Affiliate Marketing for Dummies: Where to start?

In this article we will tell you how to “get a feel” of this type of earnings, make your first money and figure out how to increase your income. If you’re a beginner, we recommend checking out our new free course.

What if I don’t have any channels, blogs, subscribers?

The answer is simple: use what you have. To get started, rally the resources that are available to you. It can be:

• Your accounts in social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram), even if your only friends there are your acquaintances, colleagues and relatives.
• Chats in messengers Telegram, WhatsApp, Viber (the more participants the better).
• Any other websites, where you already have accounts or it is easy to register: message boards, blogs, recommendation services.

They all have one thing in common: these are the platforms where people communicate, express their thoughts, discuss things they consider important, ask questions. In addition, you are surrounded by like-minded people who are interested in the same things as you are. Make a list of the resources that are available to you and where you can share your opinion and be heard — in correspondence, comments, posts.

Social network account

Now, it is time to take action. What can you do? Let’s start with your social network accounts.

• Remember the things you bought recently: clothes, shoes, children’s products… The important condition here: it must be a more or less well-known brand and this product must be sold in an online store. Even if you made your purchase offline, the same product must be available online.
• Find this product in the online store, go to its page, copy the link through the Admitad Lite extension. We wrote an article called “Admitad Extension. Lite and PRO“ about how it is done. It will be a great advantage if this product is available in several stores, and you can choose the best offer in terms of price and conditions.
• Write a review of the product: describe the things you liked, why you chose it, what you compared it with, how you would rate it. Literally one paragraph of text will suffice — there is no need to write an extended essay. The important thing is that you really like and use this product, otherwise the review will look insincere.
• Post the review on your page in Facebook, Twitter or other social net, do not forget to attach the active link to it.

In messengers

Let’s move on to chat rooms, dialogs and correspondence in social networks and instant messengers. What do you usually do in them? You discuss topical issues and problems, you share experiences, ask for advice. Others do the same, and you can help them.

Other websites

It is likely that you talked with people on message boards and in comments on social networks at least once, answered questions from unfamiliar users on the Internet, or even kept an online journal. Let us see what you can do:

• Choose a topic, on which you have an opinion, and products, on which you are ready to provide honest feedback.
• Surf your favorite websites, message boards, groups in social networks, recommendation services. Look for threads, titles of discussions, site searches with inquiries like “where to buy…” or “what would you recommend”.
• Leave your opinion in the discussion threads and support it with links. Be sincere and friendly, share your experiences, tell stories.
• Before you post any links, read the rules of the service, just in case: if the terms prohibit posting affiliate links (and links in general), then you really should not do it.

Check out the local groups of your city or region in social networks, theme publics about your hobbies, look for questions on services like Quora or Fluther, or even Reddit, surf the message boards on the topic of makeup, cooking, online games, the websites for car enthusiasts, gardeners … You can find them simply by entering the request “forum + topic name” into the search on Google, and the results will be listed for you.

What NOT to do

Here is what we do not recommend:

• Just dropping the link without a caption. It will look strange in your feed in Facebook (your subscribers will think that you have been hacked), and it will look inappropriate in a conversation.
• Spamming. There is no need to flood your correspondence with friends and acquaintances, message boards and comment sections with loads of links ― they should be on topic and they should be useful.
• Writing blatantly advertising texts and/or copy them from other websites. People do not believe advertisements ― they are far more interested in your personal opinion.

What is the next step?

If you managed to do some of the things we listed above, and you even made some money, your next step is growth. Here are a few options:

1. Try to make the “My Recommendations” column in your social network account permanent: a couple of times a week choose your favorite product and write a review on it.

2. Start your blog. Choose one of the blog platforms, that already has an audience and all the necessary tools, and start writing: it can be either in a form of a journal or a theme portal about something you are interested in.

Do you have any questions? Or maybe you need a more detailed plan? Sign up for our free course here.