Do you want to make money from affiliate marketing, but don’t have a lot of start-up capital?
You don’t need thousands of dollars or even hundreds to get started with affiliate marketing.
You can launch an affiliate program without spending any money at all—all you need is some time and effort.
With the right strategy and dedication, it’s possible to generate income through affiliate marketing without investing anything other than your energy.
This guide will show you how to start making money with affiliate marketing even if you have no budget for advertising or promotion.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards affiliates for each customer they bring in.
This can be done through a variety of methods, including content creation, social media outreach, and more.
For example, if you create an affiliate link to an Amazon product on your blog, any sales that result from readers clicking on the affiliate link will earn you a commission.
The amount of money you make depends on the number of clicks or purchases made from your affiliate links and how much commission each retailer offers.
- Reasons Why Affiliate Marketing is great for Beginners
- Low or no cost of start-up
- Low ongoing costs
- Low risk
- Flexibility
- High ROI
Step-by-Step Instructions to Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money
1.) Choose a Niche
As an affiliate marketer, it’s paramount to choose a niche in which you are an expert.
Not only for branding purposes but also because this is the best way to establish yourself as a trustworthy authority so you can reap the benefits that affiliate marketing has to offer.
It’s key to ensure there are lucrative opportunities within your chosen niche.
After all, affiliate marketing is a game of opportunity and before investing your energy into marketing strategies and activities, make sure there is enough potential reward at the end of the rainbow.
Becoming a skilled affiliate marketer isn’t easy, but with dedication and effort, there’s no reason why you won’t become one of the greats!
2.) Decide on a traffic channel
Beginner affiliate marketers often make the mistake of trying to find success on too many traffic channels at once – but that’ll only lead to an overwhelmed, frazzled mess.
Instead, take a step back and figure out which single channel will bring you the long-term, passive income you’re after.
For me, that’s Google Search: it’s all about building organic traffic by optimizing your content for search engine algorithms.
There’s no pushy affiliate program or intrusive ad involved – just lasting results. Stick with this one channel and you can reap the benefits of affiliate success!
3.) Create Greate Content
If affiliate marketing is your game, you will want to make sure your content is stronger than the competition.
Great content that engages your audience shouldn’t be a difficult task, as long as you have the right tools and mindset.
Regardless of the affiliate program or affiliate marketers you choose to focus on, your affiliate marketing business won’t be successful without great content!
Make sure each post you write is entertaining, informative, and optimized with relevant keywords – using SurferSEO’s quick and easy tool can help give you exactly what you need to make it all work.
Not only that but you’ll also need to include plenty of fun visuals like pictures, videos, and blog posts; if done correctly you’ll have a winning recipe for success!
Another great tool for affiliate marketing is Jasper.
Jasper is the perfect AI tool to help you quickly create content.
It takes the manual labor out of content creation and gives you more time to focus on growing your business.
With Jasper, AI does the heavy lifting, ensuring that any and every affiliate-focused piece of content is written with precision and wit. This makes sure online success is as easy as possible for affiliate marketers everywhere!
4.) Join Affiliate Programs
Now that you’ve got your feet wet when it comes to finding your niche, the next step is selecting affiliate sales programs that are a good fit.
Before you do anything else, make sure the affiliate network offers a good commission rate — after all, who wants to be spending all this time and energy just to scrounge up some measly affiliate clicks?
Utilize affiliate networks with high rates of return and watch as those dollars start flying in like never before!
Plus, if you choose affiliate networks that match up with your niche, well then…you’ll already have an upper hand on your competition. So don’t wait around any longer; hop onto an affiliate network today and start making a bank!
When it comes to affiliate sales, there are many affiliate networks out there, but I must say that for me the cream of the crop is ShareASale, Impact, and CJ.
Together, these three affiliate programs offer some of the most rewarding affiliate commissions as well as solid technology and customer service.
Not to mention their vast catalogs of affiliate products that cover virtually any niche or interest.
With these affiliate networks at my disposal, I have a high commission rate and feel comfortable knowing that I have access to the latest in affiliate marketing technology and trends and the best possible brands and products at my fingertips.
5.) Promote your Content
Remember how I said to focus on one channel for affiliate marketing traffic?
Well, that is great advice if you want to get the most out of your affiliate marketing work.
You don’t have to limit yourself to only one channel, nor do you have to devote all your time and energy to creating content specifically tailored toward the largest social media platform.
Utilizing other channels like Facebook and Pinterest can be a great way to boost your content even with smaller following numbers.
All you have to do is decide where you want to start and put in some hard work—it’s that simple!
6.) Grow an Audience
Ready to turn your platform into an affiliate website?
Great! First and foremost, search engine optimization (SEO) should be at the forefront of your mind.
That’s because SEO will have a major impact on how you are discovered by potential customers. Once you’ve established your search engine presence, focus on building an email or SMS list.
Having a direct connection with your audience can help foster trust which is essential for successful affiliate marketing.
Think of it this way – if your content score is like a CV, then engaging in discussions with your audience is like writing passion-filled cover letters and networking interviews – without them, you can’t get the job done.
Figuring out how to get your emails into inboxes doesn’t have to be a stressful task.
There are plenty of free options when it comes to email marketing, so you can pick the one that best fits your needs and budget – no strings attached!
Shopify Email, Mailchimp, and MailerLite all offer great features without breaking the bank.
So go ahead – shop around for what works for YOU!
7.) Track your Progress
With affiliate marketing, tracking and measuring progress is essential to your success.
Keeping an eye on clicks, the number of sales actions, conversion rates, return on ad spend, incremental revenue, cost per click and cost per sale, and the percentage of active affiliates will help you identify trends and areas for improvement.
Tracking your success can be tricky, especially after iOS 14. But, thankfully, there are solutions that combine hyper-accurate server-side tracking with convenient reports, that help you monitor your performance with ease.
RedTrack is a solution that helps seamlessly scale your revenue with accurate click and conversion data, consolidated reports, 200+ integrations with traffic sources and ad networks, and automate winning combinations! Start with a 14-day free trial.
so you can be sure that your hard-earned dollars are going towards something successful!
8.) Scale it up
When affiliate marketing is working for you, there’s no better time than now to scale up your spending and efforts.
You know what’s working, so double down on it and cut the affiliate marketing methods that aren’t yielding returns.
To maximize your time (and your profits!), consider calling in a reinforcement – try recruiting a skilled writer, video editor, or social media assistant through UpWork or Fiverr.
Sure, it may take a few hires to find the right fit – but once you do, they’ll more than pay for themselves.
Wrapping Up and My Experience With Affiliate Marketing
Working with affiliate networks is something I’m getting the hang of.
Over the years, I have had to learn affiliate marketing the hard way – through trial and error, but things are finally paying off!
Having reported success makes it all the more worth it, especially given all the effort and affiliate marketing spend I’ve poured into countless campaigns in recent months!
It’s not only a great feeling that comes with actually generating sales but also a sense of pride knowing that despite lacking expertise, my affiliate marketing efforts were successful.
