How to Get Paid to Post Ads: Start a Career in Marketing

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Are you looking for an interesting way to strike out on your own and be your own boss? Maybe you would like a career that you could do from home so you can ditch the commute and have more time to spend with your family. If you are tired of the corporate grind, you might want to consider a career in posting ads.

Most people don’t realize that you can make money posting ads, but it’s true. In fact, marketing is big business. It’s a major sector of the US economy. Each year billions are spent on ads to get people to spend money on many thousands of different products and services.

There are several ways you can get paid to post ads. Let’s take a look at how it all works and how you can get in on the action.

Understanding Affiliate Marketing

Before we get into the specific ways you can get paid to post ads, it’s important to understand the concept of affiliate marketing, which is one of the most popular ways to make money with this strategy.

Affiliate marketing is a fancy term that means you are promoting another company’s products. If someone buys a product through a link that you place in a blog post, advertisement, or somewhere else, you earn a commission. It’s as simple as that.

Becoming an affiliate for a company is much easier than you may think. There are several affiliate networks you can join. These networks bring together companies that have products to promote with people who are interested in promoting them through their ads.

Some companies operate their own affiliate programs and pay affiliates directly. If you would like to promote a company’s product and you don’t see it listed on one of the affiliate networks, check the company’s website to see if they operate their own affiliate program. You may see a link at the bottom of the page that says “affiliate program” or something similar.

And if you can’t find any information on a company’s affiliate program, contact them and ask. They may have an affiliate program but do a poor job of promoting it. You’ll never know unless you ask.

How much can you make as an affiliate?

It depends on the companies and the products you are promoting. Some products may only pay $5 for each sale, but some high-priced products may pay hundreds of dollars for each sale. There are also some products that pay as much as 75% of the sale price to their affiliates.

There are many internet marketers (as they are called) who earn full-time livings posting advertisements. Some even earn six-figures. How much you can earn with this marketing strategy is directly related to how well you learn affiliate marketing and how hard you work.

A great thing about affiliate marketing that’s worth mentioning is that your main job is to send people to the offers so that people buy the products. The company selling the products takes care of all customer service issues and refunds.

Not a bad deal if you ask me.

There’s one last thing I want to mention about affiliate marketing before we move one: You always have to disclose to your readers or viewers whenever a link is an affiliate link. It’s the law. You can do this in a blog post, for example, by including a disclaimer at the beginning of the post. If you are publishing video content, you can mention in the video that a link is an affiliate link.

Understanding Landing Pages and Sales Funnels

You may be wondering where you buy ads from to send people to various offers. We’ll get to that in a moment, but it’s first necessary to understand the concept of landing pages and sales funnels.

There are some companies you can buy ads from that won’t let you send people directly to an offer. In other words, they want you to have an intermediary page to send people to that discusses a particular problem they may be having. This is referred to as a landing page.

There are several different ways that landing pages can be configured. A landing page can be a long-form sales letter, for example, or it can be a blog post. A video sales letter is another popular landing page option. Leadpages is a company that specializes in landing pages. Their landing pages are very popular among those who are getting paid for posting ads.

Landing pages are also simple sales funnels. A sales funnel is a marketing term that describes a series of steps that potential customers take before a conversion occurs (a conversion is another way of saying a sale).

Each step of a sales funnel results in fewer people advancing to the next stage. Most sales funnels are 2-3 steps. For all of the people who respond to an ad and proceed to the next step of the funnel, perhaps only 30% will continue to the next step, resulting in a conversion of approximately 1% – 3% of the people who first responded to the ad.

The purpose of a sales funnel is to weed out those who are unlikely to buy a particular product and to focus 100% on those who are most likely to buy. Sales funnels are very effective marketing tools.

If you are posting advertisements for the purpose of making commissions from affiliate sales, you will most likely use landing pages and sales funnels.

Where do you post ads then?

Some of the best places to post ads are on the social media networks. We’ll take a look at some other options later, but for now let’s review how to make money posting ads on social media platforms.

1. Get Paid to Post Ads on Facebook

Perhaps the best social media company for getting paid posting ads is Facebook. That’s because nearly everyone on the planet is on it.

It’s very easy to buy ads on Facebook, and the best thing about these ads is they are highly targeted. By this, I mean that Facebook is very good at showing your ads to the people who are most likely to be interested in them. This means you’ll have a greater chance of turning the people who see them into paying customers.

Facebook ads aren’t complicated, but there is a bit of a learning curve to them. Don’t be surprised if the first ad campaign you try isn’t profitable. The important thing to keep in mind with these ads is to not give up. Because once you learn how they work, they are a powerful way to promote affiliate products.

How much do Facebook ads cost?

It varies. Some people have been able to buy ads on Facebook for as little as $0.05 per click. In the world of online marketing, that’s very affordable. How much you spend depends on many different factors including the audience you are targeting (warm vs. cold) and other things.

The best way to learn how to use Facebook ads is to go through a course on the subject. Yes, courses on using Facebook ads do exist. Study a Facebook ads course thoroughly before attempting your first ad campaign to make sure you are doing everything right so you can get the lowest cost per ad click possible.

2. Get Paid to Post Ads on Instagram

Instagram is much more than a place to share interesting pics with your friends, family, and other followers. Instagram is an advertising powerhouse, and you may be able to make money on the platform if you have an account.

If you have the minimum number of followers on your Instagram account, you may be able to attract companies that want to advertise on your account by signing up for Izea and Ifluenz.

Izea and Ifluenz are two companies that connect companies that want to advertise on social media platforms with those who have accounts on those platforms with a sizable following. Thousands of brands and agencies are registered with these two companies that are looking for people to work with.

How much can you make per advertisement?

It mainly depends on the number of followers you have. If you have a small following, for example, you may only make a few bucks per post. There are some Instagram accounts that make as much as $1,000 per post.

Perhaps you could be one of them someday.

3. Get Paid to Post Ads on Pinterest

Pinterest is another great place to post ads because of the demographics of the people who use the platform. Consider these Pinterest facts:

Just over 70% of Pinterest users are female.
80% of mothers in the US who use the internet use Pinterest.
Half of all millennials use Pinterest every month.
The average age of Pinterest users is 40.
Half of all Pinterest users earn $50k or more annually.

The important takeaway is that there are many people on Pinterest who have money to spend. Many people, for instance, use the platform to plan their weddings, look up recipes, and find out which products are the best.

In case you aren’t familiar with Pinterest, it’s important to point out that the platform is not a social media platform. It’s best to think of it as a visual search engine.

When you do a search on a regular search engine (Google, Bing, etc.), you get a list of links to websites. When you do a search on Pinterest, however, you are presented with a list of images you can click on that take you to websites and other places. These images are referred to as “pins.”

Pinterest ads are purchased in a similar way to Facebook ads. Prices vary, but some have reported buying ads for as little as $0.10 per click. After you set up an ad campaign, you then create an eye-catching pin for your product. When people click on the pin, it then takes them to either a landing page or blog post. If people click through to the affiliate product you are promoting and buy, you earn a commission.

4. Get Paid to Post Ads on YouTube

Another popular search engine to get paid advertising with is YouTube.

Like Pinterest, YouTube is also a search engine, although most casual users don’t realize it. Instead of getting a list of links to click on when conducting a search, YouTube users are presented with a list of video options.

There are two main ways that YouTube content creators use to make money posting ads. The first is through advertisements that appear in the videos themselves, and the other is through affiliate links placed in the description box.

If you’ve watched YouTube videos, you’ve probably seen the ads that appear in the videos. Sometimes they appear as ads you can click on, and other times you are required to watch short advertisements to continue watching the videos.

Both of these advertisements earn money for the content creators. The clickable ads pay a small amount when someone clicks on them. And the video ads pay a small amount when someone watches a video.

How much can you make through video ads?

It depends on a variety of factors. These types of ads require many views – sometimes millions – to make any real money. The niche you are in also matters. Some niches pay better than others.

Another thing to consider is that it can be difficult to qualify for these ads. YouTube used to let anyone start a new channel and immediately start monetizing it with ads. But those days are over. To qualify these days, you have to have a minimum amount of monthly views.

Starting and growing a new YouTube channel can also be a difficult task. Many new YouTube content creators post video after video for months before they start getting any significant views and channel subscribers. Because of this, making money posting ads on YouTube does require a great deal of patience.

The second method of posting ads to make money on YouTube is with affiliate marketing. The best way to do this is product review videos. In each video, be sure to mention that you have a link to the product in the description box that appears below the video. The link, of course, will be your affiliate link. If people click on it and buy the product you are reviewing, you will earn a commission.

5. Start a Blog

Another popular way to post ads and make money is to start your own blog.

Many people are surprised to learn that blogging is big business. There are many bloggers, in fact, who earn six-figures from their blogs. There are also some who earn seven-figures.

The great thing about blogging is that it is a business that requires very little money to get started. All you need to get started is a domain name and a subscription to a hosting company. Both of these can be obtained for about $100 a year until your blog starts to grow and you need to upgrade your hosting package to one that can handle more traffic.

There are several ways that blogs make money – advertisements, affiliate sales, sponsored posts, and selling digital products. Let’s review them one at a time.

One of the most popular ways of monetizing blogs is with advertisements. You’ve probably seen many websites over the years with advertisements for various products on them. With these advertisements, the owner of the website receives a small commission whenever someone clicks on one of the ads.

Because these ads rely on clicks, it takes many people clicking on them to make any real money with this method. This means a website will need a lot of people visiting it to earn a full-time income from ads alone.

Where do the ads come from?

Adsense, which is owned by Google, is one of the most popular ad companies that people can join when starting their blogs. The main advantage of Adsense is that it is completely free to join, and the amount of traffic your website receives doesn’t matter. That means you can sign up even if you’re just receiving a few hundred visitors a month to your site.

An option for established blogs is to join an ad network, which typically pays much more than Adsense. Two popular ad networks are AdThrive and Mediavine. To qualify for an ad network, you have to meet certain blog traffic requirements.

Affiliate Sales

Another way that blogs earn money is through affiliate sales. We’ve already covered the mechanics of affiliate marketing and how money can be earned by promoting products from other companies, so I won’t rehash everything here.

Affiliate sales is a great way to monetize a blog because once you learn search engine optimization (SEO) and your blog ranks in the search engines for certain words and phrases, you’ll receive free traffic to your blog. This will result in people clicking on your affiliate links and buying products, thus resulting in commissions.

Affiliate marketing typically pays much more than posting ads on your blog. Because of the relative ease of marketing products and the earnings potential, this method of monetization is very popular with bloggers.

Selling Digital Products

And, lastly, another popular method of earning money from a blog is by selling digital products.

What’s a digital product?

A digital product is any product that people can download and use instantly. In other words, there is nothing to ship. Examples of digital products include online courses, ebooks, printables, and others.

Digital products can be very lucrative if you do a good job of marketing them. Online courses, for example, are very popular and are typically sold for anywhere from $97 – $497 each.

Creating an online course is not difficult. If you have a decent microphone and a computer, you have everything you need. You don’t even have to film yourself if you don’t want to.

The easiest way to create an online course is to use screen capture software to record yourself narrating PowerPoint slides and other things you do online. After you finish recording your course, you can upload it to a course hosting platform like Thinkific and Teachable. These platforms take care of processing payments and sending your students links to access the course via email after signing up.

Other than periodically updating your course and responding to student questions, that’s all you have to do. Online courses are a mostly passive way to earn money.

Getting Started Blogging

Starting a blog isn’t rocket science, but it does help if you have a plan of action instead of trying to wing it. Alex Nerney and Lauren McManus, a couple who earn six-figures a month (yes, you read that correctly – per month) from their blog and course sales offer a series of online courses you can take to guide you in creating your own money making blog.

The courses they offer cover building your blog from the ground up, getting traffic to your blog, and how to turn your blog into a six-figure money making machine. You can buy each of the courses separately, or you can buy them together in a bundle to save money.

The three courses they offer are:

Launch Your Blog Biz
Pinterest Traffic Avalanche
Six-Figure Blogger
Also check out the Pro Blogger Bundle to save money on all three courses.

6. Start a Social Media Advertising Business

Another way you can post ads to make money is by starting your own social media advertising company.

Advertising on social media is a great way for many businesses to attract new customers. This form of advertising can be used successfully by many different companies of all sizes. Just a few examples of businesses in your community that can benefit from these ads include car dealers, dentists, chiropractors, plumbers, electricians, tourist attractions, and many others.

Many business owners are aware that advertising on social media platforms like Facebook is good for business, but few know how to do it. Either that, or they don’t have enough free time to learn how to do it.

That’s where you come in.

If you can market your services as a social media marketing expert to businesses in your community, you may be able to earn a full-time living working mostly from the comfort of your home.

Social media managers buy advertising on Facebook and other social media platforms on behalf of their clients. It’s a lucrative business, and the average monthly income per client is $1k – $2k. Those amounts are on top of the cost of buying the ads. It’s not hard to see how you can earn a great living doing this with just a few clients.

Another great thing about this business is that it requires very little of your time. After you set up a Facebook advertising campaign, for example, you may be able to maintain it in just a couple of hours a week.

Starting a business as a social media ad manager is something you can do in your spare time if you already have a job. You can work on your new business of the evenings, weekends, or whenever you have free time. As your skills improve and you take on more clients, there may come a point where you decide to go all in and work on your business full-time.

How to Make Money Posting Ads Offline

All of the opportunities we’ve discussed so far have been online. They have all involved posting ads somewhere on the internet. But there are several great marketing opportunities that are offline, too.

Let’s check them out…

7. Post Ads on Craiglist, Facebook Marketplace, eBay, etc.

A great way to make money offline is to buy used products and flip them for profit on eBay, Craigslist, OfferUp, Facebook Marketplace, and other places. You can make money by buying used products and then posting ads for them online to sell them at a profit.

Technically, this is a hybrid strategy that combines the best elements of offline and online marketing.

The idea behind flipping used products for profit is to find products that people have listed for sale that are undervalued. Many people don’t know what their stuff is worth, and when they go to sell it, they may sell it for much less than it’s actually worth.

With this strategy, it’s best to go for items you can buy for $100-$200 that you can sell for $500-$1,000 or more. If you go for more expensive items, you won’t have to flip as many products to earn money.

Many people flip used products full-time. It’s how they make their living. And, this may be hard to believe, but flipping can be a lucrative business. There are some, like Rob and Melissa Stephenson, who earn six-figures flipping used products.

Rob and Melissa love teaching others how to start flipping businesses of their own. They offer an online course called Flipper University that teaches you everything you need to know to get started and scale your business.

Check out Flipper University to see how flipping used products can give you the life of freedom you’ve been looking for.

8. Turn Your Car Into a Mobile Advertisement

Have you ever been driving down the road and seen a car that is basically a mobile billboard for a company – a car that has been wrapped in an ad? Well, depending on where you live, you may be able to do the same for your car and get paid for it.

Carvertise is a company that connects people with cars to companies who want to advertise on vehicles. It’s important to point out that this opportunity is currently only available in large metropolitan cities. If you live in a small town, for instance, you may not qualify.

Carvertise takes care of everything for you if you qualify. They take care of having the advertisement placed on your vehicle and having it removed when you are finished with the program. If you are interested in applying, check the Carvertise website to see which cities are currently available and the requirements for qualifying.

9. Be a Brand Ambassador

Being a brand ambassador is another offline opportunity to consider. This one is best suited for those who have outgoing personalities and don’t mind being around people for long periods of time. It’s probably not a good fit for those who are introverted.

What is a brand ambassador?

A brand ambassador is someone who promotes a company’s brand and products at various events like trade shows, concerts, colleges and universities, festivals, conferences, conventions, and other places. Instead of posting ads, you become the ad.

Your job as a brand ambassador is to represent the brand. You may be required to wear attire with a corporate logo on it. You will most likely also be required to hand out flyers, give out free samples, and respond to any questions people have about the company and its products.

Frequently Asked Questions

Although we’ve already covered a lot on the issue of getting paid for posting ads, you may still be wondering whether this is something you can do. The following are some frequently asked questions about posting ads to consider.

Can You Really Make Money Posting Ads?

Yes, posting ads to social media platforms and to your own blog is a legitimate way to make money. Money can be made through affiliate marketing (advertising products sold by other companies), through display ads, by selling digital products (online courses, ebooks, printables, etc.), and sponsored posts.

It’s also possible to offer your services to businesses in your community to post ads on social media platforms on their behalf. The industry standard for this type of work is $1k – $2k per month for each customer you service (These amounts are for your services – not the cost of the ads, which are extra). Some are able to earn comfortable full-time incomes after taking on several clients who pay monthly retainers.

Is Posting Ads on Social Media a Real Job?

Many companies do hire people to maintain their social media accounts and post ads. People who do this work often have other marketing responsibilities in addition to posting ads. Examples of job titles for people who do this work include marketing manager, marketing director, marketing specialist, marketing strategist, and others.

Can You Make a Living Blogging?

Yes, there are many bloggers who earn full-time livings from the advertising revenue from their blogs. They also make money from selling digital products, sponsored posts, and affiliate commissions.

Blogging can be lucrative, and there are many bloggers who earn six-figure incomes. Some bloggers even earn seven-figure incomes (over $1 million a year).

How Do Beginner Blogs Make Money?

There is a learning curve to running a successful blogging business. In the beginning, a new blog may not make much money (if any). It can take anywhere from 1-3 years for a blogger to earn a full-time living from their blogging efforts. It all depends on how hard a blogger works.

One of the easiest ways to monetize a brand new blog is through Adsense. Adsense does not require a minimum number of monthly visitors to a blog to qualify like some of the ad networks do (AdThrive, Mediavine, etc.).

How Do You Get Paid for Posting Ads?

How you get paid when you post ads depends on the advertising method used.

If you are part of an ad network and you are displaying ads on your site, you will be paid directly from the ad network.

If you are promoting affiliate products on your blog, you will either be paid by the affiliate network or directly from the company of the product you are promoting.

If you are posting sponsored posts on your blog, you will be paid directly by the company you are promoting in the blog post.

If you are selling digital products, you will collect payment directly from customers at the point of sale. There are some platforms that host digital products, however, that take care of collecting payment from customers for you. If you are using one of these platforms, you will receive payment from them.

If you are running your own social media management company, you will receive payment directly from the companies you are working for.

Advertising Is Bug Business

Did you realize there were so many ways to make money posting ads? Marketing is big business, and there’s no reason why you can’t get in on it.

If you are thinking about starting your own marketing enterprise, it’s important to point out that this is not an overnight route to wealth. It’s not a get rich quick scheme. It’s a legit business opportunity for those who are willing to learn some new skills and do the hard work.

The great thing about this business opportunity is that you can start doing it in your spare time – even if you are currently working a full-time job – and slowly build your marketing empire over time.

Slow and steady wins the race every time.