How to Do Affiliate Marketing Without a Blog

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Suppose you’ve been following through on our recent post updates. By now, you must have understood what affiliate marketing is and how it works—things to avoid and how to make a decent income.

I have covered many aspects of affiliate marketing in a series of posts on this blog. If you’re new to affiliate marketing, look at those posts first. You can find them here.

One of the most frequent questions I received was about affiliate marketing without a blog. Some of my audience doesn’t have a website, but they like making money from affiliate marketing.

If you’re curious too and what to know if you can start an affiliate marketing business without a blog, you’re on the right page.

I will answer the question below.

I also provide tactics you can leverage for affiliate marketing without a blog. You will learn how to turn what you’re doing into affiliate marketing tools.

So read on…

but first, let me answer the question.

Can I Run Affiliate Marketing Without a Blog?

Well, the short answer is “Yes.”

You can do affiliate marketing without a website and be successful with it. At the same time, the long answer is a bit complex and needs some explanations.

First, while I understand your reasons for starting an affiliate marketing business without a website, it is important to know that some merchants won’t approve your application if you don’t have a blog. And not just a blog, but an established one with a decent traffic volume, for that matter.

Secondly, before you invest money, energy, and time promoting your affiliate products, you must review the merchant affiliate terms and conditions so that you don’t get into trouble with breaking the laws and orders of an affiliate program.

Since some of the tactics involved in running affiliate marketing without a website might go against some merchants’ terms and conditions, for instance, direct PPC traffic to the product page is prohibited in some affiliate programs.

Some affiliate programs don’t allow this type of referral traffic from their affiliates. Your affiliate account may be suspended if you direct PPC traffic to an affiliate offer.

Thirdly, think of long-term value. Do you want to make this a solid business for the long-term future, or do you want to enjoy it while it lasts?

If you want this to be a long-term business, then, by all means, start with a blog of your own. It is more profitable and secure and generates consistent passive income than running without a personal blog.

These are just a few things to consider before taking this route.

How to Do Affiliate Marketing Without a Website

A website is an advantage for many businesses, especially in this age of advanced technology. And the internet, everyone is coming online to do business. So, in practice, running an affiliate marketing business without a blog is never the best marketing strategy.

Nevertheless, if you stick your head to it, here are some effective tactics to run affiliate marketing without a blog.

1. Mobile Marketing

Technology has made communication easier. Now, with a few clicks on the button, you can instantly reach millions of users within your preferred marketing channel.

I can bet that almost every adult has a mobile phone today. Whether it is a smartphone or not, everyone owns a mobile communication device. This is a great communication channel to reach people you’re interested in.

You can buy databases of mobile phone users and reach out with your affiliate offer. But be careful with this type of marketing because, in some countries, it might be illegal to do this without permission from the appropriate authority.

Do your research to ensure this doesn’t go against the law of your country.

Mobile communication is very effective in today’s world. No matter the type of mobile phone, everyone receives SMS messages on their phone.

The downside to this type of marketing is that not every affiliate offer could be a good fit for mobile marketing. Some affiliates offer to convert better with a desktop view, like web hosting, SEO software, WordPress Plugins, etc.

But it is still a suitable means of marketing your affiliate products. It is up to the users to decide which device is more convenient for the task.

2. Create eBooks for your Affiliate Offer

At first, you may think that writing an eBook will take forever. But it doesn’t take anything that far. You can have your eBook ready within a few days if you want.

If you don’t like the idea of writing the eBook yourself, you can outsource it to freelancers and have it done for you in a couple of days. You instruct the freelancer on what you want to achieve—your overall goal and how you want the eBook to come out.

The strategy goes like this:

Let’s say you want to promote several web hosting affiliate products.

You can hire an experienced freelancer with a vast knowledge of web hosting requirements, page speed, website performance study, etc. A freelancer with advanced knowledge in such a field will produce quality information that will make your eBook great.

You will need to work together on the project. It gives you access to preview the book as it progresses. Don’t forget to add your affiliate links where necessary in the book and, if possible, at the footer of every page.

This is the reason you’re writing the book. To promote your affiliate links and generate sales.

If your eBook is successful, it could give you a long-lasting result. People who read your eBook for years to come will still have the opportunity to see your affiliate links. From your one-time efforts, you can reap the rewards for years.

I had done this in the past when I wrote an eBook on How to start a blog. I have a chapter in the book explaining why web hosting is important to your blog’s existence. Then I freely recommend a web hosting company and insert my affiliate links.

If I continue promoting that eBook and people keep reading it, I might make some sales and earn commissions.

Pro Tip: Give away your eBook for free, and consider a paid promotion for it. It will reach more people than when you rely on free distribution channels.

Upload your eBook to a free PDF-sharing site, then distribute the link to your audience.

There are many of them online.

• Google Drive.
• Scribd.
• Slide Share.
• 4Shared.
• Media Fire.

3. Advertise Using PPC

I discussed this in the last installment of this series. Using PPC (pay-per-click) for an affiliate marketing campaign is one of the best marketing decision-making methods.

Either with or without a website, advertising is one of the best ways to quickly scale and reach thousands of audiences interested in your offers. Advertising platforms like Bing, Yahoo Gemini, Facebook, Reddit, etc., are good places to start.

Note: If you want to advertise with Google ads, research what is allowed and what’s not. Google has a strict policy when it comes to accepting ads. Since you’re running ads to the merchant website directly, you need to be careful, so your advertising account doesn’t get banned.

The answers below were taken from the Google Ads Help Center.

According to Google’s ads policy, running ads on landing pages, you do not control the content, violates their advertising policy. As with most affiliate marketing, you don’t have control over the content on the product page.

Learn as You Grow…

If you’re new to paid marketing, it is easy to lose all the money you put into it without making a dime in return. However, you will learn from it and adjust better in your next project.

Experience and data analysis are two essential ingredients for success in online marketing. You will gain both in running PPC (pay-per-click) ads.

There is no universal approach to running pay-per-click advertising. It’s about tweaking, testing, and adjusting your ad set to discover what works. As you grow in it, you will learn better and gradually master your game.

Before running PPC ads, read the merchant’s PPC keyword rules. Many merchants forbid their affiliates from bidding on some branded search terms.

What are Branded Search Terms?

The best definition I have come across is from Search Engine Land:

 A brand keyword (aka branded keyword or brand term) is the keyword used to search for a company name. A recognizable example is “Macy’s.” Note that brand keywords can include obvious typos, such as “Macys.”

A brand-plus keyword, meanwhile, refers to a keyword phrase that includes the brand term plus a qualifying phrase. An example would be “Adidas running shoe.”

Source

I have been guilty of this before. I run the PPC campaign targeting branded terms + and qualifying phrases. The merchant had to reach out to the ad agency. But the ad agency refused to stop the ad, so the merchant decided to suspend my affiliate account.

The suspension was lifted after I stopped running the ads. You can see the email message in the image below.

So be careful when selecting your keywords list. Don’t target the program’s branded keywords. Most merchants will provide you with a list of branded search terms you shouldn’t target in your PPC campaign.

You can always see it on the merchant affiliate program details.

4. Social Media Marketing

Facebook is expected to see up to 1.69 billion users in 2020.

This is Facebook alone.

Suppose you consider the numbers in other social media channels. Marketing on social media is a must for your affiliate marketing business.

Facebook Page

Promoting your affiliate offers is easier if you own a Facebook page with a decent following. Facebook page is like blogging on rented land.

You create a page to attract followers by sharing relevant, interesting stuff. This could be your content or other content creators on the web.

An excellent way to use a Facebook page is to create your page around a specific theme or topic. For instance, if your page is in the writing service category, your content should focus on improving the writing skills of your followers.

To make them better writers.

You start by writing a series of updates to engage your audience in the discussion. You do this to educate them about the subject. And build trust with your followers.

Trust plays a significant factor in the success of the affiliate marketing business. The more your audience trusts your content and recommendations, the more sales you can make.

Facebook Group

Facebook groups are also viable, but you must consider what is allowed in the group. Some groups don’t allow promotion of any kind.

Facebook groups allow people to come together for a common cause. Discuss the relevant issues and share relevant content and ideas.

This is perfect for promoting relevant affiliate marketing products in the group without Spammy appearing.

The best strategy for affiliate marketing using the Facebook group is to start your own. This will allow you to control the activities of the group. In a highly active Facebook group, posts are quickly buried in minutes. But as the admin, you can pin your post to the top of the page.

If you’re an expert on the subject that your group caters to, it makes it easier to share your affiliate links. Group members look up to you for expert opinions and advice. This is good for giving your recommendations where necessary.

Other Social Media Channels

The brutal trust about social media for affiliate marketing is that you won’t make much from it if you don’t have a decent followers count. Many articles dedicate excellent teaching to how you can do affiliate marketing without a blog using social media.

But here is the truth…

Marketing on social media is as complex as building a blog from scratch. It is more challenging if you don’t have a budget to run paid ads. Gaining attraction on social media has become a pay-to-plug.

Organic reach has declined to the barest minimum. If you want to get seen and attract massive followers, you will have to pay for it in most cases.

Conclusion….

Running affiliate marketing without a blog is possible and legit. But it is never the best strategy to make long-term passive income and build a solid business from affiliate marketing.

As I said earlier in this post, specific scenarios and situations could make anyone want to start affiliate marketing without a blog or website.

How have you been running your affiliate marketing business?