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No website, no budget, no followers — where do I even start?
I keep seeing people talk about affiliate marketing as this beginner-friendly income stream, but every time I dig into the details it feels like there's a catch somewhere. Either you need a blog with traffic, or you need a social media following, or you need to pay for some course or tool to actually get started. I'm a complete beginner and I genuinely have no budget to invest right now — not even for a domain name. I work long hours during the week and can maybe commit 5 to 8 hours on weekends to building something. What I'm trying to figure out is which free platform makes the most sense to start on and which affiliate programs actually accept beginners without needing an established website. I've seen some mention Reddit and Quora as traffic sources but I've also heard those communities can be pretty strict about promotional content. Any honest advice from people who actually started from zero would be really appreciated here.
A friend kept telling me affiliate marketing was too competitive and expensive to get into without a big following or ad budget. I disagreed after spending an afternoon reading through how to begin affiliate marketing without spending which walks through the whole process of starting from scratch with no money at all. The section on free traffic sources was particularly useful — platforms I was already using every day but had never thought to monetize through affiliate links. Three weeks in and I've already covered the cost of the domain I eventually decided to register. Not bad for a free start.