How To Start Affiliate Marketing For Beginners With No Money or Experience (Step 3): Finding a Traffic Source

You found a niche. You joined an affiliate program. And now you are staring at a screen wondering why nothing is happening. The answer is almost always the same thing: nobody knows you exist yet. You have a product to promote but no audience to promote it to. That gap is exactly what step three fills. Traffic.

In this video, Alston walks through what traffic actually means and then uses a real product, the Sony Alpha 7R4 camera, to demonstrate that people are already asking questions about that product on Google, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook, photography forums, and Reddit. The same audience exists across all of those platforms. Your job in step three is to pick one and start showing up there.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear definition of what traffic means so the concept stops being vague
The two-question framework Alston uses to pick a traffic source
A breakdown of eight specific platforms and how they compare for affiliate beginners
Real view and follower numbers from Alston’s live searches in the video
Why Pinterest is a smart pairing for both blogs and YouTube channels
The consistency rule that separates people who build affiliate income from people who quit
A free quiz at finder.platformproof.com to help you figure out which traffic source fits your skills and situation

What Traffic Actually Means

Most beginners hear the word traffic and think it is some advanced marketing concept they do not understand yet. It is not. Traffic just means people. Specifically, it means where people are hanging out on the internet right now, asking questions about the products and topics you decided to promote.

There are billions of people online, but they are not all in the same place. Some of them are watching YouTube. Others are scrolling TikTok. Some are reading blogs they found on Google. Others are deep inside Facebook groups, answering each other’s questions about cameras, or posting on Reddit subreddits dedicated to specific gear. Those people are your future audience. They are already looking for information. Your job is not to drag them somewhere new. Your job is to go where they already are and create content that answers their questions.

When someone reads your content, watches your video, or reads your answer on Quora, and then clicks your affiliate link and buys something, you earn a commission. That is the entire model. Traffic is just the first piece. But you cannot start without picking a place to create content. That is what step three is about.

The Two Questions That Pick Your Platform

Alston gets asked constantly: what is the best traffic source? His answer is two questions, not one platform name. Question one: where is your target audience hanging out? Question two: where do you like creating content? Both questions matter equally. If you skip either one, you are going to run into a problem.

If you pick a platform where your audience lives but you hate creating content there, you will stop as soon as the initial excitement wears off. If you pick a platform you love but your audience is somewhere else, you will put in the work and get almost no results. The goal is to find the overlap: a platform where your audience is already active and where you will want to show up consistently for months.

Alston gives a real example from his own history. He started a blog about soundbars. He wrote about ten posts. Then he stopped. Not because it was not working, but because he did not want to write about soundbars and he did not enjoy blogging. That soundbar blog still gets traffic and still earns Amazon commissions today, years later. But he left a lot of potential income on the table because he picked content he could not commit to long term. That is the mistake step three is designed to help you avoid.

Platform One: Google and Blogging

Google is one of the biggest search engines on the planet and one of the most powerful traffic sources for affiliate marketers. People type in product names, questions, and comparisons constantly. When Alston searched the Sony Alpha 7R4 on Google, he found review videos, buying guides, and in-depth tutorials. There is clearly demand for this content and people are actively searching for it.

The trade-off is competition. Blogging has been around for 15 to 20 years. That means established sites have already built domain authority in most niches, and ranking a brand new blog on Google takes time. To compete, you have to be willing to go deeper than what already exists. That might mean more thorough reviews, more specific sub-topics, or content that covers angles the bigger sites have skipped.

Alston’s recommendation for bloggers: pair your blog with Pinterest from day one. Create 10 Pinterest pins for every blog post and upload them regularly. Pinterest acts as a visual search engine, and many people discover blogs through Pinterest pins before ever finding them through Google search. This strategy lets you start getting traffic to your posts while you wait for Google to recognize your site as a trustworthy source.

Platform Two: YouTube

YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world, and it is also one of the most powerful long-term traffic sources for affiliate marketers. When Alston searched the Sony Alpha 7R4 on YouTube, the top result had 540,000 views. The second result had 234,000 views. That is a massive number of people watching content about one camera model.

But the more useful data point for a beginner was further down the results. Alston found a channel with only 1,000 subscribers that had a video with 2,000 views. That is a genuinely strong view-to-subscriber ratio, and it shows that a small, brand-new channel can still get real views when the content matches what people are searching for. YouTube rewards relevance. You do not need a large audience to start getting found.

The requirement for YouTube is that you need to be comfortable on camera, or at least willing to record your screen with narration. If neither of those sounds like something you would do consistently, YouTube might not be your best starting point. But if you are willing to put yourself on camera or record tutorials, YouTube is one of the highest-value platforms you can build on.

Platform Three: TikTok

TikTok is the newest platform on Alston’s list, and that fact matters a lot for beginners. When a platform is newer, fewer people have figured out how to dominate specific niches there. That means less competition and a shorter path to getting in front of your target audience.

When Alston searched the Sony Alpha 7R4 on TikTok, the top result had 9,000 views, the second had 3,000 views, and the third had 4,000 views. The numbers are smaller than YouTube at first glance, but the platform is still growing fast and creators who show up consistently now are building audiences ahead of the crowd.

TikTok also works well as a support platform for YouTube. If you are already recording videos for YouTube, you can cut those videos into short clips and post them to TikTok and YouTube Shorts. That gives you additional reach without significantly increasing your workload. One piece of content, multiple platforms, more chances for people to find you.

Platform Four: Pinterest

Pinterest looks like a photo-sharing app on the surface. Under the hood, it functions like a search engine. People go to Pinterest and type in product names, tutorials, setup guides, and how-to questions. When Alston searched the Sony Alpha 7R4 on Pinterest, he found multiple pins about the camera, each pointing to blogs and resources about it.

Clicking one of those pins led to a blog that was not ranking on page one of Google. But that blog was still getting in front of a highly targeted audience through Pinterest. That is the specific value Pinterest brings: you can drive real, targeted traffic to your blog or YouTube channel without needing a high Google ranking or a large social media following.

Pinterest is especially useful in two situations. First, if you just started a blog and need traffic before Google trusts your domain enough to rank your posts. Second, if you have older content that stopped getting Google clicks and you want to send new visitors to it. Creating Pinterest pins is relatively fast, and a good pin can continue sending traffic for months or even years after you post it.

Platform Five: Facebook Groups and Pages

Facebook is still one of the largest social platforms on the internet, and it is not just family photos. It is also packed with people asking questions about products, comparing options, and sharing their experiences. When Alston searched the Sony Alpha 7R4 on Facebook, he found multiple blog posts and dedicated pages about the camera.

One example he found: the Sony Alpha Universe Facebook page, which had 84,000 followers and 58,000 likes. That is a real community built entirely around one camera brand. If you were promoting Sony camera accessories or related products as an affiliate, being active in that kind of community would put you directly in front of a highly interested audience.

Facebook also carries high domain authority, which means content published on Facebook can sometimes surface in Google search results. That is an indirect SEO benefit on top of the direct social reach. Creating genuinely helpful posts inside Facebook groups can extend your discoverability beyond just the group members themselves.

Platform Six: Niche Forums

Forums are older platforms, but they are still active for specific hobbies and interests. When Alston searched for photography forums, he found sites like The Photo Forum. According to Similar Web, The Photo Forum gets about 44,000 visits per month. That may not sound enormous, but every one of those 44,000 monthly visitors is specifically interested in photography.

Niche forums often have sections for gear reviews, buyer questions, and product recommendations. If you build a reputation inside those communities by giving genuinely useful answers, people will click through to your content when you share it. The key is to be helpful first. Showing up only to drop links gets you flagged or removed. Showing up to contribute real value and occasionally linking to a relevant resource earns trust over time.

Platform Seven: Reddit

Reddit is essentially a massive collection of forums organized into communities called subreddits. Each subreddit focuses on a specific topic, and there are subreddits for nearly every niche you can think of. When Alston searched the Sony Alpha 7R4 on Reddit, he found questions in multiple subreddits including a dedicated Sony Alpha community.

Reddit users ask very specific questions. Which lens is worth the price? Is this camera better than that one? How do I set this up for video? Those are exactly the kinds of questions an affiliate marketer in the camera space can answer well. When you answer a question thoroughly and point people to your blog post or video for more details, you can build credibility and drive consistent traffic over time.

Reddit communities are skeptical of promotion. Users can tell when someone is there to sell rather than help. The approach that works is the same as with forums: answer questions genuinely, be transparent, and let your links show up as resources rather than ads. Build a reputation first, and the traffic follows.

Platform Eight: Quora

Quora is a question-and-answer platform where people ask everything from product recommendations to how-to questions to deep-dive topic explanations. When someone asks a question that falls inside your niche, you can write a thorough, helpful answer and point readers back to your YouTube channel or blog post for more details.

Quora answers also rank in Google. That means when someone searches a question and finds your Quora answer, that is yet another entry point into your content. It is not the highest-volume traffic source, but it is free, it builds up over time, and it requires nothing more than writing solid answers to questions your target audience is already typing into search bars.

Not sure which traffic source fits your situation?

Take the free Finder quiz at finder.platformproof.com and get a clear recommendation based on your skills, your schedule, and your niche.

The Consistency Rule That Determines Everything

Alston spends part of step three making a point that has nothing to do with platform selection and everything to do with whether any of this will actually work for you. The point is consistency. None of these platforms pay off if you create content once or twice and then stop.

The YouTube video with 234,000 views did not happen overnight. The Facebook page with 84,000 followers was not built in a week. Those numbers represent consistent effort over time, showing up regularly, publishing content even when the audience is small, and continuing because the goal is long-term income, not quick results.

Alston says it directly: you cannot get to passive income without active income first. In the beginning, content creation is your job. Show up five days a week. Treat it like a business. The beginner who creates three pieces of content and quits will never see results. The beginner who shows up every week for six months will start to see things move. Algorithms reward creators who stay. Audiences grow around creators who are still around when people come back.

This is also why platform selection matters so much. If you pick a platform where you hate creating content, you will stop when it gets hard. And it always gets hard before it gets easy. Pick the platform that fits your audience AND fits the way you naturally communicate. That combination is the only one that has a real chance of lasting long enough to build something.

Honest Drawbacks of Each Platform

Google and blogging: The slowest path to traffic on its own. New blogs can take 6 to 12 months before Google ranks their posts without a Pinterest support strategy running alongside.
YouTube: Requires video recording equipment, time for editing, and the willingness to be on camera or record your screen with voiceover. The barrier to entry is higher than text-based platforms.
TikTok: The platform algorithm changes fast. Content formats that perform well today may not work the same way in six months as the platform continues to shift.
Pinterest: Pin performance can be inconsistent. Some pins pick up significant reach, others get very little. The algorithm has shifted repeatedly over the years and can affect traffic unpredictably.
Facebook: Organic reach for pages has declined substantially compared to earlier years. Groups tend to perform better than pages for reaching members without paid promotion.
Forums and Reddit: Both communities are skeptical of self-promotion. You can get removed or flagged quickly if you show up with links before you have established any credibility. Trust is earned slowly and lost fast.
Quora: Rankings can shift if Google updates how it values Quora content as a source. It is a useful supplemental platform but should not be your only strategy.
All platforms: Volume matters more than most beginners expect. One or two pieces of content will not tell you whether a platform is working. You need dozens of posts or videos before the data is meaningful.

How to Choose: A Simple Decision Framework

If you are still not sure which platform to start on, work through these four questions before committing:

Where does my target audience actually spend time? Search your niche topic on each platform and see where the real activity is. Look at view counts, follower numbers, and how many results come up. That tells you whether an audience already exists there.
What format do I actually enjoy creating? Writing, speaking on camera, recording your screen, making short videos, creating visual pins. Pick the format you would not mind doing for the next 12 months.
How much time do I have per week? YouTube and blogging both reward longer-form content, which takes more time per piece. TikTok and Pinterest allow shorter content that you can produce faster. Match your available time to the platform’s content expectations.
Am I willing to pair it with a support platform? If you are going to blog, are you willing to also create Pinterest pins? If you are going to make YouTube videos, are you open to repurposing clips for TikTok? Platforms work better when paired strategically.

Run your answers through those four questions and you will have a much clearer picture of where to start. Spend 15 to 30 minutes on this before you create your first piece of content. Alston specifically says to take that time in step three, because picking the wrong platform and grinding on it for months is far more costly than spending half an hour thinking it through upfront.

Find Your X

The traffic source that works is not the one with the most hype. It is not the one your favorite creator recommends. It is the one that fits your audience and the way you create. If you are still figuring out which platform that is for your specific situation, the free Finder quiz at finder.platformproof.com matches you to the right starting point based on your current skills, your available time, and your niche. Take five minutes on the quiz before you spend five months on the wrong platform.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does traffic mean in affiliate marketing?

Traffic means people who see your content. In affiliate marketing, those people are potential buyers. When someone reads your blog post, watches your YouTube video, or sees your TikTok about a product, there is a chance they click your affiliate link and purchase. The more targeted people who see your content, the more chances you have to earn a commission. Traffic is just the audience side of the equation.

Which platform is best for an absolute beginner?

There is no single correct answer. It depends on where your target audience spends time and where you are willing to create content consistently over many months. Alston recommends answering those two questions honestly before committing to anything. A beginner who hates being on camera should not start with YouTube even if their audience is there, because they will quit before they see results.

Do I need money to start getting traffic?

No. Every platform Alston covers in this video is free to use. Google blogging, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook groups, Reddit, forums, and Quora all allow you to create and publish content without paying anything. You will invest time, not money. Paid advertising is always an option later once you have affiliate income coming in, but nothing in step three requires a budget.

Should I try to be on multiple platforms at once?

Start with one primary platform. Build a consistent routine there before adding a second. The beginner mistake is spreading across five platforms and posting inconsistently on all of them. Better to publish two solid pieces of content per week on one platform than to post one mediocre piece across five. Once your primary platform has momentum, then add a support platform to extend your reach.

Can I promote affiliate links directly in Facebook groups?

Not always. Some groups allow it, many do not. Read the group rules before posting any links. A better approach is to be genuinely helpful inside the group first, build a reputation as someone who knows the topic well, and then point people to your blog or YouTube video where the affiliate links actually live. Let your content do the selling rather than dropping raw links in the comments.

Is Reddit useful for affiliate marketing, or will I just get banned?

Reddit can work, but the community standards are strict. Showing up with a link and no context gets you downvoted or banned fast. The creators who succeed on Reddit spend time answering questions thoroughly, being transparent about who they are and what they create, and only sharing links when those links are genuinely the most helpful resource for the question being asked. If you treat Reddit like a community first and a promotional channel second, it can send steady traffic over time.

How often do I need to post to see results?

Alston says to treat it like a job in the beginning: show up five days a week and build consistently. The specific frequency depends on the platform. YouTube creators can succeed with two to three videos per week. Bloggers often aim for two to four posts per week when starting out. Pinterest users can pin daily without much time per session. Quora answers can go up whenever you have time. Across all platforms, showing up consistently beats posting sporadically at a high volume.

What is the biggest mistake beginners make in step three?

Picking a platform they will not enjoy using. Alston is direct about this in the video. He stopped his soundbar blog not because it was not working but because he did not want to write about soundbars and he did not enjoy blogging. The traffic source that leads to real income is the one you can commit to for a year, not the one that sounded good in a YouTube video. Pick the platform that fits your audience AND fits the way you naturally communicate.

Sources

YouTube search results for “Sony Alpha 7R4” referenced in video: top result 540,000 views, second result 234,000 views
TikTok search results for Sony Alpha 7R4 referenced in video: top three results had 9,000, 3,000, and 4,000 views respectively
Sony Alpha Universe Facebook page: 84,000 followers, 58,000 likes (referenced in video)
The Photo Forum (thephotoforum.com): approximately 44,000 monthly visits per Similar Web data referenced in video
Original video: How To Start Affiliate Marketing For Beginners With No Money Or Experience | Step 3 by Alston Godbolt

Helping 1 million working adults make their first $3,000 online with the skills they already have. Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof.