Affiliate marketing has been on the rise for a long time, but even with ever-growing spending and ever-emerging promotion opportunities, it’s nowhere near its peak. As a content creator, you have every chance to monetize your traffic – and it’s not too late.
The game is dominated by big names – Amazon Associates alone unites over 900,000 affiliates – but you can still beat the competition if you set things right from the start. Moreover, you don’t necessarily need a budget to run affiliate marketing campaigns – with the right approach, organic traffic easily converts into affiliate leads without investments.
Read on to learn how to start affiliate marketing with no money step by step and – if you have a budget – squeeze the most out of it.
What Is Affiliate Marketing? The Bare Fundamentals
Affiliate marketing is simple: affiliates promote third-party products in exchange for a commission on the sales. Sometimes, they are paid a flat amount per click or other marketing activity requested by the advertiser.
Here are the parties involved in affiliate marketing:
| Advertisers (merchants, businesses, buyers) | Run affiliate programs to buy the leads and clicks they then convert into revenues |
| Affiliates (publishers, content creators, lead generators, lead sellers) | Generate and sell leads and clicks |
| Affiliate Networks | Unite advertisers and affiliates into large markets |
| Customers | Click on affiliate marketing links (with or without recognizing the nature of the link) and make purchases, generating revenues for affiliates |
The only optional party is the affiliate network. However, even though advertisers can partner with affiliates directly, most affiliate programs are run through affiliate networks that create a market, provide tracking software, and ensure safety for advertisers and affiliates.
Is Affiliate Marketing Worth It?
Affiliate marketing has a low entry barrier and is almost riskless for affiliates because it’s free. You don’t have to invest in paid advertising or buy traffic to make money with affiliate marketing – all you need is an audience that clicks your links.
Source: Statista
You can start small. Even a few hundred monthly visitors might be enough to kick things off with your first affiliate program. Then, as you drive more traffic to affiliate links, you can scale.
Here’s why marketers choose affiliate marketing:
Source: Statista
Affiliate marketing is beneficial on all fronts, from making money to market expansion. You can find new business partners, ensure transparency of operations, have full control over marketing outcomes, and drive a high ROI with your campaigns.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing with No Money
Step 1 – Research the Market to Find Your Niche
First of all, you have to choose your best niche for affiliate marketing:
- If you already have content, focus on what you can do best. Choose the most profitable niches by evaluating the competition and your conversion potential.
- If you don’t have content, focus on the niche that you have full control over and create SEO-optimized content that covers the most pressing topics.
When choosing a niche (especially for promoting physical products), make sure to factor in your target location. For example, if you promote auto insurance products in New York, it makes sense to research the local market and find out what other insurance providers lack that your advertiser can offer. Then, you can capitalize on that.
How to Start High Ticket Affiliate Marketing
All else being equal, running affiliate marketing campaigns in high-ticket niches is more profitable due to the higher average check. However, high-ticket niches like insurance or solar may require profound nurturing within a longer sales cycle because the more expensive the product, the harder it is for a consumer to commit to a purchase.
Your guide to finding your most profitable affiliate marketing niche.
Source: Statista
Let’s explore the affiliate marketing nuances in some profitable niches:
How to Start Affiliate Marketing in Auto Insurance
Selling insurance policies in the United States is state-dependent, and auto insurance is no exception. As an affiliate, you first should study the legal landscape – the minimum insurance requirements in the target states.
Next, you can study the demand.
Chances are you will advertise products from one of these auto insurance companies:
Source: Statista
Alongside traditional geographic and demographic segmentation factors – age, gender, marital status, income, etc. – consider the industry-specific factors like the vehicle type/age/condition, mileage, driving record, insurance history, etc. The better you know your auto insurance leads, the easier it is to develop sales techniques.
The beginner’s guide to auto insurance affiliate marketing.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing in Health Insurance
When it comes to health insurance, age and health condition are two crucial factors. For example, young adults opt for high-deductible health plans, whereas seniors seek coverage like Medicare and supplemental plans like Medicare Advantage or Medigap.
As an affiliate, you might want to start with a single or a few health insurance products and expand as you gain footing in the game. If you know how to sell private and employment-based plans, these could give you a head start.
Here are the most popular health insurance plans in the United States:
Source: Statista
Income is also an important segmentation factor: high-income individuals may afford comprehensive plans with a low deductible, while low-income customers may seek subsidized coverage. Your marketing campaigns must account for all these differences.
The beginner’s guide to health insurance affiliate marketing.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing in Life Insurance
In many regards, promoting life insurance is similar to promoting health insurance: age and health condition are the major factors determining the policy’s demand and price. For aspiring affiliates, it might be safer to start with well-known products.
Here are the most popular life insurance providers in the United States:
Source: Statista
Life insurance is segmented into two main types—term life insurance and whole life insurance—simplifying targeting. However, buying life insurance involves confronting one’s own mortality. In practice, this causes customers to delay or avoid purchasing a policy, so you help them fight their fears.
The beginner’s guide to life insurance affiliate marketing.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing in Home Insurance
Marketing messages for home insurance will depend on their location, age, marital status, and income. Young homeowners will likely consider an affordable plan with basic coverage; couples may look for comprehensive coverage that protects their individual interests; families with children may need higher coverage limits for personal property.
Here are the biggest home insurance providers in the United States:
Source: Statista
Promoting products from big players is generally safer and less risky, but you will likely face brutal competition. Therefore, provide strong reasons for clicking on your links.
The beginner’s guide to home insurance affiliate marketing.
How to Start Solar Affiliate Marketing
Make no mistake, generating solar leads requires completely different knowledge, so you might not want to expand too early. Over time, though, you might want to try making profits in this high-ticket yet somehow underexplored industry.
When promoting tangible products like solar panels, you have to know the technical side of it: how your panels work, how to install them correctly, and how to maintain and repair them. Ideally, you need a professional on your team.
Here are the residential solar PV installers in the United States:
Source: Statista
At the same time, the solar market is so diverse that you can easily find a sub-niche to excel. For example, if your major organic traffic acquisition channel is search engines, you can use tools like Ahrefs to choose low-competition, high-volume keywords for your content.
The beginner’s guide to solar affiliate marketing.
Step 2 – Make Sure Your USP and Content Are Great
When researching your niche, you’ve likely identified your advantages and disadvantages against other affiliates. Now, you should rework these into a unique selling proposition that becomes the backbone of your content.
Again, the better you know your audience and product, the better. More often than not, superficial affiliates—even ones with big names—lose to grinders taking their time to learn the product at a deeper level.
Here are some unique selling propositions for insurance and solar:
| Niche | Target Audience | Unique Selling Proposition with a CTA |
| Life Insurance | Young families with children | Secure your family’s future with comprehensive life insurance coverage. A $500,000 policy is only $20 per month, twice cheaper than any other plan in the market. Get your personalized free quote: [link] |
| Health Insurance | Self-employed professionals | Get your self-employed health insurance plan at $150 monthly, ensuring up to 80% medical coverage. Enroll now to protect your health: [link] |
| Home Insurance | First-time homebuyers | Protect your home with $300,000 in dwelling and $100,000 in personal property coverage at only $25 per month. Get your free quote: [link] |
| Auto Insurance | Young drivers | Get peace of mind behind the wheel with $100,000 in liability coverage at only $50 monthly. Pave your way to confident driving. Get your free quote: [link] |
| Solar | Homeowners in sunlight states | Cut your electricity bills by 75% and save up to $2,000 yearly with state-of-the-art solar panels – no upfront payment. Schedule your free consultation now: [link] |
There’s no universal formula for crafting great content, but it’s obvious that you have to create something valuable, entertaining, and beneficial for your audience. Likewise, your content marketing must be well-timed, posted when customers are susceptible to sales messages (for example, around 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.).
Read also: Content Marketing Software for Solar and Insurance Affiliates
How to Generate Affiliate Marketing Traffic on Social Media
Social media is the most intuitive and straightforward instrument for driving affiliate traffic. Even if you don’t have followers, you can win some audience by recommending affiliate products in popular posts.
Source: Statista
But then again, not all social media are the same. For example, B2B content is likely to be perceived much better on LinkedIn than anywhere else, whereas visual content works best on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Long story short, you should know your audience.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing on Facebook
- First, create a business page dedicated to your niche – this page will be the focal point of your activities, potentially generating affiliate leads for you.
- Second, identify the best opportunities for promotion: Facebook Groups, Facebook Live, regular posts, etc. Finally, if you hit the creative block, these ideas might help.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing on Instagram
- First, create a business or creator account (this is not mandatory) if you want more legitimacy in the eyes of your followers. As a beginner affiliate, it’s crucial to establish yourself as a trusted source so no users think you’re running a get-rich-quick scheme.
- Second, choose how you are going to promote your affiliate links: through your bio, by sharing code in the post captions, by embedding link stickers in your videos, etc.
With some creativity, you can tap into almost any audience. For example, if you’re moving out, you can advertise the company or relocation service that helped you – and it almost doesn’t matter who your audience is; everyone may need this type of service sooner or later.
Посмотреть эту публикацию в Instagram
Learn more about how to generate insurance leads on Instagram.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing on YouTube
The easiest way to make affiliate income on YouTube is to enroll in its native YouTube Shopping affiliate program. With YouTube Shopping, users can convert even without pausing the video, so you can retain engagement while driving conversions.
Here’s how you can earn affiliate income with YouTube Shopping:
Next, if you enroll in a third-party affiliate program, you can promote links in video descriptions – the 5,000-character limit is enough to fit as much advertisement as you need while not exposing the description as salesy. Likewise, you can use relevant keywords to drive SEO traffic.
With some creativity, you can find the right approach to any audience. This is something Jeep has done with their unique The Jeep 4xe “Electric Boogie” promo video:
How to Start Affiliate Marketing on TikTok
First, create a TikTok Business Account to increase trust and get access to creative tools and performance insights. Next, since TikTok doesn’t allow clickable links in videos, you can place affiliate links in your profile or drive traffic to link-friendly social networks.
@adrianos_facchetti_law The 5 BEST Auto Insurance Companies #insurance #law
Learn more about TikTok affiliate marketing.
Step 3 – Research Affiliate Marketing Networks, Big and Small
While you can partner directly with an advertiser, an easier choice is joining a well-known affiliate network like Amazon Associates or ShareASale. These may not necessarily provide the biggest payouts and best conditions, but they have stood the test of time and are the safest.
Source: Statista
To maximize your affiliate income, though, you might want to look beyond the most popular affiliate programs. For example, you can find local vendors that are looking for customers.
Read also: Is It Worth Joining an Affiliate Network?
Once you’ve found such networks, you can look into their affiliate programs from a distance and gradually narrow it down for a few shortlisted contenders.
The beginner’s guide to choosing an affiliate network.
Step 4 – Join Your First Affiliate Marketing Program
Assuming you have a few affiliate programs to choose from, here’s your selection criteria:
The Type of Accepted Traffic
Make sure the type of lead you generate is accepted. For example, if you resell leads several times over, you need to find a program that accepts shared leads.
Here are the main types of leads sold in the United States, from the most to the least expensive:
| Live Transfer Leads | Live transfer leads are pre-qualified phone calls that connect directly to the advertiser’s sales reps. These customers bring the highest affiliate commissions – up to a few hundred dollars per call – and are the easiest to convert. |
| Opt-In Leads | Opt-in leads are web leads who have requested a contact, for example, by submitting a form. If sold to one advertiser only, these are the second most expensive leads. |
| Exclusive Leads | Exclusive leads are a general term for contacts sold to one advertiser. The price for these leads may reach $50 but is usually within the $5 to $30 range. |
| Warm Leads | Warm leads are potential customers who have shown some interest in the product but have not requested a contact. Warm leads may require some further nurturing. |
| Shared Leads | Shared leads are contacts sold to several different companies at the same time. Shared leads are significantly cheaper than exclusive leads and are a good choice for businesses that can win the competition. |
| Aged Leads | Aged leads are disengaged customers who haven’t shown interest in the product for a while. They cost cents to a few dollars and are a good choice for advertisers with strong re-engagement strategies. |
| Cold Leads | Cold leads are contacts who have shown minimal interest in the product. They are the cheapest and the hardest to convert. Buying or selling cold leads, though, is a numbers game. |
Commission Rate and Structure
There are many affiliate programs with high commissions, but the commission structure is no less important. Some programs motivate affiliates by providing tiered commissions – the more customers you bring in, the more you earn – and customer discounts.
Likewise, there are affiliate programs with recurring commissions that pay for all purchases made by the affiliate lead rather than the first purchase only. In subscription-based niches like insurance, recurring earnings might be times higher than regular earnings.
Read also: Your Detailed Guide to Affiliate Commissions.
Here’s how much affiliates earn with affiliate marketing:
Source: Statista
Cookie Duration
Most often, you only have a limited time window for a customer to make a purchase after they click on your affiliate link. This time window is called cookie duration, and the longer the cookie duration, the better for affiliates. Most affiliate programs have a cookie duration of 30 to 90 days.
Payout Terms
Payment methods, limits, and schedules are also important. However, most programs support at least several popular payment gateways and make payouts weekly or monthly, so you shouldn’t have a problem with this.
Software and Creative Materials
Marketers generate affiliate traffic from all sorts of channels, so it’s important that your affiliate program provides customizable creative materials and tracking software. The end goal is to resonate with your audience and match the advertiser’s style.
Source: Statista
Limitations
Advertisers are usually very specific about the required traffic. For example, a solar installer working in New York may only accept traffic from this state and a few nearby states.
Here are some popular traffic limitations:
| Location | Location is one of the main targeting factors. For example, businesses operating in the United States don’t need traffic from Canada. |
| Demographics | Age, gender, marital status, and other demographic parameters may be important for selling specific products. For example, brands advertising senior insurance may only accept seniors. |
| Traffic Source | Where a lead comes from is essential for both sales and SEO, which is why most advertisers prohibit traffic from adult and gambling websites. |
| History of Purchases | Most advertisers only accept new contacts. You will likely be denied the lead who has already contacted the advertiser. |
But then again, even with restrictions, affiliate marketing is arguably the best strategy for monetizing your audience. You’ve likely spent time and money to gain your audience, so why not capitalize on it by recommending relevant, valuable products?
Read also: The Beginner’s Guide to Choosing an Affiliate Program.
Step 5 – Track Your Performance and Scale It Up
Link tracking is paramount for campaign optimization. You must know where your traffic comes from, who clicks on the links and who doesn’t, and how the customer journey evolves after the click. You must also ensure correct attribution to receive your revenues.
The good news is that many affiliate programs provide link tracking software for free. So does Profitise, granting access to free affiliate link tracking software and creative materials. Alternatively, you can use these free affiliate marketing tools.
Read also: Your detailed guide to affiliate links and link tracking
Here are some basic affiliate marketing metrics to track:
| Click-Through Rate | CTR is the percentage of people who clicked on the affiliate link out of the total number of people who saw the link. Measuring your CTR for different traffic channels can help you optimize your exposure, doubling down on the most profitable lead sources. |
| Cost Per Acquisition | CPA is the amount you spend to acquire one customer. Knowing your CPA is essential to choosing the right price for your leads. For example, if your CPA is $10, you should sell your leads for at least $12. |
| Average Order Value | AOV is the revenue per sale, showing how much the leads spend on a product. The higher the AOV, the higher the price per lead. |
| Conversion Rate | The conversion rate shows how many link clicks result in affiliate marketing commissions. The higher the conversion rate, the more expensive the traffic. |
| Return on Investment | ROI shows the overall profitability of your campaigns |
Read also: Your Detailed Guide to Affiliate Marketing Performance Metrics
Once you’ve done with your first affiliate program, scale it up slowly to make sure you can sell all your leads at the required price. Most affiliates enroll in three to five affiliate programs to diversify their income stream and mitigate the risk of relying on a single income source.
How to Start Affiliate Marketing If You Have a Budget
In many ways, paid affiliate marketing is no different from organic affiliate marketing, except that you can gain exposure through new acquisition channels: Google Ads, social media ads, native advertising, and influence marketing. Paid traffic accounts for around 30% of the total search traffic, and you don’t need that much nurturing and time to generate it.
Here are the main advantages of paid affiliate marketing:
| Accurate Targeting | Unlike organic traffic channels, paid advertising allows you to display the right ads to the right audience, filtering them by demographic, location, purchase history, and other parameters. |
| Unlimited Room for Creativity | From social media to display to paid search ads, you can promote products in many forms while coordinating your paid and organic acquisition campaigns. |
| Control Over the Marketing Budget | For every campaign, you can choose your cost per click or mile and limit the maximum daily and monthly budget. |
How To Start Affiliate Marketing with no Audience: Traffic Arbitrage
One of the most elaborate ways to make money with affiliate marketing without an audience is through traffic arbitrage, which is a fancy term for reselling the bought traffic at a higher price.
Lead arbitrage, however, requires profound analytics skills:
- Businesses have already gone digital, so most markets are saturated, and it’s hard to find sources that sell underpriced leads. And this is what arbitrage is about: you find underpriced leads and resell them at a fair price, or you buy leads at their normal price and find a source ready to buy them at a price higher than their market worth.
But then again, the affiliate market has evolved to a state when most niches comprise at least a few good affiliate programs, so finding demand for your traffic shouldn’t be a problem.
Sell Insurance and Solar Leads and Phone Calls at the Best Price at Profitise
Uniting top insurance and solar advertisers and affiliates, Profitise is one of the highest-paying affiliate networks in these industries.
- As an affiliate, you get access to the largest pool of merchants and can easily sell any traffic volume at the highest price in the market. On top of that, we provide free access to the best affiliate link tracking software and customizable creative materials.
- As an advertiser, you get access to the best insurance and solar publishers and can buy any amount of traffic that matches your criteria.
Sign up with Profitise as an affiliate or advertiser to sell or buy insurance and solar leads. For questions, contact us at info@profitise.com or call 888-400-4868.
Frequently Asked Questions
How hard is it to make money with affiliate marketing – isn’t it too late to start?
Making some money with affiliate marketing isn’t hard, but making five or six figures requires making affiliate marketing your full-time job. In general, the complexity of affiliate marketing depends on the industry, audience, affiliate program conditions, and – most of all – your skills.
Do I need a product to make money with affiliate marketing?
No. To advertise third-party products, you don’t need your own product, nor do you need a website. For example, if you have a large social media following, you can start affiliate marketing without a website.
Do I need a budget to run affiliate marketing campaigns?
No. You don’t need a budget to run affiliate marketing campaigns. You can drive traffic from organic channels: your website, blog, and social media.
How much money can I make with affiliate marketing?
Around 33% of marketers earn more than $10,000 with their affiliate marketing campaigns, and only around 4% make more than $150,000. However, for many of them, affiliate marketing is an additional income source rather than a full-time endeavor.
Can I enroll in several affiliate marketing programs at the same time?
You can join several affiliate programs at once; in fact, most affiliate marketers enroll in several programs to get the best price for their traffic and diversify risks.
