10 Biggest Mistakes In Affiliate Marketing And
How To Avoid Them
By Aaron White

Though anyone can achieve success with affiliate programs, not everyone manages to do the same. The reason? Well, there are 10 of them, actually. These are the biggest mistakes that make success in affiliate marketing very elusive. Study them well, and read up on how to avoid them. Hurdling through these mistakes can spell the difference between monumental profits and dismal performance in your affiliate marketing campaigns.

1. Believing that people would just click on their affiliate
links. Though an affiliate’s job is merely limited to
pre-selling, pre-selling involves more than just displaying the
affiliate links. It also entails encouraging people to click on
them by enumerating the benefits that can be derived from the
affiliate merchant’s products, giving favorable recommendations
about the use of the same, and providing an encouraging offer
that would entice readers to check out the package.

2. Believing that there’s such a thing as organic traffic.
Organic traffic, or traffic that is naturally generated by a
website, is a myth. There is no such thing! If you’re hosting
your affiliate links in one website, you can’t expect people to
find it just like that. You have to make them find it. This can
be done through effective SEO techniques and efficient
marketing strategies.

3. Believing that employing one marketing strategy is enough.
Some people actually think that submitting one article to the
article directories would give them the amount of traffic they
need. This is a fatal mistake. Limiting yourself to a single,
or even a couple, of marketing tactics would be limiting the
number of visitors you could generate for your website. Also,
you’ll fail to tap into other segments of your targeted market
if your tactics aren’t flexible enough to expand.

4. Failing to study your campaign’s performance. Most
affiliates merely check on how much they have earned per day,
and if such an amount remains at low levels, they fail to make
corresponding adjustments because, well, they don’t know which
aspects of their campaigns need improving. It is important to
study every facet of our marketing strategies. How many
visitors are we generating for our website? How many of them
are unique? How many are returning? How much time do they spend
in our pages? Where are they coming from? To where are they
exiting? These are the questions that can be answered by an
excellent visitor tracking software program, and these are the
questions that could help us improve the performance of our
marketing endeavors.

5. Failing to find an affiliate program which actually offers
sellable products. Some affiliate programs may offer as much as
a 95% commission per sale. But if the products are impossible to
sell, you’d never realize the profit the program promises.

6. Failing to find an affiliate program with a proven record of
consumer satisfaction. The credibility of an enterprise depends
on how people view it. If the affiliate program has established
great relationships with the members of its target market, then
it has established a brand which is recognizable for its
excellent service. You’d have an easier time pre-selling such
an affiliate program’s products.

7. Failing to keep abreast with the latest developments in the
industry. There will come a time when the marketing knowledge
we know would become obsolete, more so in the field of internet
marketing where everything transpires at a rapid pace. You have
to constantly update yourself with the newest trends,
techniques and news in this field to always keep your
competitive edge.

8. Failing to invest on knowledge. Knowledge likewise evolves
and you have to evolve with it. Buy noteworthy eBooks, special
reports and the likes… those which would teach you the latest
tactics to help you conquer your field.

9. Resting on your laurels once a semblance of success is
achieved. Success is not eternal. You have to sustain it. If
you leave your business alone once it shows the promise of
success, you’re just setting it up for failure.

10. Believing that affiliate marketing is a “get rich quick”
scheme. It is not. You have to invest a certain level of
commitment, a lot of time, some financial resources on
occasions, and a whole lot of effort if you want to truly
realize the many wonderful things that this field does promise.

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