You can use affiliate links to make money on Craigslist. This online money making practice involves getting the affiliate link and posting a classified ad on Craigslist. However, you should write a clean truthful copy for your ad.

You should not falsely promote the product but give accurate information and specific details on how the affiliate product can benefit the user. Not only will this help you avoid getting your ads flagged for false information but possibly lead to more sales.

This article contains some helpful tips that can help you get started with Craigslist affiliate earnings and how you can also boost your earnings.

• How to Get Started Using Craigslist For Affiliate Marketing
• How to Boost Your Affiliate Earnings Using Craigslist
• What is the Disadvantage of Using Craigslist for Your Affiliate Marketing?
• How do I Promote Affiliate Links on Craigslist?
• Does Craigslist Allow Affiliate Marketing?
• How can I Generate Traffic to my Affiliate Product?

How to Get Started Using Craigslist For Affiliate Marketing

The first step to succeeding with using Craigslist for Affiliate Marketing is to set up an account, which is a pretty simple process. But then you also have another task that most people who use affiliate marketing on Craigslist completely skip… you have to read the terms of use! Yes, actually read it! You should also read the terms and conditions for any product or service you wish to promote, as some of them may prohibit advertising on Craigslist.

• Get a verified Craigslist account. It’s easy enough to do so through your phone and takes just a few minutes. Once you have a Phone Verified account you’ll be able to reach more people and show that you’re much more professional than some other listers that may be using the site.
• Post your ads! Choose one or two products and start posting about 3 ads each day on Craigslist. The site does monitor its content, despite what some think, and posting too many will often flag your account and could lead to them being removed, making it virtually impossible to use Craigslist for affiliate marketing.
• When a prospect shows interest in your affiliate marketing options, email them your affiliate link and let them follow it to the appropriate sites.

That’s the entire process of using Craigslist for affiliate marketing in a nutshell. The key is to stick with the postings and continue adding 2 to 3 ads each day offering your products to potential prospects.

How to Boost Your Affiliate Earnings Using Craigslist

Using Craigslist for affiliate marketing obviously has its pros and cons – as does every other strategy out there for this type of work. However, there are several tips that can help you get more from the process. Here are some points to keep in mind.

• Build Your Website – An affiliate marketer is only as good as their website. It’s your hub – the point where all of your business income is derived. You can build a website easily using the platform found at WealthyAffiliate and then start promoting affiliate products. Without that website, you’ll struggle to succeed.
• Choose The Right Products – Choose to promote products that you’re familiar with and passionate about. However, also be sure that you focus on products that the Craigslist listings in your area don’t seem to be promoted as heavily. And finally, choose a couple of products instead of trying to promote dozens. Otherwise you’ll have a harder time trying to track your efforts and manage your posts.
• Use Images – Many users of Craigslist prefer to look at products with images. Adding a couple of images will help you get more views and more potential clicks.
• Don’t Use “Job Listings” – This is a common mistake that some affiliate marketers make when trying to attract prospects. Instead of using job listings, you should only be using Craigslist for affiliate marketing by promoting affiliate products.
• Be Prepared For Challenges – You’re not going to instantly start using Craigslist for affiliate marketing and start earning thousands. There will likely be delays, setbacks, and other challenges. As such, you’ll want to be prepared for them ahead of time and go into the process expecting them. This way you can meet them head on and still find success.
• Get Help When You Need It – Sometimes, we all need a helping hand. Luckily, the community at WealthyAffiliate is dedicated to helping provide you with answers, guidance, and motivation. If you feel that you’re unsure of what to do next or how best to proceed, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

What is the Disadvantage of Using Craigslist for Your Affiliate Marketing?

While you can make money on Craigslist, there are some potential drawbacks that make it difficult to advertise on craigslist. They include:

• It could take time before you get any traction
• Being unique in a packed marketplace is often difficult
• Some people might not like your use of affiliate links on Craigslist
• Getting your account flagged of ban if you don’t follow the terms of service

Getting banned sure can suck! As an affiliate, it’s important that you understand the terms of service and what will get your account flagged. You don’t want an offer to be converting like crazy and have your account get suspended.

Read Also: How to Boost Your Affiliate Earnings Using YouTube

Taken together, the pros of affiliate marketing on Craigslist out weight the cons, it’s definitely a platform you should try.

How do I Promote Affiliate Links on Craigslist?

There are thousands of affiliates that generate enough revenue from affiliate commissions that they are able to quit their day jobs and live solely off their affiliate paycheques. There are some that even earn well over six figures and make bank literally while they sleep.

Being a top paid affiliate is the dream and can give you the life of freedom and luxury you’ve always wanted. This can only be achieved through hard work, perseverance, and building a community of diehard fans.

1. Blog Post

If you don’t already have a blog with active users reading your content you need to jump on this right away. Blog posts are one of the best ways possible to share an affiliate link. They are easy to get started, affordable to set up and provide a ton of SEO value to your site.

If you blog about content that you’re an expert in, the content is relevant to your audience and the content is not easily accessible anywhere else then you’ve hit the trifecta. Over time your subscribers will trust the free advice you’ve given them and will click your affiliate link to purchase whatever you are suggesting will better their lives.

The 5 most popular websites to set up a blog are:

• WordPress
• Square Space
• Wix
• Blogger
• Tumblr

2. Blog Comments

There’s a good way to comment on a blog post and very bad ways to comment on a blog post. You can respond to comments from your own blog subscribers and slip your affiliate link in the answer if it is relevant. You can also respond to comments on other popular blogs in your niche. You need to be careful doing this as it can come off as spam and your comment might get removed.

But if the author can clearly see you’re trying to help their users they might be ok with it. There is a big problem with bots spamming the comment sections of blogs. So you need to ensure you’re putting the user first and only sharing your affiliate link if it is beneficial to them.

3. Contest

Everyone loves to win prizes. Hosting a contest is a fantastic way to generate buzz around your brand and get your users engaged on your website. You can do a social sharing contest, or photo/video submission contest, or sweepstakes. The options are endless and you can get as creative as you want.

If you tie your affiliate link to the contest you can easily get your subscribers to share the link with their network to generate more traffic. You can also make your subscribers enter the contest by purchasing whatever your affiliate link leads to.

4. Craigslist Ad

Craigslist is one of the largest classified ad websites on the internet. Millions of people around the world flock to Craigslist to view classified ads in their city every day. It is also the perfect spot to advertise whatever product or service you’re offering to potential customers. Craigslist does have a rule that no affiliate links are allowed on the site.

However, you can bypass this rule by funneling leads through a landing page first that promotes whatever you’re trying to sell. From there you can add multiple calls to action that link to your affiliate website. Presto! You’ve got a free advertising platform to generate thousands of leads to your affiliate link.

5. Dribbble

Dribbble is an online community for designers to promote their works of art. If you want to promote a new web design, logo, infographic, brand, etc then Dribbble is where you gotta be. If you’re planning to share your work of art with the world and your affiliate link relates to it then you’ve come to the right place. You can easily get thousands of eyes on your artwork and potentially drive qualified traffic easily to your affiliate link if done correctly.

6. Ebook

Ebooks are like long-form blog posts that are beautifully designed and contain a ton of valuable, in-depth content on a subject. Since this content takes so long to create and is extremely valuable to the right user you can either hide it behind a landing page and force the user to complete a form to get access to it or you can even sell it for a price on your website or sites like Amazon.

Since ebooks contain so much detail about a specific niche it’s the perfect spot to include your affiliate link and educate the user why they need to have this product or service in their life.

7. Email

Email marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools on the internet. Some sites say “email marketing is dead.” This is so not the case. Email marketing is very much alive and well. Don’t believe me? The folks at Salesforce found out that “Email marketing has an average ROI of 3,800 percent.

For every dollar invested, the average return is $38.” Statista also did research to find that there are currently 3.7 billion global email users. This number is predicted to grow to 4.1 billion users by 2021. So yeah, email isn’t going away anytime soon.

If you are able to add a form to your website and/or blog to collect email subscribers this is as good as gold for generating affiliate revenue. You obviously don’t want to spam your users with irrelevant content that doesn’t matter to them because they will unsubscribe in this case. Make sure to always segment your lists to ensure you’re sending your emails to the right users that are likely to not just open and read your email, but also click the affiliate link to your offer.

8. Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is search-optimized content that is continually relevant and stays “fresh” for readers over a long period of time. Blog posts can sometimes become like tweets and don’t have a very long lifetime value on the internet. Evergreen content is written to be relevant long past its publication date, with search traffic growth over time.

When you’re searching for a specific topic and find a very in-depth article at the top of the Google SERPs that was written a while ago it was more than likely a piece of evergreen content. Since this content is so valuable to users and has such a long lifetime value it makes the perfect spot for an affiliate link. You might need to refer back to it every 6-12 months to make sure it’s up to date, but otherwise, it generates content on it’s own.

Popular examples of evergreen content include: 

• Original Research
• Case Studies
• How-to-guides for Beginners
• Checklists
• Resource List
• Best Free and Paid Tools List
• Expert Roundups

9. Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are communities on Facebook that revolve around a certain type of niche. If you’re already an expert in a niche or just passionate about one you most likely are already part of several groups of Facebook. If not you can easily join a series of groups you’re interested in. Some of them are open for anyone to join and others are closed and will require access from the admin for you to join.

Participate frequently in group discussions and aim to help as many community members as possible with your expertise. Over time you can provide your affiliate link to help solve users problems. Don’t spam the community with your link otherwise, you’ll likely get banned. Always be authentic and put the customer’s needs first.

10. Facebook Business Page

If you already have a business or personal brand you’ll want to create a Facebook Business Page. This is a great place to share updates about your company, upload new photos/videos, answer users questions, and of course, share your affiliate link. It can take a while to grow a Facebook Business Page and definitely helps if you have an established brand.

One way to speed up the process is to pay for Facebook ads and direct users to your Facebook page. This can dramatically increase your reach to a targeted audience and help get a lot more eyes on your page. If a user is interested in your content they can “Like” your page and will receive updates in their timeline of content you post. Frequently update the page with new content and be sure to share your affiliate link in the page’s bio and in relevant posts.

Does Craigslist Allow Affiliate Marketing?

It is possible for you to earn with affiliate marketing on Craigslist. Here is how to go about it:

1. Go to clickbank.com, then sign into your affiliate account and click the “Marketplace” link at the top of the “Account Home” page.
2. Browse for affiliate products to promote by using the categories on the left-hand side or by using the search function to look up products by keywords.
3. Click the “Promote” button to generate the custom affiliate link for your Clickbank account. On the pop-up window, click the “Create” button.
4. Click the generated HTML with your custom affiliate link to highlight it. Press the “Ctrl” + “C” keys simultaneously to copy the text. Click the “Close Window” button when done.
5. Go to craigslist.org and click the “For Sale” link in the middle of the main page. On the next page, click the “Post” link in the upper right corner.
6. Click the radio button for the category you wish to post the classified ad in and click the “Continue” button. On the next page click the radio button for the geographic area you wish to advertise your affiliate product and click “Continue.”
7. Go to the “Posting Description” text area and press the “Ctrl” + “V” keys simultaneously to copy the Clickbank affiliate HTML code. Replace the “Click Here!” text in the HTML code snippet to your own custom text.
8. Fill in the other ad details such as the posting title, price, your email address and text that describes the product and why the person should buy it.
9. Add images to the ad posting by clicking the “Add/Edit Images” button. The area below expands to show four image spots. Click the “Choose File” button to browse your computer for an image. It is best to use a clear, crisp image that shows the product you are promoting. You can add up to four separate images to the ad.
10. Click the “Continue” button to review the ad. When done, click the “Continue” button again on the next page. You will have to access your email and click a link in the confirmation email that Craigslist sends you before the ad goes live on the site.

How can I Generate Traffic to my Affiliate Product?

Are you unsure how to send traffic to your website and affiliate marketing offers? We’ve explored some of the most effective ways publishers can generate traffic and are sharing our top nine methods below.

1. Paid online advertising

Advertising is the mainstay of lead generation. Whether you choose to do paid search, social media campaigns, remarketing or display advertising, it’s a tried and tested method, making it one of the best traffic sources for affiliate marketing.

One of the advantages of using paid lead generating techniques is that people who click on your links are usually high up in the buying cycle, and are therefore ready to purchase. However, you need to balance the cost of your advertisements with the commission you receive per sale. If each ad conversion costs $50 and the commission per sale is $40, it is not worth pursuing this form of lead generation.

2. YouTube

YouTube is the second biggest search engine on the internet, with approximately three billion views per day. As such, it is beneficial for you to start your own channel to promote your offers and drive more affiliate marketing traffic. Add an interesting video that relates to your offer, then include a compelling call-to-action that links to your affiliate product.

Make sure to also put your call-to-action link or discount code within the description box, with a short description of your video. To further utilize your video add an Overlay, which is a little box that stays on the video throughout with your CTA on it. You can get started at ads.YouTube.com.

Don’t restrict yourself to Youtube as there are other video channels like Vimeo that can be used to good effect. However, one of the disadvantages of video promotion is it does take time and effort to produce good content that is going to attract a loyal audience. On the plus side, great videos have the potential to go viral and can escalate very quickly to hundreds of thousands of viewers.

Additionally, when promoting affiliate offers on social media remember to follow the compliance and disclosure guidelines outlined by the FTC for using affiliate links.

3. Social media

Social media is one of the best and easiest traffic sources for affiliate marketing. If your audience is hanging out on social media, then you and your affiliate offers need to be there. You can use social media in many ways, including:

• Participating in communities with a need for your product. It’s important not to promote but to build relationships by answering questions and engaging with the community. If you are helpful, your readers will click on your name to find out more about you. Make sure your profile links back to your website and your affiliate offers.
• Sharing your blog content with links to your offer, either on your own page or as promoted posts.
• Running an advertising campaign, using social media marketing.

You can also use social media to publish long articles, which link to your offers. Good places to publish include platforms such as LinkedIn, Medium, Reddit, SlideShare, and Udemy. Readership of these sites is high, and if your content is relevant and searchable, it could get you in front of thousands of new people.

Again, when using affiliate links on social media, make sure you’re following the compliance and disclosure guidelines outlined by the FTC.

4. Blog posts

Blog posts are a great way to generate traffic for affiliate marketing offers. If you have an active readership your audience will already be warm to your reviews and advice. Just make sure not to use your blog posts as sales letters; the content should provide value to the reader and your affiliate links should sit naturally within the topic.

Recipe blogs use this to good effect. As they discuss the method to follow to create the dish, recipe blogs describe the tools needed for the job, using affiliate links to the sales page of the item in question.

Another method of using your blog posts to promote affiliate links is to answer your readers’ comments and use your affiliate links in the replies. If the product you are promoting is related to the answer, it doesn’t look like a sales pitch but a solution to the reader’s problem. Be careful of doing this on other people’s blogs as it may come across as spam.

Read Also: How to Boost Your Affiliate Earnings Using Pinterest

If possible, try to make the content evergreen. Evergreen refers to content that stays relevant for many years to come, and could include how-to guides, best practices or tips and tricks. These types of articles are read and referred to over and over again.  Although you may have to refresh them occasionally, the information still remains relevant. This means you can roll out this content to a new audience every so often and expose your affiliate links each time you do so.

5. Guest blogging

In addition to building your brand’s own blog, the technique of guest blogging is a tried and true method for generating affiliate marketing traffic that has stood the test of time. There are two different aspects to guest blogging:

• Guest blog on well-known sites that fit your niche. Offer great and relevant content, and if accepted onto other blogs it will expose you to a whole new audience. Make sure your profile and your byline link to your affiliate offers and your website. Your affiliate marketing content should be related to the guest blog and useful to the new potential readership. 
• Accept guest bloggers on your own website. Publish content from other writers and they will share and link their article, which will, in turn, expose your website (and affiliate offers) to new audiences.

Bottomline

Using Craigslist for affiliate marketing is something that is worth considering for any affiliate marketer. As long as you know the pros and cons and what to expect – and how to get the most from your efforts – you should be able to develop a strategy that is right for you.