You Don’t Need To Pay A Guru $thousands To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing in 2026.
You don’t need any money to start making money online with affiliate marketing. Here is what you actually need. Here Is the truth that those Gurus don’t want you to know.
In my videos and blog posts I will be revealing the Zero cost system that every beginner should use to get started with affiliate marketing with no money upfront. Start on the Home page.
To get started the first thing you must decide is what are the problems or desires other people are searching for online to solve. You can help them find their solution?
Your job is to help them, not empty their pockets? If getting rich is all you desire, you will probably fail before you even get started? Remember, people buy when they trust and like you? Nobody cares if you are desperate for more money.
You need to pick a Niche, then drill down to a specific sub niche. The evergreen niches are wealth, health, relationships and spirituality. These terms are too broad so you need to find the sub niches within them.
For instance wealth can relate to “how to make money working from home” or “how to balance my spending while paying my bills on time” and so on.
For health “how to lose belly fat after baby” or “how to get rid of my beer belly” or “how to build muscles and get fit” or “how to drop 2 dress sizes before my wedding” and so on.
For relationships “how to save my marriage” or “how to get my ex back” and more.
For spirituality “do those various 40hz audio frequency products help me to focus better” or “can meditation help me to relax and relive stress” and more.
Whatever your chosen niche, it must align with what you also enjoy doing because recommending something to other people you don’t actually get excited about will be apparent. Anyone you are trying to get it in front of as their solution will notice your Lack of genuine desire to help them? Your lack of enthusiasm will make them ignore you because you cannot fake it?
My niche is “You Don’t Need To Pay A Guru $thousands To Get Started With Affiliate Marketing in 2026” It is how I started or should I say restarted my own affiliate marketing business in 2020 working from home as a retiree. I chose the “make money online working from home” niche because it is something I feel passionate about.
I first started in 2007 but knew nothing. I tried various online membership sites, paid $6000 for a six week online USA course, created a website, offered an ebook, tried to build a mailing list, but only got one person to download the free ebook. That was $6000 wasted. One person on my mailing list and $17 even after that website was online for over one year?
Next I joined another better membership online, the Chris Farrell Membership, where I learnt a lot more. But it was still very basic information. However it was a good foundation to get going. I got an autoresponder account with Aweber, which I still use today. I grew my mailing list to 750 subscribers, created a couple of WordPress websites, and started making some affiliate commissions.
After a few years, that membership started declining and Chris Farrell now promotes Crypto, something I do not like or believe in? So I left that $37 a month membership and joined Wealthy Affiliate University, which is not a university, it is an online affiliate membership website coaching for free, then $47 a month?
Their training was overkill, hundreds of videos, poor quality WordPress Websites, terrible training, focused mainly on promoting the WA membership above all else. By creating fake reviews of other online products, and courses and recommending WA? This smacked of MLM so eventually I left. I learnt that WA was a terrible membership but has been much improved recently but still needs more regarding their poor quality websites and keyword ai tools they still use?
Fast forward to 2020, I inherited £30k from my father who passed away a year earlier and I decided to invest in hands on classroom training. I was sold into attending a 3 day affiliate marketing make money online comprehensive course in a hotel near Heathrow London Airport for a discounted £4700 from $8000 most of the other 300 attendees paid. It was hosted by a UK £20million Guru and his team.
Their sales team lied to all 150 of us. That entry fee was to sell us on day 3 a $27,000 package of courses that would be the real comprehensive course because in 3 days they only taught what most of us already knew? Yet maybe 8 to 10 idiots rushed forward to buy while the rest of us walked out furious and demanded our money back but they refused to do that.
I left determined never to pay another Guru a single penny. I got home and the next day got to work scanning the internet. Searching for free videos on YouTube and reading blogs, books, etcetera, on how other people were claiming they were making money online. I ignored most of those who said a mentor taught them and instead focused on those few that said they figured it out on their own.
I made furious notes, saved videos and blogs, and started testing what actually did work and what was pure fiction? Eventually after about 6 months, I had assembled a system of zero cost, mostly free tools and spent another 3 months testing and tweaking them until I had the perfect zero cost setup and the results to back it up.
One that started growing my mailing list, which I restarted from zero, and my earnings, that began at a trickle then growing faster. At the end of the 3 month trial I had made around $470 and my mailing list grew to 1250. This proved that this zero cost system worked for those people willing to work up to 10 hours a week in their spare time. Today using what my system had earnt, I upgraded to paid tools where doing that increased my earnings even more.
You see, today I know that, like any business, it takes time, consistent work, tweaking, testing, before seeing meaningful earnings. All those many fake Guru websites that promise one click $hundres in 60 seconds are scams to trick lazy “get rich quick fools” to part with their money? Most show a very low entry price but the actual cost is really $800 to over $3000 plus. Unless you spend on all those multiple upsells, it is useless?
So enough about my experiences, lets continue with the package I put together. As I already said, first decide upon your niche. The next step is to discover the exact words people are typing online searching to resolve a problem or satisfy a desire? Here is where most courses go wrong.
The keywords you need to find are those where that person is not just asking about it but is ready to buy and pay to resolve their need. For instance, someone typing “what is affiliate marketing?” is not looking to buy. Someone typing “what is the best online affiliate marketing coaching programs for under $100 a month?” has their credit card out ready to buy?
To succeed you need to save those golden long tail buyer intent keywords. We want to build a mailing list of buyers not tyre kickers? Buyer intent keywords are pure gold. So where do you find out what words people are using?
Good question. The answer is keyword research tools and Ai. Knowing how to give Ai the correct, detailed prompts is key? Also applies on Keyword research tools like Google Planner. Some people are saying Ai is replacing keyword tools today but I find that checking them on Google as well gives a much clearer up to date picture. About 98% of searches are made on Google.
On Google, you also get auto suggested keywords, and can also see what is ranked on page one. Finding those pages with outdated or low quality videos, posts and websites on page one is magic. That is one you can, with better more up to date content or videos, you can possibly outrank those on there to get a page one position driving free traffic to your offer.
Next, here is the essential part. Never promote junk just because it pays £500 plus commissions. Only promote what you yourself would buy and believe in. It must have a great professional website, a catchy headline, a compelling text to continue reading or watching if it is a video? It should have a overwhelming reason to buy it? If you are tempted to buy, it is worth looking at independent reviews? Mostly bad reviews, do not promote it.
The sales page must not have wildly unbelievable claims that are pure fiction? Only promote genuine quality products. Check the independent reviews not just those on the website that could be fake or paid for? If it sounds too good to be true it is neither?
So where do I find products that people searching for a problem solution are ready to buy? How do I get paid when they make a purchase? Do I have to pay to promote it? Good questions. Here are your answers. No, never pay for an affiliate link.
I used to use ClickBank and Digistore24 and still do sometimes, but I find most products to be low quality and full of hype as are many on JV Zoo and Warrior Plus? Also a lot of Gurus recommend starting with Amazon Associates but for beginners that is terrible advice.
Yes it is easy to create a free account. But a beginner with zero followers, no mailing list, no website or a blog, no Social Media following, no money for running paid ads, no clue how to avoid getting banned and so on, should never start with Amazon.
The Gurus telling you that actually want you to fail? If you keep failing, you will keep buying their courses? I wasted $35,000 on many Gurus and courses until I realised you can start with no money using only free tools. Today I do use paid for essential tools, some that were free to use when I started. I upgraded once my earnings covered that cost while increasing my earnings as a result.
I recommend starting with Clickbank. Create your free account, save your login details and go to the marketplace. Choose products in your niche. Look at the gravity score. As a beginner, avoid any above 80 or below 10. Pick only 3 for now. Look at the sales page and the affiliate page. Are you tempted to buy it? Does the affiliate page give you 5 to 7 prewritten emails? Read them. Are they spammy?
Would those emails make you think about buying? Do they have other useful resources like banners, images, videos, pre-written blog posts you should edit. So it is not like everyone else promoting it? I personally write my own emails and posts but as a beginner, if you do promote it, copy their emails for now but only after you have checked those independent reviews on Google? Type the product name plus review or scam to see what other people are saying? Avoid those with an affiliate link, they are selling it and could be lying to get a sale?
You will need to click the “promote” button, enter your user name and copy your affiliate link. To make that ugly long URL link better, create a free account on T.LY. It is free unlike some others you need to pay to use. It will give you a shortened link. Edit it by overwriting the displayed letters shown with the product name or something close to it if that is already taken by someone else? I just add my initials on the end if that happens. Check it goes to the official sales page. Save it.
Next, get an autoresponder, Systeme.io is free up to 2500 subscribers but I use Aweber which is free up to your first 500 subscribers and in my opinion, more user friendly and easier to learn how to use? Also their customer service and Ai are worth my monthly payments. Using an autoresponder is essential. At least 60% of your income will come from your mailing list.
Second is social media where you can also build a following and drive free traffic to your landing page. I recommend YouTube, Pinterest, Facebook, Groups, Instagram, X, and LinkedIn. A website or a blog for posting content, Google Sites is free, Hostinger is a paid for website where I have my website
https://clickroamer.com, Blogger is also free and easy to use.
If you are camera shy, you can create faceless videos using script to video using free ai or the one in capCut which is also another video editor as well. You can create free videos up to 10 minutes using your own cloned voice or one of their many voices instead. It will create a video with automated free stock media or ai generated and music with you selected voice.
I also use InVideo and VideoGen among others, which are not free but work quicker and can create better results, but beginners with no money should use the free CapCut for now. I create both long form videos and short form and I recommend you do that too, also creating short form videos or clips from long form into short using Opus Clip. In the video description on YouTube, put your shortened affiliate links in your bio and in each video description. Enter tags and other detail.
Using Ai makes writing articles and scripts for video much quicker using detailed prompts, then editing it to be yourself. I use ChatGPT, Claude, or VidIq for creating video scripts, and optimising videos.
Next I look for digital products to write reviews about from clickbank, Digistore24, Warrior Forum, Warrior Plus, JV Zoo, among others. Also many digital products and online training sites as well, exposing some of the dodgy practices employed by some Gurus that I warn my people about.
For keyword research I use Google Keyword Planner, the HREF keyword tool, and VidIq for YouTube keyword research, always checking them on Google to see how many monthly searches and checking the competition level on page one. Finding those golden long tail buyer intent keywords with high search, low competition, or outdated information is pure gold and an opportunity to create fresh content to outrank them all?
These are the mostly free tools I used to start earning regular affiliate commissions without spending $hundreds on paid ads. Paid ads require burning money to test what converts, before earning more then your ad spend. Also, as soon as you stop paying, you get no more traffic. With SEO research done correctly, you can get page one ranking for your websites, blogs and videos, all driving free traffic to your landing pages for years as long as you update with fresh content often when required?
To get your hands on the zero cost free beginner’s affiliate marketing system, I have placed links for you to try it out without spending any money to get started. Work will be required so if that scares you, this isn’t for you?
That is why some fake dishonest Gurus sell those one click $600 in 60 seconds lies to take money from lazy fools who want to get rich quick without doing any work? Thank you for getting all the way here. The links below are my complete beginner start up system.
New 2026 FREE Course: https://t.ly/FreeAiAffiliateCourse
FREE Course: https://t.ly/Aiaffiliate
My Website: https://clickroamer.com
Disclaimer:
The rest are my affiliate links I use and recommend. I earn a payment when someone makes a purchase without any extra cost to buy. I make no guarantees that you will make any money online because results vary according to each individual and if they take the required actions to make money online.
Aweber: https://t.ly/AweberLP
LeadPages: https://t.ly/LeadPagesLP
ClickFunnels14DayTrial: https://t.ly/14daycftrial
Systeme.io: https://t.ly/Systemeio
Ai Marketers Club: https://t.ly/AiMktsClub
Tube Magic: https://t.ly/tubemagicmp
VidIQ: https://t.ly/vidiq
Opus Clip: https://t.ly/OpusClip
CapCut: https://t.ly/CapCut
My other channels:
Lifestyle Choices Today
Recommending Healthier Lifestyles
Recommended Mostly Free Tools:
aweber, hostinger, youtube, pinterest, x, linkdin, facebook groups, google sites, Blogger, chatgpt, claude, vidiq, clickbank, digistore24, warrior forum, warrior plus, jv zoo, google keyword planner, href keyword tool, Cap Cut, InVideo, Video Gen.