How to Start Affiliate Marketing in Nigeria

Are you looking for a complete guide on how to start affiliate marketing in Nigeria? Well, you are in luck.

This is the most detailed article about affiliate marketing you’ve ever read. At the end of this article, you will learn how to get started with affiliate marketing in Nigeria, you will also know if it’s something you can do so that you do not end up wasting your time.

You can use the table of contents below to jump to different sections of the article as you do not necessarily have to read everything but I encourage you to read the whole article to gain a comprehensive understanding of the topic.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the concept of helping other people or businesses sell their products or services for a commission.

The word “Affiliate” means to be attached to another, typically as a partner or associate. Hence, affiliate marketers are individuals or entities that promote a seller’s products or services through various channels, such as social media, offline, website or email campaigns.

By leveraging their audience, affiliate marketers try to convince potential customers to purchase a merchant’s products or services. They get paid a commission for every successful transaction.

If you are a Nigerian who visits big markets within the country, you may have come across individuals without shops who stay at the entrance of these markets.

On sighting you, they ask you what you came to get in the market. When you tell them, they take you to a seller they already have an agreement with.

If you buy something from the shop they took you to, they get commissions after you have left. The Igbos who practice this in Nigeria call it “Oso Afia”.

What do you need to get started as an Affiliate Marketer?

There are certain things you need to succeed with affiliate marketing in Nigeria. Without these things, there’s a high chance you will not succeed.

You need a niche

In affiliate marketing, a niche is an area of specialisation you want to focus on. Your niche is the topic you will mostly talk/post about on your social media platforms or even in real life.

The niche you choose will determine the products you can promote.

A lot of people start affiliate marketing without a niche. Today they are promoting products on how to start affiliate marketing, tomorrow it’s a product on traveling abroad, next week it’s a product on Crypto or how to make Okpa.

As an affiliate marketer, people trust you in specific topics so when you recommend a product in the topic you talk about, they are most likely to buy.

If you are promoting any random product you see, your audience begins to understand that you are just here to make money and you’ll recommend anything either good or bad.

An Audience

Without an audience that trusts you, who do you want to sell to? Of course you can start with family, friends and colleagues but how long before you exhaust that limited circle?

You need a good number of followers that trusts you to succeed with affiliate marketing.

Partners

Partners are people or businesses in your niche that have products to sell and are willing to share commissions for sales.

Luckily, there are platforms you can sign up on that connect you with a wide range of businesses or individuals offering affiliate programmes.

You need to sign up and get accepted into these platforms to promote the products there.

Also, there are businesses that host their own affiliate programmes by themselves. For businesses like this, you either have to sign up on their websites or reach out to them.

Tools

The marketer with the best tools and knows how to use these tools will win. Affiliate marketing is competitive; other marketers in the same niche as you are trying to gain the attention of your audience and their trusts. If you do not have the right tools, it will be harder to compete.

A tool like an email marketing software makes it possible to reach out to a large number of people with one click. A content management system like WordPress helps you to create content that can be found on Google, other search engines and AI.

The good news is some of these tools have free trials you can start with or free alternatives.

Skills

Having the right tools is one thing, knowing how to use them is another thing. Oh, there are also people who have the right tools, know how to use these tools but are reluctant.

To succeed in affiliate marketing, you need to have tools and know how to use them. For example, if you are comfortable talking to a camera, you can start creating videos and posting on YouTube or Tiktok to build an audience, however, you must have basic video editing skills.

Marketers who are more skilled at writing may have to learn how to write engaging contents on X and Facebook or how to create an email newsletter.

If you do not have these skills, you can still start while you perfect these skills as you go.

Time or Money

Affiliate marketing is not a get rich scheme. If you will be evicted from your home next month and you need something to do to quickly raise funds, affiliate marketing might not be the best solution, as it typically requires time to build an audience.

Success in affiliate marketing requires either a significant amount of time to develop a strategy that works or money to fast track the process through paid advertising or premium tools.

While it offers a sustainable income potential, those needing immediate funds can explore other faster alternatives like freelancing or selling unused stuff before diving into affiliate marketing.

Best Niches for Affiliate Marketing in Nigeria

Business services

MoniePoint estimates that there are 39.6 million businesses in Nigeria. Going by these numbers, every family in Nigeria has their fair share of entrepreneurs.

Most small businesses in Nigeria are struggling with challenges like inefficient operational processes, low sales due to non-existent online presence, limited access to affordable marketing services and lots more.

Affiliate marketers in the business service niche can address this issue by reaching out to small businesses in their area that can afford to pay for these solutions while partnering with companies like GrowthPal to deliver the service.

For instance, GrowthPal offers CAC registrations and digital marketing services. For every business you refer to GrowthPal that ends up purchasing a company registration service for ₦55,000, you earn 10% commission from that sale (₦5,500) and every other purchase the business makes within 6 months.

If the same business goes on to purchase a website creation service for ₦250,000 three months later, you earn ₦25,000.

Travel

There are lots of middle class Nigerians who have plans to relocate abroad. As an affiliate in the travel niche, you can partner with travel agencies that offer these services. The travel agency could be located in or outside Nigeria.

You have to vet these agencies to confirm their legitimacy.

You can also sign up as an affiliate on travel booking websites like TravelStart and Waka now, these platforms pay up to 3.5% when people you refer book for flights through their websites.

There are also ebooks or video guides on platforms like Selar or Stakecut in the travel niche that you can sell to your audience.

Make money online

It’s 2025, everybody and their grandfather wants to make money online. If you choose this niche, you can talk about different ways to make money online. When a scam online programme is being promoted by fraudulent people, you can educate your audience on why the programme is a scam.

When that programme eventually fails, they will remember you warned them about it and trust your recommendations more.

In this niche, you can make money by signing up to legitimate programmes, introducing them to your audience and earn money when they join.

Platforms like Owodaily pay users a commission for every referral that signs up for a paid plan. Imagine if you are the first to tell your audience about websites like this.

Tech Gadgets

There are businesses that sell gadgets like laptops and accessories, smartphones and all kinds of tech gadgets. Nigerians love gadgets too.

You can be the middleman between the seller and the buyer. Use your platform to recommend the best laptop men can buy as gifts for their significant other, show them how to buy from merchants you have partnered with using your affiliate link or coupon code.

You can do this for even home appliances. Platforms you can partner with are Shopinverse or Amazon.

Fashion and Beauty

Nigeria has a vibrant young and middle class population that are style-conscious and eager to embrace the latest trends in clothing, accessories and beauty products. 

The fashion niche is subdivided into several sub-niches, including clothing, accessories, footwear, and beauty products like creams, perfumes etc. Each of these subsets have a large audience that you can pick one or a combination of two and focus on them. You could also decide to go for male grooming or female fashion alone.

You can build your audience on visual platforms like YouTube, Tiktok or Instagram. For partnership, tilt towards websites like Amazon, Jumia or ASOS.

Health and Wellness 

You’ve obviously heard the phrase “Health is Wealth”. Without good health a lot of things wouldn’t make sense. So people spend a lot of money to stay healthy. The health and wellness industry is a multi billion dollar industry driven by a demand for products and services that enhance fitness, nutrition, cures or prevents illnesses.

There are also a lot of sub-niches within the health and wellness niche. In this niche, you could become a fitness coach, a weight loss expert or a nutrition consultant for people struggling with diabetes.

In the health and wellness niche, a certification will go a long way as people tend to listen to professionals.

Finance and Investments

Between 2015 and 2024, Nigeria experienced over 40% inflation. More people are beginning to realise that leaving money in the bank is not really a wise decision, hence they seek alternatives that protect their money and offer better returns.

People are looking towards professionals on YouTube, X and Facebook for investment advice. 

As an affiliate in the finance and investment niche, there are lots of opportunities here. Apart from promoting affiliate offers, you can launch your own community of investors who trust you and are willing to do projects with you. A good example is Financial Jennifer who invested a real estate project with her community.

If you are building your audience on Youtube, you also earn a good amount from the YouTube partners programme (Google Adsense) as the finance and investment niche is highly lucrative, with advertisers willing to pay premium rates for targeted audiences.

Some affiliate programmes you can join in this Niche are the Bamboo and Trove affiliate programmes.

Education and Online learning

Every year almost 2 million Nigerian students are writing the JAMB UTME exams. Less than a quarter of these numbers will be admitted into tertiary institutions across the country. The current number of institutions cannot accommodate the overwhelming demand for higher education.

The solution to this problem is alternative online learning platforms that offer affordable and flexible learning. Getting a degree online is still a new concept in most parts of Nigeria, so parents and students need to be convinced to try out these new methods. 

As an affiliate in this niche, you can influence parents into trying out online schools like MIVA, e-learning platforms like Udemy and earn a commission.

There are also private universities in Nigeria who are willing to part with a few thousand Naira when you recommend students who enroll to their school.

Web Hosting 

The first affiliate commission I ever earned online was $100 from Bluehost. This was in 2014. A friend wanted to build a blog, so I sent him my Bluehost affiliate link which he used to sign up for.

Web hosting companies are a lucrative niche for affiliate marketers in Nigeria, as the growing digital economy drives demand for websites and applications among businesses and web developers.

Hosting companies like Hostinger, Siteground, Cloudways offer affiliate commission’s with generous commissions. Affiliates can earn as high as $200 for a single sale.

You can build a hot audience in this niche by creating contents on tutorials like how to build an Ecommerce website, how to build an online learning platform etc. While you teach, you can strategically place your links where your audience can use them to sign up for a web hosting plan.

Code Scripts and Plugins

Code scripts and plugins are codes that improve or add functionality to a website. Developers write these codes and sell them on websites like Codecanyon.

As an affiliate in this niche, you can show website owners or businesses how they can add functionality to their website without hiring a developer. 

By introducing scripts or plugins that improve the efficiency of a business or add new features, you save them lots of money while you also earn a commission for each sale you make.

How to Choose a Niche for Affiliate Marketing 

To choose a niche, you need to rely on your strengths.

What are you comfortable talking about without extensive research?

What do you have enough knowledge about that can help another person solve a particular problem?

These are the questions you need to ask yourself when choosing a niche.

The fastest way to build an audience is to teach. What can you teach people for several months or even years without feeling overwhelmed?

If you have nothing to teach, you can still make money from affiliate marketing but it will be nothing compared to an affiliate who is willing to build an audience through teaching.

How to start Affiliate Marketing in Nigeria

Choose your Niche

The first step to starting affiliate marketing in Nigeria is to choose your niche. It is very important. You cannot be known for everything. 

In fact, it is easier to build an audience when you are known for something.

If you skipped this part of the article, you can read how to choose a niche. You can also read about some of the best affiliate niches in Nigeria.

Choose a platform

Once you have chosen your niche, the next step is to choose a platform where you can effectively reach and engage your target audience.

If creating video content is your thing, you can choose YouTube, TikTok or Instagram as the platform where you want to build your audience. Perhaps you are a natural writer, you can start with writing contents on X, Facebook or LinkedIn.

I recommend that you start with one platform at a time. Start with a platform, grow a huge following on it before switching to another (if you want to).

Also, the platform you should choose depends on where your customers hang out the most. For example, if your ideal audience are company CEO’s or career professionals, then the right platform to start with is LinkedIn.

Build an audience

This is where most people get it wrong. They join affiliate programmes first before trying to build an audience then get frustrated when nobody buys within 30 days.

Some affiliate programmes will review your application by asking you to share links where they can see the number of audience you have before approving your request. They understand that without an audience, there’s no market.

Start building an audience by teaching and posting regularly on the platform you have chosen to start with.

Create high value informative content and post on these platforms regularly until the algorithm begins to push your content to a wider audience that are interested in what you are posting about.

One mistake you should not make is thinking that one post a day will cut it for you. You need more than that. 

You need to post about three times daily at different intervals. You also need to monitor what time of the day your posts get more views or engagement and post more during those times as that may be when the majority of your audience are online.

Also interact with other authorities in your niche by commenting on their posts to gain visibility faster.

Join Affiliate Programmes in your Niche

You can see that joining affiliate programmes is almost the last step on this list.

As your audience begins to grow, join affiliate programmes that align with the niche you have chosen. Research for the programmes with the best commission rates in your niche and sign up.

You will be hard to ignore because you already have an audience.

Promote your links

When you get accepted into these affiliate programmes, you can start sharing your link with your audience strategically by embedding them into high quality content like social media posts, blog posts, tutorials and reviews.

If you did a good job with building your audience, they are going to trust you and are more likely to buy from you even if someone else recommends the same product.

Conclusion 

Starting affiliate marketing in Nigeria requires knowledge and skills as you have seen. If you do not meet the required criterias, you can try something else pending when you acquire the necessary expertise.

Begin by mastering a niche you are passionate about, choose a platform where you want to share knowledge and build your audience, then join affiliate programmes that offer the products or services you can promote to your audience.

While affiliate marketing isn’t a get rich quick scheme, with dedication and efforts, you can make something worthwhile out of it and turn your efforts into a sustainable income stream.

Thank you for reading our article on how to start affiliate marketing in Nigeria. You can also read our article on how to open a business bank account.

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