You have probably heard about ‘Affiliate Marketing’ before but wonder what it means or how it actually works under the hood. Well, today we are going to talk all about it in this piece, where we go from the basics of Affiliate Marketing to the global landscape and affiliate opportunities right here in Nepal! Without further ado, let’s get right into it!
What is Affiliate Marketing?
As the name implies Affiliate Marketing is a form of marketing that makes use of affiliates to generate sales or traffic. Here, influencers or individuals (affiliates) can partner up with brands to get a small commission for each generated sale. Although ‘sales’ are the most common metric, some brands also provide affiliate kickback for website traffic, offer signups, or app downloads.
Affiliates (aka Influencers) can ask their audience to buy products via affiliate links which track where a user came from. This has turned into a major source of secondary income for content creators around the world and it’ll only continue to grow in this age of social media.
Who is Affiliate Marketing for?
So, I did say “Influencer” a couple of times already but is that all Affiliate Marketing is for? Nop. You can try to become an affiliate today if you meet this ONE criteria.
Criteria Uno Lasto: Have an Audience
The first and last step to Affiliate Marketing is to have an audience to pitch the products to. This could be your blog readers, your YouTube subscribers, or your Instagram followers. The platform doesn’t matter as much as having your own core audience you can showcase products to. Of course, depending on the affiliate program and the platform, there may be a minimum traffic requirement or other vetting measures, but for the most part, affiliate programs are pretty easy to get into.
But don’t fret if you don’t have a large number of people waiting for your next post because getting started is just as easy with affiliate marketing. You can create your own blog on write on sites like Medium.com or host your own domain, maybe create a YouTube channel and promote products there. Tiktoks and Instagram reels will work just as well or you could simply use Google Ads or boosted posts on Facebook to get clicks. Regardless of the method, your end goal should be get as much traffic as possible as as many people to follow through (either with a purchase or signup).
How Affiliate Marketing Works
Like I just said, most affiliate programs are relatively easy to get into but how do they actually work? Well, it’s not rocket science and the process is actually relatively straightforward.
When you sign up for an affiliate program, you can create (unique) affiliate links for any product you want to promote. When one of your viewers clicks on this link and makes a purchase, it is tracked by the affiliate mechanism and you get your fair share.
For a consumer, the buying experience is going to be pretty stock with no added charges or hassles. Some programs also offer signup bonuses and gifts like gems or in-app currency but they are not as common.
Global Scenario of Affiliate Marketing
Now you might be wondering about the typical rates and the global landscape of Affiliate Marketing in 2025, so let’s briefly touch on that too. Generally speaking, you can either earn a percentage or a flat rate per sale but it varies between products and niches. For example, you might get something closer to 3-5% when someone buys a fancy dress from your link while another affiliate might earn a whopping 20% endorsing a VPN app. The rule of thumb is low ticket items with high sales (like clothing, cosmetics, books) have less kickback per sale while financial products and software are much more generous when sharing their profits.
Getting a fixed rate per lead is generally rarer but common in niches where you’d want to generate traffic or get new users like in a newsletter or an app.
According to a study from Cognitive Market Research, the global affiliate market was worth a whopping 18.5 billion US dollars in 2024 with a compound annual growth of 8% till 2031. That makes it an incredibly lucrative field to get into today! While most of that can be attributed to Europe and North America, the Asia Pacific region still did a whopping 4 billion+ in revenue in 2024 meaning that it’s a feasible venture here as well!
The most common affiliate programs today are Amazon Associates, Rakuten, Awin, ShareASale, CJ Affiliate, Shopify Affiliate, eBay Partner, LeadPages, and HubSpot Affiliate. There are probably hundreds more but you get the jist, right?
Affiliate as secondary income: How viable?
After reading this far, one little question might have been bugging the back of your head and that’s how much can you actually EARN through affiliate marketing? Can it be a sustainable source of secondary income? Could you do this full-time and nothing else? Well, here’s what the global data says…
According to a survey of over 2000 affiliate marketers in 2024, you can expect to earn anywhere from just a couple of hundred dollars a month to nearly 50 grand depending on your reach, experience level, and niche. Of course, one survey can’t tell you everything but other sources cite similar data with a median income of around 8,000 dollars. That’s a lot! So, you could definitely get into Affiliate Marketing as a side hustle, build a larger reach, get better leads as the years go by, and take it full-time.
Let’s talk Nepal 🇳🇵
Before you jump out of your cozy seats and send in that resignation letter to your grumpy boss, calm down. 8000 dollars a month for promoting products does sound pretty nice but we are not in the US or Europe, are we? Is Affiliate even a thing in Nepal? How much can you realistically earn through Affiliate Marketing in Nepal? What are the opportunities that exist?
Well, you can certainly make some extra money on the side but affiliate as your major source of revenue is unheard of in Nepal. Some of the most popular affiliate programs in Nepal are:
You might not have heard about most of the others, but the Daraz affiliate program is quite popular and it’s pretty easy to get started there as well.
Protozoa Host and Nest Nepal are web hosting services that offer you hosting credits or some other form of commission for every successful conversion while BrotherMart and HukutStore are retail stores that offer commission on every sale.
- We’ll cover Hukut Store’s promising Affiliate program in a future piece so be on the lookout for that as well.
Realistically speaking you might be able to break 4 figures if you actively promote products on social media or already have a following. But if you’re just starting out, Affiliate Marketing can be a good outlet to hone your marketing skills while earning some extra cash on the side. For celebrities with massive influence or content creators, Affiliate Marketing can be a good source of secondary income.
How can you get started?
Reading all this might have lit a spark in you that wants to give Affiliate Marketing a try but there’s no audience in sight. What can you do then? Well, everyone has to start somewhere, and that somewhere can be anything from your first blog on WordPress to your first reel. So here’s a general guide to get you started:
- Choose your market niche:
- A niche is a particular segment of the market that you need to cater to. You can’t go out and promote a beauty product in one reel and then a financial course in the other. Choose a market niche you are passionate about and research in depth about the opportunities available.
- Choose your affiliate marketing channel
- Now you know what you want to promote, find a suitable affiliate platform to facilitate this practice. In Nepal, Daraz, Hukut, and other affiliate programs listed above are your best bet.
- Choose your platform
- This will be your primary hub for pushing your content to the audience so choose wisely. Start a blog if you are good at writing, or maybe launch a TikTok if you believe in your abilities as an entertainer. You can always expand later on but choose your initial platform wisely.
- Create engaging content
- Now comes the fun part. Creating content. This is all you and there are no guardrails on what you can and cannot do. But, remember to keep it fair and not engage in things like clickbait to mislead your audience because…
- Build an Audience
- The end goal of your content is to build a core following. People who engage with your content and trust in your brand name. Misleading your viewers with fake promises and boasted features might generate a few early sales but it won’t be sustainable. Remember, the goal of Affiliate Marketing is to secure a (somewhat) passive income source, and building an audience is an unskippable step of that process.
- Profit ???
- With all that done and all the systems in place, you can now reap the benefits of your hard work. Getting to this step might take a while, but once it gets going, the returns will surely be worth it. Only the resilient ever make it so far, hence, remember to keep pushing content and make a consistent effort to be successful with Affiliate Marketing.
Affiliate Marketing in Nepal: A few closing words
So, the affiliate marketing circle is quite small in Nepal as the venture is still nascent in the country. But, it’s definitely a viable way to earn some extra income if you already have a large following. Daraz definitely paved the way in making space for the Affiliate Market to flourish in Nepal while upcoming opportunities from platforms like Hukut. While we covered the basics here, there’s a lot more to ‘Learn’ than removing the ‘L’ there.
