Trying to figure out how to start affiliate marketing for free with no money? Don’t worry, thanks to social media you actually have several options. Let’s dive in!
How to Start Affiliate Marketing for Free With No Money
As a beginner with no money, you can leverage affiliate links with popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. to connect your audience with the products and services they’re looking for.
In this article, I’m going to share how the affiliate marketing process works, why it’s so lucrative, and how you can get started with this opportunity even if you have little to no capital to invest.
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How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?
In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is all about connecting people online with the products and services they’re already looking for. It’s so appealing because, by definition, your audience is ALREADY LOOKING for stuff to buy.
You’re not knocking on doors peddling products. In fact, you don’t need any products or services of your own to be a successful affiliate marketer.
Think of yourself as the middle man. When the question “How can I start affiliate marketing for free” was asked on the popular Quora website, the top answer came back with a slight dose of reality:
What is money for you though? Advertising = Money, of course. Backlinks = Can cost money, they definitely take time or the result of great content. Content = Money, if you hire people to produce content, or if you produce it yourself it costs you time. Time = Money.
So what they’re saying here is, hey, if you’re looking to build a successful online business, you’re going to need to spend a little money.
And as you can see from the image above, the most direct path to affiliate marketing success is through building your own niche website and sending targeted traffic to it. Google agrees. In a related article the Thirsty Affiliate website states:
We want to start by saying that having a blog and website should be your ultimate goal as an affiliate marketer. It is hands down, the best way to run a successful affiliate marketing business.
But if you’ve landed on this article, you’re more than likely a beginner looking to get your feet wet without spending a dime. And over time, building a niche website and creating content will start to cost money, right? Or will it?
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For beginners looking for a free start there is actually good news. All you really need to be successful in affiliate marketing is an audience. And in this climate we live in where everyone spends hours on social media every day, you may already have your very own built in audience.
Can I Join Affiliate Programs Free?
Yes! Joining an affiliate program is ABSOLUTELY FREE! With many affiliate programs there is an application process, and some will want you to have regular traffic going to your website before accepting you.
However, there are many that don’t require this. Ever heard of Amazon? The Amazon affiliate program is one of the most popular out there. Why?
First of all, Amazon sells EVERYTHING. But a close second is they don’t require you to have established traffic.
The major downside to Amazon’s affiliate program, however, is their ultra low commission percentages. Getting paid 1% – 3% doesn’t exactly keep you motivated. Don’t worry though. There are solid affiliate programs that offer spectacular commission percentages.
Do a simple Google search of “(any niche you’re interested in) + affiliate programs” and you’ll see page after page of free affiliate programs you can join.
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Check out “How Does Wealthy Affiliate Pay You?” for the best affiliate program you can find that even allows FREE MEMBERS to earn solid commission percentages!
What are the Best Social Media Platforms for Affiliate Marketing?
As I said before, we happen to live in an era where the average person spends HOURS online. We buy online, we chat online, we post online. So if affiliate marketing is all about needing an audience, your best bet is to start with your built-in social media audience.
Using Facebook for Affiliate Marketing
Facebook pretty much sits on top of the social media mountain. While much of the younger generation is moving over to newer platforms like TikTok and Snapchat, Facebook has been established the longest, and for that reason, has the widest reach.
So how do you go about affiliate marketing on Facebook?
The key here is to create compelling, helpful, and useful posts consistently. Don’t make every post about promoting your affiliate links. Instead, focus on being seen as a member of Facebook who brings quality info to the masses.
- Post regularly and post often!
- Join relevant Facebook groups.
- Create links to useful websites and info your audience would enjoy.
- Keep it light. Funny posts work very well for engagement and this gets your audience used to commenting.
- Every 4 or 5 posts, feel free to promote the product or service you’re affiliated with.
- Don’t “just” post the affiliate link. Give it a couple sentences of context.
In this way, you develop a relationship with your audience so that they are used to the idea that you post quality info and the posts don’t come off as “selling”.
Something else that helps tremendously with credibility is when you’ve chosen a niche for affiliate marketing that you have a genuine interest in. Now even your affiliated posts have relevance as well.
Should you do it from your personal profile or create a business page? This is completely up to you, but by keeping with the rules above, your content will find its audience.
Using YouTube for Affiliate Marketing
YouTube is a spectacular way to find your audience without spending a dime! Everyone on this planet LOVES VIDEO! Creating a YouTube channel is free, creating content is free, and uploading videos is free!
So let’s say you’re a chess lover and you’ve decided to promote a book dealing with learning chess strategies. Your video could be a book review, or simply a guide showing examples of the strategies found in the book. Show them in action! Let your audience see the value.
Then, just like you’ve seen a thousand times before on YouTube, direct your audience to click the link in the video description.
You’ve shown value, now your audience will follow through.
- As always, post regularly and post often!
- Create content that is the answer to your audience’s most popular searches.
- Let your personality shine through!
- Be upbeat! No one will sit through a boring video.
- Create a video description that thoroughly explains the video and enter relevant tags so your audience can find you.
- Place your affiliate link in the video description and direct your audience to click through for more info.
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Check out “Do YouTubers Get Paid if You Skip Ads?” for insight on the very lucrative world of YouTube monetization!
Using Instagram for Affiliate Marketing
Instagram is a spectacular medium for creating content that attracts attention, gets seen, and all it takes are pictures! A picture is worth a thousand words and, when marketed right, can potentially earn you thousands of dollars!
Instagram influencing is based 100% on affiliate marketing. Once you gain an audience, you use your influence to connect them with products and services they can’t live without.
- Post regularly and post often! 1-3 times daily (Do you see a theme here?)
- Choose a specific niche and post relevant content. Don’t be scatterbrained!
- Engagement is key on Instagram! Create captions that urge your audience to chime in! Reply to all the comments you get!
- As with Facebook, create content that is useful and interesting. Not every post will be an affiliate post.
- Every 4 to 5 posts, feel free to promote your product or service. Place your affiliate link in your profile (“link in bio”) and lead your audience to click it.
- Create stories daily (5-6 stories daily) that add more value to your content and show your personality.
- Use stories to direct your audience to see your latest posts and lead them to your “link in bio”.
- Use relevant hashtags to get your content seen by potentially THOUSANDS!
Are There Free Affiliate Marketing Training Courses I Can Take?
There are tons of great resources available online so you can find the best affiliate marketing training courses that fit your needs. Don’t fall for the ads by affiliate marketing “gurus” filled with unrealistic promises of income and “done for you” systems.
When they are promising to give away their “full proof” secrets free of charge, they are ALWAYS filled with massive upsells. I’ve done COUNTLESS reviews on these types of schemes and they’re not worth it.
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Final Thoughts
The most straightforward path to success is through a niche website and driving targeted traffic to it. However, you can also be very successful in affiliate marketing by using social media.
What questions do you have for me? Drop any questions or comments you have in the comments section below. I always respond and I look forward to connecting with you!
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Great Tips! very helpful content. Thanks a lot for sharing.
Very happy to help!
Hi Eric
Though I regularly post articles on my Facebook business page, I can’t say the same for other platforms.
I will try your suggestions and see what outcomes I can come up with. What do you think about doing the same on Twitter? Is it worth it? Posting consistently across several platforms can take cost lots of time.
Thank you.
I absolutely agree. As I say at the beginning of the article, I feel the most direct way to be successful with affiliate marketing is through building your own website. By doing that, you create a central hub where you create content and then you can simply share to your social media platforms, sometimes automatically.
But if you’re going to try affiliate marketing solely through social media, I agree, posting regularly to several platforms isn’t very time efficient. I would concentrate on one, maybe 2 at the most.
Personally, I would choose Facebook and Instagram. I’ve never been a twitter person. Thanks for the comment!
I really like the section of your article where you give some tips to promote your brand on Facebook. It’s true that going all in trying to push your affiliate link in your follower’s throat is not a good idea. Following the 80/20 is the best. 80% content, 20% promotion. I will bookmark your article because I have not used yet YouTube or Instagram for my business. Great article.
Absolutely! Thanks for the comment!
About the social networks, due to different reasons, I don’t find so much success in Facebook, on the other hand, I do enjoy using Pinterest due to the exposure I can get to the platform. Wondering what are your thoughts on Pinterest. Thanks for the share and all the best! 🙂
Pinterest is a great way to get your content seen. Not too long ago I watched a spectacular webinar all about using Pinterest for attracting targeted traffic to your content. You can check it out here. Thanks for the comment!
My biggest problem with social media is finding the time to post regularly. I simply do not enjoy it as much as I do building my actual website. Are there any apps you recommend that can help with scheduling social media posts? Or, even better, can you recommend a company that would be good at social media marketing for a small niche website? (Affordability would be a factor!)
Thanks for the great info and your site looks great!
There are some apps out there you could look into to automate the process of posting regularly. I’ve never used any for any extended period of time though. Usually, to share quality info, it’s just a matter of scrolling down your feed and sharing other articles you find insightful, then every 4 or 5 posts, throw in one of yours. Thanks for the comment!
I am actually going to save this website so I can look at it as I learn. Thank you for such good information. It has given me more insight as to how to go about building my site.
The different platforms and the best way to use them for your marketing is really going to be a big help.
Thank you for all of your insight Sir!
Ms. Kim
Very happy to help! Thanks for the comment!
Great topic. I like the layout of your site, and the overall structure. I took a peek at the other things your site offers, and I can appreciate the fact that you have your social media platforms available to be followed as well. I’m finding that you’ll get a lot more engagement and loyal fans when they get to see your business in different platforms too.
I appreciate the kind words. Thanks for the comment!
I’ve been using YouTube and Facebook to help boost my site, but after reading this, I really think I should also branch out into Instagram. I like how you pointed out to make your affiliate posts every four or five posts. I think constant bombardment of products and services would definitely be a turn off to many followers.
When you make yourself a trusted source of good info, you come off way less like a salesman and that makes a world of difference. Thanks for the comment!
I post to my Facebook business page several times a week when I have new blog posts to link to. However, I also share funny cartoons in my niche as well, which usually get engagement. Pinterest is my main source of free traffic though. Thanks for sharing such an informative post:)
You’re very welcome! Thanks for the comment!
This is a great article that covers the basics very well. It is easy to read and follow along. I think to many people believe they have to follow some called Guru and shell out lots of cash up front. Thanks for debunking that.
If you had to choose just one which would be your preferred Affiliate Program?
Looking forward to your response.
Kevin
This affiliate program is the one I’ve made the most money with. It has absolutely huge commission percentages! Thanks for the comment!
That’s the thing I love the most about affiliate marketing. All you need to become successful in this field is perseverance, the wish to learn, and the willingness to put in a little bit of elbow grease when needed. The options are unlimited so long as you’re prepared to explore them and find out how you can make good use of them.
Great article! I’m sure many newcomers will find it handy.
Gorjan,
Agreed! Thanks for the comment!
Hey there Eric,
Love the article, I spent years procrastinating and never got started with affiliate marketing, all because I had no money and thought that I could never get started without money. Come to think of it, I used to spend so much time on social media and if I just got started with affiliate marketing years ago by using social media, I would have a had a huge following that I could monetize. I wish i had this article 10 years ago.
Regards
Lawrence
There’a a ton of opportunity online, even in social media. It’s all about taking advantage of it. Thanks for the comment!
Hi Eric,
Thanks for the tip that we should post relevant content consistently on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube to do affiliate marketing. Most bloggers said that it’s better to start a blog and repurpose the content on social media. Do you think it’s a good strategy?
Cheers,
Matt
The absolute best way to make money affiliate marketing is through a niche website. Using social media as a secondary means of getting that webs content out is a solid plan. For those starting without a website, social media at least offers a built in audience to promote to. Thanks for the comment!
Do you recommend using Facebook ads and on Twitter their paid Twitter promotions? Do those help a lot?
Personally, I’m not a fan of using ads unless you are promoting your own products. In those cases you’d be getting 100% of the sale and it would be easier to get a ROI. Too many times people try to jump straight to ads and it can quickly become a huge money pit because every single click is one that you’re paying for and you may not get the conversions you thought you would. Thanks for the comment!
The idea that we don’t need to have our own products and can instead leverage affiliate links with popular social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc. is very appealing for many people.
I’ll be sure to share this page with some people i know who are looking for new ways to make money at the moment.
Thanks for sharing.
Agreed. Affiliate marketers help people find what they’re looking for and can get paid very well for doing it. Thanks for the comment!
Do automation programs work for growth on instagram to build a larger audience?
From what I’ve found, not anymore. There used to be a time when you could use programs that made it so that it was like you were on instagram 24/7, liking, commenting, following, unfollowing, etc. But instagram put a stop to that and now just about every single “automation” service I’ve seen uses bots which does nothing for you when you’re looking for actual conversions for affiliate marketing. Great question. Thanks for the comment!
This is actually a really solid article. I will definitely follow this great advice!
Thanks so much!
I have always wanted to get started on YouTube. But without a clear goal, I lacked motivation and direction. I never really knew what I’d vlog about. But knowing I can create videos and also endorse the products I like is a great win-win scenario. Thank you for encouraging me! I’ll give it a shot.
Absolutely! It’s a spectacular way to build your audience. People LOVE YouTube! Thanks for the comment!