Yes, I think you do need a blog or website before you join an affiliate program.
Otherwise, where are you going to put the affiliate links?
I also think you should not bother joining an affiliate program.
Affiliate programs are dying. Nobody is clicking on links. In fact, with so many people surfing from their smartphones, or using ad-blockers, a significant proportion of traffic doesn’t even see the ads. It’s a problem many webmasters are currently facing: how to generate revenue online? The short answer is: nobody knows.
It is very true that many challenges have come up for affiliates, but affiliate marketers can learn to adapt and find out new strategies to engage audience. As per my research, if affiliate marketing was to die, we wouldn’t have found new affiliate programs budding up with good commission margin for marketers recently. Not just this, but there are many good players still in the market who are getting more and more affiliates added to their network. Well, that’s just my thought as there are always two sides of a coin.
Just sharing my thought with you - Can social media help solely in the promotion of affiliate links?