Affiliate Marketing Without Followers
You know what an affiliate link is. What you do not have is an audience, and the guides you open start the same way: build one first.
You will see what affiliate marketing still asks for once the followers are taken out. Then you can judge any offer you are shown on those four points.
We do guided affiliation. We make the videos and write the captions, and people post them from their phones. Other ways of doing this exist, and they are not wrong for being different.
Affiliate marketing asks for four things, in this order:
- Something to show.
- Somewhere to show it.
- A link that counts.
- Doing it again.
Each route below goes through the four, in the same order.
What affiliate marketing actually asks for
Something to show. A video, a page, a message. Someone made it, and it took them time.
Somewhere to show it. A place where people already pass. This is the one that is hard when you are starting, and the one a guide is likeliest to assume you already have.
A link that counts. Without a link that is yours, the click still happens, and it belongs to nobody.
Doing it again. Once does nothing. Affiliate marketing works on what accumulates, so this is the point that rarely makes it into the headline.
What followers were actually covering
Followers covered the second point. That is all they covered.
They gave you a place where people already pass, built in advance. The other three were yours before, and they stay yours now: something to show, a link, and the repeating.
That is worth a moment. Building an audience is the longest thing on the list, and it answers one point out of four. The other three are the ones people skip over when they call affiliate marketing simple.
So "I have no followers" does not mean "I cannot start". It means one of the four is missing. The question becomes a different one, and it is the question this article answers: who provides the place, and what they ask for in return.
Four ways to get somewhere to show it
The four are in order of how much you have to build before you can start, from the most to the least. Each one gets the same four questions.
1. Build an audience first
What it asks for first: everything. Film, edit, post, and keep going, before the first click.
How it covers the four: you make what you show. The place arrives at the end rather than the start. The link is yours to set up, and so is the repeating.
What it does well: the place is yours to use, and it works for whatever you do next, including something that has nothing to do with affiliate links.
What it does not remove: the wait, or the repeating. This is the route you have probably already tried.
2. A website and search
What it asks for first: a site, pages written, and the time before search engines send anyone.
How it covers the four: you write what you show. The place comes from search results. The link is yours to set up, and so is the repeating.
What it does well: a page that works keeps working. You are not republishing it every morning, and one page can bring people in for years.
What it does not remove: the writing, or the wait. Both are longer than they look on the first day.
3. Paid ads
What it asks for first: something to put in. This is the one route that buys the place instead of building it.
How it covers the four: you provide what you show. The place is bought. The link is yours to set up, and the repeating lasts as long as you keep going.
What it does well: it covers the missing point on day one, which no other route here does.
What it does not remove: what you put in, and the repeating. When you stop, the place stops with you.
This article does not cover it, and there are no figures here for it.
4. Guided affiliation
What it asks for first: nothing to buy and nothing to deposit. A phone, and you have to be 18 or older.
How it covers the four: we make the videos and write the captions, and new ones land in a folder every day. We set the account up with you, step by step, and what it reaches does not come from your own followers.
We provide the link and count the clicks on it. The posting stays yours.
What it does well: we cover three of the four on the day you start, with nothing built and nothing put in.
What it does not remove: posting, regularly. We assign the videos and the account, so you choose neither and do not pick up filming or editing here.
Accounts get restricted sometimes. We help you recover them, or we replace them.
The model is explained step by step in our guide to guided affiliation.
What no route removes: you still have to post
Look at the fourth point across the four routes. Nobody covers it. Not the audience, not the site, not the ads, and not us.
We do not ask for followers. We do ask you to post on a social network, regularly, and that is the part nobody can hand over.
What it means here is a few short moments, about 15 minutes a day, at hours you choose. Not one evening a week, and not when you remember.
If an offer tells you there is nothing left to do, it is not that it is easier. It is that it is not telling you.
That is also how to read the four routes above. None of them is a shortcut past the work. Each one decides which part you take on, and which part somebody else has already done.
We also ranked the easiest ways to start something from a phone, on what each one asks of you first: see our ranking of side hustles you can start from your phone.
Check any affiliate offer on the same four points
The next offer you are shown can go through the same four questions.
- Who makes what I show?
- Where do the people come from?
- Is the link mine, and who counts it?
- How often do I have to post?
If an offer answers the first three and goes quiet on the fourth, that is the answer.