stuff it in artificially and just do it right that topic, you be as helpful as humanly possible, and you write from your own

[17:55] compare it to the competition. So open like the top three results ranking for that keyword, and then link those, put it into like ChatGPT or Gemini and say, "Is my content more comprehensive, more accurate, more useful than these?" If

[18:08] the answer is a no, then you need to update and make those articles better. really is a lower competition, just a smaller blog ranking on the first page of Google. Ultimately, that's the sign that you can. If you see the New York

[18:21] that you can. If you see the New York Times, Forbes, CNET, TechRadar, Reddit, and YouTube on the first page, there's a very small chance that an individual website is going to rank. That's why we stay away from your money your life

[18:33] topics like medical advice, like too much into investing in finance where sites. So that's again where niche selection comes into play. So SEO is one can build some traffic in the background for your articles. And having these

[18:49] drive Pinterest to it. You can get other social media platforms to it. But if you want a, you know, a real affiliate strategy outside of just Google, then you use YouTube. YouTube is the top recommendation for affiliate marketing

[19:02] So review videos, tutorials, comparisons, these drive huge affiliate commissions and compound over time just like blog content because blog contents they can sit and rank month after month after month, make affiliate commissions.

[19:15] YouTube videos can get views month after month after month, especially a lot of affiliates driven by search on YouTube, which is interesting. People are consistently searching for these reviews and products, and you can get, you know,

[19:27] still making affiliate commissions. So, again, for people who don't want to be on camera, Pinterest is a really underrated option. So, it kind of focus it functions as a visual search engine. It can drive traffic to your blog

[19:40] outside of Google. So, you create simple clean graphics with Canva or something like that, and then link it to your you have pins, and then you link those to Otherwise, Tik Tok and Instagram, they're great for growing an audience,

[19:52] They're better if you have your own physical product. Not a lot of people specifically at reviewing hundreds and hundreds of products on Amazon and doing work. But, if you're building this true brand, it kind of starts with the

[20:07] website being central, and then a YouTube channel potentially Pinterest as place, so you have a website live, you've joined some affiliate programs, on a schedule that you don't waver from, then the next step is to try to scale by

[20:21] first, we don't want to rely on a single affiliate program or a single article. We need to diversify first across multiple affiliate programs, multiple articles on your blog. And then, you have to diversify across just having a

[20:34] website to other social media platforms, too. So, you want to double down on you'll start to see which articles, which videos, what you're doing is actually working, and then you continue to focus on that. Double down on that

[20:48] thing about camping, for example, then you just double down on that. Maybe Pinterest is outperforming the blog, put more energy into that. Let the data choose where you start moving. Then, you want to build an email list. So, this is

[21:01] a really high-lever lever thing you can do. Most affiliate marketers completely audience that you actually own. No algorithm can take it away. So, offer example a free guide. Like the backpacking one could be the top 10

[21:15] backpacking routes in the USA or they better yet would be a perfect backpacking gear checklist. So, like 20 things on a single page even. But, they resource, and then this eventually leads into your digital product sales. Or

[21:29] affiliate products directly to your email list, which can convert higher can also go after higher ticket stuff if you've established an audience. Look at there things that can make you a lot more money? Maybe there's some type of

[21:44] subscription that will pay you monthly instead of some cheaper product. Now, high, but just look at that as an option. So, ultimately affiliate marketing comes first because it can dictate our content strategy. Then over

[21:57] we're creating also informational content to help an audience. We're thinking about what could be a digital product or a course that we could sell these revenue streams. So, we have affiliate marketing first, then we get

[22:11] some traffic, we can join an ad network like Mediavine, have banner ads on the site, and then eventually within 6 to 12 months we're building our email list, course or community to create that is paid as well. So, those are the three

[22:23] that you work on, really focusing on the website as a core. So, that is the 2026 So, right now make sure to grab that hosting or link in the description and pinned comment. Start building your site today. Pick a niche, join a couple of

[22:36] some research on affiliate programs this week. The hardest part is always just starting. So, if you want help also picking your niche, I have a free AI Goes through the whole process step-by-step, gives you some free AI

[22:49] prompts to get started, creates like your entire keyword strategy and content do, just start there. And I hope you found video, it helps a lot. And I will see

[23:01] video, it helps a lot. And I will see you in another video.