How Much Do I need To Start an Affiliate Marketing Business?

This question comes up regularly. How much do I need to start an affiliate marketing business? -- Many people never start their business for fear of the startup costs.

Sometimes the fear is really unfounded because these same people don't really investigate the true costs of starting an online business.

And before they even start, they extinguish their business.

In this short video, I explain what you *need* to start an affiliate marketing business online.

The good news is that starting an affiliate marketing business, and many other online businesses, the start-up costs are small. In some cases, the cost can be zero. That's what this video is about today.

How Much Does it Cost To Start an Affiliate Marketing Business?

The basics to start an affiliate marketing business are as follows:

#1 Website (hosting & domain)

This amount is generally for one to two years, $60-$120. If you want to learn more about web hosting, I have this blog post here that might help.

Get hosting through Inmotion Hosting here and receive up to 50% off your first invoice. And you get a domain for free, or a free transfer if you already have a domain.

#2 Email marketing

This ranges from $0 to $20/month approximately.

Get email marketing services through Aweber here and get 30 days for free. I think in the video I mentioned you could do email marketing for free. And you can, although I don't recommend it for a couple of reasons.

You may want to try Mailchimp if you really can't afford $20/month for Aweber. ** If you really want to know why I advise against using free email services, you can read this post and watch this video.

The next steps are basically free, just take some of your time and effort.

#3 Start producing content and build your email list and email sequence. Free.

Publish content to your website and or blog and start an email sequence. The email sequence should introduce your subscribers to you and to your vision. It should also explain what to expect in future emails. The sequence can be a few days or a few weeks long.

An easy way to tackle this part is to answer all the "About" related questions in several blog posts. These blog posts then become the email that you send to your list as you introduce yourself and eventually you'll be sharing the current blog post instead of the introductory sequence.

#4 Find products to promote. Free

To find products you can promote, you can start with some affiliate networks, here are three easy sites to work with: Shareasale, Peerfly, and Refersion.

These are free to join and you can browse through the various offers and see if any of them would be a match for your blog or website.

There are another dozen I could list, but that's a good start. Also good to get familiar with the concept of an affiliate network.

If you don't see a product or service you like inside those networks, you can also go to your favorite product or service and see if they offer a rewards or affiliate program section.

Sometimes they have it under sections titled "work with us" or "earn money" or "webmasters" if you don't see it on their own website, then do a web search for "Brand-name +Affiliate Program" where brand-name is whatever brand you're looking for.

Sometimes the affiliate program is run through a network like the ones I shared above or something like CJ.com and many others but the search I gave you above should find it for you.

If you don't see it, then maybe they just don't have one.

For physical products, if you can't find it on a network or directly through the manufacturer, one last resort tends to be Amazon, they have most of the products available for sale also available through their affiliate program.

That is also free to join and you'll find it under Amazon associates. Sign up, then you'll be able to search for any product and get your own affiliate link to share on your blog articles and monetize it that way.

Please note that in a few cases, you may need to own the product you want to promote. This is especially true with software, or web tools. I just wanted to note that because I make a point on this section to say "Find products to promote. Free" so I want to make it clear, you can always promote products for free without paying for fees or memberships.

But there are some cases where an affiliate program is only open to active members or owners of the product, for example, Leadpages.

#5 Work Your Butt Off. Free.

The start-up cost is small, but your effort needs to be big. Constant, and relentless. Even when you face major setbacks that make you want to quit, you must be committed to publishing, on time and consistently.