how to start affiliate marketing without a website?

Promote Your Affiliate Links Without A Website

Do you want to start affiliate marketing but you’re not ready to invest in a website, yet? The good news is you can start as an affiliate without the need for a website of your own. The bad news is…, well yes there is a drawback to starting affiliate marketing without a website. 

 

The most obvious one is that your earnings will be significantly higher if you own a website and treat it as a proper business. But let’s face it.

It can be tough to build a blog website and get the ball rolling without any experience or knowledge of how things work. There are a few different ways of going about it. We’ll go through all the ways that you can promote products and services as an affiliate marketer without having a website!

Social Media

One of the best ways for beginners starting out in affiliate marketing without a website is social media. You can use Facebook Groups and Pages, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, Twitter, LinkedIn or even TikTok to promote your products and services. For example, you might post an image or a video on one of these platforms with the link to something that you’re promoting in the caption or as a comment. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook are perfect for sharing quick links to products with your followers. You can also use hashtags to make your posts more visible. Some of these platforms don’t allow you to add links directly for example Instagram and Tiktiok, but you can still add a link to the bio section on these Apps.

But, you should bear in mind that there is a right way to do all this promoting ‘thing’ on any of the platforms we mention in this post. I will share the method later in this post. Let’s carry on with other methods you can use to promote your links.

 

YouTube

 

Another way to promote your links is YouTube – This platform gives you the opportunity to show the products you are promoting. You can create youtube videos but you don’t have to be on camera for that. The videos you create can be faceless. You can promote the product or the service in the form of a review, a comparison review, a tutorial.  Answer the questions the viewer might have like: How do they work, how can people use them in their daily lives? You have a lot of creative freedom here, so be sure to take advantage! 

Or a clever way to promote your products and services is to talk about a topic, highlight a problem the viewers may face then suggest the product that you promote. This way, you can sell the product naturally without being a spammy or pushy affiliate.

Post On Forums

Posting content on niche forums is worth looking into too! But, there is a fine line between being a successful affiliate and a proper spammer. Known forum websites like Quora and Reddit usually have strict link posting policies. You should contribute significantly on the platforms and only add links occasionally. It works but you have to be careful not to get banned if you post too many links too frequently. 

Email Marketing

Email marketing is an excellent way to generate sales through your affiliate links. Although it’s possible that some users may unsubscribe after seeing too many emails on a regular basis (or if they feel there isn’t any value), building up an email list will make it easier for promotions down the road. Make sure that you offer readers something valuable each time you send out a newsletter or promotion: perhaps include tips about using products effectively, information about upcoming deals or  promotions, or even just links to great content that your readers may be interested in. Email marketing is a powerful way to generate sales over the long-term, and it’s an excellent way to convert leads into sales.

Affiliate marketers can also offer exclusive discounts to their email subscribers and social media followers. This is a great way to entice people to purchase products through your links. It also builds customer loyalty, as people will be more likely to return in the future if they know that they can get a good deal by doing so.

How Much money you need to Start Affiliate Marketing?

The cost to start affiliate marketing depends on the way you want to look at it. You either consider affiliate marketing a side hustle where you dedicate little time for. That is if you only want to earn some extra dollars from it. Or you want to build a proper business and create a brand that leads to a consistent monthly income.

If you want to try affiliate marketing and treat it as a side hustle you can start without any investment. It is free to join affiliate networks and you can use YouTube, podcasts, social media and other websites that allow you to promote the products and services. If you choose this route the results often take time and are not satisfactory. Unless, you want to invest in paid ads. You may want to check this post: How to start affiliate marketing without a website? But, I think this is not the ideal way to start affiliate marketing. 

The most effective way to build a successful affiliate marketing is to create your own brand. To build a brand, you have to invest some money and a lot of time into it. 

Here, I will give you the minimum money you need to start affiliate marketing. Watch this Video Here.

Source GIPHY

Google Ads and Facebook Ads

One another great way to promote products as an affiliate marketer is through Google Ads or Facebook ads. This platform allows you to create targeted ads that will appear when someone searches for a related term. Promoting products and services with ads is the fastest method to get sales and leads without a website or an audience. But, this method is considered an advanced way of promoting products. You have to learn how to find the keywords to target, how to set up an ad campaign and optimise it and so on. If you don’t know what you’re doing you will certainly learn tons but will lose money. My advice is to try other methods and learn as much as you can before running ads.

The Right Way to Promote Products 

Most new affiliates get this wrong! They will start by signing up to affiliate networks and then start spamming the world with their links. If you are wondering what affiliate networks are? The affiliate networks are companies that partner with many different retailers and vendors, so they can offer a variety of products from just one website. Some examples include Commission Junction (CJ), Impact, Clickbank, ShareASale, Linkshare and LinkConnector. Signing up is free, and most networks have a wide variety of merchants to choose from. Back to our subject, the right way to start affiliate marketing is to do it in the following order if you want to use any method we mentioned above apart from Ads. With ads you don’t need an audience you get sales and leads as long as you run them. 

Choose a Niche

You should choose a product category, commonly known as a niche. Here is an article to help you choose a profitable niche. You have to narrow it down to one industry. It won’t look good or make sense to promote tech products, clothes, and food supplements all in one place let’s say on the Facebook page. To give more credibility and trust to people it is better to start with one niche or multiple niches on different Facebook pages for example. But, it is hard to manage multiple pages or platforms when you are just starting. 

 

Build a Presence

 

Start building a presence online on social media instead of sharing links on other people’s pages. Most Facebook pages are anti-spam these days.  Create a page/profile of your own on social media and share valuable content either written or in the form of videos around the products you want to promote. Let’s say you want to promote dog accessories. Create an Instagram page all about dogs. Their needs, why people love them, funny videos about them, the problems the owners face,…etc. Then start promoting pet products to them.

 

Sign up For Affiliate Programs/Networks

Once you have a niche and say you started an Instagram page about dogs. You have some posts and some followers. You start signing up for affiliate programs or networks, then it’s time to start promoting the products! Once you have some experience you can try other methods, say you start building your email list. 

Summary

There are many different ways to promote affiliate products and services without having a website. By using social media, YouTube, and email marketing you can generate a lot of sales, leads and revenue. But, if you want to succeed as an affiliate marketer you have to take our advice on building a presence for yourself as it makes affiliate sales and leads much easier in the long term. We share the full successful strategy for affiliate marketing in this article.

Thank you for reading!