Can I Make Money As An Affiliate Marketer Without A Website?

3 Apr 2023 • 6 min read

You've probably been told on every affiliate platform that you have to have a website with 10,000+ hits per month to become an affiliate marketer. But, we're here to tell you this isn't the case. Quite literally, it couldn't be further from the truth.

At Avelon, we have a wealth of affiliates on our platform that don't rely on a highly ranking website to drive sales, and our top affiliates actually use social media and a variety of other sources to drive sales through their network. In fact, 40% of all affiliate sales are through social media sources.

In this article, we'll answer:

Can anyone become an Affiliate Marketer?
What are the different types of Affiliate Marketing?
Can I use Social Media to be an affiliate marketer?
Can I use Youtube to be an affiliate marketer?
Can I use WhatsApp or Discord to be an affiliate marketer?
Can I use QR codes to become an affiliate marketer?
Can I use an email list to be an affiliate marketer?
Can I text people to become an affiliate marketer?
Can I use Reddit to become an affiliate marketer?

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We'd recommend giving our article FAQs: What Traffic Source Drives The Most Affiliate Marketing Sales? a read. It highlights every source of affiliate sales across our portfolio and the wider web, to show how you can take advantage of different affiliate sales avenues.

Can anyone become an affiliate marketer?

Anyone can be an affiliate marketer. As long as you can create a link, send/receive an email, know people or even send a text, you can delve into the world of affiliate marketing and work in either an online, offline or hybrid capacity.

What are the different types of affiliate marketing?

There are many types of affiliate marketer, ranging from discount code websites to email marketers and even in-person affiliates. We split our affiliate marketers into two segments:

Online and Offline

Online affiliate marketing

Online affiliate marketers use a huge host of platforms to gain commission through sales. The most popular forms of online affiliate marketing are:

Organic Search Websites

Organic Search Websites base themselves on writing and presenting in-depth reviews on products to inform the consumer. These websites rank incredibly high on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Alongside these reviews, they will tag products with links and discount codes. Examples of these Organic Search Affiliate Websites could be Which? BikeRadar or even Good Housekeeping.

Paid Search / Coupon / Discount Code websites

Paid Search / Coupon / Discount Code websites are much like Organic Search websites, but put more emphasis on discount codes and consumers at the end of the buying journey. They will only bid on Search Terms that relate to discounts such as 'Buy Chair Discount' or 'PC World Discount Code'.

These sites run on computer automation and most of the time, are owned/operated by a Software Developer.

Organic Social Media

Organic Social Media affiliates are simply Influencers who post discount codes and links in their Instagram stories, TikTok videos or even Twitter posts. You'll need to have a good sized following to create any volume of sales, but it's still worth posting if you have anywhere upwards of 500 followers.

Paid Social Media

Paid Social Media Affiliate Marketing is targeting based and relies on the Affiliate to have an in-depth understanding and experience in paid media. These Affiliates will typically work in digital marketing and have the ability to track and target consumers based on their buying behaviours. If Paid Social Media is something you've not tried before, we recommend not jumping in without a lot of practice and a solid strategy.

Posting on Forums

Whilst Posting on Forums in time consuming, it has the highest conversion rate of any Traffic Source. These Affiliates provide insightful information into products and answers questions others have, making them a valid and trustworthy source. Anyone can get into this type of Affiliate Marketing, as long as you've got some time on your hands.

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Want to learn How Much Money An Affiliate Marketer Makes Per Year? Check out our article!

Offline Affiliate Marketing

Offline Affiliate Marketing is interaction based and requires you to either have a wide network of likeminded individuals, or be willing to go out and speak to people at events. A good example of Offline Affiliate Marketing is hosting an event and offering anyone who attends the event a discount code to purchase online.

The list for Offline Affiliate Marketing is much smaller, but the top Offline Affiliate Channels are:

QR codes
Texts
In-person referrals
WhatsApp (whilst technically online, is an Offline source)
We've even had one single sale from someone who AirDropped an image with a discount code on to a stranger, and they purchased. Crazy!

Yes, of course you can use social media to become an affiliate marketer! You just need to understand the different types of marketers there are on social media, and decide which one you'd like to fit into.

Social media affiliate marketing is split into multiple categories: affiliates and influencers.

In the past 5-years, these two categories have been divided more than ever before, with brands pushing marketing budget into influencers over affiliates - however, affiliates provide a clearer return on investment for brands and cost little to no investment up front, meaning that affiliates are providing more bang for their buck.

Quite simply: Affiliates promote products on social media through links and discount codes, whilst Influencers promote products by just taking a photo or featuring a product in a video. Affiliates have a call-to-action (CTA), whilst Influencers have no call-to-action.

Whilst working as an Affiliate marketer is based on commission, to become a social media influencer, you'll need to have a wide reach (25k+) on various social media platforms and previous experience in creating high-quality content for brands.

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A call to action (CTA) is a statement or instruction that encourages the audience to take a specific action, such as clicking a button, subscribing to a service, or making a purchase.

Can I use Youtube to become an Affiliate Marketer?

Youtube accounts for 5% of all our Affiliate Sales on Avelon, making it an incredible tool for affiliates looking to promote discount codes and links alongside providing unique content to sway potential consumers.

You'll need a fair few subscribers to start generating sales on Youtube, but 9% of our affiliates use the platform as their main source of affiliate revenue.

Can I use WhatsApp or Discord to be an affiliate marketer?

Closed network groups such as WhatsApp, are a great way to promote discount codes and links to potential consumers, and you know that your target audience already knows who you are.

To succeed as a WhatsApp / Discord affiliate marketer, we recommend building groups who you know are interested in the product you're going to promote. Be upfront about what happens when they use your link or discount code and don't spam users continuously with links and discount codes. That's one sure fire way to get blocked!

Can I use QR codes to be an affiliate marketer?

QR codes are technically Call-To-Actions (CTA's), so yes, you can use QR codes to become an affiliate marketer. Avelon has a built in QR builder feature, so you can have a QR code on your phone or print one off to use on stickers or on event flyers.

We work with multiple brands that use QR codes at events, on leaflets, flyers and mail shots to track how well their marketing campaigns are performing.

0.09% of all affiliate sales on our platform are through QR codes, but it's still a good choice if you're more inclined to be attending networking events.

Can I use an email list to be an affiliate marketer?

Building email lists were the original affiliate marketing source, alongside Organic Search. Of course, using email marketing to promote affiliate links can be done, but you do actually need a website and an anti-spam filter to capture these leads. If you have neither of these, we'd recommend moving onto the next step.

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Some email marketing services such as MailChimp and Ometria actually block redirected affiliate links that aren't associated with the original domain you're linking to. Read the services' terms & conditions beforehand.

Can I text people and be an affiliate marketer?

Much like WhatsApp, you can of course text people discount codes and links. Whilst it's not the highest converting traffic source, texts can be more personalised (if you're willing to put the time in) and we see about 0.5% of total affiliate sales coming through iMessage links.

Can I use Reddit to become an affiliate marketer?

Reddit is an incredible source for driving Affiliate Marketing sales. Once again, you'll need a following, a good understanding of how Reddit's hierachy of content works and to be part of a good number of threads, but Reddit drives 0.2% of our total affiliate sales.