Reddit Affiliate Marketing for SaaS: The Ethical Approach

Affiliate marketing on Reddit is tricky. Do it wrong and you're a sleazy spammer. Do it right and you have an army of authentic advocates. Here's the approach that works.

• Obvious affiliate links get spotted and downvoted
• Spammy accounts get banned fast
• Redditors are skeptical of recommendations with no context
• Disclosure violations get you reported

1. Genuine users only: Don't recruit random affiliates. Recruit actual users who love your product.
2. Value first: Affiliates should help people solve problems, not just drop links.
3. Disclosure always: 'Full disclosure: affiliate link' is required and builds trust.
4. Quality over quantity: 10 thoughtful recommendations beat 100 spammy links.

For promoting others' products:

• Only promote tools you actually use
• Answer questions genuinely, mention tool as solution
• Wait for relevant threads (don't force it)
• Build karma separate from affiliate activity

For your SaaS:

• Recruit from power users, not random marketers
• Provide talking points and best practices
• Monitor affiliate activity for spam behavior
• Pay enough to attract quality, not desperation

• Mass PMing affiliate links
• Creating threads just to drop links
• Hiding affiliate relationships
• Incentivizing volume over quality

Affiliate marketing works when it's authentic. For the foundation: complete Reddit playbook.