Make Money on YouTube Without Subscribers (Affiliate Marketing for Small YouTubers)

Try to guess what the top 5 best and top 10 best YouTube channels have in common. It’s quite simple, they make a lot more money in other ways than showing ads.

And in this article, I will show you an effective method to make money on YouTube even if you have no subscribers.

Make Money on YouTube Without Subscribers

YouTube is an online platform that allows anyone to upload videos and share them with the world. It is one of the most popular sites in the world, with over one billion users monthly. With so many people on YouTube, it can be difficult to stand out and make money.

But, there are a few ways that you can make money on YouTube without subscribers. And one of the easiest and most effective video-sharing platforms is affiliate marketing.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a way to make money online by promoting other people’s products. As an affiliate marketer, you will be promoting someone else’s product and earning a commission on each sale you make.

Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular ways to earn money online. It’s a great way to make some extra cash or even replace your current income.

There are many ways to earn money with affiliate marketing. One way is by promoting a product online on your own blog, website, video, or social media account.

Another way is by getting paid per lead you send to an advertiser.

And finally, you can get paid per click on an advertisement that you have posted somewhere on the internet.

How to do Affiliate Marketing on YouTube

Let’s get back to the channels that I showed you at the beginning of this post.

These YouTube channels are uploading simple, mostly faceless top 5 list videos.

As a blogger, I know that some articles on my blog have an informational character, and some articles are written to make money. And top 10 or the best articles are those that are making money.

The same method can be applied on YouTube too.

And some channels are built around these top 10 list videos where the intention is not to make money from displaying ads but from affiliate commissions from the products mentioned in these videos.

And it is as simple as it sounds.

For example, you are making the 10 best routers for home video, which you will shortly review.

Don’t worry, you don’t need to buy these routers. You’re just using the promo content from the manufacturer of each product.

Then you put affiliate links into the description. These links are special because they are tracked by the affiliate network you are working with, they are linked only to you, and when somebody buys a product through your link, you get a commission.

According to the statistics, the average conversion rate on YouTube ranges from 2% to 5%.

The commissions for different products may vary widely, but let’s say you have a product that pays 5% and costs $100.

If your video has 10,000 views, and the conversion rate is only 2%, here’s what the earnings will look like.

• Views = 10,000
• Conversions (2%) = 200
• Commission (5%) = $1000

I think it is impressive and if you compare it to the money you get from displaying ads, it is even more impressive.

For example, if this video is in a niche with an average CPM of $15 per thousand views, then a video with 10,000 views will get you $150.

What do you think about affiliate marketing now?

However, it doesn’t mean you should upload only the top 10 product videos; it means you shouldn’t rely solely on displaying ads because you’re leaving tons of money on the table.

Affiliate Marketing for Small YouTubers

In this part of the article, I will show you some effective methods to use affiliate marketing on YouTube.

Firstly, as an affiliate, you are promoting mainly physical or digital products.

If you choose to promote physical products, like in the video about the best routers, you are mostly working with Amazon. The reason is that Amazon Associate Program is the best affiliate program on the internet.

The commissions are low, at around 4% per product and you only get a 24-hour cookie duration.

But for everything the person you send through the link buys on Amazon in the 24-hour interval, you will get a commission.

In other words, if a person buys not only a router but also a monitor and keyboard, you get a commission for each of these products.

And this is the reason why the Amazon affiliate program is the most popular affiliate program on YouTube.

It is also quite easy to find a product on Amazon and create an affiliate link to this product.

Let’s say, you want to promote this router in your video, all you need to do is to click on the Get the Text link on the Associate SiteStripe bar and then copy this short link and paste it into the description of your video.

And for a top 10 products video, for each product, you need to put an affiliate link in the description.

The downside of being an affiliate that promotes physical products is that the commissions are low. In most cases, you can expect 2 to 8 percent of the sale.

However, if you want to make real money, you should promote digital products. In this sector, your commissions are mostly over 30% per sold product, but in many cases, you can even get 50% or more.

When talking about digital products, it means you are promoting courses, books, training programs, software, applications, or subscription-based services.

A cherry on top of promoting digital products is that some subscription-based products offer so-called recurring commissions.

Recurring commissions are one of the best commission types an affiliate can get.

These affiliates are paid for every sale generated by a customer who has been contacted by the affiliate before. In other words, every time your referral renews its subscription, you get a percentage of the purchase.

Promoting digital products is the same as with physical products. You sign up for an affiliate program, get a unique affiliate link, and when someone clicks through and makes a purchase, you get a commission.

But before you sign up for any affiliate program, always check the quality of the product or service. There are plenty of low-quality products in the digital product category, so you don’t want to promote such things.

This mainly applies to Clickbank or JVzoo. Two popular marketplaces where you can find some high-quality offers worth promoting, but also tons of poor services.

Conclusion

There are many content creators on YouTube who, while they have less than 1,000 subscribers, still manage to make a living. This is because they monetize their videos through affiliate marketing, rather than relying on YouTube’s ad-based revenue share model.

Since affiliate marketing is easy, even beginners can make lots of money.

However, many YouTubers are also selling their products, such as courses, coaching, services, or their merch.

You can try any of these methods and see if any work for you.