10 Best Affiliate Marketing Courses For Beginners (Free & Paid)

One of the best ways to learn affiliate marketing is to enroll in an affiliate marketing course.

When choosing a course, it’s important to find one that offers practical information on how affiliate programs work and teaches you realistic methods on how you can make money from affiliate marketing.

We’ve reviewed and rated dozens of training programs (both free and paid) to find the best affiliate marketing courses for beginners.

All courses listed below are created by successful affiliate marketers and they will help you become an affiliate marketing expert in no time.

Top 10 Affiliate Marketing Courses

1. 123 Affiliate Marketing Course by Pat Flynn
2. The $1000/Month Affiliate System by Shout University
3. Beginner Affiliate Marketing Course by Udemy
4. How to Start Affiliate Marketing by Voluum
5. The Affiliate Lab by Matt Diggity
6. Affiliate Marketing for Beginners by Skillshare
7. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing by Making Sense
8. Free Affiliate Marketing Course for Beginners by Udemy
9. Affiliate Marketing Foundations by LinkedIn
10. Master Affiliate Marketing Step By Step by Alison

1. 123 Affiliate Marketing Course by Pat Flynn

Pat Flynn is widely known for being an expert in creating passive income streams. More than that, he teaches other entrepreneurs to replicate his success. Pat started affiliate marketing in 2010 and has made more than $3 million in the process.

The 123 Affiliate Marketing Course helps students learn affiliate marketing and how they can generate passive income online.

It takes you from the beginning explaining how to find products to promote and how to structure your affiliate marketing messages in a way that is unobtrusive but effective.

The course focuses on affiliate marketing training in five distinct sections with 23 lessons total.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• How to choose affiliate products to promote
• How to find the best platforms for affiliate marketing
• How to create and use affiliate links
• How to convince your audience to buy the products you’re suggesting

While there are no hard requirements for taking the course, Pat highly suggests that you already have an online presence and audience. If you do, then you can put Pat’s methods into action immediately.

Why enroll in this course?

You should enroll in this course because it is one of the best ways to learn affiliate marketing. Rather than focusing on a specific affiliate program, Pat teaches you how to turn your existing audience into an affiliate earnings machine even if you don’t have your own products to sell.

The course comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

2. The $1000/Month Affiliate System by Shout University

Not everyone wants to become an affiliate marketing expert. Many people want to earn a little extra income through their program. The $1000/Month Affiliate System by Shout University is designed to help people who want to get into affiliate marketing as a side hustle.

The course focuses on learning the basic skills needed to start affiliate marketing, build a sustainable platform, and maintain an appropriate level of income from it. The course makes it easy to start affiliate marketing right away.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• The basics of affiliate marketing
• Essential skills
• The process to get started
• Reaching the first $1,000
• How to use the Amazon Affiliate program

The course is taught by Harsh Agrawal, who built ShoutMeLoud, a successful blog that thrives through affiliate marketing. Harsh started working with his blog and other companies in 2008 and earning them millions through multiple methods including affiliate marketing.

Why enroll in this course?

You should enroll in this course if you want to add affiliate marketing to your online presence quickly. This is especially strong for beginners that are also building their audience for the first time.

The course gives you the skills to start affiliate marketing right away even if you are still working on other parts of starting your business.

3. Beginner Affiliate Marketing Course by Udemy

One of the biggest hurdles for anyone interested in affiliate marketing is starting a website. The Beginner Affiliate Marketing Course by Udemy shows you how to do affiliate market without necessarily having your own website.

That way, you can start marketing and selling on your first day instead of spending time developing your platform.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• How to affiliate market without a website
• How to use five of the top affiliate marketing programs
• How to create social media and email ads
• How to choose the right niche and products

The Beginner Affiliate Marketing Course is offered by Udemy, a leader in self-guided training. The course is priced affordably for most budgets and is backed by a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Why enroll in this course?

This course gives you the tools to start marketing without a lot of time and money overhead. It takes the direct path to affiliate marketing through established programs and platforms, making it easier for anyone to start.

4. How to Start Affiliate Marketing by Voluum

If you want to begin affiliate marketing without spending any money, then start with the How to Start Affiliate Marketing course by Voluum. It’s a free course aimed at complete beginners.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• How to choose the right platform, niche, and products
• How to design effective marketing ads
• How to generate traffic and manage leads
• How to track your progress and measure campaign performance

The course is offered by Voluum and comes with an affiliate marketing certification.

Why enroll in this course?

It’s a free course that covers affiliate marketing in detail. It includes everything you need to know about affiliate marketing:

• What you need to get started.
• How to set up your first affiliate marketing campaign.
• How to optimize your campaigns with Voluum.

The course is delivered by affiliate marketing experts with years of experience in the industry.

5. The Affiliate Lab by Matt Diggity

You can start affiliate marketing by taking over and flipping an existing affiliate website. The Affiliate Lab by Matt Diggity teaches you how to flip an existing website so that you can turn a profit quickly and not have to start from scratch.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• How to find and vet affiliate programs
• How to approach and acquire affiliate websites
• How to turn an existing website into a profitable and sustainable business through SEO

Matt Diggity is a former electrical engineer that decided to master SEO and affiliate marketing. In true engineer fashion, he found the right methods to turn lackluster sites into high-earning ventures and sell them for a profit.

Why enroll in this course?

The Affiliate Lab is designed to teach you how to follow his process of acquiring websites and turning them into strong affiliate programs before selling them for years-worth of their monthly earning potential.

If you want to flip businesses rather than build your own affiliate website from scratch, this course is for you.

6. Affiliate Marketing for Beginners by Skillshare

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners by Skillshare is aimed at complete beginners that learn from guided experience.

The course walks you through an example of how to set up an affiliate marketing program from start to finish.

It also focuses on proving the value of ads before committing to them, which can be helpful in reducing costs and speeding up profitability.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• How to advertise in different ways
• How to create and test ads
• How to get started with affiliate marketing

The course is taught by Greg Jefferies, a content expert at Skillshare.

Why enroll in this course?

This course is a good choice for someone that wants a guided practice in making money from affiliate marketing. The focus of this course is on building and testing ads something that is vital to long-term success and is not offered in many other courses.

7. Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing by Making Sense

Making Sense of Affiliate Marketing is a course for bloggers that want to add affiliate marketing to their monetization strategy.

Affiliate marketing and blogging go hand-in-hand, and this course helps bloggers understand the secrets of affiliate marketing and blog monetization.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• How to implement affiliate marketing on a blog
• How to monitor and understand performance statistics
• How to create a deep system of interconnected links and affiliate systems

The program is run by Michelle Schroeder-Gardner, who founded the Making Sense of Cents blog.

Her blogging career led to an award-winning blog and high earnings through affiliate marketing.

This course comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.

Why enroll in this course?

This course is perfect for bloggers and other online marketers that need a monetization strategy for their content. This course goes deep into the details of text-based affiliate marketing and how to create systems that lead to ongoing success.

8. Free Affiliate Marketing Course for Beginners by Udemy

One of the free affiliate marketing courses you can definitely consider is the Affiliate Marketing Course for beginners by Udemy.

The Free Affiliate Marketing Course for Beginners by Udemy is a primer for anyone that thinks they want to try it. The course is short but covers the breadth of what you need to know about affiliate marketing and how to take action.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• The basics of what affiliate marketing is
• How to set up resources for affiliate marketing
• Strategies for success

This course is taught by one of Udemy’s experts, Tyler Stokes. This course is an introductory overview that gives you a basic understanding of affiliate marketing and if it is right for you.

Why enroll in this course?

This course can help you determine if affiliate marketing is right for you. It can also help you understand what it takes to become an affiliate marketer and how to be successful.

9. Affiliate Marketing Foundations by LinkedIn Learning

Before taking the big step into affiliate marketing, it can be helpful to get a broad overview of it. The Affiliate Marketing Foundations course by LinkedIn Learning gives you a short overview of the different parts of affiliate marketing.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• What affiliate marketing is
• How to create your affiliate marketing platform
• Creating your brand as an affiliate marketer
• How to join other affiliate programs

This course is relatively short, clocking in at just over 20 minutes. However, it is a quick primer and overview of affiliate marketing for people who do not know about it with any level of detail.

It can make affiliate marketing more clear so that you can make informed decisions about what steps to take next.

Why enroll in this course?

This course is one of the fastest ways to learn about affiliate marketing in a broad sense. If your job involves affiliate marketing in any sense, this course makes you proficient in the understanding of processes and terminology used in affiliate programs.

10. Master Affiliate Marketing Step By Step by Alison

Master Affiliate Marketing Step by Step is a course offered by Alison that teaches the fundamentals of affiliate marketing but at a deep level of detail. Essentially, it helps you master the most basic components of affiliate marketing, giving you a strong foundation to continue learning and expand on.

By taking this course you’ll learn:

• How to set up an affiliate program
• How to CPA affiliate links and offers work
• How to generate traffic through advertising

This course is designed to give you a focused overview of how to start affiliate marketing. More than that, it shows you the process in detail at each step so that you can navigate the process efficiently and effectively once you are ready to start building your own program.

Why enroll in this course?

This course focuses on the fundamentals in detail so that you can easily replicate the process without running into problems. It is a foundational course that lets you understand how to start, as well as how to advance on your own going forward.

How to choose the best affiliate marketing course?

Choosing the best affiliate marketing course depends on you. Your level of experience, comfort in starting the process, and available resources all play a prominent role in the decision.

Pick a program that works best for your needs. There is little risk in most of the choices since most of them are backed by money-back guarantees.

Whichever one you choose, put the lessons into practice right away. Also, take advantage of the mastermind groups and office hours included in many of the programs. Getting individualized feedback can be the difference between failure and success.