Even though I’m a big fan of social media, especially text-focused platforms like X and Threads, and it’s still my recommended strategy for growth…

I fully understand not everyone wants to rely on building an audience and manage everything that comes with it.

It can get overwhelming when you have a post take off with dozens to hundreds of comments when you’re not ready for it, even if they’re 100% positive.

Fortunately for those who aren’t interested in that method…

There are other ways to build online, and I’ll break down 3 of them that made me sales here:

1. Blogging (slow, low risk, high ROI potential)

There are far too many people who think blogging is a thing of the past, but it’s still a viable strategy even going into 2026.

But you can’t exactly blog about whatever and expect results.

You need to develop an actual content strategy, learn about SEO and keywords, and have high levels of patience because it can take a long time to build up and search algorithms change quite a bit.

While blogging made me the most money in 2010-2012 by a dramatic margin when SEO was easy, I’ve still been able to rank in Google and get traffic, email subscribers, and revenue this year.

I’m not at the level where I feel comfortable teaching this quite yet, so if that strategy interests you then I recommend looking up Marketer Milk on YouTube.

2. Email ads (very fast, moderate risk, paid strategy)

I haven’t found a faster and more reliable way to build an email list than advertising your email list in other email list owner’s email lists.

It just makes sense to advertise your email list to people who read emails, and only people who click your ad will be able to get on your list, so you’re already getting active subscribers.

I’ve run ads where I’ve added over 150 subscribers in a single day to my list at a profit.

However, there are some drawbacks…

Since these people likely haven’t heard about you before, you still have to build trust and give them a reason to open your emails, otherwise it’s really easy to burn through hundreds to thousands of dollars with no return.

It can also be hard to find people willing to run these ads outside of the health, personal development, and “make money” type niches, and even then some people have no moral code so I’d be extra careful about sending money to people unless they can give you some proof of list engagement or previous ad customer results.

But done right, it can be a good short and long term strategy.

3. Affiliates (slow to start, moderate risk, big potential)

One of the coolest ways to make money is by recruiting affiliates to promote your products for you and it’s made me dozens of sales over the years even without much effort.

The trick with this method is it takes quite some time to set it up right, because you need a great product that’s proven to convert, get systems set up, and find ethical affiliates.

It really can’t be a standalone strategy unless you already have a network, but it can be a very powerful addition to an already growing business.

There are more ways I’ve made money with digital products outside of social media but these are just a few ways to give you some ideas of what’s possible.

Any questions? Let me know.​

Talk soon,
-Gabe