You’ve got to spend money to make money. That definitely has an aspect of truth to it however, in the affiliate marketing business, you can begin earning before you spend a dollar. And there isn’t any fine text to it either, you really can start affiliate marketing with no money.
But it isn’t like winning the lottery, if you really want to be successful in the affiliate marketing industry, you have got to understand it. You must be willing to put in the time and effort to start earning a real income.
So how to start affiliate marketing with no money?
2 Steps How to Start Affiliate Marketing with No Money
- Join Affiliate Programs
- Get Noticed – Promote for Free
1. Joining an Affiliate Program
In a market that is worth $12 billion, it’s no surprise that there are hundreds of affiliate programs to choose from, and picking a reliable platform is of paramount importance in your first steps to affiliate marketing with no money.
Here are some of the best affiliate networks that are worth checking out:
CJ Affiliate – CJ Affiliate is the largest affiliate network in the world, and they’ve been a huge part of the industry for over 20 years. They reach over a billion digital consumers across the globe.
ClickBank – ClickBank has over 6 million clients worldwide with over $4 billion paid over the years to its affiliates.
ShareASale – ShareASale has been around for 20 years and through their platform, affiliates gain access to almost 5,000 merchants across industries.
These are only a few of the several affiliate programs you can choose from. It’s best to do your own research to find the platform that’s the perfect fit for you. It helps to be as specific as you can and find a niche that you are comfortable with.
For example, if you are a food enthusiast and you have a significant following as an influencer in that niche it would be a great idea to join a food affiliate program. But you can get even more specific if you want to. If your strength is a specific kind of diet for example keto diet, you can find affiliate programs dedicated to that.
Affiliate marketing with no money is easier when you’re more specific.
However, there are a few factors to pay attention to as you make your decision.
Make sure you understand the commission system. Are you earning a percentage of each sale or a fixed rate? Make sure you are satisfied with the cookie duration of the affiliate program you choose. And finally, ensure you understand the payout conditions of the affiliate program.
Once you’ve made your choice there are a few things to keep in mind before you apply
Tips Before you Apply for an Affiliate Program
Your Portfolio
Have a portfolio to show that you’re a great choice for the affiliate program. If you want to be a part of an affiliate program you must show them that you are a good voice for their products.
Your portfolio of content can be blog posts or videos and they must show that you have both passion and ability in their niche. Your portfolio should also convey your network. An affiliate program will trust you if they know that you can spread the word about their products to as many people as possible.
Do Not Spam
Nothing turns a potential buyer away like spam. Not only does spam hurt your chances of earning any income as an affiliate but you also run the risk of being suspended from promoting products.
Approximately 122.3 billion spam emails are sent each day, that’s about 85% of global email traffic. Ensure you are never a part of that.
Add Value
Whatever your content is, from articles to videos, adding value as opposed to a hard sell will always work better for you. Affiliate links should be distributed naturally through your content rather than sticking out as an obvious tactic to make money.
If your visitors enjoy and appreciate your content, they will return to it and may even recommend it.
2. Get Noticed
There’s no secret to it, the only way to earn money as an affiliate marketer is to get people to notice you. And there are several free tools and platforms out there to make that easier. Affiliate marketing with no money is certainly possible but it is going to require your dedicated efforts.
1. Establish a Rock-Solid Social Media Presence
The more social you are online, the more you’re going to make. Facebook is one of the best places to make an impact. With more than 2.8 billion active users,
Facebook is the largest platform to get noticed.
Build connections and get your name out there. Facebook is not a place to spam your contacts with affiliate links but instead to get as many people as you can to get to know you. Find Facebook groups that focus on the niche of the product you’re promoting and start interacting.
Post high-quality content on your profile that tells others that you are a reliable source of information and that your content is worth exploring.
Facebook is also a great platform to promote affiliate offers in posts but in
moderation. Too much and your posts become spam but if your connections value and trust your content they will even look forward to the occasional promotional post.
Similarly, you can use Instagram to promote your affiliate products and widen your reach especially if you have a significant following. Most importantly, you must be active within the niche of your product, constantly creating high-quality posts that showcase your expertise in the area.
Use all the tools and features that Instagram provides – Posts, Stories, Reels, IGTV, Live, and Tags. Post images of your products or quick reviews in your stories or reels. You can even use Instagram to show your followers live demonstrations of your affiliate product.
Twitter ensures its users are concise with its 280-character limit, this makes it a useful platform to interact with a large audience in a quick and direct way. Tweet
as much as you can in the niche of your affiliate products and connect with as many people as you can who might be interested in your affiliate products.
Twitter’s analytics also allows you to track the performance of your tweets to tweak what works and what doesn’t.
LinkedIn has over 770 million users across the world, and it may not be the first platform to come to mind when you think of social media but it’s the ideal place to make professional connections and establish your credibility. Promote your products through blog posts, organic posts you create as well as through the connections you make on the platform with industry professionals in the niche of your products.
Pinterest comes with a huge advantage; you can share affiliate links directly in the pins you create. Use the platform, to post high-quality content in your niche and follow the trends. Comment on other pins in your niche and stay active in the community.
Reddit allows you to target a younger demographic with the majority of users falling within the 25 to 29 age range. Find the SubReddit and Communities that are relevant to your niche and interact with users there.
While you cannot directly share affiliate links on Reddit, the platform is still useful to establish your presence as a reliable name in the niche of your products
moreover, you can easily direct Reddit users to your blog or website which can contain affiliate links.
Tumblr
Tumblr’s microblogging format allows you to create short snippets of content from text, images, video, and music. Tumblr also helps you target a younger audience and regularly posting in your niche and becoming an active part of the community can help generate traffic to your content. You can also place affiliate links directly within your content on Tumblr for free making affiliate marketing with no money on this platform possible.
2. Write for Free Blogging Platforms
Affiliate Marketing with No Money
Social Media isn’t the only avenue to promote your affiliate products. Creating content for free blogging platforms is a fantastic way to establish your credibility and direct readers to your affiliate links.
Quora, Medium, Hubpages, and Steemit are some of the good platforms out there. Producing high-quality content within the niche of the products you’re promoting on these free blogging platforms can generate high amounts of traffic to your affiliate links.
Both Medium and Steemit in fact allow you to use affiliate links in your content on their platforms, with certain conditions of course.
3. Direct Messaging
In addition to reaching out to a larger audience sometimes a more targeted approach can greatly aid your process.
If you’ve got a large network of contacts, WhatsApp is a great direct messaging platform to promote your products for free and start affiliate marketing with no money. Sharing direct affiliate links through WhatsApp depends on your affiliate program, however, it’s still a great medium to spread the word on new content you create or to direct your contacts to your blog.
Snapchat
A third of Snapchat users come from the US alone with over 105 million users. With most users between 13 and 34, using Snapchat to promote your products helps you target a younger audience. Snapchat allows you to post direct affiliate links in your posts whether through the snaps you send followers, Snapchat stories, or chats making affiliate marketing with no money that much easier.
You can use Snapchat in a variety of ways to promote your products. You can use the platform to promote offers, host contests, or even broadcast live events such as demonstrations or reviews.
Telegram
The Telegram instant messaging platform is one of the best ways to promote your products and content directly to potential consumers. For affiliate marketers,
Telegram has been one of the most effective mediums with a higher conversion rate than even Facebook groups.
The best approach with this platform is to create a Telegram contact group focused on the niche of the products you want to promote. You can then use the channel to directly share affiliate links as well as updates, promotions, and links to your website or blog.
It’s important to note that direct messaging channels should be used to inform and politely invite your contacts to your content. Bombarding your contacts with offers, promotions, and affiliate links will only damage your marketing campaign.
4. Video Platforms
The two major video platforms out there right now are YouTube and Tik Tok and you can use both to your advantage and completely for free. Target the audience that enjoys content in the niche of your products and produce video content to support that.
YouTube
Affiliate Marketing with No Money
YouTube is the go-to platform for video tutorials and reviews. In other words, most people come to YouTube to learn, in fact, a study estimated that 51% of YouTube users come to the platform to gain some form of knowledge or information.
So as an affiliate marketer, what kind of videos should you upload on YouTube?
Reviews – Video reviews are a casual and engaging way to connect with your audience. Instead of scouring through written reviews and in-depth articles, sometimes buyers prefer a short and direct review of a product that your videos can provide.
Comparison Videos – Another great format for YouTube is comparison videos where you put two or more products against each other, comparing their features, pros, cons, and your general experience with them.
Best of Lists – A fantastic way to talk about several products is by ranking them based on their features and benefits.
Additionally, on YouTube, you can place affiliate links in the descriptions of your videos as well as in pinned comments.
TikTok
Affiliate Marketing with No Money
However, YouTube’s toughest competition currently is Tik Tok. In the US and UK people now spend more time each month on Tik Tok than on YouTube and in the US alone there are about 80 million active users. The short video format of Tik Tok allows you to produce quick and snappy reviews or demos of your product essentially in real time.
And since it’s less than a minute of footage at a time you can make a lot of content on a consistent basis. You can also place an affiliate link in your profile description as well as promote promotion codes in your videos.
5. Online Forums
Online forums can also greatly help your marketing campaign. Look for forums in your niche and participate. Once people see the high-quality information you provide, they will want to learn more about you and the content you produce.
6. It Helps to Have a Blog
While it’s certainly possible to earn an affiliate income without a blog, having one ties it all together and essentially makes it just a bit easier. It’s great to have a centralized location controlled by you that your visitors can come to, moreover, having a blog gives you full control over the affiliate links you place through your content especially when you’re taking the approach of affiliate marketing with no money.
Both WordPress and Blogger are completely free to get started with. Of course, WordPress is more flexible and you can start a blog in a day. With your own blog, you own the content you produce which means you can put affiliate links wherever you need them.
You can then use your social platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and others as well as video content on Tik Tok or YouTube to direct your visitors to your blog.
Your blog is a landing spot for the people interested in your content and having a website, even if a basic one, is an organized approach to making an affiliate income and vital for affiliate marketing with no money.
Time for Action…
So, there it is. It’s certainly possible to start affiliate marketing with no money. It does require your 100% commitment though and if you’re willing to put in that you can start earning right now.
