How to Do Affiliate Marketing
Sophie H
How to Do Affiliate Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Promoting Online Courses
Affiliate marketing is often explained backwards.
You are told to sign up, collect your link, post it on social media and wait for the commission to arrive.
That is not an affiliate marketing strategy. It is simply distributing a link without giving anyone a reason to click it.
Successful affiliates do something more useful. They identify a particular audience, understand what that audience is trying to achieve and create content that helps them make a considered decision.
The affiliate link comes afterwards.
This guide explains how to promote online courses credibly, attract the right audience and turn useful content into qualifying sales. It has been created for partners joining the Certified CPD affiliate programme, which pays affiliates 15% commission on purchases made through their personalised referral links.
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a performance-based arrangement between a business and a promoter.
The business provides the affiliate with a personalised link. The affiliate shares relevant products or services with their audience. When someone follows that link and completes an eligible purchase, the affiliate earns an agreed commission.
Certified CPD affiliates receive 15% commission per sale generated through their personalised links.
However, joining an affiliate programme does not create an audience, produce useful content or guarantee sales. The link only records the result. The work of creating interest and trust still belongs to the affiliate.
Step 1: Choose an audience before choosing a course
One of the most common affiliate marketing mistakes is trying to promote something to everyone.
A course for “anyone who wants to improve their career” may sound inclusive, but it gives you very little to say. The message becomes vague because the audience is vague.
Begin with a recognisable group of people.
For example:
teachers moving into leadership;
new managers dealing with difficult conversations;
health and safety professionals developing investigation skills;
international healthcare professionals preparing for UK employment;
small-business owners responsible for compliance;
employees beginning to use generative AI at work; or
jobseekers who want evidence of continued professional development.
You do not need to choose the biggest possible audience. You need one whose needs you understand.
This is particularly important because searches for “how to choose a niche for affiliate marketing” increased by 350% in the supplied worldwide Google Trends data. People recognise that a clear niche matters, but many still choose one based solely on earning potential.
A good affiliate niche sits at the intersection of three things:
A subject you understand.
An audience you can reach.
A problem that an online course can genuinely help address.
If you cannot explain the audience’s problem without referring to the product, you probably do not understand the niche well enough yet.
Step 2: Match the course to a real problem
Do not start with, “I need to sell this course.”
Start with, “What is this person trying to do?”
Someone does not buy a conflict management course because they woke up wanting another certificate. They may be managing an argumentative team, avoiding a difficult conversation or struggling to deal with an overbearing colleague.
A health and safety professional may not be searching for “more CPD”. They may need a structured investigation method, evidence of professional development or the confidence to lead a more complex incident investigation.
An employee may not want “AI awareness training”. They may be unsure what information can be entered into ChatGPT or worried about relying on an inaccurate answer.
The course should be presented as a relevant next step—not pushed into a conversation where it does not belong.
Before promoting anything, review the Certified CPD online course library and select one or two courses that closely match your audience.
Starting with 20 unrelated courses will not give you more opportunities. It will make your content less focused and your recommendations less credible.
Step 3: Understand what you are promoting
An affiliate should be able to explain a course without copying its description.
Read the full course page and identify:
who the course is designed for;
what the learner will study;
what they should be able to do afterwards;
how the course is delivered;
whether previous knowledge is required;
how long the course takes;
what certificate is available;
the current price; and
what the course does not claim to provide.
This last point matters.
Do not suggest that a short awareness course creates a professional qualification if it does not. Do not promise employment, promotion, visa sponsorship or a particular salary. Do not describe a certificate as regulated or internationally recognised unless the course page supports that exact claim.
Good affiliate marketing is accurate enough to survive the buyer reading the product page.
If your social post and the course page appear to describe two different products, the buyer will leave—and they will be right to do so.
Step 4: Create something useful before adding the link
A personalised affiliate link is not content.
Useful affiliate content answers the questions a prospective learner is already asking. That might include:
Who is this course suitable for?
What problem does it address?
What will I learn?
How long will it take?
Is it suitable for a beginner?
How can the learning be applied at work?
What should I compare before enrolling?
What are the limitations of this course?
Is the price reasonable for what is included?
A strong article or video does not need to praise every aspect of a course. It needs to help the audience decide whether the course is relevant to them.
Consider the difference.
Weak promotion:
Boost your career with this amazing CPD course. Enrol now using my link.
More useful promotion:
If you have recently started managing people, the difficult part is rarely assigning work. It is addressing poor performance, handling disagreements and giving feedback without making the situation worse. I reviewed this conflict management course to see what it covers, who it is designed for and whether it offers a practical starting point for new managers.
The second version creates a reason to continue reading. It begins with the audience’s situation rather than the affiliate’s desire to earn commission.
Step 5: Choose the channel that fits the subject
The best platform is not necessarily the one with the largest audience. It is the one where your audience already looks for this type of information.
LinkedIn affiliate marketing
LinkedIn is a natural fit for professional development, leadership, compliance, health and safety, workplace AI and career-related courses.
Rather than publishing a direct product advert, write about a professional problem you have observed. Explain the consequences, offer a useful framework and introduce the course as a relevant next step.
For example:
what new managers misunderstand about conflict;
why incident investigations fail to identify organisational causes;
what employees should never enter into public AI tools; or
why compliance training fails when it becomes a tick-box exercise.
The course link should sit within a useful professional argument, not replace it.
Instagram affiliate marketing
Instagram works well when the subject can be broken into short, clear ideas.
A carousel might cover:
The workplace problem.
Three common mistakes.
A simple framework.
What good practice looks like.
Where someone can learn more.
Stories can be used to answer questions, share a short explanation or direct people to a more detailed review. Reels should focus on one problem rather than trying to explain an entire course in 30 seconds.
Search interest in “Instagram affiliate marketing” increased by 60%, but increased competition means generic promotional posts are unlikely to stand out.
TikTok affiliate marketing
TikTok rewards a clear opening and a recognisable problem.
Useful openings might include:
Three mistakes new managers make when dealing with conflict.
Before you paste a work document into ChatGPT, check this.
Why most workplace investigations stop one question too early.
The video should provide the answer promised in the opening. The affiliate link is the next step for viewers who want structured learning—not a substitute for delivering value in the video.
SEO affiliate marketing
A blog or website gives you more space to answer detailed questions and can attract visitors long after a social post has disappeared from view.
Search-led affiliate content could include:
course reviews;
beginner’s guides;
comparisons between learning options;
career-development pathways;
answers to specific workplace questions; and
“who is this course for?” articles.
Searches for “SEO affiliate marketing” increased by 70%, while “affiliate marketing blog” rose by 60%. The opportunity is real, but search engines are unlikely to reward a copied course description surrounded by affiliate links.
An effective article needs original explanation, useful examples and a clear answer to the search query.
Email marketing
Email can work well when subscribers have chosen to hear from you about a defined subject.
Do not send a generic catalogue of courses. Recommend one course in the context of a relevant problem, recent article or frequently asked question.
Explain why you selected it and who is unlikely to need it. That kind of restraint builds more trust than promoting a different course every day.
Online communities
Reddit groups, Facebook groups, professional forums and WhatsApp communities can generate interest, but they are not link-distribution services.
Answer the question first. Follow the community’s promotional rules. Declare your commercial interest and only share an affiliate link when it is permitted and directly relevant.
Repeatedly dropping links into unrelated discussions is not affiliate marketing. It is spam.
Step 6: Give every piece of content one job
Do not ask the audience to read an article, watch a video, follow your page, join a mailing list, message you and buy a course in the same post.
Choose one next action.
For affiliate content, that action will usually be:
read the complete course review;
view the course curriculum;
compare the course with their needs; or
visit the course page and enrol.
The call to action should tell the reader what they will find after clicking.
“Click here” provides no context.
“Review the course curriculum, duration and learning outcomes” gives the reader a clear reason to continue.
Place the personalised affiliate link where it is useful. Do not repeat it after every paragraph.
Step 7: Disclose the affiliate relationship clearly
Affiliate marketing should not be presented as an entirely independent recommendation when the publisher will receive commission from a sale.
For UK audiences, the Advertising Standards Authority and Committee of Advertising Practice state that affiliate marketing must be obviously identifiable as advertising. Both the business and the affiliate can be responsible for compliance.
The disclosure should appear before or at the point where someone encounters the affiliate content. Hiding it at the bottom of a long article is unlikely to be sufficient.
A clear disclosure could say:
Ad – I receive commission when purchases are made through the affiliate links in this article.
On short social media posts, place Ad or #Ad prominently at the beginning. The ASA has warned that vague labels such as “affiliate” or “collab” may not make the commercial relationship sufficiently clear.
Read the official ASA and CAP guidance on online affiliate marketing and check the requirements that apply in your own country.
Disclosure is not merely a compliance exercise. It tells the audience that you respect their right to understand why the link is there.
Step 8: Turn one useful idea into several pieces of content
Creating new material for every platform is inefficient.
Start with one substantial piece of content and adapt it.
A detailed article about using generative AI safely at work could become:
a LinkedIn article about confidentiality;
a five-slide Instagram carousel;
a short video explaining one unsafe prompt;
an email answering a common workplace question;
a checklist for employees; and
several short posts addressing individual mistakes.
The argument remains consistent, but the presentation changes for each platform.
Do not simply paste the same text everywhere. A search article needs depth. A short video needs one clear point. A LinkedIn post needs a professional observation. An email needs relevance to the subscriber.
Repurposing works when the idea travels—not when the formatting is copied.
Step 9: Measure more than likes
Likes can indicate that a topic attracted attention. They do not tell you whether the content produced meaningful interest or sales.
Track:
how many people saw the content;
how many clicked the affiliate link;
which course they viewed;
how many clicks resulted in purchases;
which channel generated the strongest traffic;
which topic produced the highest conversion; and
how much commission was generated relative to the work involved.
One useful affiliate marketing measure is earnings per click, often shortened to EPC.
It can be calculated as:
Total commission earned ÷ number of affiliate-link clicks
If 100 clicks generate £30 in commission, the EPC is £0.30.
Do not assess the figure in isolation. A low number of clicks may mean the content has not reached enough relevant people. Many clicks with no sales may point to weak audience-course fit, an unclear recommendation or expectations that do not match the course page.
When a particular topic generates both qualified clicks and sales, develop it further. Create a more detailed guide, answer the next question or produce a platform-specific version.
Step 10: Use a simple 30-day affiliate marketing plan
Days 1–3: Define the audience
Write down who you want to reach, the problem they face and the platforms they use.
Avoid descriptions such as “professionals who want to grow”. Be specific enough that you could recognise the person from the description.
Days 4–7: Select the course
Choose one or two relevant courses. Read the full pages, review the curriculum and write down the questions a buyer is likely to ask.
Collect your personalised affiliate links and confirm that they direct users to the intended pages.
Week 2: Publish one substantial guide
Create one article, video or detailed post that answers a genuine audience question.
Include an upfront affiliate disclosure and introduce the course only where it becomes relevant.
Week 3: Repurpose the argument
Turn the main guide into several smaller pieces for LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, email or another channel used by your audience.
Each piece should answer one specific question and lead to one clear next step.
Week 4: Review the evidence
Check which topics generated attention, clicks and sales.
Do not abandon the whole strategy because one post failed. Equally, do not continue publishing the same message if the evidence shows that the audience is not interested.
Improve the hook, audience fit, explanation or choice of course based on what actually happened.
Why affiliates struggle to make sales
The fastest-rising relevant search in the supplied data was “not making money with affiliate marketing”, up 1,300%.
In most cases, the problem is not the absence of another affiliate marketing tool.
It is one of the following:
the audience is too broad;
the course does not match the audience;
the affiliate has not understood the product;
the content offers no value before the link;
the recommendation feels exaggerated;
the content is reaching the wrong platform;
the call to action is unclear;
the affiliate is promoting too many unrelated products; or
there has not been enough consistent testing to learn what works.
Software can shorten links, schedule posts and report clicks. It cannot replace a credible reason for someone to trust your recommendation.
The link is the final step, not the strategy
Affiliate marketing works when the affiliate becomes useful to a particular audience.
That means understanding the problem before recommending the course, explaining the product accurately, publishing material worth consuming and being honest about the commercial relationship.
The personalised link records the sale. It does not create the trust that made the sale possible.
If you are ready to promote accredited professional training, join the Certified CPD affiliate programme and earn 15% commission on sales made through your personalised referral link.
Choose an audience. Select a relevant course. Create something useful. Then give the reader a clear next step.
That is affiliate marketing.
Frequently asked questions
How does the Certified CPD affiliate programme work?
Affiliates apply to join and receive a personalised referral link. They can use that link when promoting relevant Certified CPD courses. When a purchase is attributed to the affiliate link, the affiliate earns 15% commission on the sale.
How do I start affiliate marketing as a beginner?
Begin by choosing a specific audience and identifying the professional or learning problems they face. Select one or two courses that address those needs, learn what the courses include and publish useful content before introducing your affiliate links.
Do I need a website to promote online courses?
No. Affiliates can create content through platforms such as LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, email or relevant online communities. A website is useful for detailed, search-led articles, but the best channel depends on where your audience looks for professional information.
Which online courses should I promote?
Promote courses that are relevant to an audience you understand. A focused recommendation is more credible than sharing a large catalogue of unrelated courses. Review the course content, intended learner, duration, price and learning outcomes before promoting it.
How many courses should a new affiliate promote?
Start with one or two closely related courses. This allows you to build focused content, understand the audience’s questions and learn which messages generate qualified interest before expanding.
Do affiliate links need to be disclosed?
Yes. The commercial relationship should be made clear. For UK audiences, affiliate content must be obviously identifiable as advertising. Use a clear and prominent disclosure such as “Ad – I receive commission from purchases made through this link” and consult current ASA/CAP guidance.
Can I use paid advertising to promote my affiliate link?
Check the Certified CPD affiliate programme terms and the advertising policies of the platform before running paid campaigns. Do not assume that bidding on brand terms, making performance claims or directing advertisements straight to an affiliate link is permitted.
How quickly can I make money with affiliate marketing?
There is no guaranteed timescale or level of earnings. Results depend on the relevance of the audience, the quality and reach of the content, the course selected and how effectively the recommendation helps someone make a purchasing decision.