10 Ways You Can Do Affiliate Marketing Without a Website…

Can You Do Affiliate Marketing Without a Website?

The answer is a short YES, but certain restrictions will apply and you lose many of the long-term benefits.

Read on to figure out how you can be successful even without a website...

The most difficult part of being an affiliate marketer is building a website that attracts quality traffic.

Anyone can build a website or buy one off of Flippa, but being able to create a website that generates life-changing recurring income is actually pretty hard. 

It’s in fact so hard that people are willing to buy websites already making money for 35-45x its monthly income.

So, here's the question many people new to affiliate marketing ask themselves: 

Can I do affiliate marketing without a website?

This approach has its limitations.

• It's difficult (or impossible) to get traffic from search engines without a website.
• Your business is not an asset. This drastically reduces its value.
• You are highly vulnerable to any update to the terms of service on the social media platforms
• Many affiliate networks require that members have their existing websites.

To be clear, affiliate marketing doesn't require a website, but because it is so hard people will pay top dollars for your websites. That makes it a skill worth learning!

Ok, so you don’t want a website?

Here's how you can take on affiliate marketing without a website.

How do you become an affiliate marketer?

Yes, it is easier to be a successful affiliate marketer if you have an affiliate website.

However, if you look at the fundamentals of affiliate marketing then none of them require a website.

To start affiliate marketing, you need a few key "ingredients".

• The crowd: Someone interested in what you're writing about.
• The affiliate offer: An associate product or service that helps you solve a problem, or reach a goal.
• The traffic source: A way to connect your audience with the offer that you are promoting.

A website is often the hub for your affiliate marketing activities. 

Affiliates might have accounts on social media platforms and an email marketing newsletter, but these will only serve as traffic sources to the website.

So, typically you have visitors coming to your website from i.e. Google, they sign up to your email list and you send an email pointing them back to your website. However, it is possible to promote affiliate links via social media, email newsletters or other channels directly and I have done so with great results myself. You do not need a website.

To learn more about the basics of affiliate marketing, read this blog post:

 https://www.mywebtrafficshop.com/affiliate-marketing-for-beginners/ 

Must Affiliate Marketers Use Landing Pages?

It's impossible to ignore it.

Although affiliate marketing can be done without a website you will most likely need a landing page.

A landing page is basically a one-page website that allows you to sell affiliate products.

Why are landing pages so important?

They increase conversions because they give you the opportunity to send traffic from other sources.

Some affiliate programs will even require that you have one because they do not accept links directly from social media or newsletters for instance.

Another reason why you need landing pages is that Facebook and other platforms are not too fond of affiliate marketers so you need to have a filter between your ad and the product you are promoting.

Some landing pages can be hosted in the cloud depending on the landing page software you use. As a result, you may not need to host it “yourself” on a WordPress site for instance.

We'll be highlighting ten channels that you can use to promote affiliate marketing without having a website later in this article.

However, all of these will have their limitations compared to owning your own website.

Why Is It Important For Affiliate Marketers To Use Landing Pages?

A landing page allows you to add persuasive copy and compelling imagery that explains why the products or services you are promoting are perfect for your target audience.

It is more natural to post an affiliate link on a landing page than to directly link from an Instagram bio, YouTube intro, or Instagram bio.

You can also use landing pages to capture leads.

A lead form can be added to your landing page to help you build an email marketing database.

Once you have a few thousand people on your email list you can send them targeted affiliate offers right to their inbox.

This is a smart decision because email marketing has an estimated return of 36 for every $1 invested.

Landing pages also offer an important benefit:

These allow you to create traffic via Facebook ads, Bing and Google Ads (previously known as Google AdWords).

You cannot run paid advertising on these platforms without landing pages. Ads are an integral part of affiliate marketing strategies.

Build High-Converting Landing Pages With These Tools

Creating landing pages doesn't require coding skills.

If they did, people would rather just go down the old-school route and build the landing pages themselves on WordPress. This article would be redundant.

Here are four easy-to-use tools to create landing pages:

Leadpages

• Pricing: Starting at $37 per Month for One Website. 14-day Free Trial.

Leadpages helps small businesses create websites, landing pages and alert bars.

Its templates make it very easy to get started. You can launch high-converting sales funnels in just a few minutes after signing up.

Do not worry if you are just starting your page construction. Leadpages can predict the performance of your page and suggest improvements before you hit the "publish" button which is a really great feature.

>> Learn More About LEADPAGES HERE!

IFunnels

• Pricing: $99/month

IFunnels is a relatively new tool. I joined in 2019 and use it occasionally for landing pages and sales funnels. It is a relatively complete landing page creator but it has a bit of a messy interface. However, it is definitely worth checking out.

>> Learn More About iFUNNELS HERE!

10 Ways You Can Do Affiliate Marketing Without a Website

Let's get the theory out of your head and look at ten ways to use affiliate marketing without having to have a website.

1. FACEBOOK GROUP+PAID ADS

We briefly touched on Facebook earlier in this guide.

Now, let’s look at how you can combine Facebook groups (or a FB business page or fan page) with paid Facebook ads to sell affiliate marketing products.

For this to work, you need to:

• Set up a fan page (a page about you as a public person for instance), a business page (you don’t need to have a real business), or possibly a group (for people with similar interests and discussions). 
• Create interesting posts, link out to interesting articles, or whatever.
• In the page description, in some of the posts (the word some is crucial here!), link out to affiliate products.
• Run paid Facebook ads to your FB page or group.

Voilá! 

It’s not magic, but it may take some time and testing before it’s profitable.

2. Marketing on Online Forums & Communities

Online communities and fora are growing in popularity. 

Reddit and Quora are two of the most well-known examples. Personally, I find that odd as I would think TikTok and Instagram would be the preferred sources for discussions these days but it seems that old-school fora are gaining traction again.

According to SearchEngineJournal (1). Quora was ranked #276 in traffic out of all sites in the U.S in February 2022 with approximately 300 million monthly users. Reddit attracts approximately 1.7 billion visitors per month. Insane numbers.

Both platforms are full of users looking for information on niche subjects.

These Reddits may not be the best for your affiliate marketing, but there are plenty of other reddits with commercial intent.

Why is that a good thing?

Because there are many opportunities to make passive income if there is commercial intent.

Back around 2009-2010, I did a bit of affiliate marketing on Quora and it worked well. It still works. 

You can use automated tools, but they can often screw things up. If you have spare time, do affiliate marketing on Quora manually.

Here’s how: 

A typical question posted on Quora:

What is the best way to stop snoring? I am a male 53, slightly overweight. 

This would be an excellent opportunity for a novice affiliate marketer working in the snoring niche to show your expertise, point people towards your landing page, and recommend a few products.

Online communities are not the only way to achieve affiliate marketing success.

No one will pay attention to spammy posts written solely for the purpose of promoting affiliate links.

You'll be downvoted until oblivion, and then eventually you'll be banned.

Like any other piece of content marketing, adding value can help you gain traction on sites such as Quora or Reddit.

Do not try to force a lot of products down people's throats.

Instead, give thoughtful, well-researched solutions that help other users solve their problems.

You can also ask questions and interact with others.

This will make you appear as a knowledgeable member who recommends relevant products or services.

3. YouTube

Another effective way to promote affiliate links is to create a YouTube channel.

We've even written a complete walk-through to YouTube affiliate marketing.

YouTube videos can generate a lot of traffic.

YouTube is able to reach more adults on mobile devices than any cable network during prime time, besides being used by 95% of all people with an internet connection globally according to Global Media Insight (2).

How can you make money through affiliate marketing with YouTube?

It's actually quite simple.

Make YouTube videos that include affiliate products that are appealing to your audience and then add links to the products in the description.

YouTube offers many video formats and styles. Affiliate marketing will focus on the following:

• Product Reviews: In-depth reviews for a single product.
• Product Comparisons: Review-style pieces comparing two or more products.
• How-to guides: Informational content explaining how to solve a particular problem.
• Unboxing videos: Literally, someone opening a package to share the experience. 
• Best of videos: Roundups of the top products in a particular category or tailored for an occasion (e.g. Christmas gift guides).

Let's take a look at a City Prepping video that showcases their top “meals to cook on fire after a disaster” picks.

Scroll down to see the video description. You'll find links that point to Amazon's affiliate program.

City Prepping boasts 823,000 YouTube subscribers. Its most popular YouTube videos have millions upon millions of views. This makes it easy to see how many potential customers City Prepping is reaching.

This approach applies to almost any niche.

4. Paid Advertisement on Search Engines (Google Ads/Bing Ads)

It can be difficult to generate organic traffic through search engines if you are doing affiliate marketing without having a website.

Many no-website affiliate marketers rely heavily on paid ads, specifically search advertisements to bring in traffic.

Paid advertising is also known as pay-per-click (PPC) and involves bidding on keywords that are related to the products you promote.

Google highlights PPC ads by using the keyword " Ad" at the top and bottom search engine results pages.

This way searchers can tell if they are clicking on a paid link or an organic (i.e. free) one.

PPC ads are very easy to create.

Slam up some interesting text and you're now ready to go.

Or, maybe not so quick…

Like I said previously, search engines won’t allow you to link directly to an affiliate offer. You may get away with it on Bing, but not on Google. 

You may not need a website, but you will need a landing page.

And that's one of the factors that makes relying solely on paid traffic problematic.

Affiliate marketing niches often have very tight margins.

It is possible to only make a few dollars per sale.

Remember that only a few potential customers will click on your ads and buy.

You can't afford to spend large amounts on every click and with the landing page as a filter, even fewer people will see the actual offer. 

I love paid ads because they're fast and easy to use, but they’re not easy to use if you want to earn consistent high-margin income! You need to master copywriting and you need to be (or become) a master at tracking and optimizing your funnel.

While the average cost per click on Google Ads is between $2-4, Wordstream benchmarking data shows that some niches have an average cost per click of $8+.

It's not sustainable unless you are making huge commissions and converting at an incredible rate.

Google Ads is not easy for affiliates anymore. It’s now mainly for contractors, lawyers and others who are ok paying $20 a click.

5. Content-Publishing Platforms

A content publishing platform works in the same way as a blog, but without a website.

Medium and Steemit are two popular examples, but there are many other platforms.

SimilarWeb reports(3) that Steemit attracts approximately 3.5 million users per month, while Medium draws in 40 times as many users.

They're both huge platforms that have millions of users.

It is a simple and quick content publishing platform that can be used for affiliate marketing.

You can create a profile and write a post. Add an affiliate link, if necessary.

Make sure you include an affiliate disclosure explaining how you will earn a commission on any sales made through these links.

This method is kind of a hack or "piggyback" technique, and while it still works gangbusters there is no guarantee that it will work a year from now or even tomorrow.

6. Social media

Are you already using social media to reach a large audience?

Perhaps you are looking to grow your following on one of the major social media platforms.

It doesn't matter what your social media status is, affiliate marketing can help you turn it into passive income.

Every social media platform is unique. And whether you are marketing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or TikTok dictates the way you do your marketing. 

Instagram and TikTok don't allow you to promote affiliate links via social media posts. You'll have to link directly from your bio. This makes things a bit more difficult. Many affiliates therefore use a tool like Linktr.ee to be able to create a landing page for different affiliate offers. Paid tools also make it possible to add clickable links directly in posts.

The general idea applies regardless of whether you are using a Facebook profile, a TikTok account, or any other type of website:

Write content that appeals- to and recommends products to your target audience. Link to them.

You can direct people to your landing page or the advertiser’s product page.

7. Email Marketing

We have already discussed how email can offer a high return on investment.

It is also very affordable. You will likely need some email marketing software. However, platforms such as GetResponse provide cheap plans that are ideal for affiliate marketers. MailChimp even got free plans to get you started.

Email is thus effectively a free traffic source.

As with all things in life, however, there is a problem.

Before you can share tempting affiliate offers, you must encourage people to sign-up for your email list.

To do this, you will need a landing page with a compelling offer. You need an incentive to get people to give you their email addresses.

If you have a strong presence already and are a known and trusted person within your niche then getting sign-ups can be easy. However, it can be difficult to get people on your list if you are a new affiliate marketer.

Running paid ads to a signup form can speed up the process, but it is still no easy feat.

8. E-books & Whitepapers

Ebooks have become a prominent part of B2B marketing. 

It is easy to see how they are so popular.

Ebooks are an excellent example of thought-leadership content marketing. Research (3) has shown that the majority of business decision-makers spend at most one hour per week reading thought leadership content. 

If you are a B2B affiliate marketer, ebooks are a great tactic.

They can work in the B2C market, too. All you need is to choose the right topic.

Ebooks can also be a great way to build your email list.

You can add a lead capture form on your landing page to offer your shiny new ebook in return for your name and email address.

You will need to create an ebook in order to use it in your affiliate marketing strategy. It should be at least 3,000 words long. Then package it as a PDF.

Your ebook should:

• Talk to the pain points of your audience
• Offer a solution
• Recommend relevant affiliate products

After you have done all of that, you need to find a way for your ebook to be promoted.

You will need to combine ebooks with at minimum one of the other strategies in this article.

You could, for example, seed it in online communities and share it on social media.

9. Podcasts

Podcasts aren’t the best way to promote affiliate marketing without a website.

They are an audio medium which makes them unsuitable for affiliate marketing.

What are you going to do? Your referral link will be spelled out character by character. 

Even better: Say something like “Use code MartinsSummer20 to get 20% off your next order at Zalando!” That way you don’t need an affiliate link (not applicable for all cases) but you still get credited for the order.

You can also do an intro, midway and an outro stating “This episode's sponsor is Turner Tools. Go to MartinsPodcast.com for a special discount today!” 

For the latter method to work, you need to buy a domain and point it to your Linktr.ee page. Then you add an affiliate link on your linktree with a discount code. 

Podcasts are just too popular to ignore.

A 2022 survey (4) revealed that 37% of Americans listen to podcasts monthly. This is an increase from 52% in 2021. In 2018 the number was 26% so you can see the number of listeners is growing 5-6% annually.

How can you get in on this act?

Discuss products related to your niche, and use the linktr.ee method or include show-notes. Maybe you also upload the episodes to YouTube (hey, bonus tip: Film the podcast!) and you have doubled the content created.

Be sure to tell your listeners where to find these links. If you don't, nobody will be able to see them or click on them.

10. Solo Ads

Have you ever heard of solo ads before?

They are a remnant of the early days of affiliate marketing when everybody did it without a website.

They can still be useful if they are used in the right conditions.

Solo ads allow you to pay for access to a marketing list. Based on:

• How many people will see your message?
• How many clicks would you like to get?

The message will typically be all about your affiliate offer. This allows you to reach large audiences without having to build your own email list.

Solo ads can lead to major problems in practice.

It is impossible to determine the quality of the list that you are paying for.

Solo ads can easily cost $500 for 500 clicks these days. That’s clicks, not opt-ins. 

Didn’t convert to opt-ins? Got no sales? Noone opens the emails you send out?

You've just wasted a lot of money.

Platforms like Udimi promise protection against spam and fraud to make the solo ads space "legit" however it is FAR from perfect.

We used to run a quite successful solo ad service ourselves and we know the ins and outs of this business. It is riddled with fraudsters and people who think they sell legit solo ads not realizing they are re-selling fake email addresses that will never do anything good for your business. 

Even some of the biggest sellers in the solo ads space are using shady tactics. These tactics include email insertions (you get people on your list who have no clue they are added to your list!), and selling emails not belonging to real people. They use bots to create email addresses, and the bots then join your list but of course, they never buy anything from you (the most scrupulous ones use prepaid cards to buy from you so you give them a good review).

There are of course legit sellers, but we would still advise caution when advertising solo.

Tips for Affiliate Marketing without a Website

This article contains enough information to get you started with affiliate marketing without having to have a website.

Here are a few more tips we recommend you read before diving in…

Find Your Niche

Choosing a niche will be the first step in becoming an affiliate marketer.

Your niche should not be too wide. This will make it difficult to generate quality traffic.

If you narrow your niche too much, you will limit the reach of your audience.

You might be able to locate a sub-niche in a larger niche.

Instead of becoming an affiliate for your pet, you should be focusing on dog food and pet insurance.

Don’t Join “Pay-to-Promote” Affiliate Programs

While some great affiliate programs require you to pay to be able to promote them, most affiliate programs don’t. 

If you’re just starting, stay away from anything but free-to-join referral programs.

Affiliate Programs That Require a Website

If an affiliate program requires you to have your own site, it’s not for you.

Here's a list of major affiliate networks and programs that will accept no-website marketers to save you time.

ClickBank

ClickBank is a global e-commerce platform and affiliate marketplace. It was founded in 1998 and now serves over 6 million clients globally. The company ranks as the 87th largest Internet retailer in North America. Its affiliate program offers thousands of products to choose from. As an affiliate, you'll be paid a commission based on how many people buy a particular product through your links.

Expect on-time payments always and a lot of products to choose from.

Amazon Associates

Amazon Associates may be the most popular and successful affiliate program in the world.

The eCommerce marketplace sells all products under the sun, is trusted by consumers, and has excellent conversion rates.

It's therefore the first port of call for many affiliate marketers who are just starting out.

Amazon's affiliate commissions may not be the best, however they are still a great source of income for affiliate marketing.

ShareASale

ShareASale - Another affiliate network, that will work with you regardless of whether you have a website.

It has worked with over 21,000 brands in 39 consumer categories, including major names like Allbirds and Etsy.

Last year, the network paid out $1.3 Billion in commissions. This makes it a reliable income source for many affiliates.

Rakuten / LinkShare

Rakuten, previously known as LinkShare, is an affiliate network run by Japanese advertising and eCommerce giant Rakuten.

Commission Junction

But what about Commission Junction? It is an affiliate program network, like Clickbank and Rakuten, where you can promote thousands of different products. Unfortunately, to join the network, you must have a website or blog. 

Conclusion

Alright, so to answer the question “Can you be an affiliate marketer without a website?” the answer is yes you can.

However, there are some limitations. 

In this article you learned that:

1. Affiliate marketing can be done without a website.
2. It's much harder to be a successful affiliate marketer if you do not have a website.

Organic traffic won't come to you if there is no website (with a few exceptions as TikTok, IG, and Facebook posts may rank).

It is unlikely that you will be creating a saleable asset.

You'll also be excluded from some of the most prestigious affiliate networks and programs.

Don't be afraid to build a website!

If you need hand-holding, I am available for coaching. I have built hundreds of websites and can help you with everything from niche selection to eventually selling your website for a hefty paycheck.