How affiliate marketing helps you get ahead
Affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to grow your business and raise brand awareness. Instead of relying on outdated advertising strategies or basic pop-ups, you can create a thriving network with affiliate marketing.
Over 83 percent of marketers lean on affiliate marketing to improve brand recognition. These talented creators and publishers bring established audiences to the table, making them the perfect partner for growing your brand.
This marketing channel keeps expanding yearly, hitting 17 billion dollars in 2023. By partnering with compatible creators and affiliates, you can reach your target customer base and save resources along the way. The first step is understanding how affiliate marketing works and building a healthy program from the ground up.
10 Best Affiliate Marketing Courses on PXA
Through impact.com’s Partnerships Experience Academy (or PXA), you’ll learn about the full affiliate marketing lifecycle. Learning how to effectively recruit, contract, empower, and support partners helps your affiliate network hit the ground running.
- Top Beginner Affiliate Marketing Courses
- Top Intermediate Affiliate Marketing Courses
- Top Advanced Affiliate Marketing Courses
These courses are engaging and carefully structured to maximize each lesson. Each affiliate marketing PXA course covers vital topics—helping you avoid common pitfalls and start strong. Check out our full Affiliate and Partnership marketing line-up:
| Course | Level | Time required | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| Industry Fundamentals | Beginner | 30 minutes, 8 lessons | Free |
| Discover & Recruit Course | Intermediate | 40 minutes, 10 lessons | Free |
| Contract & Pay Course | Intermediate | 40 minutes, 13 lessons | Free |
| Tracking Affiliate Course | Intermediate | 20 minutes, 5 lessons | Free |
| Engage Course | Intermediate | 40 minutes, 7 lessons | Free |
| Engage Media Buying | Intermediate | 50 minutes, 6 lessons | Free |
| Protect & Monitor | Intermediate | 30 minutes, 7 lessons | Free |
| Discover & Recruit Expert | Advanced | 108 minutes, 8 lessons | Free |
| Tracking Expert Course | Advanced | 40 minutes, 8 lessons | Free |
| Optimize Expert Course | Advanced | 20 minutes, 7 lessons | Free |
Top Beginner Affiliate Marketing Courses
Getting the affiliate marketing ball rolling can be tough. Establishing connections and finding compatible partners might seem daunting—especially when starting from scratch.
But, with the right support and knowledge, you can lay strong foundations in no time. These top three courses will cover the basics and help you connect with partners matching your long-term goals and values.
1. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Fundamentals
Affiliate marketing isn’t a stagnant channel. The game keeps changing—even if you’ve worked with partners and affiliates in the last decade. New technology and fresh strategies have opened up powerful engagement strategies—encouraging marketers to be inventive.
This course illustrates different types of:
- Partnerships
- Payment types
- Attribution models
- Affiliate marketing strategies
Dive into affiliate partnerships’ real value and potential with this foundational course. Partnerships help you drive business and brand awareness—and this course provides an actionable, high-level overview. You’ll also receive a free certification to add on LinkedIn—on top of as a badge in email signatures. Check out this course and start growing your partnership network today!
Length: 30 minutes, 8 lessons.
Certification offered: Yes
Cost: Free
Top Intermediate Affiliate Marketing Courses
After covering the basics, it’s time to spell out how tracking, engagement, and security works. Your partnership program can quickly boost brand awareness and open up new customer connections. These courses help you avoid common mistakes and grow your affiliate network sustainably.
2. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Discover and Recruit
Affiliate marketing isn’t a stagnant channel. The game keeps changing—even if you’ve worked with partners and affiliates in the last decade. New technology and fresh strategies have opened up powerful engagement strategies—encouraging marketers to be inventive.
This course illustrates different types of:
- Partnerships
- Payment types
- Attribution models
- Affiliate marketing strategies
Dive into affiliate partnerships’ real value and potential with this foundational course. Partnerships help you drive business and brand awareness—and this course provides an actionable, high-level overview. You’ll also receive a free certification to add on LinkedIn—on top of as a badge in email signatures. Check out this course and start growing your partnership network today!
Length: 30 minutes, 8 lessons.
Certification offered: Yes
Cost: Free
3. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Contract and Pay
Goals, milestones, and payment triggers often vary by partnership. Many brands create healthy partnership mixes with social media influencers, comparison sites, traditional affiliates, and more—requiring unique contract terms and performance benchmarks. After reaching out to new partners, contracts are the next crucial step.
This course focuses on optimizing contracts and commissions, helping you maximize each partnership agreement. You’ll learn how to:
- Decide on key performance indicators (KPIs)
- Attract high-quality partners with competitive commission rates
- Lay out key marketing policies for potential contracts
- Establish payment settings
Don’t let misaligned incentives and commission rates hold you back. Partnerships are all about shared value for brands and publishers. You and your partners will both benefit from well-defined contract terms and competitive payments. Sign up for this course today!
Length: 40 minutes, 13 lessons.
Certification offered: In conjunction with full learning path
Cost: Free
4. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Track
Affiliate marketing doesn’t work without tracking. Accurate data on clicks, revenue, and orders helps you assess partners and focus on top performers. This course dives into the core components of tracking, breaking down:
- Linking, click redirecting, cookies, and data capture
- The importance of reviewing action inquiries
- How to recognize the need for reversals
- Each step of the reversal process
Streamlining the tracking process is crucial for your partnership program—speeding things up while staying secure and accurate. Check out this intermediate course and Coady Joy, Head of Affiliate & Partnerships Education
Length: 20 minutes, 5 lessons.
Certification offered: In conjunction with full learning path
Cost: Free
5. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Engage
With tracking in place, engagement comes next. Partnerships don’t run well on their own. Brands need to engage with partners by building relationships and clearly communicating. This course covers how to:
- Identify the best ways for brands to communicate with partners
- Implement strategies for building long-term affiliate relationships
- Share assets and support partners effectively
Shared inspirations and creative assets help partners understand your marketing campaigns. Your affiliates should feel supported and empowered to reach out to potential customers—all while keeping their own unique voice. Take this course to find out more about actively engaging with partners.
Length: 40 minutes, 7 lessons.
Certification offered: In conjunction with full learning path
Cost: Free
6. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Engage Media Buying
Media buying plays a much bigger role in affiliate marketing than many people realize. Basically, this course covers the whole process of buying advertising space as part of your affiliate program. This core part of the partnership lifecycle includes various systems and types of “media buys”. After this in-depth course, you’ll be able to:
- Understand how media buying works from start to finish
- Explain the different types of media buys
- Communicate when brands need to invest in media buys
- Identify the five main payment types for publisher ad placements
Building up partnership networks take time and effort. Media buys are a powerful tool to increase engagement and work closely with affiliates. This course breaks down the whole process into bite-size steps.
Length: 50 minutes, 6 lessons.
Certification offered: In conjunction with full learning path
Cost: Free
7. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Protect and Monitor
Now that your partnerships are up and running, ensure your affiliate program is safe from scammers and bad actors. Fraudulent tactics lead to unearned commission payments and skewed statistics—harming your partnership network in the long run. This course dives into:
- The best ways to monitor and protect your affiliate program
- The different strategies behind performance fraud
- The value of using updated, secure partnership software
Malicious parties are working hard to keep up with advancing technology and anti-fraud measures. Understanding how to protect your partnerships isn’t a one-time deal. It’s crucial to stay up to date with your security procedures. This course teaches the best strategies to protect yourself and your partners.
Length: 30 minutes, 7 lessons.
Certification offered: In conjunction with full learning path
Cost: Free
Top Advanced Affiliate Marketing Courses
You’ve learned the basics and built a healthy partnership program. You and your team have grown your network—increasing visibility and revenue through consumer engagement. Now is the perfect time to focus on long-term growth and optimization.
8. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Discover and Recruit (Expert)
Discovery and recruitment is much more than just a beginning step. As time goes on, you’ll keep adjusting your partnership mix and finely tuning your affiliate program to match shifting technology and trends. This expert-level course walks you through the intricacies of the discovery process—helping you develop unique game plans for your brand goals. Building on the entry-level course, you’ll learn about:
- Interpreting the benefits and effective strategies of each partner type
- Understanding card-linked-offers, buy-now-pay-later, and verification options
- Integrating more complex partner types into your partnership program
Finding and recruiting partners is an ongoing process—bringing up tough challenges and rewarding results. Instead of shying away from complicated partnerships, you’ll be able to dive into discovery in a whole new way after this course.
Length: 108 minutes, 8 lessons.
Certification offered: In conjunction with full learning path
Cost: Free
9. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Track (Expert)
As your partnerships grow and expand, in-depth tracking becomes more crucial than ever. This course covers non-traditional tracking, direct tracking, mobile tracking, sub-affiliate tracking, and more. You’ll learn from Coady Joy (Head of Affiliate and Partnerships Education at PXA) and partnership tracking expert, Luca Kim of neoMedia World. They will guide you through:
- Non-traditional tracking methods
- Identifying broken pixels
- How effective mobile tracking works
- Building sub-affiliate tracking solutions
Accurate tracking gives you live, actionable insights into your partnership pipeline—informing future decisions and circumventing potential scams. Check out this expert-level course to find out more.
Length: 40 minutes, 8 lessons.
Certification offered: In conjunction with full learning path
Cost: Free
10. Affiliate and Partnership Industry – Optimize (Expert)
Strengthening your affiliate program for the future is all about optimization. Partnerships always have room for improvement: streamlining steps, clarifying messaging, and making partner collaboration easier than ever. By reviewing all analytics at your disposal, you’ll be setting yourself and your team up for lasting success. This expert-level course covers:
- Performing regular audits and identifying opportunities for improvement
- Leveraging cart abandonment partners to boost conversion rates
- Tracking the vital steps on the customer journey
- Targeting specific audiences through placements and partnerships
This course builds on previous lessons lays out the groundwork for long-term affiliate growth. Sign up and learn about optimizing partnerships today!
Length: 20 minutes, 7 lessons.
Certification offered: In conjunction with full learning path
Cost: Free
Now is the perfect time to upskill in affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing offers more flexibility and resilience than traditional advertising strategies. Your partners can help you adapt and reach new audiences—no matter how the online landscape changes.
These courses cover the whole partnership lifecycle—laying the groundwork for you to learn from experts and expedite your program. With online marketing changing fast (and new opportunities opening up), this is the best possible time to dive into affiliate marketing.
Check out these top courses (and many others) on our PXA learning platform today!
How affiliate marketing works
Affiliate marketing uses performance metrics to reward partners for driving traffic and sales. Forward-thinking brands connect with:
- Publishers
- Comparison sites
- Review pages
- Gift Guides
- Social media influencers
Through lasting relationships with these affiliates, brands reach their pre-built audiences. These partnerships are the perfect way for brands to spread the word—promoting campaigns, products, discounts, and more through independent creators. Instead of simply repeating brand slogans or ad copy, partners use their own voices to support brands in authentic ways.
Brands then rely on customizable affiliate platforms (like impact.com) to track, report, and optimize traffic coming from each partner. Depending on the partnership agreement, affiliates earn commission payments for each click, lead, or sale.
Affiliate marketing helps everyone involved:
- Brand marketers connect with their ideal audience
- Publishers and affiliates earn commissions while staying independent
- Customers see tailored content and discover brands fitting their style and values.
Regardless of your products or industry, affiliate marketing can work for you. Flexibility and customizability is the name of the game. And, there’s never been a better time to learn more and start building your own partnership network.
FAQs
Thankfully, affiliate marketing isn’t rigid or one-size-fits-all. Rely on your strengths and passions to find a successful niche. Powerful partnership platforms like impact.com will help you get started—including a vibrant marketplace to connect with like-minded brands and creators.
Affiliate marketing works very differently from traditional advertising. Trying to fit a square peg into a round hole is of the fastest ways to fail in affiliate marketing. Healthy partnership programs thrive when working together: making the most of your (and your partners’) strengths. With impact.com’s discovery and collaboration tools on your side, affiliate marketing will drive traffic and boost revenue in no time at all.
Check out this affiliate marketing Ultimate Guide to find out more!
What other courses are available from the Partnerships Experience Academy?
The Partnership Experience Academy (or PXA) has courses and expert training on a wide range of affiliate topics: influencer partnerships, advanced partnership types, making good first impressions, and more!
These courses are designed with one thing in mind: empowering brands and affiliates to build lasting, successful partnerships. Take a look at the full PXA catalog here!
