Instagram Affiliate Marketing Ultimate Guide: 3 Steps to Make Money on Instagram

So, you wanna learn all about Instagram affiliate marketing and making money online as a creator. Well, I have GREAT news for you… you’re in the right place!

Here at ClickBank, I’ve seen a TON of people who want to make money on Instagram – it’s quickly risen and reigned supreme as one of the best social networks out there for monetizing your following. Especially after the conundrum that was TikTok this last year being banned and unbanned, lots of content creators flocked to Instagram to continue monetizing their following!

So, how do you make money with affiliate marketing on Instagram? Let’s check it out!

Affiliate Marketing + Instagram

Many successful affiliate marketers grow their visibility by becoming influencers or content creators on Instagram. I’ve seen it myself firsthand, especially as a bit of a “nano-influencer” myself.

There’s a real beauty to affiliate marketing. If you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed or nervous at the idea of being on-camera and being front and center, don’t worry! There’s plenty of people that have made affiliate marketing work as a content creator without ever showing their face!

That’s the beauty of affiliate marketing – you can make money online without having to be front and center yourself. Simply create useful content to promote other people’s products and watch the commission checks roll in!

How do I know? Well, let me introduce myself! I’m Keely, social media and influencer manager here at ClickBank, and nano-influencer on Instagram!

I’ve spent the last decade creating content on various platforms, from blogging, to vlogs, making websites, and finally finding my footing on Instagram with a really amazing, kind, and dedicated audience of people in the wellness niche!

I’ve been able to monetize my content and grow as a creator and affiliate, and the journey has been AMAZING!

How Does Affiliate Marketing on Instagram Work?

First, a quick refresher: affiliate marketing is promoting other people’s products to your audience in exchange for a commission from each sale you generate. This involves placing a special tracking link that will give you credit for any successful sales.

Typically, affiliate marketing requires a few different parties:

• The brand or seller (the one with a product to sell)
• The affiliate (the one promoting that product to their audience)
• The customer (the one who buys a product)
• The affiliate network (the one who connects the seller and affiliate)

Beyond that, you need a place where products can be promoted. That’s where Instagram comes in.

It’s one of the most popular social networks in the world, with more than 1 billion monthly active users. But for us marketers, perhaps the most impressive statistic is that over 1/3 of Instagram users worldwide are between 18 and 34 years old!

That audience is a gold mine for all kinds of niches and businesses to get in front of.

So, if you’re wondering, “Is affiliate marketing allowed on Instagram?”

The answer is yes!

Here’s how to do it.

Becoming an Affiliate on Instagram

Now, let’s look at how you can actually use Instagram as an affiliate – the process is a little different than with other popular free traffic sources.

On most social media sites, you can simply write a social post, put your affiliate link in it, and call it a day. But with Instagram, you’re NOT allowed to put clickable links in regular feed posts, so it requires you to be a bit more creative!

Specifically, there are 4 main ways that affiliate marketers can use Instagram features to make money:

Organic posts with an affiliate link in your bio. Posting from your feed with a link in bio works best, in my experience. Using a reputable link-in-bio page builder like Linktr.ee or Accelerator is a great way to add multiple links for different promotions. From there, you can just publish a static post, carousel, reel, or story about your product and reference the link in your 150-character bio as a CTA for people who want to learn more.

Use Instagram Stories. It used to be that if your business account had over 10K followers, you’re given the option to include a swipe-up link in your stories. Now, however, you can have as few or as many followers and be a regular page, and you can still add a link to click on in your stories! This can be an affiliate link to an offer, but it can also be a regular link to an affiliate bridge page with affiliate links included there.

Include a short URL in your photo or story. In this case, I don’t mean an actual link your user can tap or click, but just visually typing out a shortened URL inside of your image that people can see and go type into their browser. (Let’s be clear: this is a pretty unlikely way to get much traffic, but it’s still an option.) Offering a promo code is another option that can work well. Like I said, this isn’t the best way. In fact, I wouldn’t really even suggest it in most cases – I’m just saying you CAN if you want to!

Pay for Instagram ads. If it makes sense, you can bypass organic social altogether and just pay to get in front of the massive Instagram audience (as an affiliate or as a seller).

What’s cool is, you can use any combination of these to drive revenue for your affiliate business! Feel free to experiment with them to see what works best. For me, I’ve found a mix between organic posting on my feed and on stories works best for optimal organic growth.

That means I’m not paying a dime, and I’m still able to promote my products and make money on Instagram!

How to Make Money on Instagram as an Affiliate

Now that you know where you can place your affiliate links on Instagram, it’s time to go over the steps for making money!

Here are the 3 steps you should follow to find success with Instagram affiliate marketing:

Build a community around your topic, niche, or audience.

Find affiliate offers to promote.

Publish regular content that directs people to an offer.

Step 1: Build an Instagram Following

First things first: You need a following on your Instagram! Otherwise, who are you going to put affiliate offers (and links) in front of?

But before you publish a single post or story, you need to decide who you want to talk to (and what you’re talking to them about). Like with any online business, your Instagram will be more successful if it’s centered around a specific topic, niche, or audience.

For example, an Instagram influencer like V Shred is going to post almost entirely health and fitness related content, as would a big brand like Nike.

To build a truly valuable and engaged audience, there’s a few steps you’ll want to take.

First, make sure you’re promoting valuable content to people within your niche. If it isn’t valuable, you’ll lose your audience. Create content for your PEOPLE, not for an algorithm.

You can try following the AIDA principle:

• Attention
• Interest
• Desire
• Action

That means creating content that grabs the audience’s attention, piques their areas of interest, makes them desire YOUR solution, and gives them an action to take, like clicking through your affiliate link. 

Next, make sure the platform you’re using is the best one for YOUR niche and audience. If you use a shotgun technique, posting everywhere hoping to hit your target audience, you’ll miss out. Become an expert on ONE channel and excel on that channel. In this case, Instagram!

Lastly, you want to monetize your audience, and make your content creation valuable for YOU. As an affiliate, your job is NOT to “sell” any product or convince your audience to buy anything. Your only goal is to make people aware of the solution you’re offering and help them make the right decisions for themselves!

Even if you do end up going the influencer route, rather than building a corporate brand, you almost always see an influencer that represents a certain niche or topic, such as:

• Photography
• Fitness
• Beauty
• Fashion
• Cooking
• Activism

This is because a lot of people want to follow people, not brands, around a topic area they’re interested in.

Niching Down

Like with starting an affiliate website, a YouTube channel, or any other social media account, it’s important to niche down on Instagram.

Unless you’re already a celebrity, people will get to know you better if they associate your name or brand with a specific topic. As a bonus, anyone who comes across your Instagram will be able to tell what you’re all about right away and decide if it’s a good fit for them.

Now, if you want to do Instagram affiliate marketing with ClickBank offers, it’s worth looking at your options before committing to a niche!

Simply sign up for a free ClickBank account and visit the ClickBank marketplace to see which niches and offers you’d like to promote – then back up from there to determine the kind of Instagram content you’ll need to produce.

There’s obviously a LOT you need to know to build a following on Instagram (most of which involves creating top-notch content), but choosing your niche and an offer to monetize your following is an excellent starting point.

Dialing into Your Niche

Once you’ve chosen your niche, there are a few things you can do to dial into your niche as well, to really make sure you’re capitalizing on your audience and data!

But what the heck does that mean? 

At the beginning of your affiliate journey, you’ll have chosen a niche to promote products and affiliate offers. Your niche is essentially what drives you and the products you’re promoting online as an affiliate marketer. Like we talked about above, no matter what journey you take to make money on Instagram, you should still choose a niche so that the content you create is valuable and has direction.

For me, the journey to choosing my niche was simple, but it was truly the guiding light for me as I began my affiliate marketing business. I simply dug in and took a look at what my hobbies and lifestyle already were.

Personally, I’m a HUGE yogi, and I really love the outdoors and exercising. That was a clear sign to me that I should delve into the health and wellness niche. More specifically, women’s health and wellness!

From there, I was able to really double down on monetizing my content. That’s why having a niche is so important! It’s a big help with the research and content creation as an affiliate, and gives you clear guidelines for the audience you’re targeting with your marketing efforts.

When you choose a niche, it’s MUCH easier for you to be able to properly target and reach a target audience that is actually interested in the products you’re promoting, so your return on investment is that much better! 

Once you’ve got that going for you, you’ll want to really dial into your niche and your audience to optimize the results from your promotional efforts! 

1) Check Your Metrics

One of the easiest ways to continue to dial into your niche is to look at your reporting. Once you’ve begun your affiliate marketing journey, you’ll have more data to assess based on the actions of your audience. Dig into this!

What makes your followers tick, and what actions are they taking with your product? Maybe they are leaving your landing page and then returning to it. Put yourself in the shoes of the people within your niche and really try to understand the data and actions of the consumers in your audience! 

2) Interact With Your Audience

Next, as you’ve built up more of an audience, take some time to talk and interact with the people in your niche! Ask questions, build a rapport, and continue to build up your own credibility within your niche. Maybe that looks like taking polls to improve performance, or asking questions to help you better understand the needs, wants, and lifestyle of those within your niche. All of these will help you to better talk to and market to the consumers in your niche. 

3) Do Your Research

Once you’ve done that, take the time to do some additional research. Sure, you conducted plenty of research into your niche at the start of your affiliate marketing journey. That doesn’t mean the research period is over, however!

There are still plenty of behaviors and patterns that can change, and you should be the first to know about them. Stay up to date on journals, research pages, and social media accounts that can help deliver educational information to you about your niche. Maybe the consumers in your niche have changed their buying patterns. That’s something that you, as an affiliate, should stay on top of. 

Never stop learning, researching, and trying new things to really hone in on and perfect your monetization strategy. The more you know, the better your promotions will perform. 

4) Watch for Trends

Another great way to dial into your niche is to look outside of your current customer base to see new emerging trends, identify different behaviors, and even find new niche conversations to join in on. There’s so much room for growth, even within your niche! 

However, on that same note, the best customer is a loyal, returning customer. Take some time to understand the people who have already purchased from you. What can you do to improve your performance and ensure that your consumers want to come back to you time and time again? What are their needs as a consumer and what makes them tick?

You can find this out by browsing online communities, sending out surveys, and talking with the people already in your  network or customer base. 

5) Test, Test, Test

There’s more to dialing into your niche than just conducting research, too! What you always want to do is Test, Test, Test!

Test inside your communities to discover what kind of content, verbiage, copy, and promotions perform best! Maybe a certain email totally flopped, but a few days later you had one that did great! Analyze that information to help you dial into how the consumers in your niche like being marketed to! 

No matter what, at the end of the day, dialing into your niche is all about how you’re talking to the people in your niche, how your content reaches them, and using lots of tools, education, and research to continue to reach them.

With more efforts like this, it will become easier and easier to continue to promote your offers in your niche and increase your ROI.

Step 2: Find an Affiliate Program for Instagram

Next, we need to talk about where you can find high-converting affiliate offers to promote!

There are all kinds of affiliate programs and affiliate networks out there. In fact, even Instagram itself is getting into the affiliate space.

Almost any of the prominent affiliate networks are supported on Instagram, so you can feel free to experiment with different ones to find the best affiliate offers for your brand.

But at ClickBank, we believe our selection of quality offers and high commission rates (up to 75% or higher) are tough to beat anywhere else, so let’s briefly look at how you can choose ClickBank products to promote on Instagram.

Finding a ClickBank Affiliate Offer

First, go sign up for a free ClickBank account and give yourself a nickname. Then, head over to the ClickBank marketplace and start looking for a niche (category) or specific offer that looks promising.

If we continue with the fitness brand example, here’s how it might look:

In here, we can look through offers that are getting sales for other affiliates and find one that’s a good fit for our brand and audience. Don’t forget to check out the seller’s landing page and affiliate tools page (if they have one) to see if the offer quality is there!

If you find a product that you may want to share with your audience, you can just hit the “Promote” button on an offer, generate a ClickBank affiliate link (ie a tracking link), and add it to any – or ALL – of the 5 places where Instagram allows links.

To find out more about getting set up as an affiliate on ClickBank, choosing an offer, and making your first affiliate commission, check out our in-depth ClickBank for beginners guide!

Step 3: Publish Quality Content Regularly

So, you’ve chosen your niche, found an offer to promote, and your Instagram is all ready to go?

Great! Now, the last and most important step to finding success on Instagram is… publishing new content regularly! It’s no exaggeration when I say the content you publish is make-or-break.

What do I mean?

Well, like with any business, your Instagram account is competing for attention in a competitive space. And while it’s obviously not a pure meritocracy on social media, exceptional content does tend to rise to the top. That means having a pulse on what your audience cares about, being creative, using quality equipment, and putting real effort into every aspect of your content creation.

With that said, it’s possible to be “TOO good.” If you’re always perfect with everything – from pristine makeup and lighting to polished descriptions and comments – it can come across as inauthentic. That’s not a good look on Instagram.

Using Hashtags

A lot of people think that using hashtags on Instagram is irrelevant now. That’s… sort of true.

HOWEVER, there is still a TON of importance for using relevant keywords in your content, much like how good content used to include the strategic use of hashtags in your description. Now, it’s just using important keywords in your copy instead of hashtags!

You should always choose keywords that are actually relevant to your post and audience.

For instance, let’s say I’m a supplement brand trying to optimize my content for Instagram search. My niche is women’s health and my target demographic is women in the fitness industry. I would begin posting content that pertains to what they might be looking for that would bring them to my page.

For instance, maybe an educational graphic on the benefits of vitamin B. I’d publish content that is directly applicable to the target demographic, with search terms both in the actual content of my post, as well as the copy of the post.

It’s not easy, but it’s as simple as that!

Using all of your research, knowledge, and tools as a business, optimize your channels for search to ensure that people will find your content based on popular searches within your niche, the same way you would when you optimize your web pages for SEO based on keyword research!

Consistency Over Quality

Content quality is key.

Now, people used to think that if you had to pick between quality and consistency, consistency wins out every time.

HOWEVER, Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, has come out a number of times to announce that valuable, quality content that provides true value to your audience is SUPER beneficial in the long run. You’re a LOT more likely to succeed on Instagram if you publish content QUALITY content consistently, hitting a pre-determined publishing schedule week in and week out.

What would that look like? We recommend this as a general target for your Instagram affiliate marketing content calendar:

• 1 carousel or static post every other day
• 3-5 stories per day
• 1 reel every other day

Obviously, what’s best for your niche may differ. Maybe you find that your content isn’t as conducive to videos, or stories, or people get bored of it if you post too often, or you can’t keep up the quality at a certain pace.

Fortunately, there are AI tools now that can dramatically speed up each step of the content creation process while still allowing you to maintain quality. ClickBank actually just launched an AI content tool called Ember AI that can generate text, image, and video. Plus, it integrates into your Instagram, analyzes your enagement to suggest topics, and can publish straight from the tool.

You can learn more about Ember AI here.

But remember, whatever schedule you end up choosing, your Instagram affiliate marketing business can only thrive if you stick with it for the long term!

If you continue posting new content and choosing quality offers to promote, it’s only a matter of time before your Instagram starts to generate a nice income!

How Instagram Influencer Levels Change the Game

Now that we’ve gone over the steps for succeeding on Instagram, let’s cover a few other details about Instagram that will help you take advantage of the platform!

First, whether you plan to be an affiliate marketing influencer or a brand, you should be aware of “influencer levels.” These can completely change how you approach your content planning.

The exact levels may vary depending on who you talk to, but they generally break down something like this:

• Nano-Influencer: 0 to 10K followers
• Micro-Influencer: 10K to 50K followers
• Macro-Influencer: 50K to 500K followers
• Mega-Influencer: 500K+ followers

As a nano-influencer, you’re creating targeted content in a narrow niche. Your account may never grow a huge following, but you tend to have a lot of highly engaged followers. In a way, a small and engaged following can give you more credibility than a giant audience like bigger Instagram accounts have.

Nano and micro are good levels for traditional affiliate marketing, where you find affiliate links and include them in your posts. This is because you can promote what you actually believe in without adhering to all the requirements of a brand sponsor.

As you go up to higher influencer levels, you start to have more opportunities for big brand sponsorships, but you’re likely to see lower engagement in your posts. No matter which level you’re at, brand sponsors will expect a certain level of engagement.

You also need to consider your content strategy in light of where you are. Smaller Instagrams can see a lot more success just from regular feed posts that generate high engagement, while bigger accounts tend to do better with stories.

Frequently Asked Questions

What’s the Difference Between Affiliate Marketing and Influencer Marketing?

Confused about affiliate marketing vs influencer marketing? No need! They are virtually the same thing – the distinction comes down to commission structures and how products get promoted.

As an affiliate, you’ll use a tracking link for affiliate offers to generate commissions on a Revenue Share (RevShare) or cost per action (CPA) basis. In this model, you only get paid when a desired action is taken (usually a sale or purchase).

As an influencer, you’ll outline a set of terms with a brand to sponsor their product or service in your Instagram post. You’ll get paid a flat fee for promoting the product, regardless of how many people buy.

Of course, there’s a third possibility, which is a combination of the two: you get paid a sponsorship fee and include an affiliate link that gives you more income from successful commissions. This is most likely to work if you have a highly engaged following!

Is Using Affiliate Links on Instagram Worth It?

In a nutshell, yes. You can definitely use affiliate links to make money on Instagram.

However, it’s not so much a question of affiliate links on Instagram specifically. If you have an Instagram, affiliate links are one great way to monetize your following, but is Instagram the BEST place to be an affiliate marketer online?

Honestly, I’d say there may be better platforms if your goal is affiliate marketing:

With that said, if you’re in a visual niche or you’re really familiar with the Instagram platform, it’s certainly possible to do very well there!

How Many Followers Do You Need for Affiliate Marketing?

There is no specific requirement, but if you do a little bit of quick math, you’re probably going to want to see at least a DEDICATED audience to see any real momentum. 

While the minimum number may vary, think 5k followers or so! It helps if your audience is dedicated to you and your mission. They’ll be much more likely to buy in to what you have to say.

In fact, nano and micro influencers are seeing bigger and bigger gains in the world of content creation! If you wanna look at a numbers perspective, try shooting initially for 5k followers.

Here’s why: If you manage to average a decent 1% of your followers to click through your affiliate link and make a purchase per month, then that’s 5000 * .01 = 50.

That’s 50 commissions! 

On ClickBank, the average payout value (APV) can vary widely by niche, but if you made $50 in commissions per sale, that’s $2500 per month.

These are some real back-of-the-napkin numbers, but the point is, you need a big enough following where a small conversion rate can still equal a decent income. It’s all a balance between followers, engagement/conversions, and commission totals!

3 Final Tips for Success on Instagram

We’ve covered a lot in this post, but I wanted to leave you with 3 other quick tips:

Use the proper affiliate disclosure. As we discuss in our post on affiliate link disclosure, it’s important to TELL people that you’re an influencer or affiliate! You can easily do this on Instagram by adding a hashtag like #ad, #sponsored, or #promotion.

Route traffic to your email list. It’s possible to make pretty good money directly from your Instagram posts and stories using an affiliate link, but these tend to have a short shelf life. To achieve greater long-term value from your Instagram content efforts, encourage your followers to sign up for your email list, where you can more easily promote new affiliate offers and maintain greater control over your audience. (Learn more about email affiliate marketing.)

Engage with other Instagram accounts. One of the best ways to grow on Instagram is to be visible on other people’s profiles. That means commenting, liking, sharing, and even direct messaging people who engage with your content.

Instagram Affiliate Marketing Wrap-up

I tried to make this post as easy and accessible as possible, but you can probably tell by now that affiliate marketing on Instagram will take a lot of time and effort before you see results. You’ll need persistence and a willingness to try new things in order to maximize your Instagram success!

With that said, Instagram is a great option for anyone who’s ready to build an audience online. And of course, the next step is to monetize it with affiliate marketing on ClickBank.

ClickBank is a platform that empowers affiliates to grow, scale, and reach customers like never before. Sign up for a free account right here!

Are you ready to shorten your learning curve and become a successful affiliate FAST? We recommend checking out Ember AI, the AI content tool from ClickBank that’s perfect for creating a successful affiliate business on Instagram!