How To Get Emails For Email Marketing

You know email marketing is the move. You have heard it converts two to three times better than social media, paid ads, or any other channel. The problem is nobody actually tells you how to get those emails in the first place. You have the product, you have the energy, and you are staring at an empty list wondering where the first 100 subscribers are going to come from.

This post breaks down the complete system for building an email list from zero: from creating the right kind of content, to writing calls to action that work, to setting up a landing page and thank-you page that do the heavy lifting for you. It is a simple process in theory and a little tricky in execution, which is why walking through each step matters.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A clear picture of the five-step email collection funnel from content to autoresponder
The difference between paid and free traffic, and when to use each
Exactly what belongs on a landing page and what should stay off it
How to write a lead magnet offer that makes people actually hand over their email
What a thank-you page needs to do beyond saying thanks
How to set up an autoresponder email sequence that warms up cold subscribers
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The Big Picture: Five Steps From a Stranger to a Subscriber

Before getting into each step, it helps to see the full chain. Most online business owners who struggle to build a list are missing one of these five links. Fix the missing link and the whole thing starts moving.

Step one is creating content that reaches people who have never heard of you. Step two is including a call to action inside that content that gives them a reason to click. Step three is sending them to a landing page with a lead magnet, a free gift they get in exchange for their email address. Step four is taking them to a thank-you page where you introduce your product or service. Step five is following up with an autoresponder email sequence that builds trust and drives conversions over time.

This system works for affiliate marketing, selling digital products, physical products, and even dropshipping. The mechanics are the same regardless of what you are promoting. What changes is the specific content you create and the specific product you offer on the back end.

Step 1: Create Content That Reaches People Who Do Not Know You Yet

Content is the engine at the front of the funnel. Without it, nobody ever sees your landing page. Content falls into two buckets: paid and free. Both work. The difference is the trade-off between money and time.

Paid Traffic Methods

With paid content, you spend money to put your message in front of an audience that already exists. You are basically borrowing someone else’s attention.

Solo ads are one of the most commonly used paid methods in the email marketing space. You pay another marketer with an existing email list to send your offer to their subscribers. Those subscribers opt into your list, and you now have a warm audience that has already shown interest in your niche. It is a direct transfer of attention from their list to yours.

Video ads on platforms like YouTube or Facebook let you put a short video in front of a targeted audience. You control who sees it based on demographics, interests, or past behavior. The video delivers the pitch and sends viewers to your landing page.

Paid traffic also includes display ads, native ads, and even radio advertising in certain niches. The throughline is the same: you pay for access to a crowd you do not own yet, and you use that access to pull people into your funnel. The big upside of paid traffic is speed. You do not need weeks of content creation before results start showing up. The downside is obvious: it costs money, and if your funnel is not converting, you are burning cash.

Free Traffic Methods

Free content takes more effort up front but costs nothing in cash. The four main channels are social media, podcasting, YouTube, and Facebook groups or pages.

Twitter (now X) is a strong free option in the make money online and personal finance niches. You post regularly around your topic, use the associated hashtags, and send people to your landing page either through a link in your bio or a pinned tweet. Consistency is what makes this work. One tweet does not build a list. A hundred tweets posted over weeks, hitting the same audience with value, does.

Podcasting is spoken content. You record episodes around your topic and at some point during the episode you direct listeners to your landing page. The audience is already in listening mode, which means they are more willing to follow a recommendation than a scroll-and-skip social media user. Podcasting builds slower than video but creates a deeply engaged audience.

YouTube is the most powerful free traffic tool for this funnel because videos rank on both YouTube search and Google search. A well-optimized video on a topic like “how to start affiliate marketing with no money” can bring in views for years. Every video sends viewers to your landing page through the description, cards, or end screens.

Facebook pages and groups work because Facebook’s search function lets people find communities around specific topics. You can create a group around your niche, build a following, and regularly post content that links back to your landing page. Groups have the extra advantage of creating a sense of community, which increases trust faster than most other formats.

The common thread across all free traffic methods is keyword awareness. You need to know what your target audience is searching for and searching for, then create content that shows up in those results. Free traffic takes more effort than paid, but it compounds. A YouTube video you posted two years ago can still send subscribers to your list today.

Step 2: Include a Call to Action That Tells People What to Do

This step gets skipped more than any other. People create great content and then just… end it. No direction. No next step. The viewer finishes the video or reads the post and moves on with their day.

Your call to action has to be explicit. Something like: “Click here to get your free guide” or “Click the link below to learn about the number one affiliate program I recommend.” The language needs to be direct. People do not take action unless they are told what the action is. That is not an insult to the audience. It is how human attention works, especially on the internet where the next distraction is one scroll away.

One tool worth knowing here is Funnel Scripts. It is a copywriting tool that generates call-to-action phrases based on the information you feed it about your offer and your audience. You input what you know about what you are promoting and it produces a list of tested, high-converting phrases you can drop straight into your content. It saves time and removes the guesswork from writing copy that actually gets clicks.

Step 3: Build a Landing Page That Collects the Email

The landing page is where the email collection actually happens. Get this page wrong and you lose people who were already interested enough to click your link. Get it right and your list grows automatically every time new traffic arrives.

A good landing page has four elements: an engaging headline in large font that immediately tells the visitor what they are going to get, a subheadline that adds context or creates more interest, an email input box, and a submit button. That is it. No navigation menu. No sidebar. No long blocks of text. The more elements you add, the more distractions you create.

Attention spans on the internet are short. If someone is browsing on their phone and your page requires scrolling through three screens of copy before they find the email field, you have already lost them. A notification, a text message, a child in the other room: any of those will pull them away before they convert. Short, focused, and direct is the formula.

ClickFunnels is the platform of choice for building these pages quickly. It comes with templates that are pre-built for lead collection, so you are not starting from scratch. You pick a template, swap in your headline and subheadline, add your lead magnet description, and the page is ready to go. ClickFunnels offers a two-week free trial, which is enough time to build your first funnel and start testing it with real traffic.

The workflow looks like this: after creating content (the video, tweet, or podcast), you move to Funnel Scripts to generate your headline and call-to-action button copy. You drop those into your ClickFunnels template. You add an image if it helps communicate the lead magnet, and in most cases you skip it to keep the page clean. The result is a focused page that exists for one purpose only: getting the visitor’s email address.

One more point on the lead magnet itself. The free gift you are offering has to be worth something to the specific person you are targeting. A generic PDF titled “Marketing Tips” is not compelling. A specific guide called “The 5-Email Sequence I Used to Make My First Affiliate Sale” is something a person building an affiliate business would actually want. The more targeted the lead magnet, the higher the opt-in rate.

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Step 4: Turn Your Thank-You Page Into a Selling Machine

Most people treat the thank-you page as an afterthought. They put up a line that says “Thanks for signing up! Check your inbox.” and call it done. That is a major missed opportunity.

The person who just gave you their email address is the warmest lead you will ever have. They clicked through your content. They read or watched enough to be interested. They trusted you with their contact information. At this exact moment, they are more likely to take action than at any other point in your relationship with them.

Use the thank-you page to deliver the lead magnet (either as a download right there or by telling them to check their inbox), and then immediately pivot into a short presentation of your main offer. Text works for this but video works better because it is more personal and more engaging. Walk them through why you recommend the product or service. Give them two or three specific reasons it is valuable for someone in their position. End with a clear button or link and a reason to click now, such as access to free bonuses for people who get started today.

As an example: someone opts into your list on a page about affiliate marketing. Your thank-you page video says: “Thanks for grabbing the guide. I want to show you something that helped me go from zero to my first commission in 30 days. It is the Legendary Marketer Business Builder Challenge, and if you click the link below and get started today, I will give you access to three bonuses I have put together for people on my list.” That is a natural, honest bridge from the opt-in to the sale. No pressure, no false scarcity, just a clear next step.

Step 5: Follow Up With an Autoresponder Email Sequence

Getting the email address is only half the job. Most people on your list are not going to buy on the first day. They need time to build trust in you. That is what the autoresponder is for.

An autoresponder is a tool that automatically sends a series of emails to new subscribers on a schedule you set. Subscriber joins on day one, they get email one. Two days later, email two goes out automatically. You write the sequence once, set the timing, and it runs without you touching it again.

The email subject line is the most important piece of the sequence. Most people check email on their phones and they see the sender name, the subject line, and the first sentence of the preview before deciding whether to open. If none of those three things grab attention immediately, the email goes unread. Write subject lines that create curiosity or promise a specific outcome, not generic labels like “Newsletter Issue 4.”

The first email in your sequence should deliver the lead magnet if you have not already done so on the thank-you page, then introduce yourself briefly. Not your full life story, just one or two sentences about who you are and what you are going to help them with. Keep it short. People did not sign up to read about you. They signed up because of the promise you made about what they would learn.

Subsequent emails should provide value: tips, insights, personal lessons, or recommendations. Pepper in soft pitches for your main offer. A healthy sequence is not all sales content. It is mostly value with well-placed offers. That balance is what keeps subscribers from hitting unsubscribe after three days.

Paid vs. Free Traffic: An Honest Comparison

After going through both options, here is how to think about which one belongs in your strategy right now.

Paid traffic is better if you have a tested funnel and available budget. You can see results within days instead of weeks. The risk is that every dollar spent before you have confirmed your landing page converts is a dollar that might not come back. Test your funnel first with a small amount of traffic before scaling paid spend.

Free traffic is better if you are starting out without a large budget and are willing to put in consistent content creation effort over several months. The effort required is real: keyword research, regular posting, building a library of content that can be found by your target audience. The payoff is compounding returns. A piece of content that ranks on YouTube or Google keeps sending traffic and subscribers long after you published it.

The smartest approach for most beginners is to start with free traffic to validate the funnel, then add paid traffic once you know the opt-in rate and the back-end conversion rate are working. Running paid traffic to a funnel that is not converting is just paying to learn that the funnel does not work.

One honest limitation to name: free traffic from social media platforms is subject to algorithm changes. A Twitter strategy that works today may see reach drop next month if the platform changes how it surfaces content. YouTube is more stable because videos can rank for years, but even there, what ranks can shift. Building a platform-agnostic approach, meaning using at least two or three content channels, protects you from single-platform dependence.

Find Your X

Email marketing is one of the highest-return ways to build an online income, but it is not the right starting point for every person. If you are still figuring out whether affiliate marketing, digital products, coaching, or something else is the right model for your specific situation, skills, and timeline, take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com. It gives you a personalized recommendation based on where you are right now, not a generic answer that fits nobody.

Frequently Asked Questions

How many emails do I need before I can start promoting something?

You can start promoting from day one. Even with five subscribers, the thank-you page after opt-in is already introducing your offer. That said, most marketers wait until they have at least a few hundred subscribers before running dedicated promotional campaigns, because at smaller numbers the conversion data is too thin to be reliable. Focus on getting traffic and growing the list while building out your email sequence in the background.

What should I offer as a lead magnet?

Your lead magnet should solve one specific problem your target audience has, and solve it fast. A short PDF guide, a checklist, a mini email course, or a video walkthrough all work. The key is specificity. “How to set up your first ClickFunnels page in 20 minutes” is a better lead magnet for an affiliate marketing audience than “Marketing basics for beginners.” Specific promises get more opt-ins than general ones.

Do I need ClickFunnels or can I use a free tool?

ClickFunnels is a paid tool with a free trial. There are free alternatives including Mailchimp’s basic landing pages, ConvertKit’s free tier, and Google Sites for very simple opt-in pages. The trade-off is ease of use and available templates. ClickFunnels has the most polished landing page templates for affiliate marketing funnels. If budget is a real constraint, start with a free tool and upgrade once you have your first commissions coming in.

How long does it take to build a list of 1,000 subscribers?

With paid traffic and a converting funnel, some marketers reach 1,000 subscribers within weeks. With free traffic only, expect three to six months of consistent content creation before hitting that milestone. The timeline depends heavily on how frequently you create content, how well-targeted your niche is, and how compelling your lead magnet is. Posting on Twitter daily and publishing one YouTube video per week is a pace that, maintained for a full quarter, builds meaningful momentum.

What email service provider should I use?

For beginners in affiliate marketing, the most commonly used platforms are AWeber, GetResponse, and ActiveCampaign. ConvertKit is popular with content creators. Each has a free tier or trial period. The most important feature for affiliate marketers is whether the platform allows affiliate promotion emails, as some providers restrict the types of offers you can send. Check the terms of service for the platform you choose before building your list there.

What is a solo ad and is it worth buying?

A solo ad is when you pay another marketer to email their existing list on your behalf. You pay per click, meaning you pay for the number of people who actually land on your landing page. Solo ad costs typically range from 35 cents to over a dollar per click depending on the niche and the vendor’s list quality. They can work well for building a list quickly, but vendor quality varies significantly. Research vendors carefully on platforms like Udimi, look at reviews, and start with a small test purchase before committing a large budget.

How often should I email my list once I have it?

Most email marketers in the make money online space email their list three to five times per week during an active sequence. Daily emailing can work if every email is genuinely useful, but it is a high bar. Anything less than once a week and subscribers start to forget who you are, which tanks open rates when you do send. A practical starting point is three emails per week during the first month of a subscriber’s time on your list, then tapering to one or two per week after the introductory sequence is complete.

Can I build an email list without a website?

Yes. You need a landing page, not a full website. Tools like ClickFunnels, LeadPages, and ConvertKit let you publish a single opt-in page without owning a domain or running a WordPress site. You can send social media traffic directly to that page. A website helps with long-term SEO and credibility, but it is not a requirement for starting your list. Many successful affiliate marketers ran entirely off landing pages and social profiles for their first year or two.

Sources

Alston Godbolt YouTube channel: “How To Get Emails For Email Marketing” (video ID: 3W6K9TFCFRc)
ClickFunnels official site: clickfunnels.com
Funnel Scripts official site: funnelscripts.com
Legendary Marketer Business Builder Challenge: legendarymarketer.com
Udimi solo ad marketplace: udimi.com