When I see some of the boneheaded things that some affiliate marketers do, I begin to understand why the failure rate is quoted at 95% or higher. So much of this failure could be avoided if people getting into affiliate marketing would just avoid some of these mistakes that are easy to correct. Well, in this article, I am going to cover just a few of the things that turn aspiring affiliate marketers into failures in a hurry. If you avoid these, you’ll have a much better shot at building a successful affiliate marketing business.
The first thing I want to go over is how they pick their products to promote. Sometimes I think they just close their eyes and pick them randomly. Absolutely no thought goes into this process. Hey, let’s just find the top selling product at Clickbank and market the heck out of it. Um, no offense, but this is probably the stupidest way to go about it. Product selection is critical and just picking the top selling product is NOT the way to go about it. Do your research, be methodical, and find the RIGHT product to promote.
Next on the list is how affiliate marketers promote these products. Laziness doesn’t even begin to describe it in many cases. Most marketers simply take the ads that the product creators kindly write up and blast them all over the internet without changing one word. Let me tell you something, this is no way to promote a product. Think about it. if everybody on the internet promoting this particular product is doing the same thing, how does anybody stand out from the crowd? They can’t! And if they don’t stand out, how can they make any sales? They won’t. This is why this is such a stupid thing to do. You aren’t differentiating yourself at all and people become blind to the same ads/content very quickly.
Finally, there’s getting paid, or more specifically, making sure you’re promoting a product where you know you’re going to get paid. Hey, I’m as guilty of this as anybody else. But after being burned way too many times, I have finally smartened up and made sure I was promoting a product where I could be more than reasonably sure that I was going to get paid for the sales I make. The last time I didn’t get a commission was a very long time ago. Look into the vendor, talk to them, ask around to other people about them, check their reputation, etc… and make sure they are known as the type of person/company that pays their affiliates without any hassle.
There you have it. Those are three of the biggest blunders that I affiliate marketers making on a consistent basis. They pick lousy products, they don’t promote them properly, and they don’t even know if they’re going to get paid for their efforts. Please don’t make the same mistakes that so many affiliate marketing newbies (and even a lot of veterans) make. Nail all of these down and you will be well on your way to becoming an affiliate assassin!