How To Promote ClickBank Products On YouTube Free

YouTube is not just a place to watch videos. It is one of the best free traffic sources available to affiliate marketers right now, and when you combine it with ClickBank, you have a real path to earning commission income without spending a single dollar on ads. That is the premise of this entire guide, and every step here comes directly from a working walkthrough of the process.

The example product used throughout is the Custom Keto Diet, found inside ClickBank’s health and fitness category. You do not have to use that product specifically, but the process for finding it, building your hoplink, researching your keywords, and uploading your content is identical regardless of what niche you choose. Follow every step in order and you will have your first affiliate video ready to publish by the end of this post.

What You’ll Walk Out With

A proven method for picking high-converting ClickBank products using the gravity filter
Step-by-step instructions for generating your unique hoplink and turning it into a clean, branded URL
A free keyword list strategy pulled straight from your ClickBank affiliate page
How to use MorningFame to find keywords your brand-new channel can realistically rank for
The year-append trick that can move you from an unranked video to a top-three result
A repeatable content calendar built around a single affiliate niche
Two fast-traffic video formats (review and versus) that catch buyers right before they purchase
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Why YouTube Works So Well for ClickBank Affiliates

There are billions of monthly searches on YouTube. That alone makes it one of the most trafficked platforms on the internet, but what sets it apart for affiliate marketers is intent. People go to YouTube because they have a question they want answered or a problem they want solved. That is exactly the type of person who buys from a ClickBank sales page.

When someone types “best alcohol on keto diet” into the YouTube search bar, they are already a potential buyer who has done the research and is ready to act. They are not casually scrolling. They want information that helps them make a decision. If your video answers their question and your affiliate link is in the description, you have a real shot at earning a commission with zero ad spend.

The other reason YouTube wins here is longevity. A video you upload today can still pull organic views and generate commissions months or even years later. That is a very different return on your time compared to a social media post that disappears from feeds within 24 hours.

Step 1: Find a High-Converting Product on ClickBank

Go to clickbank.com and create a free account if you do not have one. Once you are inside, click on the Marketplace. This is where all the products available for promotion live, organized by category.

You can browse categories like e-business, investing, and health and fitness. For this walkthrough, head to Health and Fitness, then click the subcategory triangle to reveal more options, and select Diets and Weight Loss.

Once you are inside that subcategory, change the sort filter to Gravity. Gravity is ClickBank’s measurement of how many affiliates have made at least one sale with a product in a given time window. A high gravity score tells you that real people are actively making money promoting this product right now. It is not a perfect metric, but it is the most reliable starting point for a beginner.

When sorted by gravity in the Diets and Weight Loss category, the Custom Keto Diet rises to the top. This product walks buyers through a personalized keto meal plan. It is relevant to people managing weight, dealing with conditions like diabetes, or simply looking to change their diet. The broad appeal matters because it means there are more potential video topics and more potential buyers watching YouTube.

Step 2: Study the Sales Page and the Affiliate Page

Before you grab your hoplink, look at two things: the sales page and the affiliate page. Both give you information that will make your content better.

The sales page for Custom Keto Diet opens with a video sales letter followed by a quiz. The prospect completes the quiz, gets shown their personalized plan, and then has the option to purchase. Understanding this flow matters because you can reference it honestly in your videos. You are not sending people to a mystery page; you know exactly what the experience looks like.

The affiliate page requires you to create a free account with the vendor. Once you are inside, you get access to affiliate tools including pre-written email swipes, banner ads, and most importantly for YouTube marketers, a downloadable keyword list. This list contains search terms that real buyers use when looking for information about the product or its niche. The more resources a vendor provides, the more seriously they take their affiliate program, which usually means a more reliable commission structure on the back end.

Step 3: Generate Your Hoplink and Create a Clean URL

A hoplink is your unique tracking URL. When someone clicks it and completes a purchase, ClickBank records the sale to your account and credits you the commission. To generate one, click the Promote button on any product listing inside the Marketplace.

A popup will appear with the hoplink generator. Type in your ClickBank account nickname and click Generate Hoplinks. You will see a URL that looks long and technical. You have two options for what to do with it.

Option 1: Use Bitly. Go to bitly.com, create a free account, click Create, paste your hoplink, and Bitly will generate a shortened URL. It looks cleaner than the raw hoplink and it is free to use. This is the minimum baseline step.

Option 2: Use a URL redirect on your own domain. This is the stronger move. When someone sees a link that includes your brand name, like alstongodbolt.com/start, it signals authority and professionalism compared to a string of random characters. It also gives you control over where the link goes if you ever change affiliate programs. Setting up a redirect takes a bit more time up front but it pays off in perceived credibility over the long run. If you are just getting started, Bitly is a perfectly functional starting point while you build out your site.

Step 4: Pull Keywords Directly from the Affiliate Page

Go back to the Custom Keto Diet affiliate page and scroll down to the keywords section. Click Download and you will get a spreadsheet of search terms that the vendor has already researched for you. These are the exact phrases buyers type into Google and YouTube when looking for information about keto dieting.

Open the downloaded file and review the keyword list. One example from this list is “alcohol on a keto diet.” Copy that phrase and paste it into the YouTube search bar. Before you hit enter, watch the autocomplete suggestions that appear. You might see: “alcohol on keto,” “best alcohol on keto diet,” and “can you drink alcohol on keto?” Each one of those is a separate video you could create.

When you search “alcohol on keto diet” and look at the results, the top video at the time of the walkthrough had 205,000 views with the video being only a year old. The result directly below it had 708,000 views from three years prior. This keyword has sustained demand. People keep coming back to search for this topic because the keto niche constantly brings in new people who have questions about what they can eat and drink.

Step 5: Use MorningFame to Rank on YouTube

MorningFame is a YouTube SEO tool that does something most keyword research tools do not: it personalizes the competition data to your specific channel. Rather than giving you an abstract difficulty score, it pulls your actual channel metrics and tells you whether you can realistically rank for a given keyword given your current subscriber count and watch time history.

MorningFame is invite-only and costs around $12 per month. It is not free, but for anyone serious about growing a YouTube-based affiliate channel, it is one of the most targeted tools available. If you are just starting out and want to try it, look for an invite link in the description of the original video.

Here is how to use it for your keyword research:

Paste your keyword into MorningFame’s search bar and click Search
For a brand-new channel, filter for uncommon keywords to avoid competing against established channels
Click on a keyword result and move to step two to see the competition level specific to your channel
Check your relevance score — target as close to 100 as possible by adding the keyword to your title and tags
Copy MorningFame’s tag and description suggestions directly into your YouTube upload

The relevance score in MorningFame tells you how often your target keyword appears across the critical fields of your video (title, description, tags). When testing “alcohol on keto diet,” the relevance score reached 95 out of 100 after adding the keyword into the title and matching tags. That is a strong position for a competitive niche.

Step 6: The Year-Append Trick for Lower Competition

This is one of the simplest and most effective tactics in the video. When you add the current year to your keyword, the competition level drops significantly.

Testing “alcohol on keto diet 2021” inside MorningFame showed a dramatically reduced competition level compared to the base keyword. The analysis suggested a realistic shot at ranking in the top three results just by appending the year. Without the year, the same channel would have been buried behind established channels with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.

The reason this works is that most older videos targeting evergreen keywords are not optimized for the current year. When someone searches “keto diet 2024” or “keto diet 2025,” YouTube’s algorithm tends to surface fresher content, and the competition pool is smaller because fewer creators have targeted that exact phrase. You are not gaming the system; you are targeting a more specific version of a search query that your channel can realistically rank for.

Apply this tactic to every video you create in the early stages of your channel. Once you have built up watch time, subscriber count, and channel authority, you can go after broader keywords without needing the year qualifier.

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Step 7: Build a Content Calendar Around One Niche

Once you have one keyword that works, you do not move on to a different niche. You go deeper into the same one. The affiliate keyword list you downloaded in Step 4 contains dozens of search terms. Each one is a potential video.

Using the keto example, a content calendar might look like this:

Best alcohol on keto diet (overview video)
Can you drink beer on keto? (individual breakdown)
Can you drink wine on keto? (individual breakdown)
Best vodka drinks on keto (individual breakdown)
Alcohol on keto diet 2024 (year-targeted version of the overview)
Custom Keto Diet review (buyer-stage video)
Custom Keto Diet vs. Atkins (versus comparison video)

The target upload frequency is at least three videos per week. The more you upload, the more surface area your channel has in YouTube search results. With seven video ideas above and a three-per-week schedule, you have more than two weeks of content from a single keyword category. And that is just one subsection of the affiliate keyword list. Go through the entire list and you will have months of content ideas without needing to brainstorm from scratch.

The goal is to build a channel where your affiliate link appears across a wide range of related videos, each pulling in a different segment of buyers searching for keto information. Some viewers will watch one video. Others will binge five. The more touchpoints you create, the more chances you have to earn a commission from the same person.

Step 8: Use YouTube’s Upload Defaults to Save Time

Here is a practical time-saving tip that most beginners overlook. YouTube lets you set a default description that appears on every new video you upload. Go to YouTube Studio, click on Settings, then Upload Defaults, and paste your affiliate link into the description field.

This means every new video you publish will automatically include your ClickBank affiliate link without you having to paste it in manually each time. When you are uploading several videos per week, removing that small friction point adds up. You can still customize the individual video description above the default content for each upload, but the link will always be there as the foundation.

Pair this with the description you build inside MorningFame. That tool lets you write your full video description in its interface, optimized for the keyword you are targeting, and then copy it to your clipboard with one click. Upload the video, paste the MorningFame description on top of your default text, and you have a fully optimized upload in a fraction of the time it would take to do manually.

Step 9: Two Fast-Traffic Video Formats That Catch Buyers

The keyword-research approach in Steps 4 through 6 is your long-term traffic strategy. But there are two additional video formats that generate faster results because they target people who are already close to buying.

Format 1: The Review Video

Copy the product name from ClickBank and paste it into YouTube search followed by the word “review.” When you search “Custom Keto Diet review,” you will find that creators are already doing this. The top result at the time of the walkthrough had 6,100 views, and the creator only had around 2,000 subscribers. The result below that came from a channel with 2,400 subscribers.

This confirms something important: you do not need a large channel to rank for review keywords. The search volume is lower than broad educational content, but the buyer intent is much higher. Someone searching “Custom Keto Diet review” is not casually browsing. They have already decided they want to buy something; they are just doing final due diligence before clicking purchase. Your review video is their last stop before the sale, and if your affiliate link is in the description, you earn the commission.

Adding the year to review videos works here too. Searching “Custom Keto Diet review 2024” shows even fewer competing videos, meaning a new channel has a strong chance of appearing in the top results quickly.

Format 2: The Versus Video

Search “Custom Keto Diet vs” and YouTube’s autocomplete will suggest comparison searches people are already making. “Custom Keto Diet vs Atkins” is one example from the walkthrough, and the results showed the top video with 36,000 views and the next result with 23,000 views.

Versus videos work because they target buyers who are deciding between two options. They are not asking whether to buy; they are asking which one to buy. Your job in a versus video is to present both options honestly, explain the tradeoffs, and let the viewer make an informed decision. If Custom Keto Diet is the stronger choice for most people, you explain why. Your affiliate link goes in the description, and because the viewer is actively comparing products, the conversion rate on clicks tends to be higher than broad educational content.

Honest Drawbacks to This Method

This approach works, but it is not instant. Here is what you should know before you start:

YouTube SEO takes time. Even with the year-append trick and MorningFame optimization, new channels can take weeks or months before their videos gain traction in search results. Upload consistently and do not stop because of slow early results.
MorningFame is not free. At $12 per month and invite-only access, it adds a small cost to what is otherwise a free traffic strategy. TubeBuddy is an alternative with a free tier, though it does not personalize competition data to your channel in the same way.
ClickBank gravity changes. A product with high gravity today may drop off if the vendor stops updating the offer or runs into compliance issues. Check your chosen product every 30 to 60 days to make sure it is still converting before you invest heavily in content creation around it.
Review videos require accuracy. If you have not personally used the Custom Keto Diet, be clear about that in your video. Reviewers who exaggerate results or make up testimonials risk both their credibility and potential FTC issues. An honest review from a researcher’s perspective is still valuable and still converts.
Three videos per week is a real commitment. The math works in your favor over time, but the consistency requirement is significant. Batch record your content when possible to make the schedule sustainable.

The Step-by-Step Checklist for Your First ClickBank YouTube Video

Use this as your launch sequence for the first video:

Create a ClickBank account at clickbank.com
Go to Marketplace and filter by your chosen category, sort by Gravity
Click the affiliate page for your chosen product and create a free account with the vendor
Download the affiliate keyword list from the affiliate page
Generate your hoplink via the Promote button
Shorten it with Bitly or set up a URL redirect on your own domain
Paste a keyword from the affiliate list into YouTube search and note the autocomplete suggestions
Run that keyword through MorningFame and add the current year to reduce competition
Build your title, description, and tags using MorningFame’s suggestions, targeting 95+ relevance
Record the video and upload it with your affiliate link set in YouTube’s upload defaults
Repeat the same process for a review video and a versus video using the same product

Find Your X

ClickBank plus YouTube is one path to affiliate income, but it is not the only one. Some people do better with blog content, others with email lists, others with short-form video. The method you choose should match the skills you already have and the time you can realistically commit. If you are not sure which path fits your situation, the finder quiz at finder.platformproof.com walks you through it in about two minutes and gives you a clear recommendation based on your answers.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need a large YouTube channel to make money with ClickBank?

No. The review video data from this walkthrough shows a creator with 2,000 subscribers earning views on a “Custom Keto Diet Review” video and another with 2,400 subscribers generating results. With year-targeted and uncommon keywords identified through MorningFame, small channels can rank and generate affiliate clicks. Channel size matters more for broad, competitive keywords. Narrow your keyword targets and a small channel can compete effectively.

What is ClickBank gravity and why does it matter?

Gravity is a score ClickBank calculates based on how many distinct affiliates have made at least one sale with a product in a recent time window. A higher gravity score means more affiliates are actively succeeding with the product right now. It is not a measure of total sales volume but of proven affiliate viability. For beginners, sorting by gravity is the fastest way to avoid promoting products nobody is successfully converting.

Can I put my ClickBank hoplink directly in my YouTube description?

YouTube’s terms of service do not prohibit affiliate links in descriptions, but raw ClickBank hoplinks look untrustworthy and can get flagged as spam by YouTube’s automated systems. Always shorten your link through Bitly at a minimum, or better yet set up a branded redirect on your own domain. A clean, branded URL in your description converts better and is less likely to create issues with YouTube.

How much does MorningFame cost and is it worth it?

MorningFame costs around $12 per month and requires an invite to join. The reason it stands out from other YouTube keyword tools is that it factors your specific channel’s metrics into competition analysis rather than showing a generic difficulty score. For a new channel trying to find rankable opportunities, that personalization is genuinely useful. If $12 per month feels like too much while you are still getting started, TubeBuddy has a free tier with basic keyword research that can work as a starting point.

How many videos do I need before I start making commissions?

There is no fixed number. Results depend on which keywords you target, how well your videos are optimized, and how competitive your niche is. The walkthrough recommends uploading at least three videos per week. Some affiliates see their first commission within the first few videos if they pick low-competition keywords. Others take several weeks of consistent uploads before the views accumulate. Treat the early uploads as research that compounds over time rather than expecting immediate results.

Should I review ClickBank products I have never personally used?

You can create a review video without having used the product, but you need to be transparent about your perspective. Frame it as a researcher’s review: you have studied the sales page, read the affiliate materials, and looked at what buyers are saying. Do not make up results or imply personal experience you do not have. An honest, research-based review builds more long-term credibility than a fabricated testimonial and keeps you on the right side of FTC disclosure requirements.

What niches work best for ClickBank on YouTube?

The niches with the highest ClickBank gravity scores tend to be health and fitness (weight loss, keto, fitness programs), self-improvement, and online business education. Health and fitness works particularly well on YouTube because the content is naturally visual, the viewer questions are specific enough to target with narrow keywords, and the buyer intent is high. Whatever niche you choose, make sure you can create multiple videos on related topics without running out of ideas after the first three uploads.

Is this strategy still relevant beyond 2021?

The core strategy is platform-independent and time-tested: find a product with proven affiliate conversions, build content around the keywords buyers use when researching that product, and place your affiliate link where the viewer can find it. The specific tools change (MorningFame, Bitly, ClickBank’s interface), but the fundamental approach of matching content to buyer search behavior and optimizing for discoverability works regardless of the year. Apply the year-append tactic using whatever the current year is when you are reading this.

Sources

ClickBank Marketplace: clickbank.com
MorningFame YouTube SEO tool: morningfa.me (invite required, approximately $12/month)
Bitly URL shortener: bitly.com (free account available)
TubeBuddy YouTube optimization tool: tubebuddy.com
YouTube Creator Academy: support.google.com/youtube