In affiliate marketing, a “traffic source” is simply the channel that delivers potential customers to an offer through your affiliate link. Think of it as the on-ramp that feeds clicks into the tracking URL that attributes a sale or lead back to you. Traffic sources fall into three broad buckets:

Owned / organic – content you control outright (SEO-optimized blog posts, YouTube videos, newsletters, TikTok or Instagram accounts). These compound over time and have zero marginal cost, but require consistent publishing and on-page optimization to rank or go viral.

Paid media – channels where you buy impressions or clicks (Meta ads, Google Search/Display, native ad networks like Taboola, influencer shout-outs). Paid traffic scales quickly and is highly targetable, yet margin depends on tight cost-per-acquisition control and strict compliance with both network and advertiser policies.

Earned / partnership– co-promotions, list swaps, podcast guest spots, or deal sites where the exposure itself is “free,” though you invest time or rev-share. This traffic tends to convert well because it’s warmed by a trusted referral.

The “best” source depends on your budget, niche, and funnel sophistication. Beginners often start with a single organic channel to learn the audience and economics, then reinvest commissions into paid campaigns to scale. Experienced affiliates blend all three, tracking each source in their network dashboard (or a tool like Voluum/RedTrack) and reallocating spend toward the highest earning EPC (earnings per click) and lowest CPA (cost per acquisition).