Starting an online business often includes spending some money on getting started. Some businesses have more expenses than others, and for many money is an object. A common question that comes up is whether or not you could start affiliate marketing with no money. So, what is the answer?
The answer is that affiliate marketing has many different ways to be successful and you can start an affiliate marketing business without any money. The only thing you really need to get started with affiliate marketing is a computer or a phone.
Below we are going to go over different ways to start an affiliate marketing business without spending any money. These ways include:
- Using Your Twitter Account
- Filming YouTube Videos On Your Phone Or Tablet
- Reach Out To People Personally
- Free Blogs (Such as LinkedIn)
- Social Media
- Use Pinterest
Using Your Twitter Account
Many people use Twitter in order to have certain questions answered. They’ll tweet a certain question with relevant hashtags in order to get a response from someone who is an expert in whatever niche they are in.
You can take advantage by typing in different phrases people may ask about a product, and then tweeting back a response with your affiliate link. Or you could even message them directly to give the most value, and then send them a link.
See below how I searched the term, “how to buy”. When filtered by “latest”, you could see the most recent results. The second tweet that came up was “somebody show me how to buy a blue check”. This is irrelevant to affiliate marketing, but if they said somebody show me how to buy bitcoin, or another niche topic, you could tweet back with a response teaching them how, with your affiliate link as the icing on the cake.
Filming YouTube Videos On Your Laptop Or Phone With Things That You Already Own
It doesn’t cost any money to start a YouTube channel, and you also don’t need any fancy equipment to film. You can use your laptop or phone, and then film yourself reviewing a product or teaching people how to use the products that you’re an affiliate for.
You can go around your house finding things you own, and post content in regards to those products. The key is to find questions frequently asked about those products that aren’t answered very often. These are also known as underserved topics.
This is a good way to get started, however, you will eventually run out of products to review. Another issues is that you aren’t in a specific niche, but rather multiple niches, which can make it more difficult to gain subscribers on YouTube.
Reach Out To People Personally And Get Them To Sign Up To Different Programs
Last but not least, you could reach out to people personally and try and get them to sign up to different programs. Your best bet when It comes to doing something like this is to have them sign up to programs that will reward them with money.
For example, some bank accounts have referral programs where you could earn money for having someone else sign up.
The problem with this is you will very quickly run out of people to send your affiliate link to, and you can often look desperate trying to send them your links.
Free Blogs
There are places like LinkedIn that you could sign up to and post long form blog posts. This is a great way to get started with affiliate marketing, as you can link to products and services within your blog post without spending any money.
If you pair this with linking to products that are strictly software products, you could potentially earn a lot of money without spending any money to get started.
The biggest issue with this is you usually have to pay for a software in order to be knowledgeable enough to use it and recommend it to other people. However, some software products have free trials, where you could get all the information you need and then suggest it to others.
One more issue is if something happens to the LinkedIn platform, or they change the policies, there is a chance that you could lose all your content if you don’t transfer it elsewhere.
Social Media
Last but not least is utilising Social media such as TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and other platforms.
The main thing you want to do for this process is check the rules for each platform when it comes to sharing affiliate links directly on your accounts.
For example, you can’t post links on Instagram directly, however, you can make a free Linktree page where you can post all of your affiliate products on. This will allow followers or people who see your posts to click through and make purchases.
Use Pinterest For Affiliate Marketing (100% Free)
Pinterest is technically social media, but it’s not really included in the main conversation of ones people frequently talk about (TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Etc.).
So the first thing to note on Pinterest, is that you can’t post an affiliate link directly to the platform. You need to have a landing page where your affiliate link exists. This rule exists because if it didn’t, people would spam affiliate links all over Pinterest and it would get really obnoxious for Pinterest users.
LinkTree is an example of a free landing page that allows you to share your affiliate links on Pinterest.
Now that you know it’s possible to do affiliate marketing without spending money on Pinterest, where exactly do you get your affiliate offers from?
There are sites like Clickbank, ShareASale, and other similar sites that allow you to search products based on certain niches. These are probably the best options for doing affiliate marketing on Pinterest.
You should create Pins towards your affiliate offers, so once someone clicks on the Pin, they are sent to your landing page where you have that specific offer, along with a couple others (this gives them more options to choose from).
Why You Should Wait Till You Have Money To Start Affiliate Marketing
You can make a little bit of money through affiliate marketing by using these free methods, however, you want to have a scalable business plan in place, which often means spending money to make more money. Let’s go over the different ways this should be done.
Starting Your Own Blog
The first method is by starting your own blog, which includes buying a domain name, hosting, and possibly premium WordPress themes that give your blog an instant professional feel.
This will allow you to build your own authority in a niche, and not have to rely on different platforms other than your own blog to build an audience.
The more blog posts that you put up on your site, the more people will trust your blog, which means they are willing to buy products that you recommend.
The money you spend on this method could be made back extremely fast if you put your head down and post good content to get traffic.
You could also diversify your income using this method because you could add display ads to your site.
Buy The Products Yourself Before You Review Them
When you do this, the content will improve 10 fold. You could pretend to have had the product (in order to save money), but people reading will know the difference. Real pictures could help sell the products more.
When it comes to video as well, it’s obvious that you need the product in your hand to review it. By doing this, you could create more trustworthy content.
Spending Money Holds You To The Business
Spending money on getting started with your business is more likely to hold you to the business. If you are spending money, you have more of an incentive and drive to see the business through.
Nobody likes to spend money for no reason, especially if money is tight. Instead of buying something you really enjoy, make the sacrifice and spend the money necessary in order to start your affiliate marketing business.
Some Affiliate Marketing Programs Need Proof Of Traffic
When you sign up for Amazon Associates, to be an affiliate marketer for products on Amazon, you need to enter in the website you’re using. Some other affiliate programs may require you to have proof of a website as well. When you start affiliate marketing with no money, this could be a very big problem, as not as many affiliate programs are available to you.
Can You Start Affiliate Marketing With No Bank Account?
We went over whether or not you could start affiliate marketing with no money, and that answer was yes. But how about trying to start an affiliate marketing business with no bank account?
If you’re too young, or whatever it is that excludes you from having a bank account, you won’t be able to start an affiliate marketing business. This is because affiliate marketing programs need to send your payment somewhere.
The only other option is possibly using someone else’s bank account and routing number, but that could be a risky business practice and it is generally not recommended.
Conclusion
While there are plenty of ways to earn money through affiliate marketing for free. You’re better off spending a little bit more money, and doing things the right way. The good news, is that even if you choose the spending money route, it’s not significantly more expensive when compared to the free methods.
Affiliate marketing is one of the online businesses that has a very low barrier to entry. If you found this blog post helpful, and want to see related posts, click on the tags below:
