Affiliate Marketing on Reddit: The Ultimate How To Guide

Not many people take the time to understand Reddit. It looks pretty foreign, so most people just say “nah.”

But that presents the perfect opportunity for you to gain a Reddit affiliate marketing audience since there is less competition.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my affiliate marketing career, it’s that those that are willing to do the hard things always win.

So, without jabbering endlessly. Here’s a simple guide to doing affiliate marketing on Reddit to make it easy for you.

What is Reddit & How Does it Work?

Reddit is known as the “front page of the internet.” At the moment, it’s the 6th most popular site in the U.S. and the 19th in the world.

Its users are highly engaged and passionate, which can be good or bad depending on whether their passion for what you post is positive or negative.

The Structure of Reddit

Essentially, Reddit is just a huge collection of forums that are broken up into over a million communities, which are called subreddits.

Each subreddit covers a certain topic and in the URL, it is introduced with /r/.

For example, https://www.reddit.com/r/Affiliatemarketing/ is where people discuss affiliate marketing on Reddit.

You can subscribe to subreddits, and then your Reddit homepage will show the latest of what is being posted in those subreddits.

What You Can Do With Reddit

There are several different things you can do on the Reddit platform:

• Share content and news
• Comment on other people’s posts
• Create a subreddit (it just needs to adhere to the guidelines)
• Upvote and downvote other posts

How to Search on Reddit

Reddit can be very confusing when you are new to it, but once you understand it, it’s much easier. So, here are some basics to help you find what you’re looking for…

On the Homepage, you’ll see trending posts. You can sort these posts by what’s hot, what’s new, and by certain locations.

You can use the Search field to discover subreddits and posts related to a keyword.

For example, if we enter in “affiliate marketing”, we will see the posts and subreddits that are currently the most popular.

How Upvoting & Downvoting Works

There are arrows next to each post, and users click on the up arrow to upvote the content (similar to a like) or the down arrow to downvote the content (similar to a dislike).

Upvotes increase your visibility while downvotes decrease it. This allows the Reddit community to decide what goes viral and what doesn’t.

The number next to each arrow reveals how many upvotes and downvotes there currently are for that post.

You can also upvote and downvote comments.

What is Karma?

Karma is determined by how many upvotes and downvotes your comments have received. Good karma boosts your standing on Reddit.

For example, when you hover over this person’s Karma, you can see what their Comment Karma and Post Karma is…

Never promote your own stuff when you have zero karma. You need to first comment on posts to gain karma.

NOTE: Comment karma is more important than post karma. Post karma just needs to not be negative.

4 Ways to Use Reddit for Affiliate Marketing

Reddit users hate any kind of marketing, let alone affiliate marketing. But, if you understand how it works and you do it right, you can use Reddit for affiliate marketing success. Here are some ways you can do that…

1) Use Reddit to Get Traffic to Your Affiliate Offers

You can attract a ton of traffic using Reddit, but only if you do it right.

It’s important to note that Reddit doesn’t allow direct affiliate links.

You’ll get banned if you post them, so you have to be more creative than that (use a cloaked URL or create your own offer pages on your website, for example).

When you’re talking about getting traffic from Reddit, there are two options:

1. Paid promotion
2. Organic posting

Paid Promotion

Just like every other platform, you can create ads on Reddit, and they get added into the feed within the subreddit you choose. This just might be the easiest way to do affiliate marketing on Reddit.

Here are some tips for Reddit ads:

• You’ll be able to add a headline with an offer and a link. A great way to go with these is to promote discounts and free gifts.
• No comments are allowed on paid Reddit ads, which is a good way to avoid the backlash that can occur on organic posts.
• The downfall is that these ads are less visible than organic posts that go viral since most people have ad blindness.
• When you’re doing paid promotions on Reddit, be unique and have fun with your ads. That is what will get you noticed.

To learn more about Reddit ads, you can join this subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/ads/top/

Organic Posting

Think of organic posts as making contributions. You have to take the “me” out of it, and above all, you want to focus on being helpful.

The key here is that you can’t just jump on there and start posting your stuff. You need to spend about a month participating in discussions, providing value, and gaining a reputation.

You’ll want to get to 1ooo comment karma and 100 link karma before you post anything promotional.

While you are earning karma, you can submit links and start discussions, but not about your business.

Here are some ideas of things you can post when you are doing affiliate marketing on Reddit:

• You can post one of your blog posts with an intro as to why the community will enjoy reading it.
• Same goes for your videos.
• Create an engaging, super valuable blog post that answers questions a lot of people on the subreddit have and then post that.
• Openly admit that you are self-promoting, but show them how it benefits them.
• Set up a subreddit that provides tech support for your affiliate product. This can serve as a place for people to get their issues answered.
• Showcase your website at r/shamelessplug or r/promote.
• Host an AMA (Ask Me Anything) only after you’ve established yourself on Reddit. This is sort of like an interview and it gives you a great opportunity to mention your products while providing tons of value in your answers.

2) Use Reddit to Build a Following

By interacting in the communities on Reddit, you can gain good karma, which helps you build a strong reputation and a following.

Again, there are no shortcuts to this. It can only be done by providing a ton of value.

A following on Reddit is a passionate following. If they love you, they will really love you, and will probably turn into your raving fans. When that happens, affiliate marketing on Reddit is easy.

3) Use Reddit to Build Backlinks

Reddit is the biggest viral website in the world; therefore, it is the perfect place to build backlinks. Links on Reddit often show up on the first page of google.

There are several different ways to get backlinks on Reddit:

• You can create your own subreddit after you build up some karma. Then, you can post all of your stuff in your own subreddit since you can approve it yourself.
• You can submit a link post in a subreddit by clicking on the link button.

Again, self promos just need to be done right, in a friendly, helpful manner.

4) Use Reddit to Gain Knowledge

You can also use Reddit to learn more about affiliate marketing. There are plenty of subreddits and articles that can give you tricks of the trade and useful tips.

For example, here’s a person who wrote a post thanking Reddit for helping him understand and execute affiliate marketing.

Here are some great subreddits for where affiliate marketers like yourself can gain knowledge:

• /r/Affiliatemarketing
• /r/AffiliateMarket
• /r/affiliate_marketing
• /r/Blogging
• /r/BigSEO
• /r/InternetMarketing

Whether you want to find out about the latest high ticket affiliate programs or the best recurring affiliate programs, or any other insider information, these are great places to start.

What to Watch Out for When You Do Affiliate Marketing on Reddit

Affiliate marketing on Reddit tends to be a little foreign and there are definitely some things that you need to watch out for…

Redditters Can Be Ruthless

Reddit users are known as ruthless Redditors because they can be harsh with their comments. They’re finicky; therefore, you need to be careful how you market yourself on Reddit.

It’s easy to be ignored and just as easy to be hated. You need to find the happy balance that makes people want to upvote you.

On the other hand, Redditors are also very willing to help. They’re passionate about bashing people but they’re also passionate about what they like. If they like what you offer, they’ll be really passionate about it.

Most Reddit users are in their late teens to early twenties.

It’s Easy to Get Banned

It’s also easy to get banned on Reddit if you go about it the wrong way. But, if you follow the tips and strategies in this article, you’ll be fine.

Tips for Affiliate Marketing on Reddit

When you are ready to start posting your own content to Reddit, here are some tips to help you be successful:

• Titles are super important. They are really the only thing that is going to make your post stand out.
• Use tags in brackets such as [Article], [Image], [Discussion], etc.
• Post on smaller subreddits because you’ll get more exposure that way.
• Each subreddit has its own rules and you need to follow them. Check the sidebar for the rules. You also can’t assume that what works for one subreddit will work for another.
• Cite your sources because people will call you out if you don’t.
• Make sure your comments are meaningful. Don’t post, “I agree,” or anything like that.
• Neil Patel suggests that you set your website to not show popups to people coming from Reddit because Redditors hate that.
• Replicate what is working for others. Look at what others are posting and what kind of reaction they are getting first. Spend time on Reddit gaining an understanding of what posts are already working well. Then, create better versions of them.

Looking for high ticket affiliate programs? Check out my video below:

Final Thoughts About Affiliate Marketing on Reddit

Whether you’re a beginner affiliate marketer or not, affiliate marketing on Reddit can be a worthwhile endeavor if you do it right.

Just remember, Reddit affiliate marketing isn’t about what you can get out of it. When you go into it committed to offering value to the community members, you’ll succeed with it.

Wanna know how I made affiliate marketing my full time gig? Sign up to watch my webinar!