Instagram Affiliate Marketing: Everything You Need to Know in 2025

Instagram is for affiliate marketing, not just because nearly half its users shop there. Instagram’s content formats—images, videos, and livestreams—let creators show shoppers detailed product information.

Use this guide to learn how to leverage Instagram for affiliate marketing, whether you’re a business owner considering partnering with influencers or a creator trying to maximize your commissions.

What is Instagram affiliate marketing?

When affiliates recommend products on Instagram and earn commissions for their audiences’ purchases, that’s Instagram affiliate marketing.

To engage in this strategy, creators include affiliate links in their Stories, share personal discount codes, or direct followers to brand websites from their link in bio.

Benefits of Instagram affiliate marketing

• Affiliates are incentivized to create great content
• Creators get paid to promote products they already use and love
• Brands can connect with audiences on a deeper level

A well-executed Instagram affiliate marketing strategy can benefit both brands and creators: 

Affiliates are incentivized to create great content

Instagram affiliates get a commission on every sale made using their unique affiliate link or discount code. The more engaging their content, the more money they earn. 

Affiliate marketing incentivizes creators to grow their audiences and continue producing content their followers will love. For brands, this means more high-quality user-generated content.

Creators get paid to promote products they already use and love

Maintaining audience trust is paramount. If a creator’s promotion feels inauthentic, it can lead to engagement and follower losses. 

This might sound like a roadblock, but instead of flooding Instagram with spammy links, savvy brands and creators generate passive income by authentically promoting products they love instead of flooding Instagram with spammy links.

Brands can connect with audiences on a deeper level

Shoppers are more likely to trust a real person they follow on Instagram than marketing materials created by a brand. Affiliate marketing leverages that trust, allowing brands to benefit from creator-built connections. 

Aside from generating sales, Instagram affiliate marketing also gives a window into consumer perceptions. Brands would do well to scan the comments section of posts with affiliate links for feedback they might not find on their own posts.

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How to start affiliate marketing on Instagram as a creator

1. Switch to a creator or business account
2. Choose the right affiliate partners
3. Label affiliate products as paid partnerships
4. Build your influence

Before making money on Instagram as a creator, you need to set up your account for affiliate promotion. Here’s how:

1. Switch to a creator or business account

Instagram creator profiles are for bloggers, influencers, and content creators. They include tools, such as advanced insights, for creators to monetize their content. View follower growth, audience demographics, and engagement levels, and manage multiple inboxes by message type.

Although you don’t technically need a creator or business Instagram account to share affiliate links or codes, having one of these account types provides valuable performance data. 

To switch from a personal to a creator account, open the Instagram app and select your profile picture in the bottom right corner of your screen, then tap the hamburger icon (three lines) at the top right corner of your screen. From there, follow these steps:

1. In the “Settings and activity” menu, scroll down to “Account type and tools” under “For professionals.”

2. In “Account type and tools,” tap “Switch to a professional account.”

3. The next screen will walk you through the benefits of a professional account. Once you’ve reviewed the information, tap “Continue.”

4. Choose the category that best describes your affiliate niche and tap “Done.”

5. Select “Creator.”

2. Choose the right affiliate partners

To earn as an Instagram affiliate, you must find brands that pay commission on products you could authentically promote and sell.

Affiliate networks like Shopify Collabs, ShareASale, Rakuten Advertising, Awin, and CJ aggregate opportunities and let marketers generate custom links, track commissions, and receive payouts from one dashboard.

Amazon sells almost everything you can think of, so some creators enjoy the ease of Amazon Associates, which facilitates earning commissions on Amazon products.

If there’s an independent brand you already know and love, try reaching out directly to see if their team will provide your followers with a discount code. 

3. Label affiliate products as paid partnerships

The Federal Trade Commission’s strict guidelines require marketers to disclose their affiliate relationships so readers can adequately assess their endorsements. To meet these guidelines, you could say something like, “I get commissions for purchases made through links in this post.”

Instagram’s paid partnerships label helps affiliate marketers meet FTC endorsement requirements. It offers tagging opportunities to share a brand’s content, as shown in this Instagram post from Chantel Mila:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Chantel Mila Ibbotson (@mama_mila_au)

“Don’t obscure the fact that it’s affiliate marketing, since then you come off as spam,” says marketer Lattice Hudson. “Be truthful and fair with your [audience], establishing true relationships through authentic content. They won’t return if all they perceive is a commercial motive.”

4. Build your influence

Audience size and engagement rates determine the types of affiliate opportunities available to you as a creator. Instagram influencers with fewer than 10,000 followers may need help negotiating bespoke commission agreements with affiliate program owners.

Tips for building your Instagram influence include:

• Post when your audience is active. Evaluate your analytics to determine the best time to post on Instagram.
• Be consistent. Ensure followers know what to expect after hitting the Follow button. Consistently sharing new content nurtures more engagement, a key parameter in Instagram’s algorithm.
• Share non-promotional content. Keep your account credible by posting mostly non-promotional content. Marc Bromhall, founder of the affiliate website Beginner Surf Gear, says, “I adopt the one-in-20 principle, so only 5% of my posts are affiliate posts.”
• Pick a niche. Demonstrating a passion for your niche builds authenticity. Use Instagram hashtags associated with your subject area so new followers can find you.

5 tips for making more affiliate sales on Instagram

• Use your link in bio
• Create a discount code Story highlight
• Record product demos
• Use hashtags to expand your reach
• Track performance and adjust

Once you’ve set up your Instagram affiliate account, you can implement these strategies to improve sales:

1. Use your link in bio

Since you can’t add links to organic posts, use your link-in-bio space. Instagram allows up to five links in your bio.

If you need more, use a link aggregator like Linkpop to create a landing page with all your affiliate links. Aggregators generate one link hub you can employ on Instagram and elsewhere.

2. Create a discount code Story highlight

Everyone loves deals! Work them into your strategy by sharing discount codes through Instagram Stories, one of the platform’s most popular formats.

 Add affiliate links to Stories using the link sticker, like this example from @lilypebbles:

Stories last only 24 hours, but you can increase their shelf lives by creating Story Highlights. Highlights appear underneath your bio.

3. Record product demos

Affiliate marketing works when Instagram followers know, like, and trust you enough to buy your recommended products. Help potential customers do that without exiting their Instagram feed by demonstrating products.

“The best Instagram affiliate content is typically in the form of recommendations and real-life product applications, not sales pitches,” says Hector Ruiz, founder of affiliate website BBQ Grill Academy.

For example, in this Instagram video by @samiorenelda, the creator indicates she is partnering with Adobe to create a demo video for one of its products:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Samio (@samiorenelda)

4. Use hashtags to expand your reach

You need a sustainable stream of new Instagram followers to generate passive income with your affiliate marketing efforts. Fresh eyes on your content decrease the risk of audience fatigue.

Hashtags help you engage and expand your audience. Instagram users can follow hashtags inside the app, so your content can appear in their feeds, even if they don’t follow you.

Conduct competitor research to find Instagram hashtags. Brands, bloggers, and publishers often use hashtags to expand their reach. Look at the captions and first comments on your competitors’ Instagram posts.

Before adding a hashtag, double-check that Instagram’s policies and guidelines don’t prohibit it. Some hashtags like #adulting, #beautyblogger, and #pushups are associated with spam content due to frequent misuse. Using them in your affiliate content could get your content deprioritized.

5. Track performance and adjust

Tracking affiliate performance helps you understand which strategies are working.

Affiliates and brands collect and analyze performance data through affiliate marketing dashboards, which can capture key metrics such as conversion rates, affiliate link clicks, and average order value.

Additional key performance indicators include:

• Profile activity. If you’re pointing followers toward a link roundup, check how many people click the link from your bio.
• Engagement rate. Sort by affiliate product offering, type of content, and format. If tutorial-based Instagram Stories generate more engagement than standard grid posts, prioritize them going forward.
• Followers. Knowing if your followers are stable, increasing, or decreasing, and whether changes correlate with specific campaigns can help you determine the most effective strategies.

Acting on these insights can make your approach to driving Instagram sales more effective.

🌟 Looking for more ways to boost your income? Explore high-ticket affiliate programs.

How to start Instagram affiliate marketing as a business

1. Join an affiliate network
2. Recruit affiliates
3. Ensure compliance

Affiliate marketing is a low-investment method for reaching new audiences and learning more about customers. Here’s how to create a successful affiliate marketing program for your business:

1. Join an affiliate network

The easiest starting point for brands is to use an affiliate marketing platform like Shopify Collabs. If you have a Shopify store, you can download the free Shopify Collabs app from the Shopify App Store and run your affiliate program directly from your Shopify Admin.

Shopify Collabs helps you create application forms for prospective affiliates and connect with existing creators. Generate personalized affiliate links and codes and track and pay creators’ commissions, all within Shopify.

2. Recruit affiliates

Every successful affiliate marketing campaign requires, well, affiliates. Shopify Collabs and other affiliate networks can pair you with creators, but you can also recruit them yourself.

Consider promoting your affiliate program on your website and social media channels by linking to your application page. Additionally, look for creators who already follow or post about your brand and consider contacting them individually.

3. Ensure compliance

As a business owner, you’re responsible for preventing affiliate fraud and maintaining compliance with platform rules and legal regulations. 

First, ensure you understand the applicable laws and social media policies governing product promotion in your field. Next, include protective language in your affiliate agreements (a lawyer can help with this).

Provide your affiliates with compliance training and ensure the marketing materials you give include compliance instructions. Regularly check affiliate content for compliance, and end any partnerships that could put your brand at risk.