14 Most Common Mistakes Made By New Affiliate Marketers
Just like any other industry, new affiliate marketers tend to make mistakes. That’s what rookies do! Fortunately, mistakes can be limited by doing some research and learning from others who are a bit further ahead in the learning curve.
Trust me, as an affiliate marketer, the learning NEVER stops! There is always something new or changes. As a marketer it is your job to keep learning and adapting, however, I do promise that it gets easier over time.
Over the years, I’ve learned quite a bit about what it takes to be a successful affiliate marketer. I have also noticed some very common patterns in new affiliate marketers that seem to struggle and never make it. In order to be successful, you must avoid making these 14 most common mistakes made by new affiliate marketers…
No. 14 – Monetizing First
I know this is listed as #14 as the most common mistakes, but it’s actually the #1 critical mistake new affiliate marketers make.
Close to 90% of new affiliate marketers try to set up their monetizations system FIRST. They want to get that money rolling in as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, this is the exact opposite of what should be done!
You can’t reasonably expect to monetize your business until you have created enough value to others in order to justify them paying you. If you start blasting blog comment with your affiliate links or pressure selling, you really aren’t providing much of any value to anyone (in fact, you’re spamming the internet and nobody likes spam).
A good example is the YouTube channel Suspicious0bservers. That guy posts a video about space weather every single morning.
When he first started, nobody was following him. But over time, people started to subscribe. Then they started to tell their friends, who told their friends, and it became a total avalanche. He now has a paid subscription so people can receive his evening news videos and is making a full-time living doing it.
So many people struggle to make money with video blogs and YouTube accounts, yet this guy is making a full-time living talking about a subject he is already passionate about! Why? Because he provided value FIRST, and began monetizing later. This is a key component to any new affiliate marketer ever seeing success.
No. 13 – Failing To Create A Business Plan
Let’s face it, anyone can start a website or a business. These days, you can make a great looking website for free and you don’t need to know a single line of computer code to do it! Since the barrier to entry is so low, there are a LOT of people starting websites and trying to become overnight affiliate marketer success stories. Yet, only a fraction of those people will ever succeed. Why?!
Because they failed to create a business plan!
With just about any other business, the aspiring entrepreneur may spend weeks, months, or even years preparing and perfecting the perfect business plan. It’s true, for most other businesses this HAS to be done in order to qualify for lending from banks. And that’s because banks know a business without a plan will almost always fail!
I wrote my business plan years ago and change it every January to reflect the new year.
My first business plan took me 3 month until I was satisfied. And like I said I review and make changes every January.
The 3 months it took to create the business has paid off over the last 10 years.
Think about it. If an airplane is making a flying from New York to California, the pilot must know exactly where to go and how to get there. If they just give the airplane a slight right direction, even a slight change they will never make it to California.
So why should we expect this approach to work for something like growing a legitimate online business? You need a solid plan that is all mapped out for you to follow.
Not sure how to set up a business plan for your affiliate marketing business? The SBA has some great resources. What Is A Business Plan
No. 12 – Lack Of Patience
WOW what a topic. Patience. How many times have you seen someone give up because they ran into a little problem?
Maybe you have given up because you lacked the patience! It can happen to anyone.
When you consider that most new small businesses take 2 – 3 years to show profit, why should we expect an affiliate business to show profit in weeks?
And many small business go out of business in 5 -7 years.
Fortunately, expenses for affiliate marketers are generally extremely low. That means, it is possible to see success much sooner than most other businesses. But you should plan to work for 6 to 12 months without seeing a dime before you expect to see profit.
You can believe me, or you can believe all of the “get rich quick” guru’s out there. What I’m telling you might not be what you want to hear, but in order to become successful, you must be willing to work for free. Later on, you’ll be rewarded with residual income for years. It’s an easy trade in the long-run.
A good friend spent 3 years working 12- 15 hours a day before he saw any real income. Today he works maybe 4 hours, but his business generates over 1.5 million each and every year.
If you talk to him today he will tell you that he quit hundreds of times but had the patience to “stick it out.”
No. 11 – Analyze Your Competition
Many new affiliate marketers go after the HUGE niche areas like weight loss, how to make money, travel or high ticket items.
The bigger the niche, the more money you can make. It’s very enticing to try and promote travel considering you can make $200 – $300 per sale.
There is so much competition in the “travel” niche that you will need to work really hard for quite a while before you can even compete with the thousands of others trying to do the same.
There are some high powered companies in this market…can you really compete successfully?
On the other hand, many affiliate marketers choose a small niche topic within travel and become the “authority” website for that specific niche.
For example, you might not want to start a website about “traveling” but that’s too broad.
But starting a website and becoming the “authority” for the “Best campsites in the Midwest” you will soon attract enough interest.
See where I’m going? Find a broad niche and then narrow that niche down to where there is a little competition (so you know it’s profitable), but not so competitive that you can’t compete.
No. 10 – Attract Your Followers Instead Of Chasing Money
When you provide enough value for people, making money is easy. Think about that for a moment.
The more people who are following you, the more influence you have over their decisions. It called TRAFFIC.
Once you are seen as someone who provides helpful information or services, you will gain a loyal following.
You can do this through a blog, a series of YouTube videos, a website, podcast, Instagram, Twitter, writing ebooks, or a number of other ways.
Once you create enough value and attract PEOPLE to you, the money will soon follow.
From passive display advertising to promoting other peoples products as an affiliate…If you build it, they will come. Once the come, monetizing is simple.
No 9 – Have A Monetization Plan Ready
While you should not try to monetize first (No 14) you should not chase the money, you should definitely have a plan in place ( No 13).
First determine, “How do you intend to make money?”
- Who will your affiliate partners be?
- What products or services will you promote?
- HOW will you promote them?
- Will you use display ads?
- When you’re ready, what ads will you display?
- What service will you use?
As you can see, I’m not a fly-by-night person. I like to plan things out first before I implement.
A word of Caution: You can over analyze every step until it never get done. By the act of doing you can “tweek” your results.
Running a business like affiliate marketing is similar to a game of chess.
You always need to be thinking one step ahead. Of course, you can always change your plan and honestly, you likely will as the game board changes. The fact of the matter is, most successful affiliate marketers had everything planned out before they ever saw their first dime.
Over time they adjusted to meet the changing market.
No 8 – Distractions
How may times have you been distracted?
It is so easy. You are working on a blog article when the phone rings and it’s a friend calling to invite you to lunch.
Do you stop what your doing and go to lunch? DISTRACTION. Or do you tell your friend that your in the middle of something important and you would like to have lunch tomorrow.
Distraction happens all the time.
In fact while I was writing this article, my daughter just walked into my office and wanted me for something. Distraction
Making a living using the internet while working from home is enough of a distraction to ruin most new affiliate marketers before they even get started.
When you sit down to work, make sure you are only working!
I personally find that setting a timer works for me.
I usually set the timer for 1hr. During that hour, I only do what I was intended to work on.
After the hour, I will take a 15 minute break. I may take a walk, go to the kitchen, sit back and relax. I never go to Facebook, YouTube, email or anything that will distract me or consume more than the 15 minute.
During my designated work time, I don’t answer the phone or check emails. With the number of distractions online and off, simply focusing on work for the hour can be a huge challenge.
Those of you with families knows what a challenge this can be.
Make sure your work time is Work Time.
Let me go back to my daughters distraction….my weakness is my daughter and YES I was distracted and helped her with her homework….OUCH! Didn’t follow my own advice!
No 7 – Refusing To Invest In Your Business
Not willing to invest in your business is a Huge Mistake.
What would happen if Nike, Pepsi, M&M, Ford, State Farm or any company stopped advertising?
More than likely sales would drop and the competition would gain an edge.
So my question to you is: If you would spent $1.00 dollar to get $10,00 dollars in return…would you do it?
Of course you would!
What is strange, people will spent $9-$10 dollars at Starbucks or go to the bar and spend $5-$6 dollars on beer without question, but won’t spend $100 dollars on their business that will yield residual income for years completely on auto-pilot?
Now I understand coffee, beer, lunches, movies, and others is a form of entertainment….I understand, however those same people when asked to spend $50-$100-$200 or more on a business will turn away and hide.
If you plan to start any legitimate business, there will be some expenses.
Keeping those expenses under $100 / mo is very achievable when you’re an affiliate marketers. And think about it – how many business models actually exist where you can keep your expenses under $100 per month and produce a life changing income for years and years?
Invest the coffee money, beer money, movie money and lunch money for 6 months in your affiliate business and see where you will be in a year.
I’m sure you will be surprised.
Making money online is an amazing opportunity, but be prepared to at least invest a small amount each month into growing your business.
No 6 – Re-Invest In Your Business
When you earn your first $500 from your affiliate marketing business, what do you plan to do with it?
Are you going to save it? Pay off some personal debts? Buy your kid a nice new toy or take a mini-vacation?
You now have an extra $500 dollars. What if you Re-invested half or $250 back into your business? Or better yet the whole $500 dollars.
Remember, if you invested $1.00 dollar to get $10.00 dollars, what do you think $250 or $500 would do?
The story of my friend (mentioned earlier) worked for 3 years, invested over half of his income every month and built a business of $100,000 and more each month.
Re-investing is a smart move and one that will pay off over the years.
No 5 – Afraid Of Failure Afraid Of Success
It sound strange to be afraid of success, but many are. Afraid of failure is understandable. However both are real.
In the online Internet marketing business, there is absolutely no such thing as failure.
Learning how to market to people online is not easy and is best learned through trial and error.
Test, test, and re-test.
Fine tune what works and ditch what doesn’t work.
It’s not a failure, it just didn’t work
As an affiliate marketer, you will spend a lot of time on projects that go nowhere and never make you any money. But when you do find something that makes you money, it can almost always be replicated over and over again for YEARS.
Failing will get you down, plan on it. That’s part of our job. Finding out what works and what doesn’t. That will likely never end as long as you’re an affiliate marketer.
The only people who fail permanently at affiliate marketing are the ones who stop trying to find what works.
Did you know it took Thomas Edison about 10,000 attempts to create the lightbulb? Yet he still succeeded.
What about Fear Of Success….it’s a real fear.
No 4 – Advice From“Guru’s”
In my opinion a Guru has lost a lot of it’s meaning over the past years. What I find in a guru is someone who will take your money and offer a bit of advice, but not enough to make an impact on your newly found business.
What I’m looking for is an expert or authority on the subject I’m seeking.
To me the expert is the person who has been there. They have experienced the ups and downs. They have made the mistakes. They have known the hardships and over come the failures.
I want that person! I can learn from that person!
I want the “Secret Formula.” Look at my tab called “Secret To Success”
Stay in the affiliate business long enough and you will find…There Is No “Secret Formula” To Finding Success Online.
Well I’ll take that back…the secret is WORK!
The formula you use to find success will be completely unique to your online business. There is also no automated software you can use to become rich and nobody is going to tell you how to easily become a millionaire next week in their $10 e-book.
Instead of listening to Internet guru’s who claim to have secrets to fast track wealth without doing any work online, focus your efforts on listening to those who treat affiliate marketing for what it really is – a BUSINESS.
As a new affiliate marketer, you should be focused on how to construct your business.
For example, creating a business plan for your business, investing in your business, avoid distraction and learning how to market products online for free.
Once you learn these skills, you get to keep them forever.
And again the secret is WORK
No 3 – Creating Content For Search Engines
Yes, there are certain things you can do to help give yourself more exposure in the search engines.
You might be familiar with the term Search Engine Optimization (SEO).
While SEO is important, search engines are much smarter than they used to be and they are getting smarter FAST.
Google, is the #1 search engine by far and has consistently stated you should focus less on “SEO” and more on providing a great user experience.
If you provide great content, they will come… and so will the search engines.
It’s also a really bad idea to rely solely on search engine traffic for your affiliate business.
Google, Bing and Yahoo change their search algorithms frequently. Many small online business owners have seen their affiliate business destroyed due to fluctuating search rankings.
With so many possible traffic sources, never rely on just one.
No 2 – You Are The Expert
You should promote yourself as an EXPERT in whatever niche you decide to get into. That’s why it is important to pick a topic you already know and love. After all, everyone knows something about something that others would like to learn. What is YOUR unique skill or knowledge?
To maximize conversion rates for products and services you promote, people need to trust that you know what you’re talking about.
The only way to do this is through self-promotion.
Let people know you’re an expert an authority on the subject,
Show them WHY you are an expert, and always make it super easy for people to contact you.
Putting a face and personality to the information being presented is essential. That’s how you compete with major multi-million dollar corporations… By being small and proud of it!
No 1 – Not Collecting Email Addresses From DAY 1
This is No 1 and for good reason.
I started my affiliate business in 2010. I was a rookie, novice, a newbee, a beginner, wet behind the ears marketer.
I marketed my affiliate business for several years. Made some sales and though I was on my way to success.
I soon found out that I had no one to market to. All the sales and no one to follow up with.
Remember my friend. He asked if I was collecting email address?
“Why” I asked?
“They have already bought from you so they are a warm market for other products.”
The light came on…They purchased from me but I had no way of contacting them….Marketing 101.
I made this critical mistake.
But facts are facts. Email marketing is one of the most valuable assets for affiliate marketers because it converts like crazy!
Of course, that’s only if you do it right. How do you do it right?
Once again… by providing REAL value to others.
Don’t make every email a sales pitch.
Actually provide value to your email subscribers and treat them like gold, because many of your subscribers are worth much more than gold! If someone is receiving high quality and high value information from you through your email newsletter, for example, they will be much more willing to accept a product or service pitch every now and then. In fact, they are MUCH more likely to convert!
Email marketing is crucial and you should start collecting emails from day 1. As your list grows exponentially, so will your affiliate commissions.
Conclusion
15 Mistake. I made all of them every one of the 15.
My failure to collect emails probably cost me thousands of dollars. Not having a plan another costly error and following a Guru cost me over $3,000 dollars.
Having learned all that, I started following Experts. People who have been at the bottom and built a future.
Companies with founders who grew a business and willing to teach what they have learned.
Until next time, thanks for reading,
