There’s a widespread misconception that making money with affiliate marketing requires a substantial monetary commitment.
While it’s true that having a budget to invest in your affiliate endeavors could significantly speed up your progress, there are plenty of ways to advertise your affiliate links for free.
Whether you’re about to venture into affiliate marketing with no capital or trying to find an approach that would enable you to eliminate the marketing expenses of your already existing affiliate business, you’re in the perfect place.
This article is dedicated to sharing with you the nine best methods you can leverage towards promoting your affiliate links without spending a single cent.
9 Best Ways to Promote Affiliate Links for Free
Affiliate marketing is the process of getting paid commissions for referring customers to third-party online merchants via your unique affiliate links.
Getting your affiliate links in front of potential customers can be accomplished by promoting them across multiple digital marketing channels, a lot of which involve substantial financial investments.
Thankfully, there are dozens of online marketing approaches you can utilize towards advertising affiliate links for free, a few of the most effective and commonly used ones being:
- Affiliate Website
- Social Media
- YouTube Channel
- Content Publishing Platforms
- Online Communities
- Email Marketing
- eBook
- Live Webinar
- Classified Ads
Let us take a closer look.
Best Affiliate Marketing Courses
Best Affiliate Courses
1. Affiliate Website
One of the best methods to advertise affiliate links for free is via an affiliate website.
The typical expenses of getting an affiliate website up and running could range between $150 and a couple of thousand dollars, depending on your hosting provider and the hourly rates of your web developer.
Nonetheless, you can completely sidestep all the standard hosting and web development fees associated with starting an affiliate website by creating it yourself on a free subdomain using beginner-friendly site builders like WordPress and Wix.
The 17-minute video right below outlines the process of launching a simple WordPress-based affiliate website on a free “siterubix.com” subdomain in just 30 seconds without spending a single dime.
Once your affiliate website is live, begin marketing your affiliate links via:
- Image Banners
- In-Text Ads
- Floating Bars
- Popups
- etc
Lastly, start boosting your website’s exposure through content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO).
Content marketing is the process of publishing blog posts like:
- Tutorials
- Product reviews
- Roundups
- Case studies
- etc
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a set of practices designed to “convince” search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to place your website at higher positions of their results pages. The higher your website gets displayed on a search engine’s results pages (SERPs), the more people will visit it.
2. Social Media
The second-best option for promoting affiliate links for free is social media.
Social media platforms are being used by 57.6% of Earth’s entire population every single day, they’re free to join and use, and they allow marketers to seamlessly share their affiliate links with the right people via dedicated, branded pages.
The five social media platforms that are used the most by affiliate marketers are:
- TikTok
Picking the right social media platform for your affiliate endeavors boils down to 2 main factors:
- Your target audience. The social media platforms you leverage towards conducting your affiliate promotions should correspond to the ones your target audience spends most of their time on. For instance, most Gen Z prefers browsing through Instagram, and TikTok, while millennials and baby boomers mostly hang out on Facebook.
- The affiliate products you market. Some types of affiliate products perform much better if promoted on specific social media platforms. For example, platforms that support long written copy like Facebook and LinkedIn are excellent for promoting B2B products and services. On the other hand, Instagram and Pinterest are better for promoting visually appealing B2C offers such as food, travel, clothes, cosmetics, and pastries.
Once you’ve determined which social media platform(s) you’re going to focus your time and attention on, it’s time to start reaching out to your target audience by consistently publishing content optimally 1-3 times per day.
The more content you create, the higher your chances of acquiring a broader and more diverse spectrum of potential buyers.
If you’re after advertising your affiliate links for free, make sure that you pay close attention to social media.
3. YouTube Channel
Another highly recommended approach to advertising your affiliate links without spending any money is Youtube.
YouTube is not only extremely popular across all current generations, from baby boomers to Gen Z, but also the second most populated social network after Facebook and the second most used search engine after Google, with 2.3 billion active users globally.
Moreover, video content, in general, has been proven to deliver much higher affiliate conversion rates than plain text in both B2C and B2B environments.
Lastly, as an affiliate YouTuber, you’ll have the option to create an additional revenue stream by displaying ads throughout your video content.
Promoting your affiliate links for free on YouTube is pretty straightforward.
First, head over to YouTube, click your profile picture at the top right corner, and then select create a channel. Once your channel is live, start consistently publishing videos that appeal to your target audience.
For example, The Tech Chap YouTube channel that targets the tech gadgets niche focuses on publishing YouTube videos that revolve around nothing but subjects relevant to tech gadgets, such as:
- Laptop reviews
- Smartphone unboxings
- Product comparisons
- Purchasing guides
- Device tips & hidden features
- & more
Lastly, start placing your affiliate links in the description below each of your videos. Occasionally, some marketers might even incorporate affiliate links to their video production gear such as cameras, microphones, light, software, etc.
Contrary to popular belief, building a decent income as an affiliate YouTuber doesn’t involve having millions of viewers. For instance, if you’re promoting an affiliate product that pays a $50 commission per sale and converts at an average rate of 1%, you can be earning $10,000 per month with as few as 20,000 monthly viewers.
4. Content Publishing Platforms
Content publishing platforms are third-party websites on which you can publish content that incorporates your affiliate links for free.
A few of the most well-known and widely used content publishing platforms include, but aren’t limited to:
- Medium, Blogger, and LinkedIn Articles (blog posts)
- SlideShare (slideshow presentations)
- Vimeo (videos)
- Tumblr (images & infographics)
- & more
The primary advantage of marketing your affiliate links on such platforms is that most of them possess massive, well-established audiences, a percentage of which will be inevitably interested in reading your content and purchasing the affiliate products you promote. For example, Medium receives 85 – 100 million active readers per month.
The downside of following such an approach is that all your affiliate promotions will be at the mercy of potential changes at each content publishing platform’s terms and conditions at all times.
For instance, for now, Medium allows content that contains affiliate links as long as you make an appropriate affiliate disclosure statement. However, if someday Medium decides to prohibit affiliate links just like Pinterest did a while back, all the affiliate revenue you generate through it will vanish overnight.
5. Online Communities
One of the simplest methods of promoting your affiliate links for free is via online communities, such as:
- Forums (e.g., Reddit)
- Social media groups (e.g., Facebook)
- Q&A platforms (e.g., Quora)
- Real-time chat apps (e.g., Discord)
- etc
Begin by locating communities of people who are the most likely to be interested in buying the affiliate products you endorse. For instance, if you promote yoga equipment, it’d behoove you to focus all your efforts on communities of yoga practitioners.
Promoting specific types of products in communities that revolve around unrelated topics will result not only in generating no sales whatsoever but in receiving permanent bans.
Once you’ve found a community that suits your affiliate niche, check its user guidelines to determine whether, how, and where it allows the placement of affiliate links. For example, some communities prohibit the usage of more than one affiliate link per post, while others permit affiliate links only on post signatures.
Lastly, invest time and effort in gaining the trust of the community by actively interacting with its members, sharing valuable insights, answering questions, and solving problems.
Do NOT start randomly spamming your affiliate links everywhere before ensuring that the community perceives you as a credible figure.
Community users and admins hate desperate affiliate spammers who care about nothing but making a quick sale, so if they identify you as one, they’ll consider you as a threat that should be avoided, reported, moderated, and ultimately banned.
6. Email Marketing
Despite its old origins, email is still one of the most efficient marketing channels for advertising affiliate links.
The first step to promoting affiliate links via email marketing is signing up for an email marketing platform, like:
- ConvertKit
- MailChimp
- SendinBlue
- MailerLite
- & GetResponse
Such platforms grant access to all the necessary resources to launch, maintain, and optimize your email marketing campaigns – from squeeze pages builders and lead capturing forms to automated email sequences and mass email blasts.
Since you are after getting your affiliate links in front of potential buyers without spending money, you should go for either MailerLite or MailChimp, both of which are free to join and use. Most others are rather pricey.
After enrolling in an email marketing platform, it’s time to create an automated email sequence. That is a series of emails distributed to your subscribers at predetermined intervals.
The key to creating a successful email sequence is gearing at least 80% of your outgoing emails towards earning the trust of your subscribers by delivering valuable, informative content with no affiliate promotions.
It might sound counterintuitive, but constant affiliate promotions will almost definitely not just turn your subscribers off but also decrease your affiliate sales.
Next, start gathering email subscribers by leveraging squeeze pages and lead magnets.
A squeeze page is a standalone page designed to collect the email addresses of those who land on it via a lead capture form.
A lead magnet is a valuable resource (e.g., ebook, template, discount, case study, free trial, etc.) that you’ll be giving away as an incentive to anyone who submits their email address to your lead capture form.
Here’s an example of a squeeze page offering a free trial as a lead magnet.
Most email marketing platforms, including MailerLite and MailChimp, provide tools, resources, and templates to easily create squeeze pages and lead magnets from scratch within minutes.
An alternative to acquiring email subscribers is purchasing a premade email list from a third-party marketer. However, if you go down that road, you will likely end up wasting a lot of money on irrelevant subs, bots, and unnurtured leads who’ll unsubscribe from your list the moment they receive your first email campaign.
Once everything’s in place, start marketing your squeeze page via as many online marketing channels as possible (e.g., social media, PPC, website, etc.)
7. eBook
Another simple and efficient method of promoting affiliate links without a website is writing and publishing an eBook.
Begin by zeroing in on a non-fictional, specific, evergreen subject, optimally one that excites you and in which you already possess significant expertise.
Conduct in-depth research, come up with original ideas, construct a unique approach to the topic at hand and start piecing everything together into an eBook that would provide tons of helpful information to anyone who reads it.
In the meantime, make sure to strategically incorporate affiliate links throughout your eBook’s content where and when appropriate.
If your eBook delivers enough value and you’ve placed your affiliate promotions properly, your readers will trust your suggestions, click your affiliate links, and ultimately purchase whatever you’re promoting.
On the contrary, an eBook with poor-quality useless content solely geared towards promoting affiliate offers is going to acquire a lot of negative feedback, damage your reputation, diminish your conversion rates, and ultimately yield zero return on your investment.
Lastly, start giving away your eBook for free to as many people as possible via:
- Social media
- Online forums
- Amazon Kindle
- Email marketing
- YouTube
- etc
If the eBook ends up acquiring a broad appeal and a lot of positive feedback, you could experiment with selling it for a few bucks down the road.
8. Live Webinar
An additional superb way of advertising affiliate links for free is hosting live webinars on third-party digital marketing platforms, such as:
- YouTube
- Adobe Connect
- Zoho
- Livestorm
- & more
According to RingCentral, webinars have much higher conversion rates than other content types, converting between 5% and 20% of viewers into buyers.
The first step to leveraging live webinars towards promoting your affiliate links is determining your marketing angle.
Your marketing angle could revolve around outlining the benefits of your chosen affiliate product, revealing how it’s better than its competitors, explaining how it helped you or someone else overcome a problem or achieve a goal, etc.
Whatever your marketing angle is, ensure that your webinar is:
- educational
- valuable
- engaging
- & media-rich
Next, write your webinar’s script. Keep in mind that 1000 words correspond to 6 minutes of speaking time.
Once the script is ready, turn its most essential elements into a PowerPoint presentation. That’s going to be the focal point of your entire webinar.
After that, start spreading the word about your live webinar via any other marketing channel you see fit.
Lastly, place your affiliate links at distinct spots, such as:
- The webinar’s description
- Live chat (if applicable)
- Your profile
- Inside the presentation
- etc
Right below, you can take a look at three tips that could help you boost your webinar’s credibility and conversion rates.
- Focus on delivering value. Avoid making your webinar sound like a lengthy sales pitch.
- Start by introducing yourself. Most of your viewers won’t know who you are, so make sure to provide some info about yourself, explain what your webinar is about, and why they should listen to you.
- Activate your webcam. Place its feed at the left or right bottom corner of the webinar so that attendees can watch you live while making the presentation.
9. Classified Ads
The last but not-so-popular way of promoting affiliate links at no cost is on free classified ad websites, such as:
- Craigslist.com
- GumTree.com
- ClassifiedsforFree.com
- Loot.com
- Backpage.com
- StumbleHere.com
- ClassifiedAds.com
- Oodle.com
- & more
Upon signing up for such sites, make sure to pay close attention to their respective guidelines regarding affiliate marketing. Some of them might prohibit the usage of certain types of affiliate links, while others might permit publishing up to a limited number of ads per day.
Whatever the case, failing to adjust your affiliate promotions to each site’s terms of use will almost certainly result in being permanently banned.
Generally speaking, classified ads and affiliate marketing don’t mix as well as they used to a few years back.
First of all, nowadays, most of those who browse through classifieds can identify affiliate promotions a mile away, and once they do, they tend to avoid them like the devil avoids holy water.
Moreover, if you’re after earning a decent affiliate income, you’ll need to be devoting tons of time and effort to posting hundreds of ads per day on as many classified sites as possible.
Investing the same amount of resources in creating an affiliate blog could benefit so many aspects of your affiliate endeavors (e.g., credibility, conversion rates, task automation, passive income potential, etc.) a hundredfold in the long term.
Having said all that, if I were you, I’d pursue a different approach.
However, if you have time and energy to spare on conducting experiments, you might as well give this one a try.
Affiliate marketing FAQs
Affiliate marketing is an online business model that involves promoting products or services created and distributed by third-party online merchants in exchange for getting paid a commission for each sale you refer.
In layman’s terms, affiliate marketing is the process of being compensated for helping businesses sell to more customers.
Here’s a bird’s eye view of how affiliate marketing works.
- You join a merchant’s affiliate program
- The merchant gives you a unique affiliate link that points to their e-shop
- You promote your unique affiliate link online (blog, forums, social media, paid ads, etc.)
- Every time someone clicks on your unique affiliate link and makes a purchase on the merchant’s e-shop, the merchant pays you a commission
There are thousands of successful affiliate marketers all around the world. Some of the most well-known ones are:
- Pat Flynn
- Matt Diggity
- Matthew Woodward
- Doug Cunnington
- & more
You can check out a roundup of my 17 favorite examples of affiliate success and their backstories right here.
- Billion-dollar industry
- Very low startup & operational expenses
- Huge income potential
- Flexible & versatile
- Passive income
- Simple to implement
- No technical background
- No customer support
- No physical setup
Affiliate marketers can be divided into five main income groups:
- Total beginners: $0 – $20,000 per year
- Low-level affiliates: $20,000 – $50,000 per year
- Intermediate affiliates: $50,000 – $100,000 per year
- High-level affiliates: $100,000 – $500,000 per year
- Super affiliates: $500,000+ per year
According to PayScale, the average annual income for affiliate marketers in the US is over $54,000 per year. Statistics reveal that 13% of affiliates earn more than $75,000 per year.
Some of the factors that influence how much you earn as an affiliate marketer include:
- seniority
- target niche
- available resources
- previous experience
- marketing efforts
- & overall mindset
Here’s a rough income growth timeline of a typical affiliate marketing business:
- months (0-3): no earnings
- months (3-6): first affiliate sale
- months (6-12): $100-$500 monthly
- months (12-18): $1000 monthly
- months (18-24): $3000+ monthly
This timeline isn’t a guarantee of future performance but rather a mere approximation of the income growth of an average affiliate business. Your own timeline could be shorter or longer than projected.
Over the years, I’ve seen aspiring affiliates striking a gold vein just a few months into the industry. On the other hand, I personally know people who’ve been struggling to grow their affiliate revenue to $1000 per month for several years.
Affiliate marketing is one of the most affordable money-making models out there.
Here’s a breakdown of everything you need to get started as an affiliate marketer along with their associated costs:
- web hosting & domain name: $2.95/month (Bluehost)
- keyword research tool: $49/month (Jaaxy)
- expert guidance: $49/month (Wealthy Affiliate)
- email autoresponder: Free for up to 1000 subs (MailerLite)
Please note that on top of expert guidance, Wealthy Affiliate also provides free access to hosting and a keyword research tool so you don’t have to purchase them separately.
Yes, you can do affiliate marketing without a website by promoting your affiliate links on other marketing channels, such as:
- Social Media
- Paid Ads
- YouTube
- Podcast
- etc.
The process of getting started with affiliate marketing can be broken down into the following four simple steps:
- Pick a niche
- Launch a blog
- Build an audience
- Promote affiliate products
No, you don’t.
Affiliate marketing is very simple to get started with by virtually anyone regardless of age, education, background, available capital, tech-savviness, professional network, etc.
In fact, most 6-figure affiliate marketers were no more experienced than you currently are when they first ventured into the affiliate marketing industry.
Nonetheless, being knowledgeable in fields like marketing, sales, content production, business management, etc., could help you reach your financial goals somewhat faster.
Conclusion
Now that you’re aware of the nine best ways to advertise affiliate links for free, it’s time to start employing them.
If you’re a beginner at affiliate marketing, I suggest that you don’t overwhelm yourself by trying to do everything and be everywhere at once. Just start experimenting with the marketing channel that suits you the most, master its basics, and only then move on to the next.
Once you’ve gained some hands-on experience, you could start combining two or more marketing approaches into a powerful, high-converting affiliate marketing funnel.
For instance, you could mix an affiliate website with a squeeze page or a YouTube channel with an eBook and live webinars.
No matter which marketing channel(s) you start promoting your affiliate links to, always keep in mind that affiliate marketing is a game of value, not sales. As long as you provide tons of value to your target audience, sales will keep flowing in effortlessly.
If you have any questions or require further help, I encourage you to leave a comment right below or contact me right here, and I’ll do my best to get back to you as soon as possible.
Best of luck in your affiliate marketing endeavors!
Harry, Founder & Editor at dearboss-iquit.com
