How To Make Magic Internet Money Ep. #1 - Substack Affiliate Income
This one's for the Substack writers & content creators out there
Welcome to Episode #1 in my new Magic Internet Money series.
The goal of this series is simple: I’m going to show Substack writers and other content creators how they can begin scaling their incomes, without needing to quit their jobs or buying some expensive course.
Today, I’m breaking down a simple system you can use to begin earning affiliate income from the awesome content you’re already spending time on.
This is the system I’ve used for 7+ years to scale past $1M+ in affiliate revenue. It still works today, and it’s perfect for Substack creators.
By the end of this episode you’re going to understand how to plug a new income stream directly into your business, find the right affiliate offers for your niche, and actually get conversions.
Let’s get to it!
What Most Content Creators Are Missing Out On…Especially On Substack
These days, everyone is talking about selling digital products or selling subscriptions.
Both these ideas are great. But if you’ve been writing on Substack for a while, you probably know this isn’t a walk in the park.
Especially when you’re brand new. Grinding out subscribers who don’t churn isn’t easy, and these days a lot of people are tapped out financially and don’t want endless subscriptions.
Same goes for selling digital products. You can spend weeks or even months building something, only to get a couple of sales after all your hard work, if that.
This is exactly why I think Substack writers and content creators in general need to tap into affiliate marketing (the right way) from day one.
Affiliate income can become the backbone of your writing and content business.
And you don’t have to sell your soul or recommend shitty products and services to people. In fact, recommending brands you actually use and love is the key to cracking the code (but more on this later!)
Here are the steps you need to follow 👇👇👇
Step 1: Pick Your Playground & Begin Building
If you’re reading this, you might already be building an audience here on Substack. And that’s really what this step is about.
The entire foundation of making money with content relies on audience building.
After all, without traffic, eyeballs, and an audience, you lack distribution. You just can’t get enough potential customers to your content to ever make a living doing this.
I talk about this in my post on the 3 skills you need to run a one-person business. But here’s the gist of it:
Pick one platform and start pumping out content that solves specific problems for people and adds value to their life. That’s it. You can choose:
Instagram if you like visuals and lifestyle content
YouTube if you love talking or teaching
TikTok if you enjoy short-form content and social media trends
Substack if you like writing longer, deeper stuff
Don’t spread yourself thin. One platform, one focus, one fanbase when you’re getting started.
Then post 3–5 times a week. And remember, you’re not trying to be viral, you’re trying to be valuable. This usually means solving pain points for people or helping them make a decision. Entertainment is also a form of value, but it’s a bit more difficult to monetize.
Do this for several months.
You don’t need thousands of followers or to be a top content creator to move onto Step 2. However, you need to build a tiny following and also establish the habit of creating content that people find useful.
Step 2: Join An Affiliate Network & Partner With Brands
Let’s get to the fun part!
As soon as you grow a tiny following, which can honestly be anything from 250 to 1,000+ followers on a given platform, I suggest looking into affiliate networks.
Affiliate networks connect brands and content creators / media outlets. It’s how you find brands to promote within your content and earn commissions whenever someone ends up making a purchase.
I’ve been doing content-based affiliate marketing for over 7 years.
In this time, I’ve used a lot of networks. I’ve also worked with many brands directly.
However, for beginners in basically any niche, I recommend creating a free account as an Impact.com publisher.
Impact works with thousands of popular brands across hundreds of niches. It’s here you can find brands to partner with and promote to begin earning affiliate income.
Seriously, there are some great brands on here. Here’s a couple I just found on the network for a few different niches:
Finance:
Wealthfront (pays $55 commissions)
Coinbase (pays 50% commissions)
Moomoo (pays $60 commissions)
Travel:
Southwest Airlines (pays 2.5% commission)
Enterprise Car Rental (pays 2% commission)
CheapOAir (pays $5 - $25 commissions)
Fitness:
Under Armour (pays 8% commissions)
Adidas (pays 7% commissions)
Bowflex (pays 3% commissions)
Tech:
Lenovo (pays 3% - 8% commissions)
HP (pays 3.5% commissions)
Staples (pays 2% commissions)
This is just scratching the surface with some of the larger brands on the platform. There’s actually thousands of brands across dozens of niches, including many international ones as well.
Impact makes everything super easy too.
You just search for brand names or your niche/keywords. You then get a huge list of brands on the marketplace and apply to work with them in one click.
Brands all have their own payout terms too.
Some might pay you a 20% commission or $50 fee when you drive a sale for them. Some payout for multiple events, like when someone opens an account and makes their first purchase. Some brands even pay you just for sending them a click!
The best part?
Once you get accepted to work with a brand, you can find the promotional link to use within your content right on Impact’s main dashboard:
It’s that simple. You don’t need to have any tech skills, know how to code, or do anything differently than you’re already doing.
And once you begin plugging these brand partners into your content, which I’ll cover in Step 3, Impact also tracks all of your clicks, conversions, and revenue so you can begin tracking which brands are generating revenue:
This is how you can turn your writing or content creation process into something that earns way more revenue.
Affiliate marketing is also consistent income when done right.
You don’t have to haggle for flat-fee brand sponsorships only to get ghosted. You don’t have to grind out $5 monthly subscribers, only to watch them churn after you miss a week of posting.
All you need to do is create valuable content and integrate the brands and services you actually like using. So let’s cover this next!
💵 Related: How To Get Rich With A One-Person Business
Step 3: Integrate Brand Partners Into Your Content Naturally
You might be wondering: how do you actually promote these affiliate relationships in a way that’s natural and that works?
Again, it all comes back to content and the value you’re adding to people’s lives.
When you create content addressing a pain point, there are natural ways to plug products and services that you use in your own life and recommend to others.
Specifically, these content types work very well for content-based affiliate marketing:
How-to guides (ex: How I backpacked Europe for cheap)
Product/brand reviews (ex: I used my Peloton bike to get fit for 90 days, here’s what happened)
“VS” posts (ex: Sony A6400 vs Sony A6300 - Is Sony’s new camera worth upgrading?")
Negative reviews (ex: Why I’m switching from Mailchimp to ConvertKit)
You get the idea.
You’re creating content to serve your audience, and along the way, you recommend products and services that can help solve their issues.
This is possible on any social media platform and Substack.
You don’t have to hide the fact you’re doing this either. In fact, people like when you’re upfront and actually share things that work for you.
I do this on YouTube all the time.
Like in my Rakuten review. This video explains why I like Rakuten and how I also used its affiliate program to make over $7,800. People like the video and have also signed up for Rakuten themselves after watching it.
You can also mark affiliate links as being affiliate links with a simple callout. Disclaimers at the end of your content work too.
But generally, as you create content to help your audience, you’ll find a rhythm for recommending brands you genuinely support. Except now, you get paid for doing so!
PS: I have a guide coming out soon on Substack + YouTube as a cheat code for scaling your income. Definitely subscribe to see this one when it goes live!
Also Read 👉 Here’s My $250,000 YouTube Framework (Copy It!)
Step 4: Build Best-Of Pages & Resource Hubs That Are Actually Helpful
One more quick tip, especially for Substack writers.
Create a home for all of the brands you love!
I’ve done this here with my list of money-making tools I like using.
This is a simple way to consolidate your top recommendations and affiliate offers in a single hub for your audience.
I also suggest doing this with your link-in-bio if you’re on social or Substack.
Personally, I use Pillar.io (affiliate link) to showcase my brands, best affiliate offers, and resource pages on the platforms I create content on.
This is a clean way to get your audience to find and click on your top pages.
Now again, this doesn’t all have to be affiliate content. But you can promote your digital products, social pages, consulting calls, and really any link or product you want.
You can also try Pillar free for 14 days with my link if you’re curious how it works. This also helps support me, from one affiliate marketer to another! 😊😉
Step 5: Profit!?! Yes, But There’s Some Extra Steps
That’s really all there is to it for this “Magic Internet Money” process.
And I swear, it really does feel like magic.
I’ll never forget the first time my blog made its first affiliate sale back in 2018. I earned under $1 for the conversion, but it felt surreal.
You can legitimately make money out of thin air by writing about niches you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. It’s awesome!
Now I will say, that getting your first few brand approvals can take a few weeks. Some brands might reject you too until you’re more established. Plus as you scale and learn, you might also expand into other networks beyond Impact, or even work with some brands directly who reach out to you.
All of this takes some time and discernment.
Do you really want to work with that brand? Is it actually a good fit for your content? Are the payout terms competitive enough to even warrant mentioning them?
This is part of the affiliate marketing game. You get pretty fast at it with practice. But this is another income-generating skill you won’t be amazing at from day one.
Oh yeah, stuff goes wrong too 😂
I’ve basically been blacklisted from DoorDash’s affiliate program by the account manager (DON’T ASK ME WHY.) Some brands haven’t paid me thousands of dollars after earnings were due. And the Capital One Shopping compliance team had me on speed dial for a while since apparently everything I wrote about them was in violation of our affiliate agreement (they need to chill.)
But as you work your way through the ups and downs of affiliate marketing, you’ll make sense of what works for you and your content.
As long as you recommend things you like and create valuable content, affiliate marketing can really augment your existing content creation business without changing what you’re doing.
Next Steps
I hope you’ve enjoyed Episode #1 of this new Magic Internet Money series I’m excited for.
Like I mentioned, I’ve been writing about online income and side hustles for 7+ years now. I’m now having a ton of fun on Substack since joining around June, so I’m looking forward to creating more content like this here.
If you’d like to subscribe and follow along, that’s greatly appreciated.
You can also book a consultation call with me (paid) if you’d like to go over your existing content business, missing revenue opportunities, and how to add affiliate income or other revenue streams to that business.
Until then, I hope you keep putting out awesome content! And if you join Impact or another network out there, let me know how the early days go 😊😎
Catch you in the next one.
Tom from WiFi Wealth.