Common Mistakes to Avoid in Affiliate Marketing

You’ll find that many top internet marketers promote affiliate products these days even though they make huge amounts of money selling their own products. Why? Because they can make huge sums doing this as well with a lot less effort.

Now, saying that, affiliate marketing is no walk in the park either, as some of you might already be aware. There are plenty of pitfalls that can consume your budget and cause you to take a mighty step backwards so you need to be aware of these:

Pitfall 1: Choosing a Bad Product to Promote

If you decide to choose a product from a list on, say, Clickbank, select very carefully as not all products are created equally.

Rather than making a beeline straight for the product with the highest commission rate, take a good look at the ones with the highest popularity and gravity ratings. The logic is that, if alot of people are buying the products, they must be as good, or better, than other products being sold in that niche.

It goes without saying that, as well as just looking for good products within a certain niche, you should be looking for the best niches as well.

Focus on products that lots of people want or, better still, NEED. Better still, if there are times of the year when the popularity of this niche surges (ie – gardening products in the spring) you can judge the best time to get into the market.

Pitfall 2: Picking a Low Converter

Although it sounds mercenary, as an affiliate marketer you are profiting from someone else’s hard work and from the originator’s investment in software, product developers and copywriters.

The products you are looking for have utilised these skills and have been professionally put together. You are looking for good copy, clean graphics and a professional look. Remember, the products you promote reflect on you and good products can enhance your reputation and your standing with your list.

Before you start promoting a particular product, read the sales page carefully and compare it with others. Ask yourself, do you feel compelled to buy the product? Did the copy reel you in? Did any of the graphics put you off? These things have to be right for you to choose this product to promote.

Pitfall 3: Jumping on Every Bandwagon

This is especially important for those of you that have a list. Remember, all it takes is one erroneous product promotion and you could end up with a mass exodus from your list.

You may be tempted to always promote the next biggest launch but make sure the product and the sales page are what you want to promote to your list. Don’t just buy into anything. Several marketers have lamented their decisions to promote products where the sales copy contained profanity, sexist comments, etc, which reflected the personality of the originator but was not popular with many list members.

Another idea is that, instead of signing up immediately for the next big promotion, wait until the buzz dies down slightly and then release a comprehensive review of the product (something most affiliates do not provide). This has a much better chance of getting sales for you and will also help you to maintain credibility.

Lastly, avoid promoting products that make outrageous or unsubstantiated claims. Claims of hig earnings are usually accompanied by screenshots providing proof of income. Don’t associate yourself with products that make the claims but cannot provide the proof.

Pitfall 4: Picking Products That Offer Meagre Commissions

If you are marketing to your list, it’s obvious that they are only going to consider so many offers in a given period of time, so select your promotions wisely. Avoid promoting a product that will pay you a 25% commission when a similar product in the same niche will pay you 50% or even 75%.

In terms of the dollar value of your commissions, don’t get too hung up on this. There are plenty of marketers who concentrate on promoting the big ticket products as a few sales can generate alot of money but you can still make a killing selling lower value products. The rising popularity of the $7 report is testament to that.

So avoid the sellers offering low percentage commissions but don’t worry too much about the monetary value of the product.

Pitfall 5: Failing to Collect Leads

This is a cardinal sin. If you do nothing else, always capture leads – it’s the lifeblood of your business.

Rather than generate your traffic through SEO, PPC and other methods and then sending them straight to your affiliate link, you should make a real effort to convert them into list members first.

So what’s the benefit of doing this? You want to make sure that people who don’t buy from you initially opt in to your list as well as those who have bought from you. This way you will get the chance to contact the willing buyers and the more reluctant and, once they’re on the list, it is no longer a one-off effort. You get the chance to promote to them again and again over the months, or even years.

As a marketer, one of the best tools you have is your list. Make it your priority to build it and develop it.

Pitfall 6: Ignoring the Importance of Timelines & Events

Ideally you need to find a product launch that qualifies as an ‘event’, something that people are going to be talking about and commenting on. These can be physical products or internet marketing products but, whatever it is, it’s critical that you engineer your own build-up and release to coincide with the build-up and release of the actual product.

The people on your list are likely to belong to other lists and you want them to buy the product from you, not one of your competitors.

In short – pay attention to the clock and the calendar. If there’s a big launch coming up you need to be in a position to capitalise on it. There may not be a second window of opportunity so take it when you have it.

Pitfall 7: Ignore Important Numbers

For example, many affiliate marketers will simply look at the price and commission offered for a Clickbank product without being fully aware of the portion Clickbank take for each sale. Keeping on top of these costs is critical to running a profitable business.

You also need to keep on top of your marketing costs. Don’t get carried away daydreaming about the riches that are possible online and lose sight of the cost of your traffic generation (especially PPC).

So do yourself a HUGE favour – keep track of your conversion rates, bid prices, commission rates, product broker fees and all of the other little numbers that it is easy for affiliate marketers to ignore. You’ll be glad you did.

By: Steve Peirce