Traditionally, having a website has been seen as essential for success in affiliate marketing. However, it’s entirely possible to excel in affiliate marketing without a website. Social media platforms offer a vast audience and numerous opportunities for promoting affiliate products, email marketing, video content, online communities, and other strategies, you can achieve affiliate marketing success without a website.
Whether you’re just starting out or looking to diversify your approach, this comprehensive guide will explore strategies for achieving affiliate marketing success without the need for a website. Most affiliate marketers have a website. But that requires time and some money for domain registration and hosting.
Affiliate marketing can be done without a website using social sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and others. Whichever promotion method you choose (with or without a website, Facebook, LinkedIn, or another social media platform), make sure you choose one and only one at first. Focus on that one until you achieve success and then, only then, add another method.
Start With or Without Followers
Setting up a website for your affiliate marketing business requires some money, time, and experience. Therefore, the possibility of starting your business without a website and its uploads is really attractive for new affiliate marketers. But you can do it? Can you do affiliate marketing without a website?
Affiliate marketing without your own website is totally possible. However, we highly recommend that you consider social media as a very useful addition to your affiliate marketing strategy along with a website. The two methods can complement and strengthen each other.
Leveraging Your Existing Followers
Are you active on social media now? Do you have friends and family followers? You don’t have to be a celebrity with millions of followers (although celebrities do affiliate marketing too). You can start your affiliate marketing efforts right where you are with the followers you have. You may not consider what you are doing now as the beginning of your affiliate marketing business, but it can be. Consider the following examples:
A person active on Facebook posts about local events and the like because he is interested in the community. Other people follow and respond to his posts, so he has gained followers who trust him.
Doesn’t that seem like exactly what an affiliate marketer is looking for in an audience? You want people you’ve developed a relationship with who know and trust you. All you need to do then is make a small change: a small addition. Maybe there is a product that you have used and liked that will be of interest to your audience. Write a review and enter your affiliate link to that product.
Keep in mind the three to one rule. Write three informative social media posts for every post that contains an affiliate link. You don’t want to discourage your audience by posting affiliate links too frequently. You can write about your passions, hobbies, your job or profession, knowledge and experience.
For example, if you write about sports, you can join a sharpening program for some brand of sports shoes and clothing, and in your publications enter your affiliate link and start earning affiliate income by publishing some ads for that brand and earning a fee. of affiliation.
Focus Your Efforts on One Social Network Initially
Isn’t Facebook the social media outlet you are active on? Do you have a LinkedIn page or Instagram followers? The same technique we described for leveraging your followers on Facebook can be used on other social media platforms with minor changes.
Affiliate marketing is all about getting your offer to as many people as possible. If you present yourself as someone who is trying to help others with useful information, you will earn some affiliate income when people click on your links and make a purchase. But if you present yourself as someone who is just trying to sell all the time and push your audience, not only will you not make any sales, but your posts may be seen as spam and you could even end up getting banned.
With this social media banquet spread out before you from all the social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, the mall.” Don’t do it! Avoid temptation. Focus on one social media platform and continue working on your efforts until you get the success you want. If you spread yourself too thin and flit between one social media platform and another, you will never You will achieve success in one simply because you have not spent the time to fully understand and master it.
You will never really know if the method didn’t work or you simply didn’t work hard enough to understand and implement it effectively. Only when you have mastered a single method and are seeing the results you want should you consider adding another method.
Working Without Having a Presence in Social Networks
Perhaps you are not active on any social media platform and therefore have no followers. How do you use social media platforms? You can still do it, but it will take a little more time and effort.
Find groups that speak to the same target market you want to target. Use the search function of the social media platform you are using to search for groups based on your niche and keywords. Now, you can’t just barge in and start promoting your products. The first thing you have to do is lay some foundations. Start contributing to the group by offering useful information, interacting, and answering questions from other members. As you contribute, your reputation as a valued member of the group will grow. Only when you have established yourself as a valued member should you even think about featuring some of your affiliate products in the form of reviews that other members will find useful.
Even then, tread carefully. You don’t want to come across as spamming the group with your offers. It is also important to follow the rules of the group you join. Some groups do not allow links in posts, but will allow you to have a signature file that includes a link to your website. If you violate the group rules, the forum moderator may simply ban you.
You Need to Adapt Your Approach for a Different Audience
You should adjust your marketing strategy to account for differences in the structure and focus of social media platforms.
To get started, we recommend choosing a social media outlet that you already use, know, and maybe even have a following. An affiliate marketer can be successful on any social media platform. You just have to know the details of the platform and take advantage of the tools it has for the affiliate marketer.
The Internet is constantly evolving. The rules are constantly changing, so make sure you follow the rules of the social media outlet you’re marketing on. You don’t want to get banned or blacklisted. Be sure to check the terms of service (TOS) of the forums you operate on. New opportunities are always opening up and new tools are always being developed.
The use of social networks is a very broad topic. You can choose between guides that cover the entire range of social media marketing or those that focus on a single social media outlet.
Be sure to join the Amazon affiliate program if you are not already a member, and if you already have a following you can qualify for the influencer program. These programs allow you to earn commissions on products you sell through Amazon. The Amazon Influencer program is actually an extension of the Amazon Associates program that gives you benefits like a longer cookie and an Amazon page that you can customize with the Amazon products you sell.
While other social sites have millions or hundreds of millions of followers, Facebook has billions. Depending on the size of your audience, it may be one of the first social networks you use.
Another advantage of Facebook is that it has a very granular way of drilling down and precisely targeting your audience. You can do this in Facebook’s Audience Insights. How does this process work? Facebook collects a huge amount of data from all its users. It collects and classifies data so that the information can be sold to advertisers. With Facebook filters and categories, you can very specifically search for people who would be interested in the niche you are targeting.
You can use these free Facebook tools to help you, as an affiliate marketer, identify the characteristics that define your niche audience and customize your approach to meet their needs and improve your affiliate profitability. But keep in mind that the tools, in the end, are designed for people willing to pay Facebook to advertise.
Although Facebook advertising is one of the most profitable paid advertising platforms, we do not recommend it, or any other paid advertising platform, for beginner affiliate marketers until they thoroughly understand the advertising system they will be using and thoroughly understand their audience.
Key Tips for Managing Paid Advertising and Facebook Restrictions
More affiliate marketers have lost more money with paid advertising than with virtually any other method. The losses can be quite significant unless you control your advertising budget. If you try Facebook ads or any paid advertising system, be sure to set an ad budget that’s within your means and monitor it. Some people don’t realize that the limit they set on their advertising budget is a daily limit, so when they log in after a week or two, they discover that they spent a lot more money than they intended.
One limitation you should be aware of when doing affiliate marketing on social media sites is that some affiliate programs may have restrictions or prohibitions. For example, Amazon does not allow you to promote Facebook posts that contain your affiliate link. Policies vary on each of the different social media sites. That’s why you should be aware of those restrictions and follow the rules. For example, if Facebook is only one part of your affiliate marketing business, you don’t want Amazon to terminate your account and your ability to earn affiliate income from your Amazon links anywhere.
One of the solutions many Facebook affiliate marketers use to get around Facebook’s limitations is to have a “bridge page.” A bridge page is a simple, single-page website that takes the Facebook user to your affiliate offer. Strictly speaking, you are no longer doing affiliate marketing without a website, but this way of getting around the fact that it does not allow direct affiliate links works.
LinkedIn is a rather more professional platform and that makes your job as an affiliate marketer a little easier.
LinkedIn defines people in terms of connections. Depending on their proximity to you, they are first, second or third degree connections. The closest thing to you is your first degree connection, which is a friend or someone you have a direct connection with. Your second degree connection is defined as a friend of a friend, and your third degree connection is a stranger. You must customize your approach for each level of connection.
So how do you build your affiliate marketing business on LinkedIn? You want to create your profile page, but focus your efforts on developing a company page. Typically, a business page is set up for a business (naturally), but it can also be set up for a sole proprietor, such as an affiliate marketer. On LinkedIn, a Company Page is really a way to promote yourself and establish an identity that you can develop and work to attract others. So unlike many of the other social media outlets where you focus on affiliate offers, on LinkedIn you want to build a business presence.
You should join other groups in your niche and start contributing. Answer questions, participate in discussions, and develop your reputation as a valued member of the group. You also want to connect with other business pages in your niche and start interacting. Your goal is to build your reputation as a valued contributing member.
Youtube
YouTube is, without a doubt, one of the most popular social media platforms as it offers videos of all types, including information, entertainment, news, tutorials, courses, etc.
What you want to do as a new affiliate marketer is start a YouTube channel in the niche you want to compete in and start creating videos. Videos should not be affiliate product sales videos, especially in the beginning when you are trying to increase your visibility and credibility. They should be valuable videos that offer viewers useful information or help them solve their problems. These videos are completely free as you are setting the stage on your channel and building your audience.
For example, let’s say your niche is about travel. You can start your channel about the most visited tourist places in your region, country or the entire world, start publishing valuable informative videos on that topic and generate a following of people who subscribe to your channel.
YouTube has introduced a paid subscription tier that is ad-free for viewers. The profitability of YouTube marketing may decrease over time as the ad-free option gains popularity.
Crafting Captivating YouTube Content and Strategically Implementing Affiliate Links
Making a video today is much easier than before. You don’t need to buy a lot of specialized equipment. Today you can create a YouTube-friendly video on your phone in minutes. If you want it to be as good as possible, you can spend quite a bit of time editing it, adding an intro and outro, adding music, etc.
Your goal is to build your audience by offering valuable information. As your channel grows and you get more likes and subscribers, you can start using some of the marketing tools that YouTube has to offer, like cards. You can also insert clickable links into the video itself. These are all tools that you, as a new user, will want to use. There are many videos on YouTube that show you how to do it. When inserting your affiliate links into your videos, we suggest a 4 to 1 ratio: four informational videos for every affiliate sales video.
In all of your promotions, you try to avoid appearing too “salesy.” This ratio of non-commercial information to sales is something you should maintain in your emails, website posts, YouTube videos, and social media posts.
Instagram is a site where you can see photos and videos of your friends. You can install the app on IOS or Android phones. You can post quotes, photos or videos. Because you are trying to avoid appearing too salesy and turning off potential visitors, you should follow the 4 to 1 rule. You can place your affiliate link in the photo or video, but it is not clickable. You can put a clickable link to Instagram in your signature (the short information you include at the end of all your emails).
The lifespan of a post varies depending on how active the subject is.
Instagram has several ways to promote your business with storyboards, groups, group communication, etc. Take advantage of all the free tools that Instagram offers.
Quora
In Google’s eyes, Quora is up and coming, so why not dedicate some of your affiliate marketing effort there? Quora is a question and answer site. It’s a site for sharing information, for people to post questions, and for people to have answers to share.
So for you as an affiliate marketer, this is a place to share solutions to questions instead of hitting people with your affiliate offer. If you can provide a valuable answer to a question, please post it. Develop a relationship with your audience and a reputation for being helpful.
You can create a Quora profile with a name and bio. The first 50 characters of your profile appear above your answers. You can also include links in your answers as long as they are relevant to those answers. Many answers on Quora contain links which are usually links to the author’s website, but if your affiliate product is relevant you can use that too.
Examining the Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing Without a Website
It is possible to develop and promote your affiliate marketing business solely using social media, but this approach has some disadvantages which we detail below.
Limited Presence Online
Your website gives you a web presence, it projects an image to others, and not having a website can stop many of your plans. So, you can do affiliate marketing without a website, but from the start you may be very limited in the affiliate programs you can join, the affiliate products you can offer, and the email programs you can join. join.
Many affiliate programs require you to have a website. Others require in your application that you define how and where you will promote your products. The affiliate network cares about its reputation and having its own website is a sign of stability. It is an indication to them that you will not spam their product and will disappear once the temperature rises.
Were you also thinking that you could use your email address to promote your affiliate marketing business on a social media platform and grow your email list? No more. Most email service providers (ESPs) require that you not only have a website, but also authenticate and verify it with your DNS and other security records. They also don’t want any unwanted email hitting their systems.
Active Value is Not Being Built
When you establish your own website, you begin to build an asset that has value. The authority and trust you build on your website increases its value. Depending on how successful you are in developing your affiliate business, you may find that if at some point later you want to leave the affiliate marketing business, you may find that you have an asset; You may be able to sell your website for thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions of dollars. No website? No chance of a major sale!
Your email list can be another source of income for you. Others, seeing that you have a strong and vibrant list of buyers, may want to send your affiliate promotion to your audience and pay you for the privilege. (Of course, you probably don’t want to offer it to a competitor, but perhaps to someone in a complementary niche.) You want to be the person in control of sending the promotion. You never want to lose control of your list unless, of course, a huge amount of money is at stake and it’s worth it. If you don’t have a valuable email list built from your website, you don’t have an asset that you can sell later for a penny.
You Do Not Own the Platform You’re Building Your Business On
When you own a website, you are in control. You own the domain name. As you publish articles, you not only own the domain name, but also the space in which the URLs of your posts are located. If the domain name is registered in your name, no one else can come and claim the URL and space.
If your affiliate marketing business is located solely on a social media site, you are subject to their changing regulations and terms of use. A promotion method you were using successfully may suddenly be banned and you may find yourself out of income and struggling to implement a new strategy. This has happened more than once to affiliate marketers.
Make sure you follow the terms of service (TOS) rules and regulations for all social media platforms you market on. Remember, it’s their sandbox and they set the rules. You don’t want to suddenly be left on the sidelines watching your account get deleted or banned for a violation. You’ve probably received those emails announcing, “We’ve updated our TOS (terms of service).” Don’t ignore these messages or simply delete them without reading them. Read them, understand what they say, see if they affect your affiliate marketing efforts, and make any necessary changes to comply with the updated conditions.
Your Content Has a Short Lifespan in Front of Your Followers
When you set up a website, you’re generally setting up a permanent location for your affiliate marketing business (at least as long as you maintain your domain registration and hosting). So when you publish one page, 10, 100 or more, they are in a place that your audience can return to repeatedly if they missed something or want to refresh their memory. It is a location that search engines can continue to crawl to help maintain and improve your website’s ranking and authority.
The information you post on social media (aside from your profile page) is more ephemeral. It’s part of an endless stream of comments, posts, and information that continues to flow. All social networks have what has been called a “shelf life” for posts. That’s how long marketers consider their message to stay in front of their audience. For example, marketers who use Instagram say that a post has a shelf life of two days. This is why many affiliate marketers who use social media for their businesses end up repeatedly posting and reposting their same valuable content to keep their information in front of their audience. That means more effort.
You’re Constantly Battling with Competitors
Of course, your website competes with other websites in the same niche. However, once they are on your website, the visitor is yours. He is reading information from his various publications and visiting pages with his affiliate products. His attention is not swayed by a competitor’s offer.
If you wanted to, you could post ads on your website for all your competitors, but that would be counterproductive. But that’s exactly what happens on social media. You find yourself on the same page fighting to get noticed among many competitors. For example, one Facebook strategy is to join a group or forum in your area. When you post there, you will find the space filled with other people posting their competing affiliate offers.
You Need to Adapt Your Approach for a Different Audience
One of the things you need to keep in mind when trying to build your affiliate marketing business on social sites is the difference in audience, which requires a different approach. When you do affiliate marketing on a social site, you need to realize that it is not a browser. When people access a browser, they search for information. They are looking to solve a problem.
On the other hand, when a visitor accesses a social site, he is most likely to see the latest information from his friends or the latest news from the groups to which he belongs. They are not looking for the information or help you can give them. Therefore, your approach has to be softer, perhaps a multi-step approach leading up to your affiliate offer.
Must be Aware of the Limitations and Restrictions of Social Networks
Different social networks have different rules for the types of promotion they allow and don’t allow, different rules for the types of links they allow. You should be aware of those limitations and stay aware of changes, as detailed in the social network’s latest change notice in its TOS (terms of service).
Many marketers have been tried, found guilty, and banned from networks for trying to deceive them.
What if your entire social media affiliate presence relies heavily on one type of link that you were able to sneak under the radar, but now it’s banned and most of the links you used no longer work? Most of your affiliate income is gone.
The advantage of having a website is that the rules you must follow, such as the FTC’s disclosure rules, are relatively stable. The rules for social media sites vary as your business philosophy changes.
Managing a Website is Not Necessarily more Complicated than Social Networks
One of the claimed advantages of not having a website is that setting it up is too complicated. But any new marketing method you use in your affiliate marketing business will require you to learn something new, in fact your entire life is one of continuous learning.
Most hosts today offer an automatic one-click installation of WordPress. With one click, WordPress installs in less than a minute. Of course, that’s a basic setup and you should customize it for your niche.
Search engine optimization is another complex learning process that you must undertake to optimize your site. The Yoast plugin makes it easy to start optimizing your page for SEO. Installing the Yoast plugin is done with one click in your WordPress dashboard.
We’re not downplaying the things you have to learn, but we don’t think the learning curve involved with having a website is much different than any other method of affiliate marketing. So is it easier to promote your affiliate marketing business using social media? Up to you! We don’t believe it; you just need to acquire different skill sets.
Building and Managing a Website is Cheaper than You Think
You may often hear people say that having a website is expensive. You can register any domain name you want for between $10 and $20 a year. Low-cost hosting that may come in handy at the beginning of your affiliate marketing career starts at just $2.95 a month with some of the most popular hosting providers such as Hostinger, Hostgator and Bluehost among others..
Some people may respond by saying that they can get free hosting on sites like Wix, Weebly or Squarespace. The problem with free hosting is that you are usually the subdomain of the entity offering the free hosting. That means your efforts to build your reputation and credibility flow to that domain instead of staying with you. Additionally, free hosting companies have limitations on the themes, plugins, and other customizations you can use. With Paid Hosting and WordPress you overcome all these disadvantages
For social media sites, your costs can range from free (if you only use free tools) to expensive (if you use paid advertising and don’t properly limit your advertising budget).
We recommend starting to use all free tools to the fullest. Keep good control of your money and make a purchase only when it makes sense to save you time or improve your results. Do not spend money on courses or similar that promise you success overnight and without doing practically anything. At this point, you still don’t have enough experience to distinguish the important from the trivial. Start basic, master your affiliate marketing methods with the help of this book, and once you experience success, you can expand your efforts.