Hey, so I have to tell you about this because it literally changed how I think about building income online. A few months back, one of my viewers dropped a comment under a video that basically stopped me mid-scroll. It said something like, "Bro, all this affiliate stuff sounds cool, but I have like 12 subscribers. How am I supposed to make money when nobody is watching?" And that comment got me thinking — because honestly, that used to be me. That used to be my excuse for not even trying.
So I made a whole follow-up video about it, and the response was insane. Hundreds of replies, tons of DMs, people sharing their subscriber counts with an embarrassed emoji after the number. And it made me realise something that I wish someone had told me two years ago: the size of your audience has very little to do with whether you can earn your first commission. I know that sounds like clickbait, but I'm going to walk you through exactly how I proved it to myself — with real numbers, real workflows, and the actual strategy I used to go from nothing to my first payout.
The Lie About Needing Followers First
Let's just rip the bandaid off right now. The whole "you need an audience before you can do affiliate marketing" thing is, in my opinion, one of the most repeated pieces of bad advice on the internet. And I get why people repeat it — because every guru with a $997 course tells you that you need to build a tribe first, then monetize the tribe. That's a nice little funnel, but it assumes you have months (or years) to wait before you see a single dollar.
Here is the actual truth, at least based on my experience and what I have seen play out across my own content: affiliate commissions come from reaching people who are actively looking for a solution, not from people who already know you. Think about the last time you needed a new tool. Did you open YouTube, scroll your subscriptions, and wait for a creator you trust to post a review? Sometimes, sure. But more often, you Googled something like "best X for Y," clicked the first few results, and made a decision. The person who wrote that blog post or made that video did not need to be your favorite creator. They just needed to answer your question well enough that you trusted their recommendation.
That is exactly the game I started playing — and the algorithm rewards it just as much as a viral video does.
Search vs. The YouTube Algorithm: Two Different Funnels
I want to explain something that took me way too long to understand, because it is the core of why this strategy works even when your channel looks like a ghost town.
There are basically two ways content finds viewers. The first is the YouTube algorithm — that mysterious beast that decides whether your video shows up on the home page, in suggested, or in search results. You feed it watch time, click-through rate, and engagement, and it decides if your video gets pushed. Most of my videos live or die by this algorithm, and I have learned to respect it (and fear it) over the past couple of years.
The second way is search-driven discovery, which works on YouTube and on Google. Search doesn't care how many subscribers you have. Search doesn't care if your last video flopped. If your content matches what someone is typing into a search bar, you can show up on page one — even on day one of your channel.
This is the unlock. When I started making content optimised for specific search queries instead of broad appeal, the algorithm started treating me differently. My viewer retention went up because the people clicking through actually wanted to be there. My engagement rate climbed. And the algorithm, noticing that viewers were sticking around, pushed my stuff to even more people. It is a feedback loop, and it starts with picking the right topics.
My Actual Numbers (The Part That Surprised Me)
Okay, let me get specific because I know you want receipts. One of the videos I posted using this search-first approach got 47,000 views in its first month. Now, that might not sound like a ton to the big creators out there, but here is the context: at the time, my channel had about 1,200 subscribers. Most of my videos were sitting between 200 and 800 views. So a 47K view video on a 1.2K sub channel was completely abnormal — and it happened because the content was matching search intent almost perfectly.
Of those 47,000 views, a meaningful chunk of viewers came from people who had never seen my channel before, had never subscribed to anyone I am connected to, and found the video because they were literally searching for answers to questions I had answered. A percentage of those viewers clicked my affiliate link. A percentage of those clickers signed up. And a percentage of those sign-ups turned into commissions. That funnel does not require me to be famous. It requires me to be findable.
And here is the part I love: the video is still earning. It is still getting impressions. It is still ranking. That is the magic of search-first content — it does not have a half-life like a typical viral video. It is more like a little passive asset that keeps doing its thing while I make new content.
Picking Topics That Actually Print Commissions
So how do you pick the right topics? This is where a lot of people mess up. They pick topics that they think are interesting, instead of topics that buyers are actively searching for.
I use a pretty simple system. I start typing phrases into YouTube search and Google and see what the auto-complete suggests. I look at the "People Also Ask" boxes. I scroll to the bottom of search results and look at the related searches. These suggestions are literally a free roadmap of what real humans want to know right now.
When I started doing this for AI APIs, I found a goldmine of queries that had surprisingly weak content answering them. Stuff like "how do I get started with AI APIs as a beginner," "best place to access multiple AI models," and "AI API platforms for indie builders." The results that existed were either outdated, super thin, or obviously written by someone who had never actually used the products.
That gap is where you live. If you can find a question that lots of people are asking but where the existing answers are mediocre, you have an opportunity to make the best piece of content on the internet for that query. You do not need to be a genius. You just need to actually use the thing you are recommending and write (or film) about it from a place of real experience.
How I Structure Content the Algorithm Can't Ignore
Let me share what I have learned about making content that wins, both on YouTube and in Google search, because the principles overlap more than you might think.
First, I treat every search-targeted video or post like it is the only answer someone needs. That means I go deep. I cover the topic from every angle. I answer the obvious follow-up questions before the viewer even thinks of them. I include real examples, real screenshots, real numbers. My average "search-first" video is somewhere in the 12-20 minute range, and the blog companion posts tend to run 1,500 to 2,500 words. That is not because I am padding for length. It is because I want the viewer to leave feeling like their question was fully resolved — and the algorithm can tell when that happens because the retention curve stays flat instead of cratering.
Second, I front-load the value. The first 30 seconds of a video or the first 100 words of a post need to deliver something useful immediately. No long intros, no "hey guys welcome back to the channel," no filler. I get to the point, and then I expand on it. This single change probably did more for my average view duration than anything else.
Third, I make sure the affiliate mention feels like a natural part of the conversation. I do not save it for a fake-sounding outro. I weave it in as one option among several, explain why I personally use it, and revisit it at the end with a clear next step for the viewer. When the recommendation is genuine, it does not feel like an ad — and viewers can tell the difference.
The Engagement Trick Most Beginners Miss
Here is something I have noticed in my analytics dashboard that I think a lot of newer creators overlook. When I make search-driven content, my engagement rate is consistently higher than my "personality-driven" content. That is a weird sentence to type, but it is true.
Think about it from the viewer's perspective. If someone clicks a video because they typed in a specific question, and the video actually answers that question well, they are way more likely to comment something like "This is exactly what I needed, thanks!" or "Finally a video that explains this clearly." They are more likely to like the video. They are more likely to subscribe. They are more likely to share it in a Discord or Slack group where other people have the same question.
The algorithm reads all of those signals. Higher engagement means more impressions, which means more clicks, which means more commissions. It is the flywheel that makes search-first content so powerful — especially when you are starting with a small channel, because every new viewer who finds you through search is potentially a long-term subscriber too.
I have had search-first videos convert cold viewers into subscribers at a rate I would never see from a generic "thought piece" video. That is how small channels grow. Not by going viral once, but by stacking up dozens of search-optimised pieces that each bring in a steady stream of new people.
From First Commission to a Real Income Stream
Once I earned that first commission, something shifted in my head. I realised I was not dependent on a single viral hit. I had built a little system.
Right now, the bulk of my monthly affiliate income comes from a mix of evergreen content pieces — some YouTube videos, some blog posts — that I made using exactly the approach I am describing. The newest one is still cooking. The oldest ones are still pulling in clicks. And every month, I add a few more to the mix.
I want to be transparent about this: I am not getting rich off this. But the income is real, it is consistent, and it grows a little every month because I keep producing. More importantly, the channel itself grows because every search-first video brings in new subscribers who actually care about what I am making. My subscriber count has gone up significantly, my average views per video have climbed, and the algorithm seems to treat me a bit more favorably now that it knows I can hold viewers' attention.
If you are sitting at 0 subscribers or 50 subscribers and wondering whether any of this is possible for you, please hear me on this: the ceiling is way higher than you think. The thing holding most people back is not their audience size — it is their willingness to do the unsexy work of researching, producing, and publishing content that targets specific questions instead of broad vibes.
The Program That Started It All (And Why I Keep Recommending It)
Alright, I want to wrap this up by telling you about the actual affiliate program I used to make all of this happen, because I have gotten a flood of DMs asking about it and I want to put the full picture in one place.
The program is the Global API affiliate program, and you can check it out here: https://global-apis.com/affiliate
I want to explain why I keep recommending it, because I never want to sound like I am just shilling something for a check. Here is the honest breakdown.
The commission structure is genuinely one of the better ones I have seen. You earn 15% on every first-order someone places through your link. On top of that, you earn 8% recurring on every subsequent order that same person makes. So this is not a one-and-done payout — it is the kind of structure where one solid signup can keep paying you month after month. And if a referral upgrades to a premium plan, you earn 10% on those transactions as well. That combination of a strong first-order bump plus ongoing recurring revenue is what makes the math actually work over time.
From a product perspective, Global API gives your referrals access to 150+ AI models through a single platform. For someone like me who makes content about AI tools, that is a no-brainer to recommend, because it solves the "I do not know which model to use" problem in one shot. When my viewers sign up through my link, they get a starting pack of free credits to test things out, which lowers the barrier to actually trying it.
But here is the bigger reason I recommend the affiliate program specifically: it is actually designed for people without an audience. There is no minimum follower count. There is no application gatekeeping. You sign up, you get your link, you start creating content. That is it. You are not waiting on some approval email. You are not uploading screenshots of your analytics. You are just in.
For someone watching this with 12 subscribers (or 0 subscribers, or just a Notion doc full of ideas), that matters more than you might think. The psychological friction of "I am not big enough to apply" is real, and Global API eliminates it entirely.
If you have been on the fence, here is what I would do. Go sign up for the affiliate program first — it takes like two minutes. Then start picking one search-driven topic per week. Make the best piece of content you can for that topic. Drop your affiliate link in naturally. Repeat. By the end of month two, you will have a small library of content working for you 24/7, and you will have a much clearer picture of what is possible.
Drop a comment below and let me know your current subscriber count — I genuinely want to see how many of you take this challenge. And if you make your first commission, come back and tell me about it. I read every single reply. Let's go.
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