9 Awesome Affiliate Marketing Examples to Steal

The internet is filled with affiliate marketing examples — some good, others not so much. Trying to find a winner means wading through a sea of poorly designed posts created by people who have no idea how to promote products.

That’s why we curated this list from nine different industries with sites that are doing it right. If you’re looking for fresh ideas, these examples will show you how to monetize your content so it turns a profit indefinitely.

Get Your FREE 30-Page Affiliate Marketing Beginners Guide And Grow Your Site TodayWhat Exactly Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is recommending a business’s service or product and earning a commission for doing so.

The affiliate (you) promotes it to your audience. When they buy what you recommended, you make money. The sales are tracked through your unique, identifying affiliate link.

If you’re reading this, you probably already have some idea of what affiliate marketing is but a lot of the information around it makes it seem a lot more complicated than it is. Why?

Because they’re trying to sell you something. We’re trying to sell you something too, don’t get us wrong.

But the companies that make it seem like this complex web that you can only navigate with their suite of 75 tools, online courses, personal coaching, ebooks, and webinars are wrong. 

And if you need some monetary motivation, the numbers don’t lie:

Takeaway: 81% of brands and 84% of publishers use affiliate marketing. There is a 10.1% increase in affiliate marketing spending in the U.S. every year. 

There’s a lot of money to be made in affiliate sales, even if your site is relatively new and your traffic isn’t yet breaking any records. Every piece of content you release has the possibility to be monetized. 

No one’s time is free, and while the cost of starting and running a site doesn’t have to be expensive, it’s still money coming out of your pocket.Affiliate Marketing Examples You Can Use to Start Earning Money

Okay, now we can take a look at some of the best in the game.1. Personal Finance Affiliate Site Example – Nerdwallet

Money is a general category that encompasses a lot, and the best affiliate marketing examples have chosen a specific niche, be it credit cards, investing, or budgeting.

That’s an essential component of any successful affiliate marketing site because no one can be all things to all people.

Nerdwallet is a review site for affiliate financial products, probably best known for its credit card reviews. The site doesn’t offer its own products, nor does it run ads.

Nerdwallet provides a ton of value to readers. More than 1,000 credit cards are available; travel cards, cashback, airline, hotel, and credit cards for people with no credit.

It’s a lot to wade through, and the right credit card is a valuable tool. Nerdwallet makes it easy to find what you’re looking for.

Takeaway: Its revenue is entirely based on affiliate marketing with an estimated annual revenue of $100 million2. Travel Affiliate Site Example – The Points Guy

Being a travel blogger seems like a dream job, doesn’t it? Traveling to exotic locales, posting glamorous photos on social media, and getting paid big bucks to do it. Well, these bloggers are living the dream.

Flying has been a pretty miserable experience for the last 20 years or so, but it’s a lot more tolerable if you can fly business or first class.

Only, most of us can’t afford to do that. But if you can navigate the complex world of credit card churning, using credit cards to rack up a lot of points, you can travel like a baller for a pretty small amount of money (and sometimes for no money at all).

How to use credit cards best for free travel is what The Points Guy’s site is all about. It’s also a review site, with reviews of various flights, classes, trains, hotels, and airport lounges.

One of the most valuable things on the site is the monthly valuations for points from credit cards and other rewards programs because they frequently change, making it hard for a layperson to keep up.

The site doesn’t make money from the affiliate programs that hotels, airlines, etc., might offer; instead, all of the affiliates are credit cards.3. Consumer Review Affiliate Site Example – The Wirecutter

No matter what you want to buy, there is a review site for it.

The Wirecutter is part of The New York Times, but that’s not how it started. It was founded by Brian Lam in 2011 and purchased by The New York Times in 2016 for about $30 million.

Between 2011-2016, the site made $150 million in affiliate income.

The site reviews a wide array of products, including digital products, appliances, credit cards, pet supplies, and more.

Its articles are high-quality, conducted by journalists who cover a particular area, researchers, and scientists.

What the affiliate marketing giant, The Wirecutter, taught us about writing high-converting content.

If you want to optimize your site to make more money, read this.

🧵👇— Lasso (@LassoWP) July 8, 2022

The Wire Cutter is part of several affiliate marketing programs, including Amazon Associates, Home Depot, and Target.

Further Reading:Yes, Affiliate Marketing Can Make You Rich (and Here’s How)4. Health Affiliate Site Example – The Healthy Maven

Like money, health is a crowded, competitive field, but some sites have risen to the genre’s top.

The Healthy Maven is devoted to whole-life wellness, at home, in the workplace, traveling, and self-care, focusing on clean eating and natural products.

It’s a billion-dollar industry right now.

The Healthy Maven is an aspirational site. It has beautiful photos showing beautiful people doing healthy things.

The site has a dedicated “Shop” page where there are affiliate offers for green beauty products and favorite product recommendations from site founder Davida Lederle.

You can purchase some of the items on Amazon and some directly through the producer.5. Cooking Affiliate Site Example – Food52

Even if you don’t like to cook, you want to eat. So, blogging about cooking has broad appeal, and they are an excellent genre to find a niche in because there are so many possibilities; French, vegan, paleo, picky eaters, gourmands.

Whatever your cooking kink, there are sites devoted to it. 

Food52 is a great recipe site. You can save and organize your saved recipes on the site, which is very convenient. I use it all the time.

You can find more than 50,000 recipes that represent all kinds of cuisines and styles of eating.

The site is no longer a simple cooking blog; it’s a “lifestyle brand.” Which has worked out pretty well.

The site has tons of affiliates, but you can shop and check out on Food52, it has its own e-commerce branch, and you can join its affiliate program!

Currently, there are over 5,000 items available in the shopping section of its site. In 2018, Food52 said it brought in around $30 million in total sales, and the company projects $40 million in overall revenue by the end of the year.6. Shopping Affiliate Site Example – Cool Mom Picks

Online shopping is big business:

Consumers spent $601.75 billion online with U.S. merchants in 2019, up 14.9% from $523.64 billion the prior year.

The stuff moms buy covers a vast expanse. Kids themselves need lots of stuff, all of which they outgrow or age out of fast.

And then you have house stuff, organizing stuff, kitchen stuff. Moms are a big market.

Cool Mom Picks does an excellent job of curating its recommendations with thoughtful, practical items and gifts.7. News Affiliate Site Example – BuzzFeed

Okay, you may feel a type of way about these two sites as news sources, but they are good affiliate marketing examples!

I know BuzzFeed is probably better known for its quizzes like “Everyone Has a Harry Potter Spell That Matches Their Personality-Here’s Yours.”

Still, it does also do real journalism, and its reporting on Russia in 2018 netted the site a Pulitzer nomination.

As we discussed, journalism isn’t cheap, so you can’t blame Buzzfeed for getting that coin through affiliate marketing. And the site is good at it.

And if you’re a poor gift picker outer, those lists, particularly the holiday or occasion-based ones, are helpful.

This is a lesson for all affiliate marketers, the site pushes Mike’s Hot Honey, constantly, like on every single list. 

Further Reading:Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?: Definitely Not (and Here’s Why)8. Coffee Affiliate Site Example – Roasty Coffee

There are plenty of food and beverage blogs around the internet, from beer to cookies to coffee. For example, we currently have 77 coffee affiliate programs in our database.

In fact, there’s probably a program related to whatever you like to eat or drink online right now. And that’s good news for you, because it means there’s a market for it with products you can promote.