How to Start Affiliate Marketing in 2026 (Beginner Tutorial)

Learn how to start affiliate marketing in 2026 with a simple 3-step system using Google Ads, YouTube Ads, landing pages, email follow-up, and retargeting. In this beginner tutorial, I break down my 6-month affiliate marketing experiment, including how I went from losing money in month one to building a profitable system with recurring commissions.

Chapters:

0:00 Intro: Affiliate Marketing in 2026
0:35 The 3-Part Affiliate Marketing System
1:15 My 6-Month Affiliate Marketing Experiment
2:00 Month 1: Spending $1,000 and Making $0
2:45 How to Choose the Right Affiliate Programs
3:35 Why Recurring Commissions Matter
4:15 Step 1: Build a High-Converting Landing Page
5:30 Why You Need Email Opt-Ins First
6:30 Using YouTube to Warm Up Buyers
7:25 Step 2: Build the Email Follow-Up System
8:30 How AI Helps Create Affiliate Email Sequences
9:30 Why Churn Can Kill Affiliate Profits
10:20 Step 3: Run Google and YouTube Ads
11:15 Search Ads vs Performance Max Campaigns
12:00 Using ChatGPT for Google Ads Headlines
13:05 Add YouTube Videos, Blog Posts, and Sitelinks
14:00 Retargeting With Meta and YouTube Ads
15:00 Final Recap: Ads, Landing Page, Email, Retargeting
15:30 Comment SYSTEM to Get the Spreadsheet