Best Paid Traffic Sources For Affiliate Marketing 2022

Alston Godbolt spent $5,000 on solo ads. He built an email list from that spend, but the list sat cold and he walked away having made less back than he put in. He tried Udemy traffic, Traffic Authority, Solos by Glen, and Traffic Domination. Each one gave him hit-or-miss results. The money was gone and the lesson was clear: not every paid traffic source is worth your time or your budget. So he stopped doing solo ads entirely and shifted to the four paid traffic sources that actually delivered results. This post covers all four, ranked by results, with the specific details you need to pick the right one for your situation.

These are not theoretical recommendations. Alston ran Pinterest ads to a blog post about nurses making money online. He built Facebook audiences down to a single street in Waukegan, Illinois. He placed YouTube ads directly inside competitors’ channels. He watched Google Search ads drive traffic that could get expensive fast if you did not know what you were doing. The four sources below come from that direct experience, and each one of them, according to Alston, can help you reach $1,000 per month or more once you learn to use it correctly.

What You’ll Walk Out With

Why Alston stopped using solo ads after spending $5,000 and getting less than $5,000 back
How Pinterest ads extend their own reach when users pin your promoted content to their boards
How to use Facebook to target followers of Russell Brunson, Grant Cardone, and Gary Vaynerchuk to find the right affiliate marketing prospects
How YouTube is the only ad platform that lets you place ads directly inside your competitors’ videos
Why Google Search ads work but can get expensive without the right targeting knowledge
Alston’s final ranking of all four sources, from third place to first
How to start any of these platforms for as little as $5 per day and scale once you see results
How to figure out which online income method fits your specific skills and situation at finder.platformproof.com

Why Solo Ads Did Not Work (And What Alston Tried Instead)

Before getting into the four sources that actually worked, it is worth understanding what Alston ruled out and why. Solo ads, which involve paying someone with an existing email list to send your offer to their subscribers, looked promising on paper. The traffic is pre-warmed, the targeting is done, and you pay per click. In theory, that should move affiliate commissions.

In practice, Alston spent roughly $5,000 across multiple solo ad vendors including Udemy traffic, Traffic Authority, Solos by Glen, and Traffic Domination. The return on that $5,000 was less than the amount he put in. He grew an email list from those campaigns, but he was not confident in how responsive that list actually was. Some vendors performed better than others, but the overall pattern was inconsistent. Your results may differ, and Alston is honest about that. But for him, solo ads were not the move, and he stopped doing them.

What he found instead were four paid traffic sources where the targeting was sharper, the results were more predictable, and the upside was real. All four of them can be started for $5 per day or less, which matters when you are just figuring out what works in your niche.

Traffic Source #1: Pinterest Paid Ads (Alston’s #3 Overall)

Pinterest might not be the first platform you think of for affiliate marketing ads, but Alston loves it for a few specific reasons that you do not get anywhere else. The first reason is camouflage. Pinterest promoted pins look almost identical to organic pins. The only signal that something is a paid ad is the small “Promoted by” label. Users scrolling through their feed are not on high guard the way they might be on a platform where ads obviously interrupt content.

The second reason is sharing. When someone clicks on a Pinterest ad and pins it to one of their own boards, that ad gets additional organic distribution. The advertiser does not pay for that secondary reach. It just happens. This is something Facebook and YouTube ads cannot do: your paid content cannot be shared the same way. On Pinterest, a well-made promoted pin can spread beyond the audience you paid to reach, which makes the effective cost per view lower over time if the pin catches on.

The third reason is destination flexibility. Pinterest lets you send paid traffic to a landing page, a blog post, or an opt-in page. Alston used all three. He ran promoted pins that went directly to a blog post he had written about 28 ways for nurses to make money online. That combination, an audience interested in side income for healthcare workers, pointed at a detailed blog post with affiliate links inside, worked. Ads were available for as low as around 10 cents per click, though Pinterest adjusts these rates and policies over time.

The one caveat Alston mentions is that Pinterest has gotten stricter with its ad approval process over the years. If you are sending traffic to a blog post, you are more likely to get your ad approved than if you are sending traffic directly to a raw affiliate landing page. The platform wants to see that users are going somewhere with real content, not just a sales page with no surrounding context. Keep that in mind when you set up your campaigns.

Traffic Source #2: Facebook Ads (Alston’s #2 Overall)

Facebook holds a potential reach of over 260 million people in the United States alone, and that number comes before you even configure a single targeting setting. Alston likes Facebook ads for one main reason: the targeting depth is almost unmatched. You can get incredibly specific about who sees your offer, which means your dollars go toward people who are actually relevant to your niche.

The geo-targeting capability is one of the features Alston highlights directly. You can target down to a single zip code. You can target people on a specific street in a specific town. He demonstrates this in the video by building an audience of people who live in Waukegan, Illinois and are also interested in Russell Brunson. That combination returns about 1,700 potential people. That is a small, highly specific group you could reach with a message tailored to exactly their situation. If you ran a local training event or sold something relevant to ClickFunnels users in that town, you would know precisely how many people you could reach and approximately how many clicks per day to expect.

Interest targeting is the other major strength. If you are promoting a tool like Builderall or ClickFunnels, you can target people who already follow or interact with content from Russell Brunson, Gary Vaynerchuk, Grant Cardone, or Tony Robbins. Facebook will also suggest additional related interests once you enter the first one, which makes it easy to expand your audience intelligently. You are reaching people who are already paying attention to the same space you are working in.

You can start Facebook ads for $5 per day and scale up once you identify what is working. Alston’s recommendation is to send Facebook traffic to a landing page where you can collect email addresses, which gives you a second way to follow up with the same people. Blog posts also work if you want to warm up cold traffic before asking for anything.

The main drawback Alston points to is the dependency on Apple and Android devices for user tracking. Facebook’s ability to target and retarget people relies heavily on data from third-party hardware. As Apple has tightened its privacy settings and iOS tracking permissions have changed, Facebook’s retargeting has become less reliable than it once was. Alston expects that will continue to evolve, and he notes that a platform account ban can happen if you step outside the platform’s compliance rules. You have to pay attention to what Facebook allows in your niche and make sure your ads do not cross any lines that could get your account shut down.

Traffic Source #3: YouTube Ads (Alston’s #1 Overall)

YouTube ads are Alston’s top-ranked paid traffic source, and the reason comes down to one capability that no other platform offers: you can place your ad directly in front of your competitors’ audiences, at the beginning, middle, or end of their videos. If someone is watching a video from another affiliate marketer or online business educator, your ad can appear. That is a level of competitive targeting that Facebook and Pinterest cannot replicate.

There are two main ways to get in front of your competitors on YouTube. The first is keyword targeting. If you enter “how to make money online” as a keyword in your campaign settings, your ad will be eligible to show any time someone on YouTube searches that phrase. You are intercepting people at the exact moment they are looking for what you offer.

The second method is placement targeting. This is where it gets powerful. You can go into your campaign settings, type in the name of a specific YouTube channel, and target that channel directly. Alston demonstrates this by searching for “Passive Income Lifestyles” and showing that you can target any video on that channel. If that channel’s audience overlaps with your ideal customer, every video they watch becomes an opportunity to put your message in front of them. You want to target channels where the content stays within your niche, so the audience is consistent and your message is relevant to what they came to watch.

YouTube also offers two types of ad formats worth knowing about. In-stream ads play before or during a video. Discovery ads show up at the top of search results with a small “Ad” label and look like regular video listings. Both have their place depending on whether you want to interrupt or attract.

You can set your bid as low as 10 cents on YouTube, but Alston is clear that the bid floor matters depending on your niche. In a low-competition space, 10 cents can get you solid placements. In a highly competitive niche like make money online, a 10-cent bid might get your ad shown at 2:30 in the morning to audiences in countries with very different purchasing power. You get what you pay for when the competition is high, and you need to calibrate your bids accordingly. You can also layer on geo-targeting within YouTube, targeting specific countries or even going as narrow as a region or city just as you can with Facebook.

You can get started on YouTube ads for $5 per month, though Alston suggests starting at $5 per day and optimizing from there. The platform tells you on the right-hand side of the campaign builder approximately how many clicks you should expect per day based on your targeting and bid, which gives you a concrete estimate to work from before you spend a dollar.

Not sure which traffic source fits your skills, budget, or niche?

Answer a few questions and get a personalized recommendation at finder.platformproof.com.

Traffic Source Bonus: Google Search Ads

Google Search rounds out the list as Alston’s bonus pick. He does not use it as much as the other three, but he includes it because the intent behind a Google search is hard to beat. When someone types “affiliate marketing examples” or “how to make money online” into Google and presses enter, they are telling you exactly what they want. Ads show up at the top and bottom of the search results page, which means you can put your offer directly in front of people who are already looking for something in your category.

The challenge with Google Search ads is cost. The more competitive the keyword, the higher the cost per click, and affiliate marketing keywords can get expensive quickly. If you do not know what you are doing with keyword research, match types, and negative keywords, you can burn through a budget fast without seeing the returns that justify the spend. Alston does not rank it in his top three for that reason. It is a powerful channel, but it has a steeper learning curve when it comes to managing spend efficiently.

For affiliates who have already done keyword research and understand how to structure a search campaign, Google is worth testing. For beginners, the three primary sources above offer more forgiving entry points at lower starting budgets.

Alston’s Final Ranking: Why YouTube Beats Facebook Beats Pinterest

At the end of the video, Alston lays out his ranking clearly. Pinterest comes in third, Facebook in second, and YouTube in first. Here is the reasoning that sits behind that order.

Pinterest earns the third spot because it is genuinely good but has a narrower audience than the other two. The organic sharing mechanic is a real advantage and the ad format blends into the feed in a way that reduces friction. But the total audience size and the platform’s tightening compliance requirements keep it from climbing higher. It works especially well in certain niches, such as home improvement, health, personal finance, and anything where visual content does well.

Facebook ranks second because the audience size and targeting depth are exceptional. The ability to reach 260 million people and slice that audience by zip code, interest, income bracket, and purchase behavior is a real advantage. The tracking limitations from iOS privacy changes have reduced some of the retargeting power that made Facebook legendary a few years ago, but the platform is still worth the investment when you know your audience well and can build compliant campaigns.

YouTube takes the top slot because of the competitor placement capability. Being able to run an ad inside the video of someone your target audience is already watching is a unique advantage. Combined with the keyword targeting, the discovery ad format, and the ability to control bids at a granular level, YouTube gives you multiple ways to reach people with high intent. Alston is also a video-first creator, which means YouTube advertising aligns with how he already operates. That matters too. The best traffic source for you is often the one that fits naturally with the type of content you are already making.

How to Start Any of These for $5 a Day

All three of the primary sources in this list can be started for $5 per day. That is not a theoretical minimum buried in fine print. Alston mentions $5 per day explicitly for both Facebook and YouTube. Pinterest has historically offered per-click costs as low as 10 cents, though the platform adjusts those rates. Five dollars a day means you can run real tests without committing a large budget upfront.

Pick one platform based on where your target audience already spends time
Start with one ad set and one destination, either a blog post or a landing page that collects emails
Set your daily budget at $5 and run for at least a week before drawing conclusions
Review your click-through rate and cost per click after the first week
If the numbers look promising, increase the daily budget by small increments and monitor results
If results are weak, adjust the creative, the targeting, or the destination before spending more

The worst outcome is spending $5 per day with no data to show for it because you changed too many variables at once. Change one thing at a time, hold everything else constant, and let the data tell you what is working before you scale.

Honest Drawbacks of Each Traffic Source

Alston mentions drawbacks throughout the video, and it is worth collecting them in one place so you are going in with a clear picture.

Pinterest has gotten stricter about ad approvals over time. Sending traffic to a raw affiliate landing page is more likely to get your pin rejected than sending traffic to a blog post that contains your affiliate links naturally. If your affiliate program’s links look like a pure sales pitch, Pinterest may push back. You also need to check that your product category is allowed at all under their current advertising guidelines.

Facebook can ban your ad account if you violate their policies, and the rules are not always obvious in advance. The platform has also lost some of its retargeting precision since Apple changed how apps request tracking permissions on iOS devices. Facebook relies on third-party hardware to deliver the targeting data that made it so powerful, and that dependency has become a real structural vulnerability. It still works, but it is less reliable than it was a few years ago for certain types of retargeting campaigns.

YouTube requires that your bid be appropriate for your competition level. A low bid in a competitive niche does not mean you get fewer impressions; it means you get impressions at times and in places where the competition is not showing up. That might mean late-night placements in markets that do not convert well for your offer. Watch where your impressions are landing and adjust accordingly.

Google Search can get expensive fast if you do not manage your keyword match types carefully. Broad match keywords in a competitive niche can send you traffic that has no real connection to your offer and burns through your budget. Learn how to use exact match and phrase match before running search campaigns in a saturated space.

Find Your X

Knowing the traffic sources is one part of the picture. Knowing which income method to drive traffic toward is the other. If you have not nailed down what you are actually selling or promoting, the best ad platform in the world will not save you. Alston built the Platform Proof Finder tool to help working adults figure out which online income method fits their specific skills, schedule, and starting resources. Take the short assessment at finder.platformproof.com and get a clear direction before you spend a dollar on ads.

Frequently Asked Questions

Which paid traffic source should a total beginner start with?

Pinterest is often the lowest-friction entry point for beginners because the ad format blends naturally into the feed, click costs can be very low, and you can send traffic to a blog post that does the selling for you. Facebook is also beginner-accessible if you are promoting something with a clear audience interest, like a fitness product or a specific software tool. YouTube is powerful but benefits from having some video ad creative ready, which raises the starting complexity a little. Google Search requires keyword strategy knowledge that takes time to build. Start with the platform where your target audience already spends the most time.

How much should I expect to spend before seeing affiliate commissions?

This varies widely by niche, offer, and how well your targeting and creative are set up from the start. A rough starting expectation is to spend at least $100 to $300 testing an ad set before drawing firm conclusions about whether it works. Alston recommends starting at $5 per day and scaling up once results look promising rather than committing a large budget to an untested campaign. The faster you can identify what is not working and stop spending on it, the better your overall return will be.

Why did solo ads not work for Alston even after spending $5,000?

Solo ad traffic comes from someone else’s email list, which means the quality and relevance of that traffic depends entirely on how that list was built and how engaged the subscribers are. Alston found that even with reputable vendors like Traffic Authority, Solos by Glen, and Traffic Domination, the results were hit or miss. The email list he built from those campaigns was not responsive enough to generate consistent commissions. Solo ads can work for some marketers in some niches, but the variance is high and you are betting on the quality of someone else’s audience rather than targeting that audience yourself.

Can Pinterest ads work for affiliate marketing directly, or do I need a blog?

Pinterest allows traffic to go to a landing page, a blog post, or an opt-in page. Alston used all three at different points. That said, he notes that the platform has gotten stricter and that ads pointing to blog posts tend to get approved more reliably than ads pointing to raw landing pages. If you do not have a blog yet, a clean landing page that collects emails can still work, but you may face more friction in the approval process. Having your own blog with relevant content makes Pinterest advertising smoother and gives the platform more context about what your promoted content represents.

How does YouTube placement targeting actually work in practice?

Inside your YouTube ad campaign settings, there is a placement option that lets you enter specific YouTube channel URLs or channel names. Once you enter a channel, your ad becomes eligible to run on videos from that channel. Alston demonstrates this by targeting the “Passive Income Lifestyles” channel. The key is to target channels where the content stays within a single niche, because mixed-niche channels have audiences with varied interests that may not all match your offer. You want your ad showing up in front of an audience that is consistently interested in the problem your offer solves.

What does Facebook do with the geographic targeting information?

Facebook lets you target by country, state, city, zip code, or even a specific radius around an address. You can also exclude locations. The data Facebook uses to place people into those geographic segments comes from the information users provide in their profiles and from device-level location data where users have allowed it. Alston mentions targeting as specific as a particular street in Deerfield, Illinois. For local businesses, this is one of Facebook’s biggest advantages: you can limit your ad spend to only the people close enough to your location to actually become customers, and you can tailor your message to match what that specific community cares about.

Is it true you can get YouTube ad placements for as little as 10 cents?

You can set a bid as low as 10 cents on YouTube, yes. Whether that bid actually gets your ad placed depends on your niche and the competition. In a low-competition niche, a 10-cent bid can get you solid, relevant placements at scale. In a highly competitive space like make money online, a 10-cent bid will not win the auction for premium placements. Alston is direct about this: in a competitive space, a very low bid might mean your ad runs at 2:30 in the morning in markets with minimal purchasing intent. The bid you set shapes not just how much you spend but where and when your ads actually appear.

Should I use paid ads before or after building organic traffic?

Alston treats paid and organic as complementary rather than sequential. He mentions that Facebook Groups are essentially the organic version of Facebook paid ads because the algorithm does similar audience matching work for free over time. Paid traffic is useful when you want to accelerate results and test offers before investing months in SEO or content. Organic builds a foundation that pays you back over time without ongoing ad spend. Starting with paid ads can help you identify what messaging, audiences, and offers actually convert before you commit months of content creation effort to something that might not work. Then organic content reinforces and extends what the paid campaigns have already validated.

Sources

Alston Godbolt, Platform Proof YouTube channel: “Best Paid Traffic Sources For Affiliate Marketing 2022” (https://youtu.be/x0HrQ7heKDw)
Pinterest Ads Manager : pinterest.com/business/ads
Meta Ads Manager : business.facebook.com
Google Ads for YouTube : ads.google.com
Google Ads Search Campaigns : ads.google.com