The number one objection I hear from people who want to get into affiliate marketing is some version of: “Alston, I want to start, but I don’t have a following. You need a million subscribers to make real money.” My answer has always been the same: no, you don’t. Not even close. What you need is a clear path to putting an offer in front of people who are already looking for it. A following is one path. It is not the only path.
In this post I’m walking through five specific strategies you can use to start affiliate marketing today with zero audience. Some are free. Some cost money. All of them are real and they can work without a single follower, subscriber, or view count to your name. I still use several of these right now. Let’s get into it.
What You’ll Walk Out With
- A clear explanation of how solo ads work and what 300 clicks actually costs on Udimi
- The exact Facebook group method I used to grow my mailing list from zero using nothing but a profile cover photo
- How launch jacking works and how to find product launches before everyone else does using Muncheye
- Why Instagram shoutouts work better when you use a marketplace like Shoutcart instead of cold DMs
- Why Pinterest ads are my personal favorite for affiliate marketing and how to run them for $5 a day
- The honest drawbacks to each method so you can pick the one that fits your situation right now
- A free tool at finder.platformproof.com that helps you find the right platform and strategy for where you’re starting
Strategy 5: Solo Ads (Borrow Someone Else’s Email List)
Solo ads are one of the most direct paths to building an email list when you have no audience. Here is how it works: someone else already has a massive email list in your niche. You pay them to send an email promoting your landing page. People click, land on your opt-in page, give you their email in exchange for a freebie, and just like that you have subscribers you didn’t have before.
The platform I use for this is Udimi. When you log into Udimi, you can browse solo ad sellers by niche, filter by price and quality metrics, and see reviews from other buyers. You’re shopping for verified email traffic. The workflow is simple: find a seller whose audience matches your niche, decide how many clicks you want to buy, and send them your landing page link. The seller writes the promotional email, embeds your link, and sends it to their list.
To give you real numbers: 300 clicks on Udimi costs around $132 depending on the seller. That’s not free, but you’re not starting from zero either. You’re borrowing credibility and reach from someone who already built it. If your freebie is compelling and your landing page converts, you’ll walk away from that $132 spend with a list of new subscribers and, in some cases, a sale or two on the back end. Most of the revenue with solo ads comes from follow-up sequences in your autoresponder, not from the initial click, so don’t expect to profit immediately. Think of it as paid list building.
The key move here is to have a landing page ready before you buy anything. You are sending traffic somewhere. That somewhere needs to offer something valuable for free in exchange for an email address. A guide, a checklist, a short video series, anything that solves a real problem for the person clicking. Without that, you’re just paying for traffic that bounces with nothing to show for it.
Strategy 4: Facebook Groups (The Cover Photo Method)
This one is free and it is how I personally grew my mailing list and my Facebook group in the early days when I had zero following. The strategy runs on a simple insight: people in Facebook groups are already looking for help. When you give them that help, they become curious about who you are. That curiosity is the mechanism.
Start by searching Facebook for groups in your niche. If you’re in the dog training space, search “dogs” and filter for public groups. Join a few with active members. Then spend time answering questions. Not spammy answers. Not drive-by link drops. Real, helpful answers that actually move the needle for the person asking.
Two things happen when you do this consistently. First, the group admins notice. When you’re consistently adding value, you get promoted to moderator or trusted contributor status. That gives you more visibility inside the group. Second, the members get curious about you. They click on your profile picture to see who this person is that keeps giving good answers.
That’s where your cover photo does the work. My cover photo on Facebook says: “Alston Godbolt, affiliate marketing coach, helping you earn affiliate commissions on autopilot.” When someone interested in making money online clicks on my profile and sees that cover photo, they want to know more. They look for a link. My profile has a link to a landing page. That click goes from a group I didn’t build, to my page, to my list. No followers required.
Set up your cover photo as a mini billboard. Your name, your promise, your call to action. Then add your landing page link to your profile’s featured section. Every person who gets curious about you after seeing your helpful comment becomes a potential list subscriber. This is not a volume game where you blast the same link in fifty groups. It’s a quality game where you build a small reputation in a few groups and let the curiosity funnel do its job.
Strategy 3: Launch Jacking (Ride a Product Release to Free Traffic)
Launch jacking means creating content around a new product right when it launches, before the internet has had time to saturate that keyword. When a new digital product comes out, the people who received promotional emails about it start Googling the product name. They want a review. They want to know if it’s real. They want someone to break it down for them. You can be that person, and you can rank near the top of Google or YouTube for that product name because there is almost no competition yet.
The site that shows you every upcoming launch in the digital product world is called Muncheye. Go to Muncheye and you’ll see launches scheduled for every day of the week. Some of the biggest names in the industry, like Neil Napier, use major launches to recruit super affiliates and promise them 50 to 75 percent commissions. Those super affiliates send emails to millions of people. Some fraction of those people Google the product name. That search traffic is looking for reviews and comparisons, and almost no content exists for the product yet because it just launched.
Here’s the proof this works: a product called “15 million PLRs” that was only four days old had a YouTube review video with 573 views. The channel that posted that video had 102 subscribers. 573 views with 102 subscribers is significant. The views aren’t coming from subscribers. They’re coming from search. That’s what launch jacking looks like in the wild.
You have two ways to execute this. Free route: create a blog post or YouTube video reviewing the product the day it launches. Use the product name in your title, in your headings, and in your description. Because there’s almost no competing content, you rank fast. Paid route: run a Google Ads campaign targeting the product name plus “review.” In the example of “simpler traffic,” a $2,000 course that just launched, there was already a sponsored Google result. Someone was buying that keyword and paying per click to show up at the top. Either way, the window is short. Launch jacking works in the first few days or weeks of a product’s existence, before bigger sites cover it.
Your embed your affiliate link inside the review. When someone reads your content, watches your video, or clicks your ad and then purchases the product, you earn the commission. You don’t need a following. You need to be in the right place before anyone else is.
Not sure which of these five strategies matches your actual situation?
Answer seven quick questions at finder.platformproof.com and get a personalized recommendation for where to start based on your time, budget, and skills.
Strategy 2: Instagram Shoutouts via Shoutcart
Buying shoutouts from Instagram influencers is a real strategy, but most people do it wrong. They slide into a random influencer’s DMs, offer money for a post, and either get ignored or get burned by someone who takes the payment and delivers almost nothing. Influencers with large followings receive hundreds of messages a week. Your cold DM is not going to stand out.
The better approach is to use a marketplace. Shoutcart is one of the better-known platforms for this. Instead of reaching out to individual influencers cold, you browse a curated list of influencers who have opted in to selling shoutouts. The platform verifies engagement, shows you pricing upfront, and gives you some accountability that a cold DM never would.
On Shoutcart you can filter by niche. If you’re promoting a fitness product, search the fitness category and browse by following size and engagement rate. The pricing structures separate out different types of posts. A 24-hour feed post costs one amount. An Instagram Story placement costs a different amount. Stories tend to be less expensive but also disappear in 24 hours, while a feed post sticks around longer. You give the influencer your landing page link, they post about your offer to their audience, and you collect the opt-ins or clicks that result.
The one rule that matters most here: match the offer to the audience. If you find a female fitness influencer with 200,000 followers and buy a shoutout, you cannot promote a make-money-online offer. Her audience follows her for fitness content. Promote a fitness supplement, a workout program, or a nutrition guide. When the offer matches what her audience already cares about, the conversion rate goes up. When it doesn’t match, you have wasted money regardless of the influencer’s reach. Get this right and you can go back to the same influencer again and again as long as the results are there.
Strategy 1: Pinterest Ads (The Buyer-Ready Platform)
Pinterest is my personal favorite for affiliate marketing and it doesn’t get the attention it deserves. Most people think of Pinterest as a place to save recipes and home decor ideas. What they miss is that the people on Pinterest are overwhelmingly in a purchase mindset. They’re not scrolling to kill time the way people scroll Twitter or Instagram. They’re searching for a solution, collecting options, and getting ready to buy.
On top of that, Pinterest ads blend into the organic content in a way that almost no other platform matches. Scroll through Pinterest and you’ll see pins for products and services mixed right in with organic pins. The label is there, but the experience feels native. People click because the pin is relevant to what they’re already looking for, not because an ad interrupted them.
The setup for this strategy looks like this: create a blog post that covers the topic your affiliate product solves. Embed your affiliate links naturally inside that post. Then create a Pinterest ad that links to your blog post. When someone clicks the pin, they land on your content. When they click through to the affiliate product from your content and buy, you get the commission. Your blog post acts as the bridge between the curious Pinterest user and the product you’re promoting.
The economics work at a small scale. Pinterest ads can run for as little as $5 per day. Cost per click can come in around 10 cents. At that price point you’re driving 50 clicks a day on a $5 budget while targeting people who are already looking for whatever your niche covers. You don’t need tens of thousands of monthly visitors to your blog. You need the right people, and Pinterest’s targeting lets you reach them.
The demographics matter too. Pinterest users skew toward people with disposable income who are in a problem-solving mode. That combination, money to spend and a reason to spend it, is exactly what affiliate marketing needs on the other end of the link.
Honest Drawbacks of Each Method
Every strategy here works. None of them work without effort and none of them are risk-free. Here is what you need to know before you pick one.
Solo ads require money upfront and the quality of email lists varies widely. Some Udimi sellers have built real, engaged lists. Others have lists full of freebie seekers who never buy anything. Read the reviews carefully before you buy. Start with a small order, 100 to 200 clicks, to test a seller before scaling. If your landing page doesn’t convert, you’re paying to build a list of people who won’t buy from you either.
Facebook groups take patience. You’re not going to see results after one helpful comment. This is a strategy that builds over weeks and months. The groups with the most engaged members often have strict rules about promotion, so you need to be genuinely helpful first and let the funnel do the selling. If you get flagged as a spammer early, you’ll get removed and lose the opportunity entirely.
Launch jacking has a short window. If you miss the first week or two of a launch, the content gap closes and you’re competing against sites with real domain authority. You also need to move fast, which means sometimes reviewing a product you haven’t personally tested. Be careful here. If your review is misleading, you’re building a reputation on a bad foundation. Focus on product launches where you can provide actual value in the review, not just chase commissions.
Instagram shoutouts are hard to predict. Even using Shoutcart, you’re paying for access to an audience, not a guaranteed conversion. The influencer’s audience might not be in buying mode that week. Your landing page might not convert. The offer might not resonate even if the niche matches. Treat it like split testing: small spends to find influencers whose audiences convert for your offer, then scale with those specific people.
Pinterest ads need a real blog post to send traffic to. If you try to send Pinterest traffic directly to an affiliate link, you’ll likely violate Pinterest’s ad policies and get your account flagged. The blog post in the middle is not optional. It’s the buffer that makes the whole thing work and also gives you SEO value on the side.
How to Pick the Right Starting Point
Looking at these five strategies together, the natural question is which one to start with. The answer depends on three things: your budget, your time availability, and how fast you want to see movement.
If you have no money and a lot of time, start with Facebook groups and launch jacking. Both are free. Both reward consistency and speed over spending. If you have some budget and want to build an asset, solo ads are the path to growing an email list fastest. If you have budget and want to test quickly without building anything, Instagram shoutouts or Pinterest ads let you put an offer in front of buyers today. Pinterest gets the edge if you’re willing to set up a basic blog post first, because you’re building something durable alongside the paid traffic.
Find Your X
The hardest part of affiliate marketing for most people isn’t the strategy. It’s knowing which strategy fits where they actually are right now, given their skills, schedule, and starting budget. If you want a straight answer on where to begin, go to finder.platformproof.com. Answer seven questions and you’ll get a clear recommendation for the platform and approach that fits your real situation, not someone else’s success story.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a website to start affiliate marketing without an audience?
For most of these strategies, no. Solo ads and Instagram shoutouts only need a landing page, which can be built with a free tool like Mailchimp or ConvertKit landing pages in under an hour. For launch jacking and Pinterest ads, a basic blog is helpful and will improve your results, but it doesn’t need to be elaborate. Facebook groups require nothing except your profile and a cover photo.
How much money do I realistically need to get started?
The Facebook group method and launch jacking via YouTube or a free blog cost nothing. Solo ads on Udimi run about $132 for 300 clicks, which is a reasonable entry point. Instagram shoutouts through Shoutcart vary by influencer but you can find micro-influencer posts for $20 to $50 to start testing. Pinterest ads can run at $5 per day, so $30 to $50 a week is enough to gather real data. None of these require thousands of dollars upfront.
What is Udimi and is it safe to use?
Udimi is a solo ads marketplace that vets sellers and shows verified buyer reviews. It’s one of the most established platforms for buying email traffic in the make-money-online and digital marketing niches. It’s not a guarantee of results, but it’s more accountable than reaching out to random sellers off social media. Read reviews, start small, and don’t buy from anyone with limited or unclear feedback history.
What is launch jacking and does it still work?
Launch jacking is creating content, typically a review post or YouTube video, around a new digital product right at or before its launch date. It works because there’s very little competing content when a product first comes out, so you can rank on Google or YouTube without high domain authority or a large channel. The 573-views-with-102-subscribers example from Muncheye is real data showing it still produces traffic for small creators. The window is short, usually the first one to two weeks, so speed matters.
How do I find product launches to jack?
Muncheye is the go-to resource. It lists upcoming launches in the digital product space, including launch dates, commission percentages, and the names of the product creators. You can also subscribe to email lists from major affiliate marketers in your niche. When they send emails promoting a new product, that’s a signal that a launch is happening right now and people are searching for information about it.
Why use Shoutcart instead of DM-ing influencers directly?
Large influencers receive far more DMs than they can respond to, and even when they do respond, the transaction is informal with no accountability on either side. Shoutcart creates a structured marketplace where influencers have listed their rates, their audience data is visible, and there’s a platform mediating the deal. You’re more likely to get what you paid for when there’s a third party involved than when you’re negotiating a cash deal through Instagram’s inbox.
Why does niche-matching matter so much for Instagram shoutouts?
An influencer’s followers follow them for a specific reason. A fitness influencer’s audience is there for fitness content. If your shoutout promotes something unrelated to fitness, those followers have no context for why they should care. The mismatch kills conversions. Even a smaller influencer in the exact right niche will outperform a massive influencer whose audience has no interest in your offer. Niche match matters more than follower count.
Why are Pinterest users better buyers than users on other platforms?
Pinterest functions more like a search engine than a social feed. People arrive with a specific intent: they’re looking for ideas, solutions, or products in a category they’re already interested in. That intent-driven behavior means the person clicking your pin is further along in the decision process than someone who sees an ad while mindlessly scrolling. Combine that with Pinterest’s demographics skewing toward users with higher disposable income, and you have a traffic source that converts well for affiliate offers.
Read Next
If the Facebook group strategy caught your attention, there is more depth worth reading. Building a mailing list through Facebook groups is one piece, but turning that traffic into consistent daily income takes a specific process that goes beyond just showing up and answering questions.
Read: How to Make $100 Per Day With Facebook Groups
Sources
- Udimi solo ads marketplace: udimi.com
- Muncheye product launch calendar: muncheye.com
- Shoutcart influencer marketplace: shoutcart.com
- Pinterest Ads: business.pinterest.com
- Original video: Alston Godbolt, alstongodbolt.com
Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.