How to Start Affiliate Marketing with No Money (Secret Hacks Revealed)

If you want to learn how to start affiliate marketing with no money, you’re in the right place. 

In this article, we’re covering 3 different ways to start affiliate marketing with no money – including a secret hack I found to get fast results.

Then, you’ll learn some tips to maximize your success with affiliate marketing – if you’re in it for the long game, that is. 

Let’s get started.

Can You Really Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money?

Yes, you can really start affiliate marketing with no money. 

You know that saying “you have to spend money to make money”? 

Well, it’s not always true. 

If you utilize your brain power and you have plenty of time, you can learn how to make money without spending money.

Affiliate marketing is totally legit and you can absolutely do it with no money.

If you follow these steps, of course.

How To Start Affiliate Marketing With No Money

There are a few different ways to start affiliate marketing with no money. 

All of them involve leveraging free traffic sources to drive traffic to your affiliate links so that you can start making sales and making money. 

The best (fastest) free traffic platforms at this moment in time are TikTok and YouTube.

The next best is Google. Although it can take new websites 6 to 12 months to start getting Google traffic, the hack I’m going to teach you in this article allows you to bypass that waiting time by publishing articles on giant, authoritative websites.

How Affiliate Marketing Works

Affiliate marketing is a type of online business where an affiliate makes money by promoting products and services sold by other people or businesses. 

It’s basically a middle-man business. 

Here’s an example:

Let’s say you’re someone who loves makeup. You sign up for the Ulta affiliate program so you can earn money by promoting their favorite makeup and skincare. 

Then, you make makeup tutorials and looks on YouTube and TikTok and put your affiliate links in your bio or description. 

When viewers and commenters want to make the same look, they’ll purchase via your affiliate link, and you make a commission.

Why Affiliate Marketing is the Best Online Business to Start for Beginners

I’ve been doing digital marketing since 2017. I started with affiliate marketing, did a ton of other things, and am still doing affiliate marketing today. 

In my opinion, there’s no better online business for beginners on the planet. 

Here’s why.

• You don’t have to create a product or come up with product ideas
• You get to promote products that already sell well
  • Companies spend millions on product testing and marketing testing!
• You don’t have to hold inventory
• No shipping or shipping hassles
• Affiliates don’t have to deal with any customer service or returns
• You get to promote well-established brands that people already love to buy!

There is no other online business (or offline business) method in the world that is this simple. 

3 Ways to Start Affiliate Marketing with No Money

1. Social Media
2. YouTube
3. Blogging 

Affiliate Marketing on Social Media

Here’s how to start affiliate marketing with no money on social media, step by step. 

Step 1. Pick a Niche

First things first, pick a niche. 

A niche is like a category – and there are affiliate programs for every category and interest imaginable. 

The most profitable categories are: 

• Health
• Wealth
• Relationships
• Hobbies

Here are some profitable niche ideas in these categories: 

• Parenting
• Make Money Online
• Woodworking
• Guitar
• Pet Care/ Pet products
• Skincare
• Vitamins and supplements

Step 2. Sign up for Affiliate Programs in Your Niche

Once you’ve chosen your niche, it’s time to sign up for affiliate programs. 

There are some platforms like Share A Sale, Awin, and Rakuten that have hundreds of different brands to choose from. 

But some products, like online courses, host their own affiliate programs. 

The best way to find affiliate programs in your niche is to just Google “your niche + affiliate programs”. 

Step 3. Create Social Media Profiles

Next it’s time to create your social media profiles. 

For affiliate marketing with no money on social media, I recommend using these platforms: 

• TikTok
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• Facebook

When creating your profile or page, try and relate it to your niche. Use keywords in your user name and bio that people searching for your products might be using.

Your bio and descriptions is where you’ll place your links to your affiliate products or landing pages. 

Pro tip: For the best chances of success, I highly recommend creating a landing page and collecting emails – you can do this for free, too, using a tool like Systeme.io. 

Check out my Systeme.io review here.

Step 4. Create Content 

If you’re like me and you dread the idea of video, I’ve got some not-so-fun news for you: 

Video content is where it’s AT these days. 

Specifically, short-form video content like TikTok. 

My advice: 

Make all your content on TikTok and use SnapTik.app to download the videos without watermarks and repurpose them on other platforms. 

If you want to grow the fastest, short-form video content is the only way. 

Repurpose your TikTok videos as: 

• Facebook Reels
• Instagram Reels
• Pinterest Idea Pins
• YouTube Shorts

Your videos should relate to your niche or product somehow. Research popular creators in your niche on TikTok and find their most popular videos and recreate them with your own twist. 

Don’t go in blind and try to make your own unique content. 

This is called “reinventing the wheel” and it’s a waste of time. 

Find what works, model your content after it, and watch the views and followers come in.

Step 5. Interact with Others in Your Niche

You should be following other creators in your niche and interacting with their videos. 

Be sure to spend time every single day following new creators in your niche – especially popular ones, and commenting on their posts. 

This will help you get more exposure and followers. 

Step 6. Be Consistent

Consistency is key! 

Posting every single day without seeing any results at first is frustrating, but it’s the only way to grow. 

Every single person starts from 0. 

The only difference between the ones who become successful and the ones who don’t is consistency. 

YouTube Affiliate Marketing

YouTube is a great place to do affiliate marketing with no money. 

YouTube has their traditional horizontal, long-form videos, and now they also have YouTube shorts, which is a competitor to TikTok (we covered it briefly in the last section).

YouTube is less of a social media platform and more of a search engine. 

It’s owned by Google and the YouTube search feature works just like Google does. 

So when you post a video on YouTube, it has the chance to be discovered months and years after you posted it. 

As long as you put in the right keywords, of course!

And this is truly powerful – you only have to create the video once, but if you do YouTube SEO properly, you’ll get free traffic again and again. 

Here’s how to do YouTube affiliate marketing. 

Step 1. Pick a Niche

The first step do doing affiliate marketing on YouTube with no money is to pick your niche. 

You can choose a broad niche for YouTube, because every video can be focused on a different aspect of that niche. 

For example, you could have a YouTube channel in the marketing niche where you recommend marketing tools, online courses, softwares, services, and much more. 

Step 2. Join Affiliate Programs

Join several affiliate programs in your niche. 

Search for affiliate programs that have high commission rates – these will pay you the most and are the best use of your time. 

Join as many as possible!

Step 3. Learn YouTube SEO Basics

Next, you need to learn the basics of YouTube SEO. 

A lot of people think you can just post your video and it will reach people, but that’s not the case. 

It might have been 10 years ago, but not anymore. 

There are a lot of creators on YouTube, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get your content found. 

You can learn YouTube SEO for free by watching YouTube video about YouTube SEO… Have I said YouTube enough yet?

Step 4. Create Content

Now it’s time to create content for your channel!

So, what types of content should you be posting to make affiliate sales on YouTube? 

Here’s some ideas:

• Product Reviews
• Product Unboxings
• Product Tutorials
• Case Studies

And you can get even more granular than that. 

For example, if you’re promoting a software, you can create a whole tutorial on how to use just one feature of the software. 

If the software has 20 features, you can make 20 feature tutorial videos, a total overview, a pros and cons video, and so much more. 

To maximize views and chances to make money with affiliate marketing on YouTube, make as many videos as possible for each product.

Step 5. Remain Consistent

Last but not least, remain consistent. 

Learning how to do affiliate marketing with no money can feel especially frustrating in the beginning because it’s hard to be consistent when you don’t see results for your efforts right away. 

But trust me, it’s worth it. 

Related: Shocking Affiliate Marketing Truth Exposed

Blogging by Using Other People’s Blogs

Last but not least, blogging is a fantastic way to start affiliate marketing without spending any money. 

But… the traditional way of blogging does require you to spend money. 

You have to spend money on hosting, on themes, on plugins, and more! 

Plus, new blogs take between 6 to 12 months to start ranking in Google – that’s a really long time to wait. 

Here’s how to leverage established websites that can rank within minutes. 

Step 1. Pick a Niche

First, pick a niche or category that you’ll be writing about. 

The best place to start is by choosing a niche that you’re already pretty knowledgeable about or are excited to learn more about. 

This will make writing feel less like work and more like fun. 

Step 2. Sign Up for Affiliate Programs in Your Niche

Next, sign up for as many affiliate programs in your niche as possible. 

The higher the commissions, the better!

Step 3. Sign Up for LinkedIn and Medium

The secret to this method is publishing articles on LinkedIn Pulse and on Medium. 

Both of these websites have a ton of authority with Google, which means articles published with them will rank almost immediately.

Step 4. Create Content

If you’re publishing on LinkedIn Pulse, remember that LinkedIn is a business networking platform, so business type content and affiliate programs will do well there. 

You can create the same kind of content that you could on YouTube: 

• Product Reviews
• Product Tutorials
• Listicles
• Case Studies
• Feature Tutorials

And much more. 

Step 5. Remain Consistent

And just like all the other ideas on this list, you must remain consistent in order to see success. 

5 Tips To Maximize Your Success with Affiliate Marketing with No Money

We’ve already established that you have to be consistent if you want to see results from affiliate marketing. 

It’s a MUST – there is no way around it! 

But I’ve got a few tips to share with you that are going to make affiliate marketing even more profitable for you. 

1. Digital Products Reign Supreme

Digital products are my go-to when it comes to affiliate marketing. 

Why? 

Because they pay out more money, plain and simple. 

Digital products are products like: 

• Ebooks
• Online Training Courses
• Guides
• Softwares
• Printables

And any digital good that’s sold online, whether it’s a membership, app, software, or digital download. 

Since businesses only have to create the product once and they don’t have to pay for shipping, they are able to pay affiliates more. 

It’s not uncommon to see digital products that pay 50% commission or more! 

That means if you sell a $1,000 product, you get paid $500. 

Compared with Amazon who pays 4%… 

If you sell a $1,000 product on Amazon, you only get paid $40. 

I’d much rather get $500 than $40, so I always stick with digital products.

2. Recurring Commissions Set You Up For Life

What’s better than digital products? 

Digital products that are subscription-based.

Many subscription-based digital products will pay affiliates a commission every single month that the customer remains active. 

So if you promote a marketing software, for example, that costs $97 per month and has a 50% commission rate, you’ll get $48.50 per month per customer. 

Over time, recurring commissions compound. 

Instead of getting paid once per customer, you get paid every month. 

If you wanted to earn an income of $5,000 per month, all you need to do is get 100 customers signed up for a $100 subscription.

This is how you turn affiliate marketing from a short-term money-grab into a long-term, sustainable online business.

3. High Ticket is Always Better than Low Ticket

If you haven’t heard of high-ticket affiliate marketing, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

High-ticket products are products that cost more money – the definition is different depending on who you ask, but I’d say anything that costs the customer more than $300. 

Most online courses sell for $997 and up, so it’s not hard to find high-ticket products to promote. 

I’m a member of a few affiliate programs that pay 50% commissions and have courses that cost between $1,000 and $2,000 a piece. 

On the other hand, low ticket affiliate marketing involves promoting programs that pay between 1% and 5% commissions and most low ticket products are less than $500.

Here’s Why High Ticket Is Better:

Imagine you promote an online course that costs $2,000 and pays you 50% of every sale. 

You’d only have to get 5 customers per month to earn $5,000 per month. 

Compare this to the example from earlier where you need 100 customers a month to make $5k at $100 per sale… 

I know we’re getting mathy here, but I hope you’re following.

The Best Mix Is Recurring and High Ticket Combined

The best mix of affiliate programs is high-ticket products combined with recurring commission products and services.

5. Building a Personal Brand will Take You Far

A lot of beginner affiliates think they can just create low-value content and spam their affiliate links everywhere in hopes of getting rich. 

Not only will that probably not work, it won’t set you up for success in the long run. 

I know it can be easy to be swayed by the desire or need to make money right away. 

But if you do it right, you can build a personal brand that you can not only be proud of, but that will pay you for the rest of your life. 

For the best chances of success, I recommend doing ALL of the strategies I listed in this article: 

• Building a social media following
• Growing a YouTube channel
• AND Blogging. 

I recommend starting in one place and getting good at it before branching out to another platform or method. 

In this way, you build a web online – on the world wide web (wink). 

You will be everywhere – aka omnipresence – so wherever people go, they’ll see you. This will quickly turn you into an authority and an influencer. 

GET THE TRAINING: Start an Affiliate Marketing Business

Learning how to start affiliate marketing with no money is slow-going, but it can be done. 

If you want to take a legit training taught by a super affiliate, I highly recommend checking out this 15 day affiliate business builder training.

I’ve taken it myself to see what it was all about. Although I was already an experienced affiliate marketer when I took the course, I was blown away by the quality of the teachings. 

I haven’t come across anything as beginner friendly as this. 

What You’ll Learn

In this 15-day training, you’ll learn all about how to create a high-ticket affiliate marketing business. 

That entails a lot of skills and a lot of things to learn, like: 

• Sales funnels
• Email marketing
• Digital marketing skills and strategies
• Social media marketing
• Copywriting
• Lead generation
• How to do sales

And a lot more. 

I’m being so serious when I say I’ve never seen anything this in-depth in my 6 years online.

Wrapping Up

Well, there you have it: how to do affiliate marketing with no money. 

Above all else, the key to success is consistency! 

All of this can be done on your own, but you need to be realistic with yourself and understand that it will take time. 

But nothing worth having comes easy.

Want to learn more secret affiliate marketing hacks? Check out this post.