David Paxton had a passion for golf but quickly realized how expensive the sport can be. Between equipment, apparel, shoes, and greens fees, costs add up fast.

As a self-described frugal guy, David appreciated good deals that helped make golf more affordable. So in July 2021, at the height of golf season, he had the idea to launch DailyGolfSteals.com — a website to curate and share the best daily golf deals he could find.

And thanks to David’s hustle and some key strategies, Daily Golf Steals earned over $2,000 in its very first month!

(Definitely a cool way to monetize a hobby.)

Tune into episode 583 of The Side Hustle Show to learn:

How Reddit provided instant traffic to validate the idea
The strategies now driving ongoing visits and sales
How automation helps David manage the demanding daily workload
The challenges of running a daily deals operation long-term

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Finding Inspiration in an Established Niche

The world of daily deals and group buying took off 10+ years ago with the rise of sites like Groupon and LivingSocial.

But while the hype around those big players has died down, the business model remains viable in niches with an engaged audience.

In fact, discovering HuntingGearDeals.com, run by Camron Stover (featured in Side Hustle Show episode 485) is what originally inspired David to give it a try in golf.

After listening to how Camron built his hunting deals site while working a full-time job, David had a pivotal “lightbulb moment.”

Chatting with Cameron gave David confidence he could make daily deals work in the golf niche too. He saw the potential for steady growth by delivering consistent value to an engaged audience.

This competitive analysis validated the opportunity and accelerated David’s timeline for getting Daily Golf Steals off the ground.

Leveraging Reddit for Instant Traction

Perhaps the biggest challenge when launching any business is getting visibility.

How do you get eyeballs on your new website or product when you’re an unknown entity?

Paid ads work but takes trial and error to dial in. Organic traffic sources like SEO can take many months or even years to gain steam.

But David was able to completely circumvent the audience-building phase by leveraging existing communities on Reddit.

Reddit is a massive online discussion platform with thousands of focused topic subgroups, known as subreddits. There are active subreddits around pretty much any interest or niche you can think of.

David focused his efforts on one of the largest golf groups, r/golf, with over 800,000+ members, which already had an established “deal guy” role.

As it turned out, this subreddit already had an established “deal guy” role in place. For years, someone had been posting great golf bargains as a helpful free service to the community.

David essentially took up the mantle of finding the best discounts and steals for this community of golfers, and the Reddit audience instantly responded.

Despite their general distaste for self-promotion, the r/golf subreddit embraced Daily Golf Steals because the deals were genuinely valuable.

David struck a careful balance those first few weeks. He’d share a mix of deals — some with direct affiliate links, others as pure “giveaways” without monetization. This mix demonstrated he wasn’t solely there for profit.

Thanks to the instant traction from Reddit, Daily Golf Steals earned thousands of dollars in month one. The power of a pre-built audience cannot be overstated for accelerating new side hustles.

Driving Ongoing Traffic Through Email and Paid Ads

Clearly, leveraging Reddit for a fast start was a huge win. But David knew he couldn’t rely solely on Reddit long term.

To achieve sustainable growth, he needed to diversify his traffic sources.

The two primary strategies Daily Golf Steals uses are:

1. Building an email list

David includes a call-to-action in the footer of every single Reddit post. It invites people to have the deals sent directly to their inbox via email newsletter.

This tactic alone nets approximately 10 new email subscribers per day.

He also captured over 15,000 emails from a contest giveaway run by Golf Advisory Council. David contributed gift cards to the prize pool, and in return got access to all 80,000+ contest entrant emails.

By scrubbing the list and only keeping highly engaged people, he added 15,000 targeted new subscribers.

2. Running Facebook ads

David has invested heavily in Facebook ads since starting Daily Golf Steals. To date, he’s driven roughly 10,000-12,000 email sign-ups via Facebook.

His cost per acquisition averages around $1.25-$1.30. Factoring in subscriber lifetime value, he estimates Facebook ads are at least break-even if not slightly profitable.

With a current email list size of 30,000+, David sends out approximately 22 emails each month. He targets a 40% open rate to ensure his audience remains engaged.

To make the high volume affordable, David uses the self-hosted email service Sendy rather than MailChimp or Active Campaign.

Thanks to these two primary lead generation strategies, Daily Golf Steals is less reliant on Reddit and continues to expand its reach. 

How Daily Golf Steals Operates & Scales

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges with Daily Golf Steals is the constant need for new deals.

Manually hunting down discounts 7 days a week simply isn’t sustainable long term. Burnout is almost inevitable.

So David has taken steps to significantly automate the deal sourcing process:

He hired a couple contractors

David brought on a couple students from his college golf team to handle both deal finding and email/post formatting.

This freed up countless hours that David would otherwise have to spend on daily operations.

David tapped his programming skills

With no Python experience prior, David taught himself enough to write scripts that compare yesterday’s product catalog and pricing data to today’s updated feeds.

This automated analysis flags any new markdowns or products, which his contractors can quickly validate as deals to share.

He built templating tools

For further efficiency, David built a VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) tool to take a deal’s info and automatically format it for the newsletter, website, Reddit, etc. This saved tons of manual copying and pasting.

Thanks to these efforts, David simplified the daily requirements to just 1-2 hours of his contractors’ time. And it takes David himself only about 3-4 hours per week of oversight at this point.

Multiple Revenue Streams

Daily Golf Steals has other moneymakers:

Affiliate commissions

The core monetization stream comes from affiliate commissions earned when site visitors click a deal link and complete a purchase.

Commission rates vary quite a bit based on the size of the partner and negotiated terms, but tend to range from 1% to 20%.

The largest partners like Callaway Golf Pre-Owned pay commissions around 5-10% given their scale and brand recognition. Smaller direct-to-consumer brands pay up to 20% since they rely more heavily on affiliates for traffic and sales.

This means on a $100 purchase, David would earn $5 – $20 in commission depending on the source. These purchases add up over thousands of clicks per month to form the majority of revenue. 

Sponsorships

David sells banner/text ads in his daily email newsletter and on Reddit. He looks for brands relevant to the subreddit community and showcases them in a dedicated “Other Links” section below his daily deals list.

As his audience has grown, he can command higher rates.

While affiliate marketing remains the core focus, David is looking for more ways to diversify revenue. Building a loyal audience gives him options like physical products, coaching, and events down the road.

Why the Website Remains a Key Asset Despite Minimal Traffic

Given the strong response from Reddit and email, you might assume the Daily Golf Steals website itself generates significant traffic.

But interestingly, David shares that his site gets minimal direct visitors at this point.

Still, in his view, maintaining the site remains crucial for several strategic reasons: 

Credibility for affiliate applications – most programs want to see you have an established web presence before approving an application. A website demonstrates you’re a legitimate business, not just someone hawking links.
Central place for key tasks – the site houses David’s product data, automation tools, redirect creator, etc. The theme he chose has helpful built-in functionality.
Future search visibility – David’s thousands of old deals create extensive long-tail content, which could drive search traffic with improved domain authority.

So despite the modest numbers to date, David keeps his site updated and leverages the behind-the-scenes utility it provides.

For any business, it’s important to recognize that a website can offer immense value beyond just traffic and clicks.

The Challenges of Maintaining a Daily Deals Business Long Term

Although Daily Golf Steals has earned impressive income right out the gate, it’s still not without challenges. David cites three major difficulties:

Inconsistent revenue – income fluctuates widely day-by-day based on deal quality. Bad weather or low inventory can mean bad days.
Lots of manual work – automation helps, but securing and formatting deals takes daily, consistent grind. Even with contractors doing most of the heavy lifting, burnout is a risk.
Rejections – the most surprising hurdle was getting rejected by Amazon Associates for not providing enough unique value.

But rather than get discouraged, David persists through the ups and downs.

He’s constantly tweaking his systems to save time and locking in affiliate partners to open up new deals.

Revenue surpassed $100k in year one, so the earnings potential is certainly there. It simply requires tenacity to grow and manage a daily deals business.

And as a new dad, he’s now able to manage the business in just 3-4 hours a week.

Keys to Replicating This Side Hustle Idea

For anyone looking to borrow David’s business model in their own niche, here are some key strategies:

Passion pays – choose a topic you genuinely enjoy and already spend money on. Your enthusiasm will fuel the hustle.
Start where the audience is – online forums like Reddit offer instant traffic. Be a value-first member of the community.
Automate relentlessly – dealing with daily posts is tough… find any way to save time with scripts, tools, or contractors.
Plan beyond affiliate – commissions are great, but develop diverse income like sponsorships to support yourself.

It takes immense work ethic to make daily deals succeed long term. But the model clearly has profit potential, even as a side hustle.

If you can automate a chunk of the busy work and thrill your niche community with outstanding value, the financial rewards may surprise you too.

David’s #1 Side Hustle Tip for Side Hustle Nation

“Show up every day.”

Links and Resources

DailyGolfSteals.com
Groupon
LivingSocial
HuntingGearDeals.com
Side Hustle Show Episode 485
Reddit
r/golf
Skimlinks
Golf Advisory Council
Sendy
MailChimp
ActiveCampaign
Callaway Golf Pre-Owned
Amazon Associates

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Fun fact: You can actually get free Amazon gift cards from dozens of different companies.

And since I know I’ll eventually spend the money on Amazon, an Amazon gift card is pretty much as good as cash these days.

In this post, I’ll share some of the real ways I get free stuff on Amazon — mostly on autopilot.

So what are the best ways to earn free Amazon gift cards?

Let’s take a look!

1. User Interviews

User Interviews is a great resource for connecting with online and in-person consumer research studies. Most studies pay out in Amazon gift cards at a rate between $50-200 an hour!

So far, I’ve made $105 in Amazon gift cards in about an hour and a half — here’s my full User Interviews review.

2. Fetch Rewards

Want to make money off your grocery purchases without all of the limitations most programs have?

Fetch Rewards works differently. Just snap a photo of your grocery receipt and earn points for every item you purchase from the 250+ popular brands in the app.

You can then redeem points for gift cards to retailers like Amazon and other stores.

3. FocusGroup.com

FocusGroup.com offers nationwide paid research opportunities. (The site is powered by Sago, a leading market research company.)

Be on the lookout for the “National” studies that pay between $75 and $200. These are scheduled over the phone or webcam so you can take the calls from anywhere at times that are convenient to you.

It took a while, but I eventually earned $115 for an online study related to a well-known Seattle-area company. Other studies I saw were related to cars, technology, and banking.

I receive a few email notifications every month with studies. Those range from around $2 for 20-minute surveys, up to $150 for 90-minute in-person or online focus groups.

Check out my full FocusGroup.com review to learn more.

4. The Capital One Venture Rewards Credit Card

The Capital One Venture card offers “double miles” on all purchases. You can then trade in your miles for statement credits, gift cards, or travel purchases.

When you redeem your miles for a statement credit, it takes 2000 miles to knock $10 off your statement. But when you redeem them for a $10 Amazon gift card, it only takes 1250 miles—a 60% better value.

Capital One is currently offering a 75,000 mile sign-up bonus (worth $600 in free Amazon gift cards) after you spend $4000 in the first 3 months. That’s the equivalent of 15% cash back on your spending!

The card carries a $95 annual fee, but the flexibility of the rewards and benefits on non-Amazon spending may be worth a look.

Click here to learn more about this card and others.

Over the years, our Venture card has earned us hundreds of dollars worth of free Amazon purchases.

Related: Credit Card Rewards 101: How to Earn Free Cash and Travel by Spending Smarter

5. Survey Apps

On an hourly basis, these don’t pay very well, but if you have some downtime while watching TV or waiting in line, it can add up.

Here are some of our top picks.

6. Nielsen Computer and Mobile Panel

Nielsen will reward you — up to $60 a year — for sharing Internet usage behavior. (Yes, this is the same Nielsen that’s been reporting TV ratings data for decades.)

After you download their app to all of your devices and they track your usage in the background, you earn points. Those points are redeemable to cash out for gift cards or via PayPal.

7. Amazon Rewards Credit Card

At press time, you could get a $100 Amazon gift card instantly upon approval for the Amazon Prime Visa Card.

These card carries no annual fee and earns 3-5% cash back on all your Amazon purchases. If you’re a heavy Amazon shopper, this is probably worth having in your wallet.

8. MobileXpression

MobileXpression is a market research panel that pays you for data from your mobile phone.

Download their app and allow it to work in the background recording your browsing habits while on your phone. By participating with MobileXpression, you’ll earn weekly credits redeemable for Amazon gift cards.

Get a free $5 Amazon gift card after your first week (if you’re in the US).

9. Ibotta

I use Ibotta every week to check for extra cash back on our grocery purchases.

The drawback is you still have to scroll through each store’s listing and choose the products you bought. Then, you snap a picture of your receipt and watch the cash back hit your account.

Ibotta Savers who use the app every month earn over $130 a year! I’ll take it. (You can cash out via gift cards to Amazon and other stores, or PayPal.)

10. Chase Ultimate Rewards

An interesting new way to pay for your Amazon purchases is to apply your Chase Ultimate Rewards points balance. This means you can use your existing bank of rewards points to seamlessly pay for your Amazon purchases:

Done this way, your points are worth approximately 0.8 cents each, or $80 for 10,000 points. While this is certainly an easy way to redeem points and make your Amazon purchases free, it’s actually not the best use of Chase Ultimate Rewards.

For example, if you were to redeem those 10,000 points for an Amazon gift card through the Ultimate Rewards portal, they’d be worth $100 instead — not $80:

Still, Ultimate Rewards points are even more valuable when you redeem them for travel purchased through the Chase rewards portal.

And beyond that, they’re even more valuable when you transfer them to one of Chase’s travel partners, which include United and Southwest.

Bottom line: if you want to use Chase Ultimate Rewards to make your Amazon purchases free, I’d go the gift card route — not the easy-peasy checkout integration route.

Plus, Chase cards often come with attractive sign-up bonuses for new cardholders — worth $200-$1,000. Check our partner CreditCards.com for the latest offers.

11. Amazon’s Trade-In Program

Do you you have old cell phones, video games, books, etc. to sell? This program doesn’t get a lot of publicity, but you can use Amazon’s trade-in program to earn credit on Amazon.

I should note that you can get more money selling them yourself, but Amazon offers a simple, painless process. You don’t even have to pay for shipping.

12. Review Software

G2 and Capterra are a massive software review platforms that occasionally pay Amazon gift cards for honest product reviews. I’ve received several of these—worth over $100 in total—for writing reviews of software I use for work.

The best way to get started is to leave your first review for free. During that process, they’ll ask what other tools you use.

Don’t review those yet — wait for an email to come through offering a gift card incentive.

All in all, it’s a pretty easy way to earn free gift cards.

13. CashWalk

CashWalk uses the pedometer function on your phone to track your steps throughout the day.

Those steps convert into CashWalk coins — up to 100 a day — which can then be redeemed for gift cards to Amazon and other stores. For power users and serious walkers, that translates into $5 every 4-5 weeks.

(I earned $40 in my first 6 months.)

The only drawback is you have to open the app every day to claim your coins. (That’s how they get you to look at the ads that pay for your gift cards!)

Get 100 coins as a sign-up bonus w/ referral code MR9W5.

Check out our full CashWalk review to learn more.

14. Miles App

The new Miles app gives you “frequent flyer miles” for all the travel you do, whether walking, biking, driving, riding, or flying.

By letting the app track your location, you’ll earn free points that can be redeemed for gift cards. This one may be best for heavy commuters though — it takes 2,000 miles to earn a $1 Amazon gift card.

Still, every dollar counts and the app just runs in the background. After you install it, you don’t have to do anything to rack up your miles.

15. RebateKey

With RebateKey, you skip the gift card entirely and just get Amazon purchases for free or deeply discounted.

(I was skeptical too, but I’ve gotten several products up to 100% off through this site.)

After you join the site, you can browse the full list of active offers. My recommendation is to keep this in your back pocket before you make any purchase on Amazon.

Once you find a product you like, claim it through RebateKey and proceed to checkout. You’ll make a full-price order, and paste your order ID back into RebateKey for verification.

After 35 days, you’ll have the option to get your rebate as a check in the mail, a PayPal deposit, or a gift card you can apply directly to your Amazon account.

What’s in it for the sellers of these products?

Well, they’re building sales proof on Amazon, gathering user feedback, and collecting emails. I’ve used it several times and never had an issue getting my refund.

Pretty crazy, but definitely worth checking out to see if they have any products you’re in the market for.

A friend of mine noted he does a lot of his gift shopping here!

Free Amazon Gift Card Alternatives

Wait a minute, you might be saying. Are these gift cards really free?

Yes and no.

You and I have been around long enough to know that few things in life are truly 100% free—and earning Amazon gift cards is no exception.

These won’t cost you any money, but you’ll have to take some action, whether it’s signing up for an account, filling out a survey, or completing some other task.

I LOVE getting free money to spend on Amazon — especially if it’s relatively passive.

But if what you’re really after is extra money — and you’re spending a ton of time to make very little — there are probably more effective ways to earn it.

Here are some alternative side hustle ideas with low barriers-to-entry and low startup costs.

Respondent

Similar to User Interviews above, Respondent facilitates one-on-one consumer research studies and focus groups. And with an average payout of over $100 an hour, it’s one of the best paying online survey outfits I’ve found.

Building an Online Business

The payoff in starting a blog or online business is longer, but over time can be far greater than many of the ways to earn a few free bucks on Amazon listed above.

Instead of toiling away doing surveys or watching videos, what if instead you invested that time into building an asset of your own?

Write content on a topic you care about and build an audience in your niche. As you build out your library of helpful articles, you’ll pick up more traffic and revenue.

Content sites earn money from affiliate partnerships, ad revenue, and your own products and services.

Here are some inspiring examples from The Side Hustle Show archives:

Andrew earns 6-figures a year curating gift ideas
Scott earns 6-figures a year from his bird-watching website
Jodi earns $5k+ per month from her part-time blog for girl scout troop leaders
Katie earns $6k a month from her gray hair blog

Want to start a website of your own? Check out my free 6-part video course on how to start your own site.

Flipping Products for Profit

Buy low, sell high. That’s the name of the game, and surprisingly, there’s profit to be had all over the place!

For example, Stacy Gallego was able to scale back her nursing job to focus on her flipping business, earning as much as $7,000 a month.

Mobile Notary Loan Signing Agent

Notary certification is granted by your state and generally costs less than $100.

Once you’re certified, you can charge your own fee to notarize documents, or become a loan signing agent like Brian did and make $1500-2000 a month overseeing mortgage signings in your spare time.

Become a Virtual Assistant or Freelancer

Virtual assistants provide administrative support to clients from their home office. If that sounds like a fun side hustle you can set up shop on your own or jump on board with an established VA company.

To learn more about starting your own virtual assistant company, check out the free video training from my friend Abbey Ashley, who started her VA business on the side and shares:

Where to find thousands of potential clients.
How to make a full-time living working from home.
What clients are really looking for in a VA. (hint: it’s not prior VA experience)

Abbey started out at $20-30 an hour, and ultimately grew her business to $75 an hour and up for specialized services.

Your Turn

Take time to analyze your situation.

Does it make sense to pursue rewards programs to earn free Amazon gift cards? Or does it make more sense to invest in yourself to earn some money on the side doing something you already know?

Other fun fact: I actually interviewed at Amazon back in 2005 for a position in gift card marketing. I didn’t get the job, and looking at how things turned out, I’m pretty happy about that. (But those stock options…!?)

But whoever did get that job went crazy with it. Today, Amazon gift cards are everywhere!

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Stock photos by Dean Drobot and 9dream studio via Shutterstock