By Joe Foley

The digital agency says AI can help creatives keep up with changing expectations.

AI is transforming processes in all kinds of industries, which inevitably means we’ll see more AI in branding and brand design. However, a lot of the discussion about the possibilities still feels abstract, leaving people wondering what practical uses the technology has for designers working on campaigns.

The most most visible face of AI at the moment tends to be generative tools like chatbots and AI image generators. But the team at digital innovation agency Rehab doesn’t see these as particularly useful for brands today in their most generic forms. Where Rehab thinks AI can play a role is in ideation and audience validation at the very beginning of the creative process. I spoke to founder Tim Rodgers and Head of Strategy Callum Gill to learn more about what this really looks like.

Many creatives will be happy to hear that Tim and Callum are sceptical about the usefulness of generative AI for producing final assets. Rehab is focusing on the earlier part of the creative process: the hours of research and strategy work that go into shaping a campaign and defining what the assets should be rather than how they should be made.

They realised that if you ask ChatGPT for an idea for a creative campaign, whatever it comes up has probably been done a thousand times before, which might be reason enough to immediately rule out it out. What they’re doing is adding further training to create smaller bespoke AI models that are more relevant to a specific brand.

Tim and Callum expect the future of AI will see the generic public models get bigger, while brands use smaller private models that have been fine-tuned to generate ideas for the creative process. It’s developed its own middleware called Daisychain, which orchestrates multiple large language models.

Rehab calls its tools an “unfair advantage” because they aim to give clients access to more intelligence than what their competitors have. This could be insights into trending topics on social media or the current interests of specific audiences. Putting this in the hands of designers, means designers become researchers. They’ll be able to get quicker, more detailed insights into what an audience is doing, saying, eating and more.

“Humans are making so much data on so many different platforms that if you want to truly understand who you’re designing for it’s really difficult,” Tim says. “But that’s a super power of AI, which can dissect large data sets and help you to understand them.”

The data needed to train bespoke models varies case by case. It can include public data, for example from social media, private static data like research documents, and real-time data. User feedback on the quality of the output is used to make the system better.

“Companies are sitting on a bunch of data that they own, they’ve created or they bought, and they’re just not utilising it,” Tim notes. “We’ve seen teams spend seven figures on research documents that go unread because they’re large PDF documents and no one has the time to find the nuggets inside that research. But if we take those reports and train a model with it, you can just ask the questions.”

Tim’s keen to point out that AI alone doesn’t hold the answer, and Rehab’s models aren’t a black box that can spit out finished results. AI doesn’t have the emotional intelligence for that. Rather it’s a springboard for human designers. For example, a copywriter and art director might have a conversation with the AI to explore trends and find ideas for campaigns.

“What we do is not replacement but enhancement,” Tim insists. “It’s about creating a trained AI that works alongside your team. It’s basically trying to leverage data. If you’re designers now have more visibility into what consumers want and are needing and can do that on a real-time basis, it’s going to lift the quality of all of the work.”

Callum suggests AI can also help designers respond to changing expectations. He says the main complaint he hears from everyone from researchers to creatives is not a lack of work or an inability to do the work, but the ability to keep up with demand, Work suffers because people are having to rush, so Rehab aims to give creatives a platform that provides more time to do the work by helping designers to avoid the wait for strategy and insight to confirm ideas.

“The expectations around the volume of work delivery have changed without the expectation around resources shifting that much, he says. “Lead times are getting shorter and shorter, so if we can empower teams to shortcut this part of the process, it leaves much more time for creatives that actually do the real creatives. How that comes to life is how the colour way is chosen, how the font is brought to life, how it looks in the various environments it’s going to live in. While AI can do some of that stuff, we know it’s the best at it yet. It’s not about taking jobs, it’s about the people you’ve got being able to deliver more in the time frame.”

As for the later stages of the creative process, Tim and Callum believe using AI to generate final assets remains risky, but they don’t find this to be a particularly interesting area either. “Sure, we can put a dog on a skateboard on an infinite number of backgrounds, but who wants that?,” Callum asks. “For us, it’s more exciting to figure out what you should do rather than how you do it. Maybe it should be a hamster on the skateboard, perhaps that would resonate more with the target audience. That’s the interesting part, more than how to produce that thing for less.”

Ultimately, Rehab thinks all brands are going to be using this kind of technology to devise campaigns. “Whatever brand has this technology is going to be faster than their competitor that doesn’t have it,” Tim says. “And between these brands, you’re going to see it in the actual work.”

For more on the conversation about AI in branding, graphic design, game design and more, see our AI Week coverage.

Feature Image credit: Rehab

By Joe Foley

Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.

Sourced from CREATIVE BLOQ

BY NICK ZVIADADZE , EDITED BY CHELSEA BROWN

Discover the best SEO hacks you can use to rank fast and avoid waiting for months to see results.

Search engine optimization (SEO) usually takes a lot of time to show results. In fact, it’s common for businesses to wait up to a year to see improvements in their search engine rankings.

For a growing business, waiting that long for results is not always optimal, which is why many entrepreneurs ditch SEO in favour of quicker alternatives, like paid ads.

Luckily, there is a way to speed up this process and climb up Google’s rankings faster. And it’s worth it too, considering 49% of marketers believe that SEO delivers the highest ROI of any marketing strategy.

In this article, I share five actionable SEO hacks that can help you rank faster and drive more traffic to your website in no time.

1. Target long-tail keywords

Many small business owners trying SEO for the first time make the mistake of targeting highly competitive keywords. Although it’s tempting to aim for those big, high-traffic keywords, it can take years to rank for them.

To accelerate your SEO results, you want to focus on long-tail keywords. These are longer, more specific phrases that potential customers are likely to use when they’re closer to making a purchase.

Sure, long-tail keywords may have lower search volumes, but they often come with higher buyer intent, which means that the people using these terms are more likely to convert into customers.

For example, a standard keyword you may want to target is “running shoes.” This keyword is highly competitive and could take a long time to rank for. Instead, a better SEO strategy is to go for a long-tail keyword like “best running shoes for flat feet” because it is more specific, less competitive and more likely to attract users who are ready to buy.

2. Create epic content

Most website owners don’t put enough effort into the content they publish. However, generic 500-word articles haven’t been able to compete with in-depth content for a long time.

Recent Google algorithm updates have made quality content even more important, so generic 2,000-word articles aren’t going to cut it either.

That said, quality content is more than just word count.

Here’s what truly epic content consists of:

• Well-researched: Use relevant statistics and credible sources to back up your points. This adds authority and trustworthiness to your content.
• Actionable: Provide advice and tips that readers can immediately apply to solve their problems.
• Authoritative: Share expert opinions and real-life examples to increase the credibility of your content.
• Well-structured: Break your content into clear, logical sections with headings, subheadings and bullet points to increase readability.
• Engaging: Write in a natural, conversational tone that resonates with your audience, and don’t overuse AI.

For example, if you’re writing an article about “how to choose the best running shoes for flat feet,” include expert opinions, real-life examples, shoe ratings and actionable steps for your readers to follow.

If you’re not sure how to create content that ranks, the best approach is to hire an SEO expert.

3. Upgrade old content

Regularly updating your content signals to Google that you actively manage your site, which improves your chances of climbing the search engine rankings.

One effective way to do this is to use Google Search Console to identify articles that are ranking in the middle of page one or top of page two.

Then, you need to analyse the content created by competitors who are ranking better than you. Have they added new information, updated statistics, built more backlinks or improved the user experience? Is your article still the best resource available?

The chances are that your competitors have upped their game and so should you.

Add new data, update links, refine your points, and ensure your advice is current and actionable. This shows Google that you are proactive about keeping your content relevant.

4. Proactively build internal links

When writing an article, you should include internal links to all relevant blog posts on your site. This helps Google understand how these different blogs are related to each other.

You can do that by typing “site:yourdomain.com [related keyword]” into Google search. This gives you a list of pages on your website you should link to in your new article.

When adding internal links, use descriptive anchor text that indicates what the linked page is about.

For example, if you’re writing a blog post targeting the keyword “running shoes for flat feet,” you want to link to your other article about “best insoles for flat feet.” Instead of using generic text like “click here,” choose a descriptive anchor like “best insoles for flat feet” to help readers understand what they’ll find when they click the link.

5. Build topical authority

Topical authority refers to how well your website covers a specific subject area. It’s an important factor for SEO because search engines prioritize websites that demonstrate deep knowledge of a given topic.

For example, a website with 100 articles about running shoes will generally perform better in search rankings than a site with just ten articles on the same topic.

The best way to build topical authority is to publish a ton of SEO content. Publishing just two or three articles per month isn’t enough. Aim to publish 10, 20 or even 30 articles each month to improve your credibility with search engines.

Creating that much content on your own can be difficult, so the best option is to hire an SEO agency.

But once you manage to build topical authority, your new articles start ranking in a matter of weeks instead of months, and you can enjoy a steady flow of organic traffic.

Even though SEO takes time to show results, you can try these five SEO techniques to hack your way to better rankings.

Focus on targeting long-tail keywords, creating quality content, updating your old articles, building internal links and establishing topical authority for faster and more substantial SEO results.

EDITED BY CHELSEA BROWN

Sourced from Entrepreneur

By Elizabeth Yuko

It’s time to enrol in AI summer school.

The use of generative artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace nearly doubled between September 2023 and May 2024—when 75% of knowledge workers around the world indicated that they utilized it—according to a survey of 31,000 people in 31 countries conducted by LinkedIn and Microsoft. But they’re not without their doubts: 53% of those who have integrated AI into their workday said are concerned that using it on important work tasks could make them look replaceable.

 

At the same time, if you’ve ever encountered Google’s AI wildly inaccurate search results, you know that while AI might be the future, but it still has a long way to go. In the meantime, you might want to take advantage of some of the available courses on the basics of AI—especially those that are free. If you’re not sure where to start, LinkedIn Learning is now offering more than 50 free AI-upskilling courses from now through July 8.

How to take free AI courses through LinkedIn Learning

The LinkedIn Learning site can be a bit overwhelming if you don’t know what, exactly, you’re looking for, and where to find it. Plus, there are plenty of AI-related courses that haven’t been unlocked and require a subscription.

Basically, from now through July 8, these five learning pathways, featuring more than 50 AI-upskilling courses, have been unlocked and are free to access.

1. Building AI Literacy

• Course: What is Generative AI?
• Course: Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
• Course: Responsible AI: Principles and Practical Applications
• Course: How to Boost Your Productivity with AI Tools
• Course: Prompt Engineering: How to Talk to the AIs
• Course: Introduction to Large Language Models

2. Applying AI to Everyday Work

Courses are available in three areas:

• Applying Generative AI as a Creative Professional (5 courses)
• Applying Generative AI as a Business Professional (7 courses)
• Applying AI as a Tech Leader (10 courses)

3. Developing Your Skills with the OpenAI API

• Course: OpenAI API: Working with Files
• Course: OpenAI API: Function Calling
• Course: OpenAI API: Code Interpreter and Advanced Data Analysis
• 8 additional courses

4. Advancing Your Skills in Deep Learning and Neural Networks

• Course: Deep Learning: Getting Started
• Course: AI Workshop: Build a Neural Network with PyTorch Lightning
• 7 additional courses

5. Developing Your AI Skills as a Cybersecurity Professional 

• Course: Artificial Intelligence for Cybersecurity
• Course: Leveraging AI for Security Testing
• Course: Introduction to MLSecOps
• 4 additional courses

There are a total of 55 free courses—none of which require you to sign up for a free trial of the LinkedIn Learning subscription. Unless you want to subscribe, just ignore the blue box on the right side of the page that says “Start my free month,” then scroll down and click directly on the course you’d like to take. It should begin right away without you having to enrol in a trial.

 

You can learn more about these courses and other offerings in this blog post from LinkedIn Learning’s Head of Global Content Dan Brodnitz.

Feature Image Credit: LinkedIn

By Elizabeth Yuko

Sourced from LIFEHACKER

By Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf  

Paid social search offerings differ significantly from traditional search ads

Most major social networks—including Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok (the top three social platforms by ad spending)—have enabled ads in search results. But when available, social search ads aren’t a standalone product. They’re offered as an extension of broader social campaigns. (YouTube is omitted from this analysis since we classify it as a digital video platform.)

• Search formats are opt-in—usually. TikTok’s Search Ads Toggle and campaigns using manual placements on Meta platforms give advertisers the choice to include search ads alongside other social formats. However, if an advertiser uses Advantage+, there is no option to go without search ads.
• There’s no special creative for social search. Social platforms typically leverage the same assets that appear in other placements (e.g., in-feed, Stories) for ads served in search results.
• Keyword targeting is rare. Audience targeting is the standard. While some platforms allow advertisers to avoid “negative” keywords, Pinterest is the only platform that enables keyword targeting akin to traditional search capabilities.

Many performance advertisers have embraced paid search formats as built-in performance optimizers, but brand marketers have been more sceptical of cost trade-offs, leading to slower adoption.

But marketers can harmonize paid and SEO tactics to get the most out of social media campaigns

• Savvy advertisers are taking advantage of organic social search. By observing search trends to inform content marketing strategies and taking cues from SEO to refine language and tags, brands can maximize discoverability. Putting paid support behind posts that perform well organically is a logical next step. A notable minority of small-business owners surveyed in January by Adobe Express thought that a variety of TikTok content had outperformed traditional search engine results. This could be a harbinger of social search strategies to come.

• Platforms are incentivizing creators to optimize content for organic social search. TikTok has rolled out a new payment structure—the Creator Rewards Program—which factors in how well content aligns with search trends. Over time, this will reinforce consumer search behaviours, which should, in turn, dictate paid marketing strategies.

Read the full report, Social Search Trends 2024.

By Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf  

Sourced from EMarketer

Sourced from The Drum

A new report from StackAdapt explores the benefits of a multichannel programmatic advertising strategy for B2B marketers to capture the attention of key decision-makers.

B2B is big business. The B2B advertising market in the UK and Europe is a robust billion-dollar industry experiencing remarkable growth. After years of economic uncertainty, B2B decision-makers are prepared to reward companies that deliver personalised, multichannel marketing experiences with big budgets.

StackAdapt is a multi-channel programmatic advertising platform used by the most exceptional digital marketers. This state-of-the-art platform is where some of the…Find out more

Sourced from The Drum

Need for precision marketing amidst the cookie apocalypse

Sourced from techradar.pro

 

By Michael Shribman

Embarking on the journey of creating your own startup might seem like a long and drawn-out process. For people just getting into this position, it’s like sailing into uncharted waters. That being said, there is a sense of freedom that can come with this goal you have decided to pursue. The thrill and potential of prosperity draw countless individuals to entrepreneurship.

In this day and age, with social media being a way to reach millions of individuals, if done right, the dream of being an owner may only be a vision away. So, here is how you can begin setting up the sails of your ship and chart a course toward building a thriving new business.

Charting Your Course: From Vision To Action

Every successful startup begins with a vision. It could be as simple as an idea that addresses a pressing need or solves a significant problem in the world. This newfound passion ignites an entrepreneur’s vision for a new product and propels them forward through the highs and lows of their new startup journey.

As such, you need to consider some key aspects before diving headfirst into a business. Ask yourself: What problem am I passionate about solving? How can I make a meaningful impact on this problem? Your answers serve as your North Star; follow it.

Market Mastery: Researching, Analysing And Understanding

Once you’ve identified your passion project and thought of ways to solve the issues within your idea, conduct thorough market research to validate that your idea will be profitable. Dive into your target market, and understand its demographics, behaviours and key points. Research any competitors to identify gaps and opportunities within the market that you can harness. This research will provide you with the insights needed to help you enhance your product or service to better suit the needs of your potential clients.

Plotting Your Path: Crafting A Detailed Business Plan

You have made it this far—great job. Now, you have reached a key factor in your success: creating an in-depth business plan. This document should outline your objectives, target market, competitive landscape, marketing strategy and financial projections. If you need funding to reach your goal, your business plan becomes an investor’s road map to your company’s success and more money in their pockets.

Team Building: Finding Your Crew For Success

At this step in the game, you need to find your perfect team. Surround yourself with talented individuals who share your passion for your company and a drive to reach for the stars. Your team can bring fresh new perspectives, expertise and collective firepower to propel your startup forward. Use this team for collaboration, trust and open communication to foster innovation and beat out the companies you will be going against in the future.

From Concept To Creation: Developing Your MVP

You have the idea, the plan and the people. Now, you are at the product part of your journey, which requires creating a minimum viable product. This is a lower-end version of your idea or version. Your MVP is enough for the public to understand what your product is about but not enough to give it out to the real world. You need to use your MVP to address any issues your clients have and perfect it over time. This is when you gather feedback and refine your product based on user insights.

Customer Delight: Elevating Experiences In The Digital Era

In the digital age, customer experience reigns supreme. Delight your customers at every touchpoint, from seamless onboarding to responsive customer support. Build meaningful relationships, listen attentively to feedback and continually iterate to exceed expectations. Happy customers are not just loyal advocates but also invaluable sources of growth through word-of-mouth referrals.

Navigating Setbacks: Embracing Failure As A Stepping Stone

Your startup journey will have unexpected twists and turns, so set goals to move yourself away from rough seas. Furthermore, don’t be hurt by negative feedback; welcome it with open arms. Keep an eye on market trends, and be prepared to adapt your strategy to any situation that may show its face. Failure is not something to look down on yourself for; it is a lesson to learn from and evolve into the best version of yourself.

Steady Growth: Sustainable Strategies For Long-term Success

Soon, your startup will likely start to gain some traction. When it does, focus more on growth that is sure and steady instead of making grand promises, only to let people down from being unplanned for an influx of clients. Spend money on scalable systems, streamlined operations and diverse revenue streams to confirm long-term capability. Short-term gains are long-term failures.

Building a successful startup isn’t easy. There will be setbacks, rejections and tough moments. Don’t let emotions hinder you. Instead, use them as fuel to bounce back stronger. Keep pushing forward with determination.

Celebrating Victories: Finding Joy In Milestones

This is the most important part of my message to new start-up businesses: When you reach a milestone in your business, celebrate it with your team. If it seems like a small thing, don’t forget all the effort it has taken to secure the deal or how many “nos” you had to hear before the big “yes.” Take in the little victories. So much hardship goes into creating an idea and so many doors slam in your face, so once you reach the “good stuff,” breathe it in, my friend.

Building a successful startup business takes hard work, dedication, vision and resilience. With strategic execution, entrepreneurs can navigate the challenges and sail toward success.

So, set sail with a newfound confidence, embrace the challenge and dare to dream.

Feature Image Credit: KELVIN MURRAY 2015

By Michael Shribman

Follow me on LinkedIn. Check out my website.

Michael Shribman is president and founder at APS Global Partners Inc. and Medias Health Inc. Read Michael Shribman’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

BY KSANA LIAPKOVA 

EDITED BY MICAH ZIMMERMAN

Boost your brand’s visibility and credibility with budget-friendly strategies for acquiring brand ambassadors.

Brand ambassadors are crucial in boosting your brand’s visibility and credibility. They influence consumer opinions and extend your brand’s reach. However, partnering with high-profile ambassadors can be expensive. Fortunately, there are budget-friendly ways to attract and engage brand ambassadors effectively.

1. Encourage customer advocacy

Leverage something invaluable already at your fingertips: User Generated Content (UGC). It’s extremely effective, primarily because consumers often look up reviews before making a purchase. 86% of consumers trust brands more when they see content from other users compared to only 12% who are influenced by traditional influencer promotions. Moreover, a recent survey found that UGC increases the likelihood of purchase by 79%.

Your current customers are natural ambassadors. Encourage them to share their positive experiences online through reviews or social media posts. Genuine endorsements from real customers are incredibly persuasive. Offer them rewards like discounts, cashback, exclusive deals or helpful tips. With the right incentives, you can turn happy customers into your best advocates. Develop a referral program that benefits you and them over the long term

2. Discover and support emerging influencers

We notice a shift in how companies allocate their marketing budgets toward small and micro-influencers before committing to bigger names. On TikTok, for example, these influencers typically achieve 60% better average engagement and 20% higher conversion rates under brand posts compared to macro influencers. Additionally, 82% of consumers are more likely to act on a recommendation from a micro-influencer.

Use social listening tools to monitor relevant hashtags and track conversations. This strategy helps pinpoint individuals who love your brand and could become potential ambassadors. Don’t hesitate to approach influencers who post authentic and credible content. Often, these influencers will grow their following over time, and those spotted early may remember your brand, potentially leading to cost-effective long-term partnerships.

3. Implement affiliate programs with flexible compensation models

Affiliate marketing is a budget-friendly approach where influencers promote your products in exchange for a commission on sales generated through their referral links. The affiliate network ConvertSocial reported a 25% increase in sales in the first quarter of 2024 compared to the previous year. Choose affiliate marketing networks that allow you to customize your affiliate program to match your budget and marketing objectives, offering flexibility in compensating and collaborating with influencers. Recent data shows that 81% of brands are now using affiliate marketing as part of their strategy, reflecting its growing importance. Investing in affiliate marketing over the long term can be a strategic move to discover ideal brand ambassadors.

Right now, you have a great opportunity to speed up this process. ConvertSocial is working on a project that offers the chance for long-term partnerships with influencers on a content subscription basis. This allows brands to secure ongoing posts from a selected partner, saving both costs and time spent searching for new ambassadors. All within the cost-per-action (CPA) model.

4. Host contests and giveaways

Contests and giveaways are excellent for engaging potential ambassadors and your broader audience. By requiring entries that involve creating or sharing content about your brand, you not only boost visibility but also identify engaged individuals who could be potential ambassadors. You also notice which pieces of content align with your brand’s needs. This speeds up the process of finding a brand ambassador and allows you to save your resources. For example, a well-executed contest can increase your social media following by 34% within a month.

5. Offer insights and knowledge

Rather than offering monetary compensation, consider providing potential ambassadors with early access to new products or service features. These kinds of rewards can attract enthusiasts eager to engage with your brand without requiring significant upfront payment. Organize exclusive brand experiences with a sneak peek behind the scenes or create an online community for ambassadors, where you ask them to provide feedback. Creating these unique experiences fosters a sense of belonging and loyalty, which can translate to long-term advocacy.

6. Utilize employee advocacy

Your employees can be effective ambassadors. When they share positive work experiences or company products on their personal social media, it authentically enhances your brand’s reputation. Start an employee advocacy program that supports and rewards employees for sharing brand-related content. This can help extend your reach organically. Research indicates that content shared by employees receives eight times more engagement than content shared through brand channels.

Recruiting brand ambassadors doesn’t need to be costly. By employing creative and strategic approaches and utilizing platforms like ConvertSocial for flexible affiliate arrangements, you can build a network of ambassadors effectively. These cost-efficient strategies help minimize financial risks while fostering authentic connections between your brand and its audience, ultimately supporting growth and enhancing your brand’s reputation. A well-planned ambassador program can lead to sustainable and scalable brand growth. Ready to get started? Your next great brand ambassador might just be a click away!

BY KSANA LIAPKOVA 

Sourced from Entrepreneur

By Harris Sockel

A 2021 study (which has been corroborated several times over the last decade) found that men interrupt women twice as often as women interrupt men.

The hardest thing for me about transitioning to remote work was how awkward it can be to hold a conversation over Zoom. I have this habit of verbally agreeing with what someone is saying as they’re saying it — sometimes nodding my head isn’t enough, and I need to add a “mmhm” or a “yes!”

On Zoom, it’s easy for that to turn into: “Oh, sorry, what were you saying?”

It’s awkward.

A recent Medium story helped me understand what’s going on here. The author reframes interrupting as — depending on the context — “cooperative overlapping.” Here’s the gist, citing research from linguistics professor Deborah Tannen:

Overlapping “can be a way of showing enthusiastic engagement with what the speaker is saying.” […] Tannen relates a story of how she transcribed a conversation she was part of, at a dinner party between people from New York, people from California, and a person from London.

Tannen and the other New Yorkers talked over one another in a way that is meant to encourage more talking within the group.

The individuals from California and London said they were waiting for pauses during which they could enter the conversation, suggesting that getting a word in edgewise would have required “a crowbar.”

What I love about this story is that it reframes something often viewed negatively (interrupting) in a positive way. This story also does something so many great stories do: It names something that was previously just a vague nameless feeling.

It can be really difficult to understand a behaviour without giving it a name. This is the principle driving the popularity of everything from Myers-Briggs to astrology to the use of the enneagram in startups. Labels can jumpstart thinking, and even if they’re over-generalized, they’re a place to start.

What else we’re reading

• A misplaced “Log in” button on a web page meant for collecting endorsements led a bunch of unsuspecting Icelanders to accidentally run for President (!). Content designer
  Anna Andersen

  analyses the misleading user interface and draws a few cautionary lessons for designers everywhere:
  — Be wary of generic buttons.
  — Use visual hierarchy and clear headings to break a page into scannable sections, because scanning is what people do first.

• Visual journalist
  Liza Donnelly

  is at Trump’s criminal trial in Manhattan (she’s sitting in the press spillover room and watching it via split-screen CCTV). He is on trial for allegedly falsifying business records during the 2016 campaign to conceal a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels to ensure she wouldn’t go public about their purported affair. Donnelly doesn’t give us a play-by-play of the trial itself; instead, she helps us understand what it’s like to be there: “Everyone was so nice and it felt a little like a weird community. People — cops and journalists — greeted each other as if they had become friends, returning each day.”

Your daily dose of practical wisdom: about strategic impoliteness

“Being polite won’t get you the relationships you want,” explains writer

. Instead, practice moments of candor and strategic impoliteness to build long-term trust.

Feature Image Credit: From “Live-Drawing The Manhattan Trump Trial” by Liza Donnelly

By Harris Sockel

Sourced from Medium

By Nicola Bleu

Want to learn how to start affiliate marketing with no money? You’re in the right place.

In this beginner’s guide to affiliate marketing, we’ll show you how anyone can become a successful affiliate marketer, even if you’re starting with literally no funds whatsoever.

First, we’ll talk about what affiliate marketing is, how it works, and the benefits it offers. Then, we’ll share a step-by-step walkthrough of the initial steps you’ll need to do to get started.

After that, we’ll share 9 ways to do affiliate marketing for free. Zero investment needed.

And finally, we’ll share a couple of bonus tips for ways you can drive even better results with a little spending, in case you want to reinvest some of your earnings.

What is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a type of marketing arrangement in which a company pays its affiliate partners (that’s you) to promote its products or services.

It works like this:

1. A retailer creates an affiliate program
2. You sign up for that affiliate program and get access to special, unique links that point to the company’s product pages
3. You promote the company’s products/services by sharing those links with your audience. In doing so, you drive targeted traffic to the company’s website.
4. When a customer clicks one of your links, a cookie is stored on their computer for a set duration of time (e.g. 30 days), which tells the company that you referred them. This is called the cookie window.
5. If that customer goes on to purchase the product/service from the company within the cookie window, you’ll be paid a commission. Commission rates vary from program to program, but are typically around 10%-20% of the sale.

The benefits of affiliate marketing

There are lots of benefits to becoming an affiliate marketer. Here are some of the main ones:

• High earning potential. The global affiliate marketing industry is estimated to reach a market size of over $27 billion by 2027. So naturally, there’s a lot of money on the table if you know what you’re doing. The average affiliate marketer makes over $54,000/year, and the top performers make millions.
• Potential for passive income. Affiliate marketing takes a lot of work at the start. But once you’ve built your audience and got a steady stream of traffic coming in, it can become a completely passive income source. At that point, you can take a step back and just collect your paychecks every month.
• Scalability. Once you’re making a good amount of money from one affiliate marketing venture, you can scale up your operations, sign up for more programs, and promote more products to increase your revenues.
• It’s easy to do. There are fewer headaches involved in affiliate marketing compared to running your own business. The retailers you partner with do all the hard stuff like creating the product and managing the business. All you do is promote their products and collect your paycheck.
• Low barrier to entry. You don’t necessarily need any money whatsoever to start affiliate marketing. And if you do want to invest in your success, as little as 50 bucks will get you on the right path.
• Low risk. Because the only thing you really have to invest in affiliate marketing is your own time, it’s very low-risk. If it doesn’t work out, you can stop where you’re at and you won’t have lost anything.

Getting started

Before you can start promoting affiliate products and earning commissions, there are a few preliminary steps to take first. Here’s what you need to do.

Step 1: Choose a niche

The first step is to choose what niche you want to focus on.

Ideally, the niche you choose should meet three criteria:

1. It should be something you’re interested in or knowledgeable about
2. It should be easy to find affiliate programs offering high commission rates in your niche
3. You should be able to promote products in your niche effectively

Obviously, if you already have an existing audience, you should choose a niche that aligns with that audience. For example, if you’re an influencer in the fitness space, you’re going to want to focus on affiliate programs involving health and fitness products. That’s a no-brainer.

But if you’re starting from scratch, you can really go down any route you choose. That said, here are some niches we’d recommend:

• SaaS (software as a service). Affiliate programs in which you promote SaaS products tend to pay big commissions (often up to 50%). The reason for this is that businesses that sell digital products like software have low overheads and high margins, so they can afford to invest more heavily in marketing.
• Finance. Again, this is another niche where you’ll find plenty of opportunities to earn high commission rates, particularly if you promote things like crypto exchanges, banking products, credit cards, personal finance tools, etc.
• Health & fitness. This is a big market with lots of interesting products to promote. You might sell gym equipment, supplements, fitness clothes, personal training services, memberships, or anything else.

Step 2: Sign up for an affiliate program

Once you know what niche you want to focus on, the next step is to find an affiliate program worth signing up for in your niche.

And the easiest way to do this is to go through an affiliate network. Affiliate networks are the middlemen that connect businesses with affiliate partners.

The biggest networks contain thousands of affiliate programs from different brands in all sorts of niches. These are all listed on their site alongside details like each program’s commission rate, payout structure, cookie window duration, etc.

You can browse through them until you find one you like and sign up in a couple of clicks.

ShareASale is one of our go-to affiliate networks and it covers a huge number of niches, so that’s a good place to start. For more options, check out our roundup of the best affiliate platforms and networks.

Step 3. Pick a marketing channel

At this point, you should have already signed up for an affiliate program and grabbed your referral links.

Now, all you need to do is drive targeted traffic to those referral links to start earning.

There are lots of different channels you can drive traffic from, but it’s best to focus on just one at first.

That might be your website, blog, YouTube channel, podcast, social media, email list, etc.

The best way to promote affiliates is to start a blog that gets organic traffic from search engines, but there are some startup costs involved.

If you have zero money to invest whatsoever, social media is probably your best bet, as you only really need to invest your time. But you’ll still need to choose a specific social media platform (i.e. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, etc.). Some are better suited to certain types of affiliate promotions than others.

If you already have a big audience on a certain network, you’re going to want to focus on that. But if you’re building an audience from scratch, choose whichever platform that suits your skills, interests, and target customers.

We’ll talk more about all the different affiliate marketing channels you might want to use next, and how to drive traffic on each of them for free.

How to start affiliate marketing with no money: 9 strategies

Here are 9 strategies/methods you can use to drive targeted traffic to your affiliate links for free.

1. Share promotional videos on TikTok

TikTok is the fastest-growing social media network in the world, and it’s free to use. So naturally, it’s a great place to promote your affiliates. Gen-z are the biggest users of TikTok, so it’s particularly good for affiliate marketers who are promoting products aimed at younger consumers.

How to get started:

1. Start by creating a TikTok business account (it needs to be a business account so that you can share links)
2. Upload engaging short videos designed to attract viewers and grow your followers (don’t worry about promoting your affiliates yet). Use trending sounds and formats to maximize your reach.
3. Once you have 1,000 followers, you’ll be able to add a link to your TikTok bio. Use a link-in-bio tool like Shorby to create a custom landing page to house all your affiliate links, then link to that page in your TikTok bio.
4. Start sharing trending videos related to your affiliate products to subtly promote them. Be careful not to be overly salesy, and prioritize engagement.

Related Reading: The Definitive Guide To TikTok Affiliate Marketing.

2. Start a YouTube channel

YouTube is another great free channel for driving affiliate traffic. It won’t cost you anything to sign up and post videos to promote your affiliate products.

A great way to approach affiliate marketing on YouTube is to create a product review channel.

The reason why product review channels work so well is that, if someone is searching for a video review of a product, it’s a strong signal of buyer intent.

The viewers you’ll get are likely already considering buying the product you’re reviewing, so they’re much more likely to click your links, convert, and earn your commission compared to other types of traffic.

How to get started:

• Sign up for a YouTube channel
• Create your channel branding by uploading a banner, profile picture, etc.
• Conduct keyword research to identify search terms related to your niche with high monthly search volumes and low competition. Focus on ‘review’, ‘alternatives’, ‘vs’, and ‘comparison’ keywords initially.
• Create videos optimized around those keywords in which you discuss and promote your affiliate products
• Make sure you add your affiliate links to the description
• Start growing your subscribers and work on increasing the reach of your videos to get more eyes on your content

3. Grow an Instagram following

Another way to do affiliate marketing for free is to create an Instagram account and grow your following. Then, share promotional posts, Stories, and Reels with your audience to drive traffic.

How to get started:

• Sign up for Instagram
• Use a link-in-bio tool to create a landing page with all your affiliate links, then link to it from your Instagram bio.
• Share engaging content regularly to grow your following
• Engage with other users and tag your posts with popular hashtags to maximize your reach
• Once you’ve grown your audience, start sharing posts promoting your affiliates, and always include a CTA in the caption inviting users to click the link in your bio.

4. Promote your affiliate offers on Facebook

Facebook is still the most popular social media platform in the world by number of monthly active users. So naturally, it’s another great place to start driving traffic to your affiliate offers for free.

How to get started:

• Sign up for Facebook
• Create a branded Facebook page
• Start a Facebook group
• Grow your Facebook Page’s audience by regularly sharing engaging, shareable content
• Grow your Facebook group community
• Join other groups and start networking to further grow your audience
• Create and share posts around your affiliate product (e.g. reviews, how-to guides, etc.) to drive traffic to your links

5. Share your links on X (Twitter)

X (formerly Twitter) is especially well-suited to affiliate marketing as it’s one of the few platforms that lets you add links to your posts. Other platforms like Instagram and TikTok only let you add links to your bio.

Here’s how to use it to drive traffic to your affiliate links.

How to get started:

• Create an X profile.
• Grow your following by commenting on popular Tweets, following other accounts in your niche, re-sharing popular content in your niche, etc.
• Once you have a decent number of followers, monetize by sharing posts about your affiliate offers including the link.

6. Drive traffic from Pinterest

Pinterest is a great place to promote affiliate products that have a lot of visual appeal. It’s a ‘visual discovery engine’ where users go to find inspiration and ideas, which is exactly the kind of traffic you want clicking your affiliate links.

How to get started: 

• Sign up for a Pinterest for Business account (it’s free)
• Create eye-catching pins (graphics) that showcase the products you’re promoting in their best light. You can use online graphic design tools like Visme for this
• Upload your pins to Pinterest. Make sure you include some relevant keywords in the title and description to make it easier for users to discover
• Repeat the process regularly to keep your pins visible

7. Drive traffic from Reddit

It’s a little harder to make affiliate marketing work on Reddit compared to other social media platforms, as most subreddits have strict guidelines about promotional/marketing content, and don’t often allow users to share affiliate links.

But if you can overcome that hurdle, the traffic you can drive from Reddit is some of the best around.

How to get started:

• Create a Reddit account for free
• Join some niche-relevant communities (subreddits that are likely to be full of people in your target market)
• Engage in communities by leaving helpful comments and posts in the subreddit
• Build your Reddit Karma by collecting upvotes
• Add your affiliate link to your Reddit profile
• Subtly start promoting your affiliate links (or even better, links to valuable content that contain your affiliate links) in posts on the subreddit.
• Make sure you do this in a way that’s helpful and provides real value to the community, and try not to look like you’re doing affiliate marketing at all.

8. Submit guest posts

As I briefly mentioned earlier, the best way to do affiliate marketing is by creating your own blog and publishing blog posts optimized around valuable, niche-relevant keywords (like product reviews, buyer guides, etc.)

The only problem is that creating your own website costs money.

As a workaround, you can publish those blog posts to somebody else’s website instead, for free. This is called guest posting.

It’s important to note that some site owners or editors will not accept posts with affiliate links in them. Naturally, this will cut down on potential opportunities.

You could submit a post and hope they don’t notice the affiliate link or you can be upfront with them. I’d go with the latter. Honesty is always the best policy.

How to get started:

• Search Google to find popular sites in your niche. You can use Google Search operators like this: “guest post”+”food”
• Find the email addresses of key contacts on those sites (check the Contact Us page) and add them to a spreadsheet.
• Reach out to all the contacts on your spreadsheet asking if they accept guest posts. Make sure you explain what’s in it for them (e.g. a well-written post about a topic their audience would appreciate, a keyword-optimized blog post that’ll drive traffic to their site, etc.)
• If someone emails back confirming that they accept guest posts, pitch your idea to them and ask if you can write it. Make sure you clarify that it’s okay to include your affiliate link in the post.
• Submit your post to the site for publishing.
• Repeat the process with more blog posts targeting other relevant keywords.

Note: You can speed up the process and make managing everything easier with a blogger outreach tool like BuzzStream. You can even use it to send emails, track links, and manage responses, etc.

9. Start a free blog

I said a moment ago that, although the best way to start affiliate marketing is to create your own blog, that’s something you can’t do for free.

Well, that’s not technically true.

While starting your own blog usually means paying for web hosting and purchasing a domain name, there are a few sites that let you create a blog for free.

The catch is your blog will be hosted on their domain, not yours, and you’ll have much less control.

Your options for creating a free blog include WordPress and Wix. But we’d recommend using Medium as it’s an authoritative domain that ranks well, so posts have a good chance of getting lots of traffic.

How to get started:

• Sign up for a free Medium account.
• Write posts/stories to be published on your Medium page (content must adhere to Medium’s guidelines and rules).
• Include affiliate links in your posts, but try to be subtle about it. Medium doesn’t allow overt marketing and affiliate sales content.
• Add an affiliate disclosure to your posts.
• Optimize your posts around target keywords that potential buyers might search for (product reviews, tutorials, etc.)
• Drive traffic to your Medium stories by sharing them on your socials.

How to start affiliate marketing with a little money

Before we wrap up, I want to share a few more affiliate marketing methods that require just a little bit of spending but allow you to get much more value out of your affiliate marketing efforts.

Don’t worry, we’re talking less than 50 bucks here—nothing that’ll break the bank.

Start a niche affiliate blog

This is hands-down the best way to do affiliate marketing.

The idea is to create your own WordPress website and use it to publish niche-relevant blog posts.

These blog posts should be optimized for search engine optimization (SEO) in order to give them the best chance of ranking for keywords that potential buyers might search for.

If you can get your blog posts to rank on Google, you can get thousands of organic visitors to your site every month. And if those visitors click the affiliate links in your post and make a purchase, you get paid.

The great thing about this method is that eventually, it becomes fairly passive. Once you’re ranking for a bunch of high-volume keywords, traffic will keep coming in. You don’t have to keep creating new posts like you would if you focused on social media.

How to get started:

• Sign up for WordPress hosting. We’d recommend WPX Hosting as it has everything you need, offers excellent performance, and only costs $24.99 a month. However, on the more affordable end of the spectrum, try DreamHost instead.
• Use WordPress (this will usually come pre-installed with your hosting package) to create your site. You can install a free theme for the WordPress theme library, and any plugins you need to get started.
• Customize your site and create key pages like a home page, an about page, a contact page, a privacy policy, etc.
• Conduct keyword research to find search terms potential buyers of your affiliate products might search for. Look for low-competition keywords that you think you can rank for.
• Create blog posts around those keywords and post them to your site. Learn about SEO to optimize them and your website at large to improve your chances of ranking.
• Continue to optimize your site for traffic and conversions to get more clicks to your affiliate links.

Run an email marketing campaign

Once you have your affiliate blog, you can also use opt-in forms to start building an email list.

Then, you can regularly email your subscribers to notify them of new offers and discounts. This will help you to drive even more traffic to your affiliate links.

How to get started:

• Sign up for an email marketing platform like MailerLite. They have an amazing free plan with lots of features and it supports up to 1,000 subscribers.
• Create opt-in forms and publish them to your site.
• Encourage people to sign up for your mailing list by creating a lead magnet
• Use your email marketing software to create automated campaigns such as welcome sequences, etc. that nurture your subscribers and send them affiliate offers
• Send out individual broadcasts as needed to promote new deals

A quick word about disclosure

Regardless of the platforms and tools you use for affiliate marketing, you need to disclose your use of these links.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re sharing offers on Reddit or including them in your email newsletter. You need to disclose the relationship and let your readers know that you may earn a commission.

Sure, some people will avoid clicking on your link once they know it’s an affiliate link. But you’ll earn more credibility and avoid the potential risk of platforms banning your accounts. And it’s also a legal requirement in certain parts of the world.

Final thoughts

Starting affiliate marketing is time consuming and requires patience, however, we’ve shown that you don’t need money to run a successful affiliate marketing business.

All you need is time and a solid strategy to drive traffic to your affiliate links.

But if you’re serious about affiliate marketing, I’d nonetheless recommend saving up to purchase web hosting.

For the very small cost of a monthly subscription, it’ll make it significantly easier for you to drive traffic and earn commissions.

By Nicola Bleu

Aside from managing editorial here at Blogging Wizard, Nicola runs Your Creative Aura where she teaches people how to write music. Nicola has the rare ability to take inspiration from the most mundane objects and turn it into catchy, and memorable lyrics. And, she is rather fond of penguins.

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