Affiliate income questions after your first link

The affiliate income questions below are the ones that arrive by email once somebody has actually put a link in a post and watched what happened. Each comes with a short invented situation, because the answer nearly always depends on a detail the question leaves out.

The situations are illustrative composites rather than case studies, so check every window, threshold and rate against the terms of your own program.

What to take away

Before the first link

Do I need an audience before any of this makes sense?

Say you write a newsletter that a few hundred people open every week, mostly about a craft they practice themselves. That is a small audience, but it is one that makes purchase decisions in your subject, which is the thing that matters. Size decides how much a link can earn; the presence of a decision decides whether it earns anything.

How do I decide whether to join a program?

Say the thing you recommend most often is sold by one merchant that runs a program directly, and also stocked by a large marketplace with a program of its own. Join whichever one your readers would buy from anyway. Merchants run programs either in-house or through affiliate networks such as Awin, CJ, Impact or Rakuten Advertising, and Amazon Associates is the best-known marketplace program; each sets its own terms. Before joining, compare the program’s link-placement rules, attribution window, reversal policy, payout terms, and termination clause. Sending readers somewhere unfamiliar to improve your rate lowers conversion by more than the rate gains.

Can I put links in a video description, a podcast page or a story?

Usually, and each program will say where its links may and may not appear. Disclosure travels with the link: the FTC's answer for a creator with affiliate links in video descriptions is that you should disclose the affiliate relationship both in the videos and in the description near the links. The place that catches people out is paid placement: some programs forbid running advertising to a page carrying their link, or bidding on the merchant's name. Read that clause before you spend anything.

Once links are live

I get clicks but no sales. What is wrong?

If a review sends readers to a product page and the dashboard shows nothing, check three things in order.

First, the attribution window: a reader who returns a week later to buy often falls outside it. Second, the merchant's checkout converts at its own rate regardless of your writing. Third, tracking sees a phone click and a laptop purchase as two different people.

Our article on the seven-step chain from click to payout walks through every step; the three checks here focus on common tracking gaps.

A commission appeared, then disappeared. Why?

Say last month showed a healthy balance and this month shows less. The likely causes are a return, a canceled order, a hold that expired without clearing, or a category the program excludes that was credited in error and later corrected. Ask the program. If reversals are frequent, the more important question is why readers are returning what you recommended.

My balance has sat below the payout minimum for months. Is the money lost?

Not lost, but not yours yet either, and some programs expire dormant balances. Check the terms for what happens to unpaid earnings after a period of inactivity, and decide whether a program that never clears its threshold is worth the link maintenance it costs.

A reader bought through my link and had a bad experience. Am I responsible?

Legally, that depends on where you are; practically, the reader trusted you, not the merchant. The Federal Trade Commission’s Endorsement Guides (16 CFR Part 255) call for clear and conspicuous disclosure of material connections, such as commissions. A plain disclosure such as “I may earn a commission if you buy through this link” explains the connection; place it where readers will see it with the recommendation.

Reply and help with the merchant's process, and if the complaint repeats, take the recommendation down. A commission is not worth a recommendation you no longer believe.

When it stops being simple

A merchant offered a fee up front plus commission. Is that still affiliate income?

A brand you have linked to for a year offers a fixed payment for a dedicated piece with your usual link inside. The moment money changes hands before publication, you are in a sponsorship.

The fixed fee is the smaller of the two things to read. Look for exclusivity, usage rights and approval language. Treat it as the brand deal it is.

I want to recommend a product that competes with a sponsor. Can I?

Only if the sponsorship agreement allows it, and many do not for the length of the term. Check before you publish rather than after. Where you can, keep exclusivity clauses narrow enough that your affiliate recommendations survive them.

The program terminated my account with a balance owing. What now?

Read the termination clause for what happens to unpaid earnings. Ask in writing for the reason and for payment of anything already cleared. Then fix the links, because all of them point at nothing.

An inventory of every link and its page matters. A termination should take an afternoon to clean up, not a month.

Someone in my niche published their affiliate earnings. Is that a target?

It is one person's outcome with their specific traffic, programs and timing, which makes it an anecdote rather than a benchmark. Read it for which programs and page types they found worth running. Ignore the totals.

Do commissions count as taxable income?

Yes, in every system anyone here has heard of, and so do referral bonuses and, in some places, products you were sent to review. What you owe, when, and on which form are questions for your own tax authority and an accountant; the general shape of the problem is set out under creator taxes.

A United States reader starts at the Internal Revenue Service’s self-employed tax center and takes what they find to a professional rather than applying it alone. A payer may request Form W-9 and issue Form 1099-NEC or, depending on the type of payment, Form 1099-MISC; a sole proprietor generally reports business income and expenses on Schedule C. Keep every program statement, because the platform may be reporting the figure whether or not you declare it.

Common questions

Should I use a link shortener or my own redirect?

Your own redirect, so that a change of program or merchant is one edit rather than a hunt through old posts. Check that the program permits masked links first; a few forbid them.

How often should I check old links?

Set a schedule and keep it, quarterly at least. Dead links cost you the reader's confidence before they cost you the commission.

Is it worth joining a program for a product I only mention once?

Rarely. Every program is a set of terms, a dashboard and a payout threshold to remember. A single mention is better left as an honest, unpaid link.