no money at all, where does someone even start

everyone here talks about a test budget. i dont have one

not small. zero. i can maybe find 20 next month

is there anything real to do with that or should i just come back when i have money

come back when you have money is the honest answer nobody gives. but it's not the only answer

There is something real to do, but be clear with yourself about what you're trading. With no budget you are paying in time instead, at a very bad exchange rate, and the thing you should be buying with that time is a skill someone will pay for — not a campaign.

The version that actually works, and I've watched two people do it:

1. Pick one narrow thing and get good at it in public. Writing landers, editing short video, building simple pages. Six weeks of that gets you paid work from people on boards like this one, and that's your test budget.
2. Meanwhile, learn the plumbing while it costs nothing. Sign up at a network, read the terms, understand what a postback is, look at what the offers actually pay in your geo.
3. Spend the first £200 you earn on a test, not on tools.

What doesn't work is trying to run a paid campaign on £20. That isn't a small version of media buying, it's a different activity, and it mostly teaches you that £20 buys nothing.

£20 is not a budget, it's a ticket to watch.

fair enough

I was close to this a year ago — not zero, but not much — so for what it's worth.

The thing that surprised me is that the money wasn't the first wall I hit. The first wall was that I couldn't pay for anything, even the small stuff. My card kept getting declined on signup pages and I spent about two weeks going in circles on it before I worked out that was a whole separate problem with its own solutions. The Payments & Processing board here is where that gets discussed and it saved me a lot of flailing once I found it.

So my advice is boring: sort out how you'll pay for things before you have anything to pay for. It's the one part of this you can do with no money and it removes a wall you'll definitely hit.

Started with about £60 in 2017 - not zero, but close enough that I remember the feeling.

What I'd do in your position isn't affiliate at all for the first three months. It's arbitrage of your own labour: find something people on this board pay for that you can do badly at first, charge half, get better. I did lander translations because I happened to have a second language and I could not believe people paid for it.

The reason I'd do that rather than free traffic is that free traffic has a cost too, it's just hidden in months. Four months of building an audience, no money, and if the offer dies you have nothing transferable. Four months of doing paid work for people, you have money and three clients.

What can you do that someone would pay £30 for?

i can edit video pretty well. thats about it

That's not "about it", that's the single most in-demand thing on this board right now. Half the people running paid social are bottlenecked on creative and paying badly for it because they can't find anyone reliable.

Post three examples in the lounge and say you'll do the first one free. You'll have work inside a week and you'll be spending someone else's ad budget learning what converts, which is the best deal available to you.

and get paid in usdc so the first £200 isn't £160 by the time it reaches you

It is still income when it arrives, whatever it arrives as. I mention it now because it is much easier to start recording than to reconstruct.

he has twenty quid

did the free one. got paid for two more since. £140 so far

not much but its more than i had. thanks