Every course sales page seems to promise the same thing, and you can't tell a course from its launch hype until you've paid. The headline is big, the countdown is running, and the page shows everything except what you would do inside.
The takeaway up front: before you pay, an affiliate marketing course should show you five things. A full curriculum with lesson titles. Disclosure taught as a rule. A named teacher and at least one sample lesson. The renewal price and refund terms, on the vendor's own checkout. And a careful way of talking about results. If the sales page hides any of the five, don't buy yet. Ask, or walk away.
One question comes before all of them: whether to take a course or build a project first. A course is worth paying for when it gets you to your next build faster than free material would. If you can't name that build yet, start there.
To build the shortlist you run these checks on, there is Eric Salo Reviews. Eric Salo Reviews publishes short, first-person reviews of online tools, software, courses and services.
Disclosure: we put this checklist together in collaboration with Eric Salo Reviews, and it names no course or course author.
Why the sales page can't answer the question for you
A sales page has one job, and helping you compare is not it. Three things make an affiliate course hard to judge.
Many of the people recommending it are paid when you buy. The UK's Advertising Standards Authority describes affiliate marketing as a set-up where an affiliate is "rewarded by a business for each new customer attracted by their marketing efforts", usually with a pre-agreed percentage of each sale as a commission (ASA, Online Affiliate Marketing). Nothing wrong with that, but a glowing post about a course may be part of the launch.
Launches run on a clock. Countdown timers, "doors closing" emails and stacks of bonuses exist to move you from interested to paid before you compare anything.
What you are buying is invisible. You can't see the member area, the lesson list or the renewal terms until after checkout, unless you ask. The five checks below are what to ask for.
The five things an affiliate marketing course should show you
1. A full curriculum, with lesson titles
"Eight power-packed modules" tells you nothing. A real affiliate course curriculum lists the lessons inside each module, in order, so you can see whether it teaches a skill or only describes one. For a beginner, it should cover at least four areas:
- Picking a niche and an audience. Who you will help, what they are trying to decide, and how to check that people look for it.
- Content and traffic basics. How to make content people find (articles, videos or email) and get it seen without paying for ads from day one.
- Joining programmes and reading their terms. How to apply, and what the terms say about cookie length, payout thresholds and banned promotion methods, such as bidding on the brand's own name in search ads.
- Disclosure. Where it goes, what it says, and why (point 2).
Red flags: module titles that are only promises ("The Secret Method", "Going Viral"), a lesson list you can only see after paying, and mindset talks with no exercises.
2. Disclosure, taught as a rule
Affiliate disclosure rules are not an optional extra, and a course that treats them as a footnote is teaching you to break them.
The same ASA guidance puts it in one line: "Rule 2.1 of the CAP Code requires that marketing communications are obviously identifiable as such." In practice, a reader should know a post is marketing before they click, not after. The guidance also notes that the Code bars marketing that falsely claims or implies the marketer is acting as a consumer. Rules differ by country, so a course should teach the ones where your readers live.
Look for a named lesson that shows where a disclosure goes (near the top, before the first affiliate link), the plain wording to use, and how to label social posts. Walk away from any lesson on hiding that a link is an affiliate link, or "review" templates written to read like a customer's own story.
3. Who teaches it, and a sample lesson
You should know the teacher's name before you pay, and be able to see their work: sites, channels or newsletters you can open today. Lifestyle photos with no work to look at are a warning.
Then ask for a sample: a free lesson, a preview of the member area, or a recorded webinar that teaches one thing properly. Watch it for format: are there exercises, templates and a small project to finish, or hours of someone talking to a camera? Watching without practising is a common reason online courses go unfinished, and a course you don't finish teaches you nothing, whatever it cost. Check support too: a place to ask questions, and someone who answers.
4. The renewal price and the refund terms, on the vendor's checkout
An affiliate marketing membership charges a monthly or yearly fee for continued access, updates or a community. Read the vendor's own checkout page, not a promoter's email, because that is where the terms live. Check four things there:
- What renews, and when. Is the first price a one-off, a trial, or the first payment of a subscription?
- What gets offered after you pay. Know the core price, and decide on any upgrade offer later, not in the moment.
- The refund window and its conditions. If a refund depends on finishing modules or showing your work, read those conditions before you buy.
- How to cancel. You should find the cancel steps without emailing anyone.
Then do the sum. Illustrative numbers, not any real course: a course priced at 97 (any currency) that includes the first month and then renews at 37 a month costs 97 + (11 × 37) = 504 over its first year, more than five times the headline price. Put the real figures from the checkout into the same sum.
5. How it talks about results
A course can tell you what you will be able to do at the end: set up a site, write a comparison post, read a programme's terms. It cannot know what you will be paid, because that depends on your niche, your work and your time.
So treat any income figure on a sales page as illustrative, even when nobody labels it that way. Ask what the figure leaves out: how long it took, what was spent on ads and tools, and how many students never got there. A dashboard screenshot proves a dashboard existed, not that you will see the same.
A careful course has a written results disclaimer and frames its lessons around skills, not sums. If the strongest thing on the page is a promise about money rather than a skill, keep your wallet closed.
A pre-purchase checklist you can copy
Copy this into your notes and fill in one column per course you are considering. If a row stays empty, that is your answer.
| Check | Where to find it | Walk away if |
|---|---|---|
| Lesson titles for niche, content, programme terms, disclosure | Sales page, or ask support | Only module names, or the list appears after payment |
| Disclosure taught as a rule | A named lesson | Missing, or tips for hiding affiliate links |
| A named teacher with visible work | Sales page, the teacher's own site | No name, or nothing you can open today |
| A sample lesson | Free lesson, preview or webinar | Nothing shown before checkout |
| Renewal price and term | The vendor's checkout | Unclear, or only in small print |
| Refund window, how to cancel | The vendor's refund policy | Conditions you can't meet, or cancelling needs emails |
| How results are described | Sales page, the course's disclaimer | Income figures with no illustrative label |
| First-year cost | Your sum from the checkout | You can't work it out |
Where Eric Salo Reviews fits in your shortlist
The checklist tells you what to ask a course. An affiliate training review helps you decide which courses are worth asking about.
Eric Salo is the founder and primary author of Eric Salo Reviews, publishing reviews since 2025. Its coverage includes affiliate marketing courses, memberships and training programmes, including a TikTok Shop affiliate course. Each review is short and first-person: it says what a product is, what stands out and who it suits, with a link to the product. The affiliate marketing course reviews overview shows which kinds of courses and memberships Eric Salo Reviews covers.
What helps a beginner most is the "who it suits" line, because a sales page is written for everyone. Read it as a hint, then check the sales page for what the course assumes you already have, such as a site, a publishing habit or an ad budget.
To use the two together:
- Read the review for what the course is and who it suits.
- Take the course name to the vendor's own sales page and checkout, and run the five checks there.
- Decide on the vendor's written terms, not on any summary of them.
The trade-off, stated plainly: some of its links are affiliate links, and Eric Salo Reviews may earn a commission at no extra cost to you. Read its Disclosure & Disclaimer page, linked in its footer, before you rely on a review, and check refund terms on the vendor's checkout yourself. On results, its Earnings Disclaimer says income references are illustrative only and results are not guaranteed, which is also the right way to read any figure on a course page.
FAQ
Do I need a website before I take an affiliate marketing course? No, but you need a plan for where your content will live, because a course can't teach you much with nowhere to practise. A blog, a video channel or an email list can all work. The course should say which one it assumes, and if you don't have it, an early module should set it up.
How long before an affiliate marketing course pays off? No one can promise that, and a course that names a date is selling the date. It depends on your niche, how much you publish, and how long the programmes you join take to approve you and pay out. The Earnings Disclaimer at Eric Salo Reviews takes the same line: income references are illustrative only. Judge a course on what you can do at the end, and give the practice months, not weeks.
Are the links on Eric Salo Reviews affiliate links? Some are: Eric Salo Reviews may earn a commission at no extra cost to you when you buy through them. Its disclosure page says affiliate relationships may influence which products it features but do not dictate its opinions.
What if I buy a course and it turns out to be the wrong one? Use the refund window straight away and cancel any renewal at the same time. Keep the checkout email and a copy of the refund policy as it read on the day you bought. Then look at the checklist row you skipped, because that is usually the one that would have warned you. Keep what you built, too; a niche and a few posts carry over to the next attempt.
Before you click buy
A shortlist, five checks and one sum. To see whether the kind of course you're weighing has a first-person review, read the reviews at EricSaloReviews.click with the disclosure in mind. Then run the checklist on each course on your shortlist, work out its first-year cost from the vendor's checkout, and decide on the vendor's terms, not on the countdown.
