Key Takeaways
- Passive income is money earned with little to no ongoing effort, and it often comes from sources like affiliate marketing, content creation, or investments;
- You can start building passive income online through referral programs, digital products, or by growing an audience—even without upfront capital;
- Platforms like BitDegree offer beginner-friendly ways to earn passive-style income by combining gamified learning, crypto rewards, and multi-tier affiliate programs.
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Whether you’re a high school student who’s about to graduate or you’re a working adult with a day job, extra money on the side is always great, especially when you don’t even need to do anything to earn it. However, even though it sounds like a cool concept, it’s usually pretty hard to find working ways to make a passive income in the background.
It is possible, though, and today I’d like to teach you about one such method. In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to make passive income using one of the best methods out there - affiliate marketing. There are more referral programs out there than you might expect, especially in the crypto space, with platforms like Bybit, Binance, and even educational platforms such as BitDegree offering rewarding opportunities.
First, I'll cover all of the basics and talk about what is passive income, passive income ideas, and even how to create passive income with no money. Then, I'll cover everything that you might need to know about affiliate marketing - what it is, why it’s so good, how to do it, and so on.
Needless to say, the competition is high - people hustle to make ends meet every single day. That’s why only the best and the most original methods tend to work. And affiliate marketing is one such method.
Table of Contents
What is Passive Income?
Needless to say, with the rise of the internet, along came multiple different ways to make passive income. The digital world offers countless ways for both industry newbies and seasoned veterans to make money without virtually having to do anything.
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One of the most well-known and respected of such methods of how to make passive income is affiliate marketing. As time goes on, more and more people are starting to use it and reap the benefits that this method of ways to make passive income provides.
However, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Terms like passive income and affiliate marketing are being constantly thrown around… But what do they mean? Let’s start with the basics. What is passive income?
Passive income is a method of making money. As the term implies, this way of money-making is passive - meaning that you don’t need to do anything and the revenue just keeps on coming.
This might sound like something from a utopian world, but it’s a very popular concept. Many people look for ways how to make passive income as a side thing to their day jobs. Some of these people resort to old-school methods, but the vast majority leans towards the online world.
As I’ve mentioned earlier, one of the most popular ways to earn passive income is affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing (in its most generic and simple form) is a process where you promote products or services of a specific product (service) provider. You promote this merchandise to your audience, and if someone goes ahead and purchases a product on your behalf, you get a share of the revenue. It sounds like a great way to make passive income, doesn’t it?
This process is usually tracked with referral links, which are unique to each affiliate. When someone clicks the link and makes a purchase, the host of the site sees that they did so because they were redirected there by that specific affiliate.
For instance, BitDegree features a multi-tiered referral program that can reward you with crypto for growing your network.
In general, this is how the system works. People who are looking at how to make passive income online will usually stumble upon this method quite early in their search. Now let’s cover affiliate marketing a little more in-depth and talk about the different types of this gem of passive income ideas.
How Affiliate Marketing Works?
There are usually three big parties involved in affiliate marketing - the creator (seller), the affiliate, and the customer. Out of these three, only the affiliate is concerned about how to make a passive income.
You might discover that a lot of sites use a four-party system. This is because they differentiate the creator of the merchandise from the seller (advertiser). I’ve chosen the three-party approach mainly because it’s more commonly used and referenced when you’re just starting with affiliate marketing.
When you’re just starting to think about how to create passive income with no money, you’re probably not going to be looking at huge companies with multimillion-dollar worth of merchandise, are you?
No, your best bet would probably be to turn towards lesser-known and smaller companies. These are usually owned by the same individual who does all of the digital marketing, too (handcrafted goods, home-made items, sites, and so on). Small companies like this are much more likely to invest money into an up-and-coming affiliate marketer.
When thinking about how to make passive income, remember that there are a few ways you could go about affiliate marketing. I’ll tell you about the two big ones - when you have some sort of an online presence… And when you’re completely unknown, both of these have specific ways to make passive income.
📚 Read More: What Is Affiliate Marketing?
Method No. 1 - Online Influencer
Let’s start from method number 1 and pretend that you’re already some sort of online influencer. So, how to create passive income with affiliate marketing while having an online audience?
Well, it’s super simple - you’ve got the hard work done already!
It doesn’t matter if you’re a YouTube video creator with tens of thousands of subscribers or an Instagram photographer with only a couple of hundred followers - an initial fanbase will immensely help you get into the world of affiliate marketing.
There are two options readily available to you. You either continue to grow your audience and wait until some sort of company comes along and offers you an affiliate program on how to make passive income, or you venture out and search for a potential business partner yourself.
If you’re in no hurry to earn passive income, then the first approach might be the easier one to take - if you let a company come to you, it becomes easier to negotiate the terms of the deal. Also, you can get somewhat of an idea of what types of companies are willing to approach you and what amounts of money (revenue) they are willing to pay (let you earn).
Alternatively, you can try to search for possible companies to work with yourself. This will allow you to be very specific in choosing what brands you’re willing to deal with. Don’t let your head down if the first or second company turns down your offer - finding a good affiliate deal might be tough, and it usually takes many tries to strike a deal with the right one.
Speaking about which, BitDegree offers a great affiliate program, and you don’t even need to have any social followings or anything. Anyone who wants to join can do it! So, let's talk a bit more about that.
Method No. 2 - No Social Media Following
Now let’s flip the coin and talk about a scenario in which you have no social media presence at all.
This is the case for most of the people looking for ways how to make passive income. Not everyone can say that they garnered tens of thousands of followers online. Don’t worry, though - even though this might make things a bit tougher and require some more grinding to do, it is still very possible to be an affiliate, even without a social following.
First of all, you’ll need to find a company or site that is willing to host an affiliate program. Find such a place, get your unique referral link, and that’s it-you're now officially an affiliate! Time to start promoting.
In that case, I highly recommend checking out the BitDegree referral program. The crypto world holds a lot of promise, and BitDegree lets you earn while learning—without spending a dime. And the process is more than easy:
1
Go to the BitDegree website and click [Connect Gain] to sign up for a free account.
2
Hover your mouse over your profile icon and click [Invite to Earn] to find options to refer.
3
Click one of the options you see and copy your referral link.
4
Share your link with as many people as possible to earn more!
Well, how to share your link with people if you have no audience? Easy, start with friends, then go to the online forums.
In a situation where you don’t have any social media following, internet forums and chat room sites like Reddit become your best friends. You’ll require a lot of persuasiveness, patience, and luck, but if you put in enough time, you’ll see that your link is being clicked more and more often. Sure, no one is arguing that it’s a lot tougher to get some traction and start earning this way, but it’s still very possible.
When you see that your strategy works and people click on your link, you can then transition into something a bit more serious - perhaps create a dedicated blog, YouTube channel, or start an Instagram account that is solemnly aimed at affiliate-type content.
When you think about how to make passive income, don’t forget the simple formula: The more work you put in in the beginning, the less work you’ll have to do later on. Follow this, and a bright future in the field of affiliate marketing is guaranteed for you.
📚 Further Reading: How to Start Affiliate Marketing?
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Missions That Pay Off – Literally
While not purely passive, BitDegree Missions offer a fun and accessible way to earn crypto rewards with minimal effort, making them a great addition to your passive income toolkit.
BitDegree regularly launches interactive Missions where you can complete micro-tasks like quizzes, learning modules, or simple social actions to earn Bits, the platform's native in-game points, which increases your Degree.
Some Missions come with their own rewards, like airdrops, trading fee discounts, or exclusive NFTs. The more Bits you earn, the higher your Degree, and the better your chances of winning in these draws. So technically, the Missions themselves become a gateway to multiple passive-style income streams—especially during big seasonal events like Airdrop Season 7, where massive prize pools are at stake.
Yes, you’ll need to participate actively to start earning, but compared to traditional hustles, the workload is light and the format is engaging.
Also, you can take advantage of the multi-tier referral system I mentioned earlier to increase your reward shares and boost your chances in lucky draws and airdrops. The more people you bring in, the more Bits and potential benefits you can unlock—making it even easier to climb the ranks and maximize your earnings.
If you enjoy gamified learning and the thrill of reward-based discovery, BitDegree makes earning crypto feel less like work—and more like a game.
Tips and Tricks
I’ve named this section “tips and tricks” because I want to give you a few pieces of advice concerning affiliate marketing and how to create a passive income, in general.
When you’re just starting with affiliate marketing, there are a lot of slippery slopes that you should be aware of. To keep this section as clean as possible, I’ve segmented it into three parts - vendor, affiliate and customer. These are the same three parts that I mentioned before - I’m going to talk about the main point of interest concerning each one of them separately.
Vendor
To understand how to make passive income, let's start with the first segment. The vendor is the person (or people) who produces and sells the merchandise that an affiliate then promotes. Vendors have a lot of responsibilities, not only when it comes to affiliate marketing.
First of all, vendors have to create and produce merchandise (or services) that people are going to want to buy and use. If the product is lousy and poorly made, no one’s going to want to advertise it, let alone use it.
Vendors also have a huge responsibility when it comes to choosing the right affiliate. It’s very much a case-by-case scenario, but in general, a lot of companies want to work with affiliates who not only have big social media followings and a wide online presence but who also present themselves in respectable ways and are good online content creators.
Affiliate
As an affiliate, you have a huge opportunity to fulfill when it comes to how to make passive income. You also have a lot of responsibilities to your audience and the merchandise or service that you are promoting. First of all, the main point to pay attention to arises when you go to pick a company or brand that you’re going to work with.
It is always the best idea to prioritize brands that have something in common with your online specialty.
To give you an example, let’s say that you are a nature photography-oriented Instagram persona. You have a humble following on your Instagram that is there to see new nature-related photos that you upload every day. So, if a company specializing in sports cars comes to you with a promotion offer, do you think it’s a good idea to take it?
Sure, maybe the money is great and you’ll make a fortune out of that one promotion, but it’s almost guaranteed that you’ll lose a big portion of your following because you didn’t stay true to your content. In the long run, this becomes detrimental, especially if you want to build your business and not look for new ways how to make passive income. Do you see what I mean?
Maybe you can check out some education platforms as they become increasingly more popular to affiliate with online. Since more and more people are looking for e-learning options daily, you can earn some revenue while promoting education - how cool is that? Just to give you an idea, here are a couple of examples of some of the more popular e-learning platforms out there:
- BitDegree. IT and blockchain-centric e-learning platform with gamification elements.
- DataCamp. A data science and AI-focused e-learning platform offering interactive, code-based learning with real-world projects.
- Udacity. A career-focused e-learning platform offering project-based nanodegree programs in tech fields like AI, cloud, and programming.
- Coursera. An online-learning platform founded by university professors offering various courses.
- Udemy. A for-profit organization that sells various online courses on different topics.
- edX. A MOOC that hosts a wide variety of different, university-level courses.
Last thing I need to suggest to you as an affiliate, always pay attention to transparency. Never hide your true intentions from your audience - people are clever and they will see through your efforts to hide something fast. Don’t ever promote a product or service that you haven’t tried or don’t strongly believe in, especially if it’s shady.
- Easy to use with a learn-by-doing approach
- Offers quality content
- Gamified in-browser coding experience
- Free certificates of completion
- Focused on data science skills
- Flexible learning timetable
- High-quality courses
- Nanodegree programs
- Student Career services
- Nanodegree programs
- Suitable for enterprises
- Paid certificates of completion
- A wide range of learning programs
- University-level courses
- Easy to navigate
- University-level courses
- Suitable for enterprises
- Verified certificates of completion
Customer
And finally, there’s the customer.
As a customer, you are not on your path on how to make passive income, but you should always be wary of affiliate marketers who promote products or services that they haven’t tried themselves. It’s pretty easy to spot them, especially if you have delved into the field of affiliate marketing.
Some people get too fixated on the ways to make passive income, others simply don’t know better - whatever the reason, there are a lot of affiliates that are promoting products they don’t believe in. A lot of these marketers simply want to make a quick buck and aren’t thinking about the long-term consequences.
This is especially true with the industry's newcomers. The bigger part of the seasoned veterans already knows better - they pick their promotions rather carefully.
Did you know?
Have you ever wondered which online learning platforms are the best for your career?
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Conclusion
All of the information I’ve given you in this tutorial is valid with both bigger content creators and newbie affiliates. If you’re new to the affiliate world and are thinking how to make passive income long-term, you’ll still want to build a dedicated audience one way or another.
The world of affiliate marketing can be chaotic and uninviting. Many affiliates are trying to get attention towards themselves and their promotions - it might seem intimidating at first. That’s why creating content AND using it for affiliate marketing is usually the right way to go. When you’re thinking about how to create passive income (especially how to create passive income with no money), always plan two or three steps.
I would suggest that you take a look at the best cryptocurrency exchanges that offer such program, as they offer quite good earnings.
In this tutorial, we have talked about what is passive income, discussed passive income ideas, and I’ve shown you the best method to earn passive income - affiliate marketing. I hope this guide was useful and that you apply the knowledge that you gained in your own, personal life.
Also, don’t forget - if you’re searching for ways to make passive income, and are yet to discover anything, try out BitDegree - the platform has an awesome affiliate program.
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