IAN ASHBROOK · THE 2026 EXPERIMENT
Can Free Traffic Build a Genuine Affiliate Marketing Business in 2026?
I'm finding out.
I've spent years around online marketing — learning, trying different approaches, starting things and, sometimes, failing to finish them.
This time I'm doing something different.
I'm running a real experiment in public: finding where the right people actually congregate, understanding the problems they're trying to solve, creating useful content, building an audience without paid advertising, testing appropriate affiliate offers — and measuring what happens.
No guru claims. No pretending I already know the answer. Just the experiment and the results.
The Fish Are There. But Where?
There are millions of people online who want to earn extra income, start an online business or make affiliate marketing work.
Finding people isn't the problem.
Finding the right people is.
Think about fishing. You don't simply choose a random piece of water, throw in a hook and hope for the best.
You need to know what you're fishing for, where those fish are likely to be, when they're there — and what will attract them.
Online marketing isn't so different.
So before trying to sell anything, I'm looking for the people themselves. Where do they congregate? What questions are they asking? What are they struggling with? And what kind of content actually helps them?
That's where the experiment starts.
What I'm Finding So Far
X — Plenty of Fishermen
Searching for affiliate marketing revealed plenty of people promoting programmes, systems and opportunities.
What was much harder to find was ordinary people openly discussing the problems they were having.
Early finding: lots of fishermen. The fish were harder to see.
Quora — Now This Is Interesting
Quora is showing something quite different: real questions from people asking how to start, what skills to learn, how to make money online and how different online-business models actually work.
Early finding: the fish are visible here. The next question is whether useful answers can attract the right ones.
YouTube — The Test Is Beginning
YouTube will be the main place where I document the experiment, publish useful content based on what I'm discovering and see whether that content attracts the right people.
Status: testing begins now.
Why Am I Doing This?
I've been interested in building a genuine online business for years.
I've bought courses, joined programmes, learned about affiliate marketing, list building, content, traffic, product creation and more.
I've also made a mistake that I suspect isn't unusual.
I've spent far too much time learning, analysing and starting — and not enough time finishing, publishing and measuring.
So this experiment isn't being conducted by someone claiming to have discovered the secret to online success.
It's being conducted by someone who has accumulated plenty of knowledge but now wants to answer a much more practical question:
Can I actually turn what I've learned into a working online business using free traffic in 2026?
There's only one sensible way to find out.
Finish. Deploy. Measure. Decide.
Follow the Experiment
This experiment is happening in public.
I'll be documenting what I try, what works, what doesn't, and what I learn along the way.
If you're trying to build something online yourself — or you're simply curious whether free traffic can still build a genuine affiliate marketing business in 2026 — you're welcome to follow along.
No promises about where this ends. That's the point of the experiment.
Blog
Read the findings
Longer observations, lessons and updates here on IanAshbrook.com.
Quora
Real questions from people trying to build something online — and my answers as I investigate what they actually need.
Facebook contains huge communities around extra income, side hustles and working from home. The challenge is separating genuine questions from all the promotion.
I'm looking for the conversations where real people are asking for help.
Real discussions about affiliate marketing — the questions people ask, the problems they encounter, and what we can learn from them.
