Did you know that almost 50% of Reddit’s audience is from the United States? So if, for some reason, you’re still overlooking this very unorthodox social media platform, it might be the best time to unlock your full potential there.
However, affiliate marketing on Reddit is quite challenging without constant contributions to the platform, which may take months. Ultimately, though, your efforts may pay off heavily, generating thousands of dollars in passive income over time.
There are two things you need for successful affiliate marketing on Reddit:
- Compliance with the platform’s policies, which boils down to creating valuable content and disclosing your affiliate links in subreddits where they are allowed
- Reaching the minimum post and comment karma thresholds to get a chance to post in groups where you can promote your affiliate links
If you’re an expert in your niche, Reddit might be the best social media platform for you. Redditors are known as knowledgeable, expert-level users who appreciate in-depth insights.
Without any further ado, let’s dig into the nitty-gritty of affiliate marketing on Reddit.
Are Affiliate Links Even Allowed on Reddit?
With Redding affiliate marketing, it’s a bit tricky. Neither official Reddit policies nor their public content policies explicitly prohibit affiliate links. To be more accurate, there’s nothing about affiliate links at all out there.
However, even though Reddit doesn’t address affiliate links generally, each subreddit can establish its own rules regarding their use, including anti-spam and anti-manipulation policies. But then again, it mostly boils down to using affiliate links reasonably.
Reddit doesn’t restrict affiliate links by default, but each subreddit can set its own policy, including complete prohibition, karma limits, or manual approval. So always check the rules of your subreddit before posting.
Important: Promoting the same affiliate link across many subreddits may trigger spam filters, potentially leading to the removal of your links or even a permanent ban on your account.
Post Karma vs. Comment Karma
Reddit has two types of karma – post karma and comment karma:
| Post Karma | Post karma reflects how frequently other users upvote your posts and is required in some amount by many popular subreddits. For posting links, the minimum post karma requirement may be higher than for contributing without links. A good starting point would be earning 100 karma – this will unlock a fair share of subreddits. |
| Comment Karma | Comment karma reflects how frequently other users upvote your comments, unlocking valuable (and potentially profitable) discussions once you’ve earned the required minimum. Earning comment karma might be a great strategy if you want to focus on high-level-nesting comments, where promoting affiliate links is potentially easier. |
Whether you want to create posts or contribute to existing posts, try to earn both post and comment karma to grow your profile. On a similar note, since it’s hard to accurately predict how Reddit users will react to your content and comments, diversifying makes absolute sense.
How To Do Affiliate Marketing on Reddit
First things first: AI content won’t work. There’s no shame in using AI for research and ideation, but AI-generated content is a big no. Even if you don’t trigger spam filters or a manual ban from mods, generic content isn’t something you can use on Reddit.
Here are a few strategies to make money with affiliate marketing on Reddit:
| Earn Karma Gradually | If you’re trying to grow your account overnight unnaturally by posting everywhere, you either reach the limit quickly or might even get restricted or banned for spam. Many subreddits automatically block posts from new accounts and use automated moderation that establishes specific thresholds, such as “50+ karma required for posting.” |
| Don’t Rush to Promote | Promoting affiliate links immediately once you’ve reached the minimum karma level for a subreddit isn’t a good strategy. Reddit isn’t like any other social media – you have to play the long game here. |
| Avoid Blatant Sales Pitches | Don’t try to push your product. Hard selling usually results in downvotes on your posts. So instead, appeal to users’ potential needs and wants while placing CTAs “by the way.” |
| Disclose Affiliate Links | Not only do subreddits require you to disclose any use of affiliate links transparently, but some also require non-affiliate alternatives so users can choose.On top of that, disclosing affiliate links is required by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and state-level consumer protection laws. |
The rule of thumb is that valuable content is upvoted while low-quality, generic, and spammy posts quickly disappear under the snowball of more valuable contributions.
Reddit’s nesting system – a post can have up to 10 nesting comment levels – makes it possible for comments to steal the show from the post itself. So you don’t necessarily have to create fully-fledged content yourself – alternatively, you can research through already existing threads and contribute where you feel like your voice can be heard.
TLDR: Reddit is about quality, not quantity. So make sure to allocate most of your time to researching subreddits and generating ideas, rather than to content creation itself. Likewise, try not to overinvest in Reddit affiliate marketing because it’s quite complicated. At the very least, use two mainstream platforms, such as Instagram and Facebook, to diversify risks.
The Safest Way to Do Affiliate Marketing on Reddit
While affiliate links may be limited or prohibited on some subreddits, you can circumvent this to some extent by creating an affiliate marketing website (if you don’t have one) and directing Redditors there. Content-wise, you don’t even necessarily need to create brand-new content for Reddit – instead, you can write short summaries of your stories and link to the continuation.
Overall, Reddit users prefer short, sweet posts, so long reads may not work. But then again, creating snippets of stories eliminates this problem as long as you keep at least 80% of your content non-promotional, nurturing readers to convert first through teasers and then, on your affiliate marketing website, a bit more aggressively.
How To Choose the Best Subreddits for Affiliate Marketing
To make it cost-effective with affiliate marketing on Reddit, focus on audiences with transactional intent who align with the product you’re about to promote.
Here’s how you can choose the best subreddits for affiliate marketing:
- Identify subreddits with discussions that match or overlap. If you’re promoting a financial product, search for subreddits like r/PersonalFinance. This one has almost 20 million users and covers the broadest spectrum of economic topics.
- Narrow it down to niche subreddits. Higher-level subreddits have a large ecosystem of smaller subreddits so that you can narrow it down to, for example, regional finance subreddits or product-specific subreddits (r/debtfree, r/churning, r/creditcards, etc.).
- Collect statistics on the shortlisted subreddits. Once you’ve identified subreddits that are potentially worth attention, use tools like Subreddit Stats to analyze post frequency, comments per post, active subscribers, and other engagement metrics.
- Manually research the chosen subreddits. To find the best marketing strategy for a specific subreddit, browse candidate subreddits to gauge the community ethos, how strict moderators are, and how users respond to promotional content.
- Create a portfolio of subreddits where you post. To diversify risks, contribute to different types of subreddits: core, growth, seasonal, and possibly also experimental subreddits you don’t have too much confidence in.
Treating your subreddit portfolio like an investment portfolio is a safe and effective approach to affiliate marketing. With this in mind, you might want to allocate the most time for contributing to core subreddits with the highest topical relevance while also diversifying into subreddits where you can potentially achieve great results, yet with less predictability.
Monetize Your Traffic with Profitise
Profitise is a leading insurance and solar affiliate network for affiliates selling high-quality web leads and phone calls. With hundreds of businesses already on board and more to come, Profitise is the go-to place to monetize your traffic.
With Profitise, you get:
- Embeddable JavaScript forms to generate qualified insurance and solar leads
- Large lead market to sell your traffic instantly
- High price for your web and call leads
- Free assistance from your affiliate manager
Sell leads with Profitise as an affiliate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is affiliate marketing legitimate on Reddit?
Reddit affiliate marketing is legit – affiliate links are generally not prohibited – but subreddits can regulate link placement as they see fit. For example, some subreddits may prohibit affiliate links altogether, others may require a minimum karma, and others may enable manual moderation.
Does affiliate marketing actually work on Reddit?
Absolutely. Reddit affiliate marketing is one of the best ways for publishers to earn affiliate commissions, provided they can create authentic content and contribute to discussions. However, Reddit might have the highest content quality standards among all social media platforms.
Can you do affiliate marketing on Reddit by commenting?
Yes, you can leave affiliate links in comments on Reddit as long as they comply with the subreddit’s policy. Keep in mind that posting comments may require a minimum amount of comment karma, while leaving links may need even a higher amount of comment karma.
What are the best affiliate marketing strategies on Reddit?
The best affiliate marketing strategy on Reddit is to create resonant, short-and-sweet posts and comments for your target audience. Marketing-wise, it makes sense to remain mostly informational with just a pinch of promotion in some cases – no more than 15%-20% of your overall activity on the platform.
Is automated affiliate marketing on Reddit a thing?
Automated affiliate marketing doesn’t work well on Reddit because the platform attracts a highly knowledgeable, expert-level audience who quickly spot generic, shallow content. So instead of trying to make it with volume, focus on the quality of your contributions.
That said, you can still use AI tools, like generative AI, to brainstorm ideas and build a data-driven core for the content you create.
