You’ve seen them. I mean, those screenshots flying around on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram. Someone just got paid thousands, another one cashed out in millions. Week after week, the numbers keep rolling in, and it makes you wonder, “What if I could do this too? Promote people’s products, earn my cut, and maybe one day, post my own screenshots.”

That thought right there is how most people stumble into affiliate marketing. It’s not a scam, nor a shortcut to riches, but a solid way people are building income online. At its core, it’s simple: you recommend products people already want, they buy through your link, and you get paid.

But of course, those sales dashboards you see don’t show you the behind-the-scenes, the confusion, the false starts, the endless trials and errors. That’s where beginners usually get stuck. It all looks promising at first glance, but it can just as easily leave you lying awake at night, strategising and second-guessing your strategies.

That’s why we’ve put together this week-by-week guide, a simple, practical roadmap designed to take you from curious beginner to your very first affiliate sale. If you’ve ever dreamed of people reading your success story, too, this is where it begins.

Let’s go in.

Week 1: Learn & Choose Your Niche

The first step is to figure out what space you want to play in. That space is called your niche.

Think of it like this: if you try to promote every random product you see, people won’t take you seriously. But if you focus on one lane, say fitness, or personal finance, or digital skills, you become the “go-to” person for that topic in your circle. And that makes it way easier to build trust and, eventually, sales. 

Beginners often trip up because;

• They pick something too broad, like “health,” and drown in endless options.
• Or they pick something they don’t actually care about, so the moment it feels hard, they quit.

Choose a niche that feels natural to you and already sparks curiosity around you. Check your WhatsApp groups, TikTok feed, or the convos your friends keep having. 

Are people asking about weight loss tips? Side hustles? How to design or code? That’s your first clue. And if you’d like to explore niches with even bigger earning potential, we have a handy guide on 10 high-ticket affiliate marketing niches you can check out for inspiration.

The point is to start with one lane so you have direction. You can always pivot later once you’ve made sales and gained experience. By the end of this first week, your task is simple: pick a niche, write it down, and own it. That’s your foundation.

Week 2:  Sign Up on Selar (The Best Affiliate Marketing Platform in Nigeria)

The fun begins with choosing a solid platform where you can access plenty of products to promote. And in all honesty, digital products are the sweetest to promote. Physical products are cool, but delivery can be messy and slow. With digital, your customer can buy and instantly get access.

That’s why the Selar Affiliate Network makes so much sense for beginners in Africa. Selar is the largest marketplace for digital creators on the continent. Creators use it to sell everything from ebooks to online courses, templates, coaching programs, and more, to customers all over the world. If you’re new to the network, here’s a full guide to how the Selar Affiliate Network works and what you get when you join. Through the affiliate network, you get access to over 1,000 ready-to-sell products created by these digital entrepreneurs. 

Your role is simple: help them reach more people and earn a commission every time someone buys through your link. You have a wide range of products to choose from, so whether your audience cares about fitness, business, personal growth, or tech, you can start promoting right away and start earning without worrying about restrictions or messy logistics. Selar pays you directly in Naira, Cedis, or Kenyan Shillings. 

So yes, this is exactly what those folks are doing to cash out week after week and share the screenshots you keep seeing online.

Getting started takes less than 5 minutes:

1. Create a Selar account.
2. Subscribe to the affiliate network (a small annual fee, about ₦3,000, gives you full access).
3. Browse the Selar affiliate marketplace, packed with over 1,000 ready-to-sell digital products and pick one that’s in your niche.

At this stage, don’t overthink it. You probably don’t have an audience yet, and that’s okay. The point is to get started with something, anything that feels useful or interesting to you. Once you’ve picked a product, your next focus will be building an audience around it. 

That’s the first step to getting the word out there and subsequently making actual sales. When you’re choosing products, keep three things in mind:

• Payout terms: Commission rates range from 10% to 70%, depending on the product.
• Product fit: Don’t just chase the highest commission. Choose something you’d be able to talk about because you’ll be creating content around it.
• Trust factor: Always check the seller’s sales page. A good product makes your job ten times easier.

Week 3: Choose a Traffic Channel and Start Building

You’ve picked your niche. You’ve joined the Selar Affiliate Network. You’ve probably selected the first product you want to promote. Now, it’s time to start building an audience that can trust and buy from you.

You’ve probably read about all kinds of traffic strategies like email, social media, landing pages, paid ads, and more. None of those works if you don’t have an audience that actually trusts you. Nobody just wakes up in the morning ready to buy anything from a random link. To build an audience, you need to research and understand your target market, know their limits, problems, beliefs, objections, what moves them, etc. Once you understand them, it’s easy to plan or come up with content ideas that speak directly to them.

Since you’re just starting, your best bet is to pick one social channel and start showing up consistently with solid value. Create content about the problem your product is solving, figure out what keeps your prospective customers up at night and speak about it in your content. 

Here are some beginner-friendly channels to start with:

• WhatsApp: This is your easiest starting point because your friends and family are already there. But don’t just spam them with links. Post a mix of fun updates, lifestyle content, and useful tips related to your niche. Ask for opinions, share advice, and get people engaging with you. Once people are responding and paying attention, then you can drop your affiliate product in naturally.
• TikTok: Instead of just saying “buy this course,” start with short, entertaining videos that touch on the problem the product solves. For example, if you’re promoting a fitness guide, create videos about common fitness struggles or fun workout tips. When people see you understand their pain points, they’ll trust your recommendations.
• Instagram: Use Reels, carousels, and stories to mix things up. Share stories from your life, fun or relatable posts, and sprinkle in niche-related content. This way, when you do mention a product, it doesn’t feel out of place but like a natural extension of your content.
• Twitter/X: Great for people who prefer writing. Share opinions, relatable takes, and stories around your niche. Build a voice people enjoy reading, then weave in your affiliate recommendations when it makes sense.

Don’t be pushy; nobody wants to follow a walking billboard. Plan your content so that 80% is entertaining, engaging, or educational, and 20% is about your product. This isn’t something you do for just a week. You can (and should) focus on creating content that grabs attention and makes people want to follow you for more for your first 1–2 months. 

That’s how you build trust and give people enough time to see you as a voice worth listening to. It’s the people who know you, like you, and believe the product you’re sharing can help them that will eventually buy from you.

You don’t necessarily need to build all the channels at once. Pick the one you’re most comfortable with and commit to showing up there for the next few weeks. Think of your traffic channel like a small shop; you can’t make sales if no one knows your shop exists. Every post, story, and status update is like opening the doors and inviting people in.

Emmanuel, one of our affiliates on the Selar Affiliate Network who now makes about $5,000 monthly, started the exact same way, sharing content on WhatsApp and growing from there. Read his story

Week 4: Create Content That Sells

By now, you’ve started showing up, planning and researching content ideas, sharing posts, and slowly building an audience. The next step is learning how to create content that actually nudges people closer to buying without coming off like you’re forcing a sale.

People don’t buy because you shared a recommendation or dropped a link. They buy because your content makes them believe the product can solve their problem in their life. That means your job isn’t just to promote but to tell stories, answer questions, and show the value behind what you’re recommending.

A simple framework you can use is this:

• Problem content: Talk about the pain points your product solves. Example: share a post about how most people fail their fitness goals because they don’t have a plan, and then introduce your fitness course as a solution.
• Story content: Share personal or borrowed stories of people who’ve benefited from similar products. It makes the product relatable.
• Tip content: Offer free advice connected to your niche. If you’re promoting a finance ebook, share money-saving hacks first. Once people trust your free value, they’ll be curious about your paid recommendations.

Mix these with your regular lifestyle or fun content, so you don’t become “that person who’s always selling.” Think of it as seasoning, too much, and people get turned off; just enough, and it makes everything better.

Productive Vee, a content strategist and growth specialist who has helped thousands of creators, coaches, and entrepreneurs turn their content into income, shared some insights on creating solid content. 

And if you’d love more practical examples of how to create content that works, we recently started a video series tagged Affiliate Advantage on our YouTube channel. It’s designed to help affiliate marketers like you leverage more resources, refine your strategy, and make more sales. Visit our channel to watch and pick up tips you can start using right away.

Week 5: Make Your First Sale

This is the moment you’ve been working toward, turning all that content and consistency into your very first sale. By this point, you’ve already done most of the heavy lifting. You picked your niche, set up your Selar account, chose a product, and started creating content that builds trust. Now, it’s time to connect the dots.

Here’s how it would typically play out:

1. You share pieces of content that speak to a problem (maybe a WhatsApp status, an Instagram Reel, or a TikTok).
2. Someone replies with curiosity.
3. You engage them in a conversation in the DM, answer questions and guide them toward your Selar affiliate link. If they make a purchase, that’s your first commission.

It’s noteworthy to mention that you might not necessarily make your first sale this exact week. And that’s totally okay. As long as you’re dishing out valuable content, engaging with people, and staying consistent, you’re laying the groundwork. The engagement you’re seeing now is the pipeline for sales that will come later.

Most first sales happen when someone already in your circle, friends, colleagues, or early followers, finally sees enough of your content to trust your recommendation. It’s rarely about the number of posts, but the trust you’ve built.

Passive Income Anna made over ₦200M selling both her products and other people’s own.  Her “carry it on your head” strategy, which literally is showing up boldly, talking about her offers consistently, and never being shy to promote, has helped scale her sales. Read her story.

Week 6+: Scale with Selar

By now, you’ve laid the foundation: you’ve picked a niche, signed up on the Selar Affiliate Network, built your first audience, started creating content, and maybe even landed your first sale. Now it’s time to think bigger, by scaling what’s already working.

Scaling doesn’t mean abandoning what got you here. It simply means doubling down on the content, channels, and products that brought you results, and then expanding slowly. Here’s how:

• Reinvest your earnings: Use part of your commissions to run small ads on Instagram or Facebook. Even ₦10k–₦20k can put your content in front of hundreds of new people.
• Build an email list: Social media is great, but having direct access to your audience is even better. Learn how to build an email list so you can start collecting emails with free resources (like a short guide or checklist) so you can promote products over and over again.
• Expand your content mix: Add more formats, host a short webinar, create tutorials, or collaborate with other affiliates or creators in your niche. Each new format exposes you to fresh audiences.
• Explore new markets: Selar makes it easy to sell beyond Nigeria, with payouts in Cedis, Kenyan shillings, and even USD. That means you can grow into Ghana, Kenya, and other regions without changing platforms.

Remember Emmanuel, the Selar affiliate who started with WhatsApp and grew from there? He didn’t stop at one channel. Once he had proof that his method worked, he reinvested in ads, started an email list, and scaled his income to about $5,000 monthly.

Scaling doesn’t mean doing everything at once. But taking what’s working, pouring more energy into it, and slowly layering in new ways to reach people.

By the end of this stage, your goal is to stop thinking of affiliate marketing as just a side hustle and start treating it like a system. With Selar, you’ve got all the tools to grow that system across Africa and beyond.

Conclusion

Those screenshots you’ve been seeing on Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram don’t come from luck. They come from people who chose a niche, signed up on Selar, started building their audience, created content that solved problems, and kept showing up until the sales started rolling in.

The truth is, your first sale won’t make you a millionaire. But it will prove that affiliate marketing works. That proof is the fuel you need to keep going. From there, every piece of content, new follower, and tiny reinvestment compounds into something bigger.

Selar gives you the perfect platform to make it happen. With over 1,000 products to promote, easy payouts in Naira, Cedis, and Kenyan Shillings, and a network of creators already making it work, all that’s left is for you to start. 

So if you’ve ever paused at those success stories and thought, “Maybe that could be me.” Don’t just scroll past, take the first step, commit to the process, and let your own story be the next one people stop to admire.