What we do
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate content only works when it would still be worth reading with the commercial links removed. That is a high bar, and most of the category does not clear it.
Affiliate marketing is a monetisation model in which a website earns a commission for referring a customer to a retailer or service provider. Ferguson Media Group treats it as one option among several for a developed digital asset, and builds affiliate sites around genuine research and comparison — content that helps someone reach a decision, and that would still be worth reading if the commercial links were removed.
What makes an affiliate site worth visiting
The category has a reputation problem and it has earned it. A great deal of affiliate content is assembled at speed from product descriptions, ranked by commission rather than merit, and written by people who have never handled the thing they are recommending.
The sites that last do the opposite. They answer the question a buyer is actually stuck on, which is usually narrower and more practical than "what is the best one" — will this fit, will it work with what I already own, is the expensive version worth it, what goes wrong with these after two years.
- Genuine research — specifications compared properly, claims checked, differences that matter separated from differences that do not.
- Search intent respected — someone comparing two named products wants a comparison, not a list of ten alternatives.
- Editorial integrity — the recommendation does not change because a rate did.
- Product discovery — helping someone find the thing they did not know existed, which is where these sites earn their keep.
- Structure — tables, specifications and clear conclusions, so the answer can be found without reading two thousand words.
- Honest limitations — saying when the cheap option is fine, and when nobody needs the category at all.
Where affiliate fits in a digital asset
Affiliate is a monetisation layer, not a business model on its own. It suits sites where the audience is making a purchase decision and where the products involved are sold through programmes worth participating in.
It suits other sites badly. An audience seeking information with no purchase at the end of it monetises poorly through affiliate links, and forcing them in damages the thing that attracted the audience in the first place. In those cases advertising, lead generation, subscription or a different model entirely will serve better — which is the argument of the digital asset strategy page.
Disclosure
Every page carrying affiliate links should say so, in plain language, where a reader will actually see it rather than in a footer nobody scrolls to. In the United Kingdom this is a consumer protection requirement rather than a courtesy, and the Advertising Standards Authority and Competition and Markets Authority have both been clear that commercial relationships must be obvious before someone acts on a recommendation.
It is also commercially sensible. A site that discloses its position openly is more credible than one that hides it, and considerably more likely to be trusted by the search engines and language models that increasingly decide who gets recommended.
How affiliate projects are built
The sequence is the same as any other development project, with one addition: the commercial relationship is understood before the content is written, because it determines what can honestly be published.
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Decision mapping
What is the buyer actually trying to decide, and what do they need to know to decide it?
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Research
The specifications, the differences that matter, the compatibility traps, and what the marketing materials leave out.
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Structure
Comparison tables, clear categories, and pages that answer one question each rather than one page attempting everything.
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Content
Written to be useful first. The commercial link is a convenience for someone who has already decided, not the purpose of the page.
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Disclosure and compliance
Clear, visible, and consistent with the programme's own operating terms — which are frequently more specific than publishers realise.
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Measurement
What gets found, what gets read, what gets clicked, and what should be rewritten or removed.
Common questions
Is affiliate marketing still worth doing?
For sites that genuinely help people decide, yes. For thin comparison content assembled from manufacturer copy, considerably less so than a few years ago — search engines and AI answer systems have both become much better at recognising the difference, and the low-effort end of the category has been steadily squeezed.
What does AI search mean for affiliate sites?
It raises the bar. When an assistant can summarise the obvious answer directly, a page whose only contribution was summarising the obvious answer has no reason to be visited. Sites with original testing, genuine data, real comparison work or a clear point of view remain worth going to — and are what assistants tend to cite.
How much can an affiliate site earn?
That varies so widely by category, traffic and product value that any figure quoted without those details is meaningless. We do not publish income figures for the sites we operate, and would treat any that were quoted to you with caution.