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Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for beginners to make money online. While you will need to put in a significant amount of effort to make things work, you can enjoy the benefits of passive income and not need to develop your own product with enough time. YouTube and blogging are two of the most popular avenues for this business model.
Choosing between YouTube and a blog for affiliate marketing depends on several factors. Your niche will play a role, and you should also consider your personality and skills. It’s worth considering the barrier to entry, too, though you can make either form of media work with enough effort.
In this full comparison, you’ll see how YouTube and blogging differ for affiliate marketing. By the end of this article, you should be better informed to make a decision that makes sense to you.
Cost-Effectiveness
YouTube and blogging can be cost-effective ways to start with promoting affiliate links. However, the things you need to pay for will vary.
YouTube
To start a successful YouTube channel, you need:
- A camera
- Ideally a microphone
- Editing software
- A tripod (optional)
- Royalty-free music subscription (optional)
Many smartphone cameras are pretty good these days, and iPhones have Cinematic Mode – which lets you control the aperture. You will want to upgrade to a more professional camera at some point, but in the meantime, a modern phone is more than good enough to start.
If you want to upgrade to a proper video camera, you can expect to pay anywhere from $300 to $1,000+. Your cost will depend on the camera’s age and specs; devices with 4K recording capabilities often cost more.
External microphones are ideal for improving sound quality, which often matters more than video resolution. You can typically pick these up for under $100, especially if you buy them second-hand.
Tripods are optional, but you do need some kind of stabilizer. Good tripods normally cost $100+, but you can save money using books, tables, and bookshelves at home. Similarly, you can invest in royalty-free music subscriptions – but these aren’t an absolute must. If so, expect to pay around $20 per month.
You can adjust your videos using free or paid editing software. DaVinci Resolve is the best free option if you want advanced features.
Blogging
To start a blog for affiliate marketing, you’ll need to invest in:
- High-quality web hosting
- A premium WordPress theme
High-quality web hosting will be the backbone of your blog. In addition to impacting website speed, your hosting can influence website security. When picking a solution, look for uptime guarantees, high-quality customer support, and SSL certificates. You can get started with Verpex for just $2.99 per month, for example, which includes unlimited bandwidth.
A premium WordPress theme isn’t mandatory but is a good idea. Besides having better customization, you often get mobile optimization – which can indirectly impact your search engine scores. You can get premium themes for pretty cheap; some are lifetime purchases, while others are annual subscriptions. While Kadence starts at $69 per year, you can get themes like Ashe Pro for a $29.99 lifetime purchase.
You may also want to invest in a camera depending on your niche. Original photos are becoming more important with Google’s E-E-A-T (expertise, experience, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness) guidelines.
If your affiliate blog is in a visual space like travel or design, you should strongly consider upgrading to at least a DSLR; you can typically pick one up for around $300. As a side benefit, you can then also make money with photography online as an extra income stream.
You may also want to invest in premium plugins. However, you can use the basic versions of many of these tools for free. For example, Yoast has various SEO features – such as meta description optimization – which don’t require paying. For the most part, blogging is more cost-effective than YouTube.
Winner: Blogging
Trustworthiness
You must build trust with your audience to make large amounts of money from affiliate marketing. Both blogging and YouTube allow you to do this, and you can even combine the two.
YouTube showcases your face, and you can show the product or service you’re using while speaking. By doing this, you will automatically gain more trust from your audience. This is particularly true if you use B-roll to highlight how you use the item you’re speaking about. For example, you can show videos of you using hiking boots if you’re reviewing a pair.
To showcase authority in a blog, you must use original images. Stock pictures and screenshots from the manufacturer’s website will not build trust with your audience, and doing so may harm your rankings.
You may want to consider embedding videos in your blog review. Doing so can improve interaction and add credibility. It’s possible to embed videos in WordPress even without YouTube.
Building trust on both platforms is possible, but since it’s easier to convey this through video, YouTube gets the point here.
Winner: YouTube
Barrier to Entry
The barrier to entry can be a good and bad thing. On the one hand, a bigger barrier to entry will automatically eliminate some of your competition. But on the flip side, it can make getting started more challenging.
Blogging
Blogging is, in theory, quite simple to get started with. WordPress (use WordPress.org and not .com) is not as complicated as you might think; once you’ve signed up for your website hosting, you can create a website within a day or two.
Once you’ve created your website, you will then need to populate it with blog posts. To write a high-quality post, expect to take between 3 and 12 hours. The more detail, the longer it’ll take. For this reason, writing one post every 1-2 weeks is a good starting point.
The main challenge with blogging is actually sitting down and writing. Creating high-quality content is not about writing a prompt in ChatGPT; you need to know how to present your thoughts in an engaging manner, and doing so takes a lot of practice. Writing can be cognitively demanding, too.
YouTube
YouTube has quite a high barrier to entry. In addition to getting over the fear of putting yourself out there, you’ll need to set up your camera and fix the lighting. Moreover, you need to spend the time getting additional footage and editing your videos. In the future, when you’re earning money, you can outsource this – but in the beginning, you need to do everything yourself.
Doing this consistently will require you to really enjoy the process. If you’re willing to stick with it for the long run, you’ll reap the benefits.
Blogging’s lower barrier to entry gives it the point in this category, but both fields are competitive.
Winner: Blogging
Growth Times
One very important thing to remember: Affiliate marketing is NOT a get-rich-quick scheme. Despite what some marketers will tell you, you probably won’t earn $10,000 per month within a few months of starting your business. Expect to work for years before seeing considerable returns.
Building blogs and YouTube channels both require significant time, but generally, you can get results faster with a YouTube channel. Your videos can get recommended on users’ feeds, resulting in a bigger audience.
Blogs, on the other hand, take a while to build. Google needs time to trust your site, and articles normally take months before they rank to their full potential. You can use other means to drive free traffic to your website in the meantime, such as social media.
Winner: YouTube
Long-Term Growth
Many people give up on blogging just before they get results; if you stick with it for the long run, it’s one of the most rewarding creator business models. When you rank in a search engine, you can keep getting traffic for years in the future. This is particularly true with low-competition keywords, where many people won’t write anything new for a while.
As your blog grows, you’ll delve into other income streams. For example, you can make decent money from ad revenue once your blog passes 10,000 monthly sessions – especially if you apply for Journey by Mediavine or Monumetric. While you’re building your website, you can offer freelance writing services to increase your cash flow.
YouTube can also be a reliable long-term growth platform. You can build a brand around your content, offering more than affiliate reviews. With enough time, you can delve into other income streams, such as merch and high-ticket services. As you become more experienced, you can offer content creation and freelance video editing to other brands.
Winner: Tie
Challenges You’ll Encounter
No business model is without its challenges; if you pick something because it’s easy, you’ll end up disappointed. So, it’s worth knowing what you’re getting into with YouTube and blogging.
Blogging
When building a blog, you may deal with changes to search engine algorithms that could drop your traffic overnight. For this reason, it’s important to diversify once you’ve built enough authority in one area.
You also need to deal with the struggles of setting up your website and ensuring you’re protected against cybersecurity threats. You can choose secure hosting and enable multi-factor authentication (MFA) to tackle this problem.
Blogging has other challenges, like negative comments and being open to scrutiny. Unlike YouTube, you build your own platform.
YouTube
You may encounter technical issues with YouTube, such as your editing software crashing or your camera running out of battery. Moreover, your SD card may run out of memory while you’re recording.
YouTube typically involves putting your face out there, which can lead to negative remarks and mean comments. You’ll often get more good than bad, but you must develop thick skin to be a successful YouTuber.
Another issue is that YouTube can ban your account if it deems you to violate its policies. Moreover, you can be demonetized.
The challenges of both business models depend entirely on what you’re willing to deal with.
Winner: Tie
Can I Combine YouTube and Blogging for Affiliate Marketing?
You absolutely can combine YouTube and blogging to get affiliate marketing results. Both platforms can complement each other well if you have a clearly defined strategy.
It’s possible to repurpose your affiliate content into blog posts or YouTube videos, depending on the platform you first chose. You can then interlink these. Once you have a broad mixture of content, you can delve into other platforms – such as Instagram – to repurpose it even further.
As a beginner, though, you should focus on just one. Blogging and YouTube require huge amounts of effort to get off the ground, and you should not try to do both at once. You can consider diversifying after building a solid base (e.g. 10,000 subscribers or 10,000 monthly pageviews).
Summary
Blogging and YouTube are legitimate channels for affiliate marketing and building an online business. Your choice will largely depend on your creative interests and risk tolerance. You should also consider whether you want to build your platform or use another. If you’re unsure, try both and see if either resonates.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I choose between blogging and YouTube for my niche?
Determine the type of audience you want to attract and whether videos or blog posts make more sense. Highly technical audiences, for example, may prefer to read rather than watch.
What are the main challenges of using YouTube for affiliate marketing?
You need to use calls to action (CTAs) to move people to your description. Moreover, it’s important to showcase the products you use.
Can I successfully monetize a blog without a large audience?
Yes – it’s very much possible. Join high-commission affiliate programs, and consider making your own digital products.
Danny is a seasoned freelance copywriter with 10+ years of managing his own websites in WordPress and other content management systems. He's an expert in eCommerce and sells his own photography prints, in addition to knowing about hosting domains having used several providers. Danny's strong writing expertise is evident in his bylines across several major tech publications, including Lifewire, MUO, and Make Tech Easier.
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