I Tried the $709/Day Free App Side Hustle: My Real Results After $30 in Google Ads

Ten days after watching Marcus Campbell’s YouTube video claiming you could make $709 per day with a free app, I stopped questioning it and started building. I set up the checklist affiliate website he described, ran Google Ads for four days at $10 per day, and ended up with $1.50 in earnings and $30 spent. That is the honest number. Before you close the tab, understand this: the $28.50 gap between what I spent and what I made taught me more about the method than the original 14-minute tutorial ever could.

This is part of my “I Tried It” series where I take side hustle methods from YouTube and TikTok and report real results. No manufactured wins. No cropped screenshots. Just what happened when I actually ran the play. My name is Alston Godbolt with alstongodbolt.com, and this breakdown will give you enough to decide whether this method deserves your afternoon or your skip button.

What You’ll Walk Out With

Exactly how the checklist affiliate website method works from keyword research to live site
The specific tools used: Ahrefs, Flat Icons, Affinity Photo, Keyword Toaster, and Google Ads
My real numbers: $30 spent, $1.50 earned, and three reasons why
Why paid traffic flopped in this test and where free traffic could change the result
Three specific improvements that could have shifted the outcome
How to use Google Ads’ $500 free credit offer to test this without risking your own money
When to pick WordPress over plain HTML for a project like this
Not sure which online income method fits your situation? Take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com to get a personalized match

What Marcus Campbell’s Method Actually Is

The original video claimed you could earn $709 per day by creating what Campbell called a “free app” — but in practice it is a simple checklist website loaded with affiliate links. The concept is straightforward: find a keyword with decent search volume and low cost-per-click in Ahrefs, build a single page around a checklist for that topic, fill the page with icons that link to affiliated products, and drive traffic to it either organically or through Google Ads.

Campbell recommends building the site in raw HTML and even offers a template if you sign up for his email list. The core idea is not new — it is an affiliate landing page dressed up as a helpful resource. What makes the method appealing is the combination of low competition keywords, cheap clicks on Google Search, and commissions from Amazon or any other affiliate program you bolt onto it.

Step 1: Finding the Right Keyword in Ahrefs

The first move is opening Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer and typing in a broad seed keyword. I started with the word “checklist.” From there I sorted results by cost-per-click and filtered for 50 cents or less. The goal is finding keywords where Google Ads clicks are cheap enough that even a modest Amazon commission rate leaves some margin.

Some of the keywords I found had genuinely low costs. “Self-care checklist” showed a cost-per-click of just 4 cents with 2,000 monthly searches. “Thanksgiving checklist” was 3 cents per click. At those rates, even Amazon’s 3-4% commission on small purchases could produce a positive return if the conversion rate is decent. Compare that to “planning a vacation checklist” which showed a cost-per-click of $4.00 — that is a keyword where you would need someone to buy a $100+ item just to break even on the ad spend.

The keyword research phase is genuinely the most important part of this whole method. Pick a keyword with a high cost-per-click and the math never works. Pick one with 4-cent clicks and a topic that maps to real products people buy, and you have a shot.

Step 2: Building the Checklist Page

Once you have a keyword, you build a single-page website around it. The page structure is simple: a title at the top matching your checklist topic, then a grid of icons — one per checklist item — where each icon links out to an affiliate product.

For icons I used Flat Icons, which is a large library of PNG icons you can search by topic. If your checklist is about vacationing, you search for relevant objects: suitcase, travel pillow, sunscreen bottle, passport holder. Download the PNG, make light edits in Affinity Photo (which is essentially Photoshop without the monthly subscription), and embed it on your page with an affiliate link underneath.

The affiliate links in my test went to Amazon. You could also use Best Buy, Walmart, Target, or Wayfair — each has its own affiliate program. For specific niches like a first-apartment checklist, Wayfair’s furniture commissions might outperform Amazon’s because the average order value is higher. I chose Amazon because I wanted to move fast and test the concept, not because it is the best choice for every niche.

Campbell’s original video recommends HTML for the build. I used WordPress instead, and I would recommend the same to anyone without a coding background. WordPress lets you get the page live faster, and you can style it without touching a line of code. If you are running paid ads, time is money — every hour you spend wrestling with HTML is an hour your ad budget is burning without a live destination.

Step 3: Setting Up Google Ads With Keyword Toaster

Campbell’s video focuses on organic traffic. I decided to use Google Ads so I could see results within days rather than weeks, which also meant I could finish this review faster. To generate my keyword list quickly, I used a free tool called Keyword Toaster.

Keyword Toaster takes a seed term and spits out broad match, phrase match, and exact match versions of that keyword. I entered “vacation” and “vacation checklist” and exported the full list. The reason you want all three match types is that real searchers do not type the exact phrase you expect. Someone searching for “beach vacation checklist packing list 2-week trip” is still a potential buyer — you want your ad to surface for them too.

I set my Google Ads campaign at $10 per day with a max bid of 50 cents per click. I ran it through ads.google.com starting on a Saturday afternoon. By Tuesday I had spent roughly $30 and received enough clicks to see how the page was performing.

One thing worth knowing: if you open a brand-new Google Ads account, Google offers up to $500 in free credit — but you have to spend $500 first to unlock it. For someone testing this method, that offer means you could run $1,000 worth of ad experiments on a $500 budget if you time it right. The upside: you get real data quickly. The downside: you need to start with $500 of your own money before you see the credit.

My Results: $30 Spent, $1.50 Earned

After four days of running paid ads to my checklist page, I had earned $1.50 from Amazon affiliate clicks. Total ad spend: approximately $30. Net result: a loss of $28.50.

I want to be direct about what this means: the method did not produce $709 per day for me. It did not produce $7 per day. The headline claim in Campbell’s original video is wildly optimistic and not what a first-timer should expect from a first attempt.

That said, losing $28.50 on a test that took one afternoon and provided a concrete learning experience is not a disaster. The question is why the results were what they were, and whether those reasons are fixable.

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Three Honest Reasons the Numbers Were Low

I spent time after the test thinking through exactly what went wrong. Here are the three most honest explanations.

1. The Website Itself Could Be Much Better

My checklist page was minimal: a title, a grid of icons, and affiliate links. No copy. No context. No reason for a visitor to trust the recommendations. Someone searching “vacation checklist” lands on a page with a bunch of icons and likely bounces immediately because the page feels thin and untrustworthy.

A better version of this page would have a short intro explaining what the checklist covers, a brief note about why each item is recommended, and maybe a few product comparisons. An email capture could also help — even if people do not buy on the first visit, getting them onto a list means you can market to them again. I chose not to do that because I was not interested in building an email list in that niche, but for someone serious about the method it would be a meaningful improvement.

2. Amazon May Not Be the Right Affiliate Program for This

Amazon pays 1-4% commission on most product categories. For a $30 travel pillow, that is about $0.90. If your cost per click on Google Ads is 40 cents and your page converts at 5% (which would be good), you need ten clicks to get one purchase — that is $4 in ad spend to earn $0.90. The math does not work.

Better programs for this model would be ones with higher commission rates or higher average order values. A travel niche could use luggage companies with 8-10% affiliate programs. A home-goods niche could use programs from brands where a single purchase is $150+. The checklist concept is sound — the affiliate program selection is where you can make or break the economics.

3. The Niche and My Traffic Source Were Not Aligned

I built a vacation checklist page. My existing audience talks about affiliate marketing and making money online. If I had tried to drive my existing followers to this page via YouTube or TikTok, they would have ignored it — it has nothing to do with why they follow me. That is a core principle Campbell himself does not address well: free traffic only works if what you are promoting is congruent with why your audience follows you.

For paid traffic, congruence matters less because you are going out and finding strangers who specifically searched that keyword. But for free traffic — if you have a TikTok account, a YouTube channel, or any following at all — the checklist topic has to match your existing brand. Someone with a travel-focused TikTok account who builds a vacation checklist page would be in a very different position than I was.

Checklist Niches Worth Exploring

One of the better parts of the original method is that it scales across hundreds of niches. During my Ahrefs research I found keyword clusters that could work well for the right creator or the right paid traffic setup. Here is a sample of what stood out:

Self-care checklist — 4 cents per click, 2,000 monthly searches; products like journals, skincare items, and wellness gear all have affiliate programs
Thanksgiving checklist — 3 cents per click; high seasonal volume from October through late November; products include kitchen tools, tableware, and grocery delivery services
First apartment checklist — moderate cost-per-click; strong affiliate fit with Wayfair, IKEA affiliate programs, and Amazon for kitchenware and cleaning supplies
Backpacking checklist — outdoor gear has solid affiliate programs (REI, Backcountry) with higher commissions than Amazon for some categories
Travel packing checklist — 4-cent clicks and broad appeal; good match for travel bloggers or anyone with a travel-adjacent audience

The key filter is not just low cost-per-click — it is low cost-per-click combined with products that pay reasonable commissions. A 3-cent click on a keyword where the only relevant products pay 1% commission still loses money. Do both filters before you build anything.

Free Traffic vs. Paid Traffic: Which One to Choose

Campbell’s original method leans on free organic traffic. I switched to paid to get faster results for this review. Both paths are valid, but they require different setups and different expectations.

Free traffic through TikTok, YouTube Shorts, or long-form YouTube works if you already have an audience — and if your checklist topic aligns with that audience. The checklist page becomes a link in your bio or a link in your video description. Cost: effectively zero beyond time. Timeline: weeks or months before meaningful traffic arrives, depending on your existing reach.

Paid traffic through Google Ads works if you pick a low-cost keyword, build a high-converting page, and choose affiliate programs with margins that support the ad cost. Cost: real money every day the campaign runs. Timeline: results visible within 48-72 hours. Risk: you can burn through a budget quickly on a page that does not convert.

For someone starting from zero with no existing audience, paid traffic gives you faster feedback. But you are paying for that speed. If you have 5,000 TikTok followers in a niche that maps well to a checklist product category, free traffic is the smarter starting point.

A Simple Decision Framework Before You Build

Before putting any time into this method, answer these four questions honestly:

Do I have an existing audience? If yes, what is the topic of that audience, and is there a checklist product category that fits it? If no, are you ready to spend $10-30/day on Google Ads while you test?
What affiliate program will I use? Run the math before you build: estimated cost-per-click x clicks needed to get one purchase x your commission rate. If the number is negative, pick a different program or niche.
Can I build a page that earns trust? A page with only icons and no context will not convert well. Do you have the time to write a short, useful intro and add genuine product recommendations?
Is the keyword seasonal? Thanksgiving checklist traffic arrives in October-November and disappears in December. Vacation checklist traffic peaks in spring and summer. Build around timing if you want fast returns.

If you can answer all four cleanly, the method is worth testing with a small budget or a small traffic push from your existing channels. If two or more answers are unclear, spend another hour on research before you spend a dollar on ads.

Will I Try This Again?

Yes. I said this directly in the video and I mean it. The method is not broken — my first execution was imperfect. I plan to run a second round the following weekend with different checklists, better affiliate program selection, and a more substantial page. The concept of finding low-cost-per-click keywords and building a page around a topic people are actively searching is sound. The failure was in the execution details, not the idea itself.

What I would do differently: pick a niche that maps to a higher-commission affiliate program, write at least 200 words of actual useful content on the page rather than just icons, test two or three different checklist topics in the same campaign to find which one converts first, and set a harder stop-loss — something like “if I have spent $20 and earned $0, I pause and rebuild the page before spending more.”

Find Your X

Checklist affiliate sites are one approach to making money online. They are not the right approach for everyone. If you are not sure whether this method fits your schedule, your skills, or what you actually want to build, take the free quiz at finder.platformproof.com. Answer 7 questions about your current skills, time availability, and income goals and you will get a personalized method recommendation — no guessing, no generic advice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you actually make $709 per day with this method?

The claim in Marcus Campbell’s original video is not something I was able to reproduce. My first attempt returned $1.50 on $30 in ad spend. The $709 figure is theoretically possible at scale with highly optimized pages, strong affiliate programs, and significant traffic — but it is not a realistic first-week expectation for a beginner.

Do I need Ahrefs to do this?

Ahrefs is what Campbell recommends and what I used. It is a paid tool. Free alternatives include Google Keyword Planner (available inside Google Ads for free) and Ubersuggest’s free tier. Ahrefs gives you the cleanest data and the most accurate cost-per-click estimates, but you can start keyword research with the free tools and upgrade if the method proves profitable for you.

What is Keyword Toaster and why use it?

Keyword Toaster is a free web tool that takes a seed keyword and generates broad match, phrase match, and exact match variations automatically. It saves about 30 minutes of manual keyword formatting when setting up a Google Ads campaign. You paste the seed terms in, export the list, and upload it directly into Google Ads. It is not required, but it speeds up the Google Ads setup step considerably.

Why WordPress instead of HTML for building the page?

Campbell’s method uses raw HTML and offers a template through his email list. If you have a development background, HTML is fine. For most people, WordPress is faster and requires no coding knowledge. You can install a free theme, add your icons through the media library, and link them to affiliate URLs without writing a single line of code. The outcome is the same page, built in a fraction of the time.

Can I use Google Sites instead of WordPress?

Google Sites is free and easy to set up. The problem is that running paid Google Ads to a Google Sites page may not be allowed or may be restricted. If you plan to use purely organic traffic — TikTok, YouTube, Pinterest, or your own social presence — Google Sites could work as a starting point. For paid traffic, use a self-hosted WordPress installation on a web host you control.

What affiliate programs work best for this model?

Amazon is the easiest to start with because it covers almost every product category and most people already have an account. The downside is low commission rates — typically 1-4%. For better margins, look at niche-specific programs: REI or Backcountry for outdoor checklists, Wayfair or Build.com for home and apartment checklists, or travel booking platforms for travel checklists. Higher commission rates change the economics significantly.

How long does it take to set this up?

Campbell claims an afternoon. My build took longer because I went deeper on keyword research and page design, but a focused beginner could realistically get a basic version live in three to four hours. That includes keyword research in Ahrefs or Google Keyword Planner, downloading icons from Flat Icons, editing them in Affinity Photo or Canva, setting up a WordPress page, adding affiliate links, and launching a Google Ads campaign.

Should I use free traffic or paid traffic to start?

Start with free traffic if you have an existing audience in a niche that fits a checklist product category. Start with paid traffic if you have zero audience but have a budget to test quickly. The minimum realistic paid test budget is around $50-100 to gather enough data to know whether a specific page and keyword combination is working. Less than that and the sample size is too small to draw conclusions.

Sources

Marcus Campbell’s original YouTube video on the $709/day app method (referenced in the “I Tried It” series)
Ahrefs Keywords Explorer — keyword volume and cost-per-click data for “checklist” terms
Flat Icons — icon library used for building the checklist pages (flaticon.com)
Affinity Photo — image editing software used to customize downloaded icons
Keyword Toaster — free tool for generating broad/phrase/exact match keyword lists
Google Ads (ads.google.com) — paid traffic platform used in this test; $500 free credit offer available to new accounts
Amazon Associates — affiliate program used in the initial test build

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