As I’m sure you know, affiliate marketing is where you promote someone else’s product or service through a trackable link, and then earn a commission on any sales.

You’ll see it used by household brands like H&M, John Lewis and Adidas.

…Airlines and tour operators, like British Airways holidays, easyJet holidays and brands like TUI.

…Tech giants like Microsoft, Apple and Google.

….Banks and credit card providers like Barclaycard, American Express, Monzo and Revolut.

But these are just the big names… and alas, they rarely open up their programs to ‘little people’ like us.

But the good news is, there are thousands of smaller, niche affiliate programmes you could join and profit from.

These can offer exciting opportunities for home-based online sellers to make an income from other people’s hot-selling digital products.

For example…

• eLearning products like online courses and coaching programmes.
• Business tools, platforms and software in areas like digital marketing, website-building and eCommerce.
• Trading and investing products in niches like cryptocurrency, forex and personal finance.

The beauty is, you don’t need to create any products yourself – and you don’t need to have expertise, qualifications or zillions of followers.

Because there are ways to set up simple niche websites and Facebook ads that draw in info-searchers and direct them to products that help them achieve their goals.

That’s something I can write about in future issues.

But today I wanted to show you some simple ways to get started in the world of affiliate selling.

And it might surprise you to know…

The Secret of Affiliate Success is to BEGIN With The END Product!

Many people make the mistake of finding a subject matter… setting up a website…

And THEN looking to find online products to recommend.

The risk is that you will struggle to find enough digital products that are relevant to your niche…

Or you find that the products that do exist are poor quality, or have too much competition.

So it’s better to approach it the other way round.

First, go out and find brilliant products, with fantastic sales promotions and irresistible offers.

Then reverse-engineer the business, setting up an ultra specific niche marketing approach to attract potential buyers.

Because it’s finding good products with affiliate programs that’s the hard part – and where most beginners fall down – rather than the marketing element (which is easier than most people think!)

But how exactly do you go about this?

Well this is where beginners usually make a SECOND mistake.

Because they’ll head over to a popular online affiliate marketplace like ClickBank or JVZoo.

And while those marketplaces have plenty of offers (and yes I do recommend them), they come with drawbacks.

The Problem With Affiliate Marketplaces

Firstly, you’re competing with thousands of other affiliate sellers who are coming to this same page and viewing the same items.

Then there’s the quality which is, to put it politely, highly variable….

Some are thin on content, low on practical advice and contain info that’s easily available elsewhere (for free) or outdated.

ClickBank-style promotions tend to have been around for a long time, which means that the most popular (and usually the best quality) ones are heavily promoted and, therefore, over-saturated.

What’s more, these are off-the-shelf deals where you don’t get any control over negotiating commissions, extra bonuses, and sales materials.

This is why many digital publishers don’t list their best offers on these platforms anymore.

Instead, they run their own affiliate programs privately so that they have more control over commission structures and who they partner with.

So if you look for your own independent affiliate deals outside of these marketplaces, you’ll often get…

• Exciting new products with fresh information and cutting edge ideas…
• Less competition from rival affiliate sellers
• The potential for customised offers and promotional materials fitted to you.
• Better commissions – and more potential to make money from upsells or recurring subscriptions.

This is why I always recommend doing your own online search to find affiliate offers away from the obvious marketplaces.

Yes, it takes more time and effort – but the rewards are far greater.

1 – Start With Google

Begin with a list of potential subjects that might interest you, for example…

• Email marketing
• YouTube
• Excel skills
• eCommerce
• Trading strategies

Don’t worry, you’re not committing to these, you’re just using these to ‘test’ the marketplace.

Now search Google for:

• “[topic] affiliate programme”
• “[topic] partner programme”
• “[topic] referral programme”
• “[topic] pay per sale”
• “[topic] reseller programme”

For example, ‘email marketing affiliate programme would get you this:

But, of course, LOTS of people will use “affiliate” as a keyword.

Which is why I recommend a deeper dive.

Go back to Google and search for:

• “best [topic] course”
• “best [topic] software”
• “best [topic] tools”
• “[topic] program review”
• “[topic] training 2025”
• “[topic] coaching programme”

When you see a course, software tool, platform or training programme, click through to the site and scroll down to the footer.

Now look for the magic word ‘Affiliate’. (Sometimes it might be ‘Partners’ or ‘Referral Programme’.)

This is how you find the less-obvious offerings that other people might have missed.

2- Search YouTube

If you want to know what affiliate products are currently tending, then YouTube is a goldmine.

Use the search bar and these keywords.

• “[topic] review”
• “[topic] tutorial”
• “[topic] walkthrough”
• “[topic] course review”
• “[topic] software demo”

For example, eCommerce software demo brings up videos like this:

If you click on the B2B eCommerce demo you can read the description below the video with more info about this product with links to their website.

There at the top you’ll see ‘partners’…

This is one of the best ways to spot newly-released digital products and software before the herd hears about it.

3 – Use AI

Until recently, AI was not the most reliable way to search for affiliate offers because it would either make things up, or recommend options that were years out of date.

However, if you can use an AI tool (like Chat GPT plus or Claude) that has a live websearch function, then it will be helpful.

Use this prompt:

“Carry out a live online search to find me the latest affiliate offers and products in the area of [SUBJECT].”

In the case of Chat GPT, it produced a page like the following:

As you can see, even Chat GPT advises to click through to the websites it suggests as “offers change all the time.”

So only use AI as an additional tool ON TOP of the manual search methods – and always check out the links yourself.

4 – Follow the Publishers

Another good strategy is to follow publishers in different areas of interest.

This way, you get to hear about their new launches, upgrades and special offers as soon as they’re announced.

So whenever you find a product developer or publisher during your Google/YouTube searches, then make sure you:

• Sign up for their email newsletter
• Follow them on YouTube
• Follow them on social media (also look the accounts of major figures in that company, like the CEO or marketing director)
• Get inside their Facebook or Discord group (if they have one)

Now you should find yourself exposed to many more potential affiliate deals than your average beginner.

This is when you can begin to hone in on what the really good offers are…

How to Assess Affiliate Offers

The content quality is obviously important – after all, you only want your customers to buy products that are genuinely valuable to them.

But if the offer is weak, your conversion rate will be low and – unless you have a big list of prospects to sell to – you’ll struggle to make money.

So ask yourself:

• Is the sales page credible and compelling? Does it explain the benefits clearly? Does promise to solve problems and help people achieve goals?
• Are there testimonials? Social proof is important, not only for you to feel reassured that the product is decent, but also to get a high level of sales.
• Is there a guarantee? Affiliate sales can be tricky without offering some kind of risk reversal, like a moneyback promise or trial period.
• Is there a high-ticket product to sell? As a beginner starting out without a big list of subscribers, ideally you want £100–£500+ where possible in order to make good money from relatively few sales.
• Is the commission worth your time and effort? Generally, you want 30–50% at least for information products… 20–40% monthly recurring for software.

When a product ticks these boxes, then add it to your list.

Yes, it might seem like a long-winded process – but this old school manual search method is invaluable.

You’ll be much more likely to find interesting, new, hot-off-the press offers that have lower competition and much higher sales potential.

One question before I go…

Preparing today’s issue has got me thinking…

As you have seen, despite it being a booming market, with plenty of products, finding good affiliate offers is – weirdly – quite difficult!

To my knowledge, there isn’t one place where you can find the most up-to-date opportunities in one place.

So I wanted to ask you…

Would you be interested in a service that alerts you to the best, newest, highest-converting digital affiliate offers?

If so, hit ‘comment’ and let me know!