What Is Affiliate Marketing? How I Earned Only $70 in 3 Years (And What I Learned)

 Disclosure: This article contains affiliate marketing links. If you click on the link and make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you. I only recommend products and services that I genuinely believe in.

What is affiliate marketing? It’s earning a commission for referring other people’s products. It sounds simple, right? You just create a YouTube channel or website and post videos or articles to earn money. But life isn’t that easy. I spent three years working tirelessly without earning a single penny. Jump to my 5-step blueprint if you want to skip the theory and start building immediately. This article isn’t just theory. These are lessons learned from my most costly experiences to help you avoid the same mistakes I made.

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

What is affiliate marketing? As I mentioned above, you promote other people’s products and get paid when someone buys them. Sounds simple, right? Easy, right? But 90% of people who start affiliate marketing fail, and I was in that 90%. I spent three years and got nowhere. Why? I had a website and diligently posted my reviews every day, but what I didn’t realize was that just writing isn’t enough.

This is a fierce battlefield. There are thousands of affiliate marketers out there just like you. So, you have to prove yourself and stand out from the others. What makes your articles special? What’s so great about your videos? You have to show Google that you’re an expert. And honestly, this journey isn’t easy. To master the game, you first have to truly understand the rules.

Understanding The Game: How Affiliate Marketing Really Works

Marketers are like “real estate brokers”—you don’t actually own a house, but you connect buyers and sellers to earn a commission. There are four parties involved: the vendor, the marketer, the customer, and the platform.

1. Vendor: They are the ones who create products and sell them. And the process I most often see when working with them is that, after creating the product, they will create what is called a “landing page” or, more accurately, an “affiliate program page.” These pages are created so you can register to become an affiliate marketer, and in addition, these pages will have basic information about the product so you can review it.

>>>Warning: Not all vendors are reputable. Some produce very low-quality products just to make quick money. During my years of failure, I promoted many vendors who supplied “low-quality” goods and lost my reputation. Don’t make the same mistakes I did.

2. Marketer: This is our role. We build the bridge between the customer’s problem and the supplier’s solution. You can build this bridge on “rented land” like YouTube, TikTok, or Facebook. It’s fast, it’s free, but it’s risky. Or, you can do as I do: Build your own “Headquarters” (a website). A website isn’t just a place to write reviews. It’s the ONLY asset you truly own in this game. It’s where you build trust and establish yourself as an expert, not just a random person yelling on social media.

3. Customer: These are the people you’ll be trying to convince through quality articles or videos. And that’s not easy, because opinions vary; some will find your writing good, others will find it bad. But the writing must be accurate. I repeat, it must be accurate. Focus on the buyer’s needs: what do they need this product for? What can this product offer them? And when your writing is convincing enough for them to click on your affiliate link, you’ll earn a commission.

4. The Network: You want to find a place to connect with vendors but don’t know where to find them or how to connect. This is where affiliate marketing platforms come in, such as JVZoo, Warrior Plus, ClickBank, etc. Personally, I often use JVZoo and Warrior Plus; these two platforms are simple and detailed, making it easy for beginners to get started. Want to see specific examples of these networks in action? Skip ahead to Step 3: Finding Networks where I show you exactly which platforms to join first.

Why Is Affiliate Marketing Still the Best Choice for Beginners in 2025?

Why is this model suitable for beginners? This question was on my mind from the very beginning when I started on this path. And of course, everything in life has two sides, and below are the lessons I’ve learned while navigating this challenging journey. But don’t just take my word for it. I’ve researched and tested dozens of opportunities, and compiled the best affiliate programs for beginners in 2026 that actually work without requiring a degree or large budget.

• Advantage: 

+ Expense: I can say the cost is almost zero. Many of you, like me when I first started, worried about not having enough money. No money? No problem. That’s exactly why affiliate marketing exists. All you need to do is advertise products without having to worry about creating them. It’s a smart start to becoming a freelancer.

                       >> Note: It’s true that you don’t spend money at first because you can post articles on social media or make videos on YouTube. You can start with zero, but to go far (like I am), you need to invest a little in your ‘house.’ And don’t worry too much about it costing too much.

+ Quality and Operations: Another great thing about this model is that you don’t need to worry too much about the quality or functionality of the product; you just need to find a really good product and thoroughly test it. And honestly convey what the seller provides about the product. There won’t be any inventory because most products here are digital, and customer service isn’t a concern either, as the people who create the product are the ones who provide customer service. All you need to do is evaluate the product.

+ Flexible: I think this is why everyone wants to enter this market, and it’s true that you can work anywhere and have flexible hours—you can work whenever you want, and no one will stop you. But that’s just the surface. Without deadlines and no one supervising you, it’s easy to fall into laziness and procrastination, and it’s very difficult to break free. Therefore, when walking this path, freedom and flexibility must be accompanied by discipline. Remember, discipline is more important than motivation.

• Disadvantages:

+ Unstable: The truth is that the commissions you receive are sometimes unstable. When you first start, you’re nobody, so very few people will give you their affiliate links. Therefore, in the beginning, you can only write; you won’t earn money in the start, and that’s the reality. Not to mention, even if you have a link and write a review, what do you do next? Just put it on the website and expect people to see it automatically? You need to know how to promote the product. What I want to say here is that this journey is a long one, and it’s really not easy at all.

+ Product Quality: This is an issue I’ve discussed extensively in this article. You can’t guarantee the quality of a product when you’re a beginner because you’re only reviewing it, not experiencing it firsthand. This is a disadvantage, but you can absolutely rely on the features the vendor has mentioned on their landing page to write a complete review.

+ Competition: This is a major disadvantage for newcomers, as the market is currently extremely fierce. The pressure is immense, and if you work in this field without a specific strategy, you’ll end up like me, earning only about $70 in three years. Yes, $70 in three years, and the fact that I’m still continuing on this path is a miracle. Therefore, I say that when you’re on this path, you need vision and a specific strategy; don’t get lost like I did. To avoid my mistakes, start with proven programs that have low barriers to entry. Check out our beginner-friendly affiliate programs that don’t require existing traffic or experience to get approved.

5 Steps to Building a Sustainable Affiliate Marketing “Machine” 

Below is your complete roadmap to building a sustainable affiliate marketing business. Don’t skip steps – I learned the hard way that each one matters. Avoid my 3 deadly mistakes by following this proven framework.

Step 1: Choosing a Niche Market

First, what is a niche? Simply put, it’s a topic you choose to write about, for example, seafood, mother and baby products, or household goods, etc. These are called niches. It sounds simple, but choosing a niche is extremely important, because you can’t be an expert in every field. It’s better to focus on a single niche and then develop “micro-niches” later. 

Once you’ve chosen your niche, you’ll need to select products to promote. Our guide to the best affiliate programs by niche breaks down which programs work best for different markets – from e-commerce to SaaS to digital products.

Note that you shouldn’t just choose any niche; you need to do research. My advice is to avoid overly large niches because they’re already dominated by “big players,” and you won’t have enough money or manpower to compete with them.

Instead of jumping straight into one, start with micro-niches. If you choose the “mother and baby” niche, its micro-niches could be “baby diapers” or “nutrition for pregnant mothers.” Smaller, weaker players like us should start with niche micro-markets and gradually expand, rather than competing directly with the big players. This is the strategy I recommend.

Step 2: Choose Your Core Platform

You can certainly use social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, or TikTok to build your “house”. However, you don’t actually own that “house”; it’s more like you’re “renting” it. Who is the real owner? It’s the platform’s algorithm. If the algorithm of the platform you’re using changes one day, you might lose your “house.” Therefore, I recommend creating your own website.

Why? Because then you have your own “land” and can freely build anything you want on it. You have complete control over any content that appears on your website, as long as it’s legal. There’s a quote from my teacher that I’ll always remember: “If you can’t afford to buy it, invest in a website.”

A website won’t disappear unless you neglect it. For long-term website development, focus on two important things: website content and social media pages related to your website. What should you promote on your website? Start by reviewing the most reliable affiliate programs to ensure you’re building on a solid foundation, not wasting time on low-quality offers. In my opinion, you should turn your social media pages into “satellites” revolving around your website; this will help your website gain more visibility.

Step 3: Find and Join Reputable Affiliate Networks?

If you choose the affiliate marketing path like me, as mentioned in previous sections, you should choose JVZoo and Warrior Plus because of their ease of use and convenience for beginners. For a complete breakdown of these and 13 other programs, see our detailed guide to the 15 best affiliate programs with pros, cons, and commission rates.

Step 4: Create Valuable Content to Build Trust

Do you know what caused my failure for three years? It was working without thinking. Before, my approach was to write a review every day, sitting down at 4 PM to write a review regularly every day, every week, and every month. With the mindset of “hard work compensates for lack of intelligence,” I just kept writing without thinking.

And so I kept wondering why I wasn’t making money. Eventually, I got discouraged and had to abandon my first website with a few dozen dollars. For many people, a few dozen dollars might not seem like much, but for me, it was a huge problem. A failed investment, an ineffective work method.

After three years of struggling and only getting tears and exhaustion, I had to re-evaluate where I was going wrong, and that’s when I learned how to create more valuable content.Instead of random reviews, I focused on comparing and evaluating top affiliate programs based on real criteria like commission structure, cookie duration, and support – content that actually helps readers make decisions. First of all, I’m going to stop writing reviews that take too long, and instead of just writing reviews, I’ll focus on articles with diverse content that suits the needs of my target audience. That’s how I’m going to do it.

Step 5: Attracting Traffic

Traffic is the lifeblood. And the best way to get it for free? SEO always has been, and to have a standard SEO article, you need many different elements such as main keywords, keywords in the title and meta description, keywords in the content, and more. Equally important is internal linking, which helps Google see that the articles on your website are linked together.

But all of the above will be meaningless if the quality of your website content is poor. It’s 2025 now, things aren’t the same anymore; an article that isn’t “high-quality” won’t rank highly on Google. Now, in the age of AI, if an article lacks the “human” element – ​​what we call / (Experience, Expertise, Credibility, and Trust) – then your article is practically worthless. You must meet these criteria for your article to rank highly. As for how to write a quality review or article, I will guide you in another article.

The Secret Weapon to Accelerate Growth – Combining Affiliate Marketing with PLR and AI

From what I’ve told you in the previous sections, I’m sure you’ve already seen that I’m a “slave” to writing. Let me tell you about my nightmare: from finding a product, figuring it out on my own, creating an outline, and finally, painstakingly writing 1500 to 2000 words. For someone already exhausted after more than 8 hours of administrative work like me, all of that was pure torture. And everything changed when I discovered PLR + AI. To understand what PLR is and how it works, read our complete beginner’s guide – it’s a game-changer for content creation.

What is PLR used for?

Don’t misunderstand, I don’t buy PLR and then copy and paste; that’s a dead end. I use it for a different purpose; I use it to buy something far more valuable: customer emails. Learn the full potential of PLR content in affiliate marketing in our detailed pillar article. It covers types of PLR products, where to find them, and how to customize them effectively.

This is how I do it: instead of spending a week creating a free ebook, I buy a quality ebook, redesign the cover, rename it, change the content to better suit my target audience, and voilà, a brand new ebook is born. This is the fastest way to get a professional “Lead Magnet” without too much effort. Master Resell Rights products are another option worth exploring, though they offer less customization flexibility than PLR. The tradeoff is you can start selling immediately without editing.

What can AI be used for?

I think that creative block is something everyone experiences when writing or creating content. Previously, when writing blog posts, I needed to consult many different sources to get a suitable outline, which was incredibly time-consuming and tiring. But now, with high-quality and appropriate Page Outlines (PLRs), the table of contents and main points of the PLR ​​can serve as a framework for many different articles. Then, I use AI to turn it into a complete article. However, AI is still just a machine; you can’t just give it an outline and say, “Write me a complete article.” That approach is definitely not effective at the moment.

When using it, you need to give the AI ​​very detailed and clear instructions for it to understand. For example, a command I often use is, “I need to write a 2500-word blog post with (keyword) and a writing style suitable for beginners, and this is the complete outline.” The more clearly you state your conditions and needs, the better your AI-generated article will be.

And I don’t rely on AI; I use it as an assistant. I give it the “framework,” and it adapts it to my style. This allows me to skip the tedious typing and focus on researching the product and keywords, along with the crucial final step of reviewing and editing the content and checking spelling, and you’ll have a unique article.

3 Deadly Mistakes That Led to Your Failure (Just Like I Did)

When I started on the path of affiliate marketing, I made many mistakes, and below I will tell you about the 3 biggest mistakes I made.

Mistake 1 (Chasing Products)

I used to buy products from Muncheye, one or two products a day to get affiliate links and write reviews. This is where my mistakes began. As I said, I wasn’t very smart back then; I thought I just needed to write without thinking too much.

So I just blindly wrote – this was a fatal mistake I made, costing me 3 years and only earning $70. Now I realize how stupid I was and I need to change my strategy and writing style.

Mistake 2 (Selling Instead of Helping)

My second mistake was related to the first: I just wrote without caring about anything else. I used to write without focusing on any particular target audience, just wanting to rank well in Google search results and not caring about anything else. This is a failing mindset, because if you only write reviews, the question is, who are you that we should rank your site and buy products from your website?

Learning from this mistake, I came up with a different approach: structuring my articles. Instead of writing separate reviews, I linked them to pillar and cluster articles. A clear system targeting a specific customer segment makes the website much more reputable and higher quality. And the article I’m writing right now is a pillar article. In articles like this, I introduce you to concepts in affiliate marketing, while cluster articles delve into smaller niches of related topics.

Mistake 3 (Neglecting the Fortress)

This mistake stemmed from my lack of understanding of technology. I neglected and failed to check the website’s status, causing it to run very slowly, encounter many errors, and almost completely “die.” You wouldn’t want to wake up one morning and find your traffic halved. Therefore, my advice is that you should take the time to research and maintain your site.

The Ebook (Coming Soon) – The Full “PLR + AI” System

As you know from the previous sections, I’m in the process of “reviving” my site, and this article is one way I can do that and show you what affiliate marketing is, along with some other articles about PLR – including our comprehensive guide on PLR products and how to use them. However, I still want to create a small product for myself, not just for myself, but for anyone who is stuck like I was three years ago. That’s why this ebook was created. It’s a system I’ve researched and built to turn PLR into a money-making tool using AI.

Inside, I reveal everything I couldn’t share here:

• The exact AI Prompts I use.

• The hidden sources for high-quality PLR.

• How to build the funnel step-by-step.

Want to be the first to know when it launches (and get a massive “Early Bird” discount)?

[JOIN THE WAITLIST HERE]

Conclusion

What is affiliate marketing? I hope this article has helped you understand it. And I want you to understand that this path is not simple and there is no room for laziness in this market. You must ensure that the content on your website is created by people and is of high quality. That’s how you survive and go the distance on this path. For more strategies on building your online business with affiliatemarketing, PLR, and AI tools, explore our latest guides and reviews on the homepage.

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