How I Earned My First $100 with Affiliate Marketing (And Why It Was So Much Harder Than I Thought)

Let me be blunt — I thought affiliate marketing was going to be easy money. You sign up, get your link, share it, and boom: money in the bank. Right?

Wrong.

When I first started dabbling with affiliate marketing back in 2022, I had no idea what I was doing. I was watching gurus on YouTube who made it sound like a walk in the park. “Just post a few links in Facebook groups,” they said. “Passive income is yours.”

I tried that. It didn’t work. No one clicked. No one bought.

The Harsh Reality of Zero Clicks

I signed up for Impact and PartnerStack, two legit affiliate platforms. I grabbed links to tools I personally used (like Grammarly and ConvertKit), then shared them wherever I could: my old blog, forums, even WhatsApp groups. Still… nothing.

The first lesson I learned? People don’t buy from people they don’t trust.

The Shift: Building Value First

Eventually, I changed strategy. I stopped trying to “sell” and started creating genuinely useful content around problems I had already solved. For example, I wrote a guide on how I set up my newsletter using ConvertKit — and casually dropped my affiliate link at the end.

That article got indexed on Google (thanks to a few SEO basics I picked up from Backlinko), and 3 weeks later... I got an email: “You’ve earned a $19 commission.”

That felt amazing.

My First $100 Took 7 Weeks

After that first sale, I focused all my energy on helpful, honest content. No clickbait. No pressure. Just real stories and tools I actually use. I added affiliate links to:

• Notion templates I designed
• My favorite hosting provider (Namecheap)
• The exact microphone I use for calls (Amazon affiliate link)

It took 7 weeks to hit $100 in commissions. That might not sound like much, but for me — it was proof that I didn’t need to be a YouTuber or guru to make affiliate income.

What I Did Right (and What I’d Change)

Things that worked:

• 📝 Writing evergreen blog posts with real use cases
• 🔍 Basic keyword research using free tools like Ubersuggest
• 📬 Building a small email list (even 50 people helped)

Things I’d avoid next time:

• ❌ Blindly posting links in groups or comments
• ❌ Promoting tools I didn’t personally use
• ❌ Obsessing over instant results

Affiliate Marketing Isn’t Passive (At First)

Despite what most people say online, affiliate marketing is not truly passive in the beginning. You need to build trust, content, traffic, and test what works.

But once the content starts ranking, and readers trust your voice, the results start to stack up — slowly but steadily.

Final Thoughts: Why That $100 Meant More Than You Think

That first $100 felt more rewarding than any salary I’d earned. It was messy, slow, and at times frustrating — but it was mine. I made it from home, with my own content, my own effort.

And if I can do it, you definitely can too.

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If you’re curious about starting your own affiliate journey, check out this list of beginner-friendly affiliate programs.

Your turn: Have you earned your first affiliate commission yet? If not — what’s holding you back?