Every day that passes, more and more people want to try the chance of making money in the net space. They are right. They see and hear things that are tempting. They see bloggers promoting something new every day. Apparently, they have a good income and life. It can be seen from their Instagram posts.
An author who promotes his books online along with other books of his publisher. Sometimes he has a training course in an institution. It introduces and advertises that course and other courses of the institute. He may even provide a specific discount code to his followers. All these things he does have an income for him. He receives a commission from his publisher and that institution.
What that blogger and writer does is a special type of advertising in digital marketing. Affiliate Marketing or cooperation in sales is a system in which a person (affiliate marketer) actually introduces a business product or service with the content he produces in the virtual space (site, blog, social networks). The introduction should be such that it invites the reader to click on the link in the content and go and buy the affiliate product.
From a distance, it seems that affiliate marketing is not so difficult. It may not be anyone’s main job. It is a very low cost way to earn money. Affiliate marketer has nothing to do with product or service. He is not even going to make advertising billboards or advertising films. It just has to introduce a product very well.
But this is not the correct view. Affiliate marketing must be successful in order to be profitable. In affiliate marketing, like all other jobs, you have to put time and effort. Of course, there are also common mistakes that cause the affiliate marketer to fail. He should be familiar with those mistakes and avoid them.
In this article, I will introduce you to 8 mistakes in affiliate marketing that cause affiliate marketing and marketer’s efforts to fail. Of course, I offer solutions to affiliate marketers so that they don’t fall into the trap of these mistakes.
Table of Contents
Why do affiliate marketers fail?
Digital marketing uses various tools to deliver the necessary message to the desired user in the vast and crowded space of the Internet. The first thing you need to know is that you have competition. There are many voices in this space doing advertising work. Online advertising facilities and spaces are added every day.
Instagram and Facebook are no longer the first word. Pinterest and TikTok are strong competitors. With Tik Tok, a mother and a child may become popular overnight in the hearts of millions of users, and this means an opportunity for that mother to make money from this popularity if she wants.
The most important thing for success in digital marketing and naturally in affiliate marketing is to know that your voice should be louder and more expressive and different from other marketers in order to reach the user’s ears in this crowd. If you want to be a successful affiliate marketer, you need to create your own unique voice.
8 mistakes of affiliate marketers
What mistakes should the affiliate marketer not make or what should he do in order to have his own unique voice? Affiliate marketer should not:
1. Copy and fake
Affiliate marketer must produce content to introduce the product. The type of content (video, podcast, text) does not matter. Of course, the content should be appropriate for the affiliate product. Product introduction should be creative and original. That is, if a famous influencer or blogger uses a certain method to introduce products or affiliate marketing, you should not copy him. Don’t even copy the text content produced on other sites, change it a little and publish it in the name of introducing your product. Duplicate content has no value.
The content you create to address your audience has to be either great of help or very entertaining (or both) to capture your audience.
2. Introduce a product that he does not really know
This is a mistake that many affiliate marketers make. You should introduce a product that you know very well and have used. If you want to stay an affiliate marketer, you have to earn the trust of your audience. That means you have to tell him the truth and give him the right information.
I remember some time ago a famous person reviewed and introduced a book. I had read that book. When I read the review, I realized that the famous person had not read the book at all. I have lost my trust in his recommendations and I will not buy any book he recommends. I will check other sources and reviews first and then make a decision.
Put yourself in the place of the consumer and reader of the introduction. He is going to buy and use something based on your words.
3. Do affiliate marketing only for commission
This case is also in addition to cases 1 and 2. If the affiliate marketer only thinks about the commission and that the user has to make a purchase in order for him to make a profit, he will fail. The main goal of the affiliate marketer should be to help the audience. His product introduction is supposed to help the audience to buy what they are looking for.
Try to act from a user’s point of view and answer questions that haven’t been answered before, try to give some extra tips to use the best product or to combine it with other products, for example.
4. Choose an inappropriate affiliate product
Affiliate marketer cannot and should not introduce any product. After all, the marketer has expertise in a field. He is more familiar with products or services. So, you should be sensitive and act carefully in choosing an affiliate product. As I have no knowledge of computer games and I have never played computer games, I should not produce content to introduce computer games.
In addition, it is better not to try too cheap and too expensive products. When you want to start affiliate marketing for a product, carefully check the terms of the sales partnership: How much does the product cost? What is your commission percentage? How many purchases should be made so that your income is an acceptable amount?
Affiliate is more difficult for expensive products. The user must be very confident in you to come and buy a very expensive product based on your introduction. It is better to choose products that have an average price.
5. Forget the evaluation
No matter how the affiliate marketer does his work (site, blog, social networks or affiliate networks), he must evaluate the results of his work. He needs to try different affiliate marketing techniques and see which one works best for his affiliate product or products.
He should see which title of his content is more attractive and attracts the user better. He should see where he placed the link of the affiliate product in the content and it got a better answer. He should use different tones to produce content and see which tone the audience liked the most and communicated with it.
It can be said that the work of an affiliate marketer is largely associated with trial and error.
6. Hurry up
As I said, for successful affiliate marketing and becoming a professional affiliate marketer, you need to take time and be patient. Especially if you just want to start affiliate marketing, you should know that you need to work continuously. Produce good content. Introduce yourself to the user. Take the time to build a professional LinkedIn and Instagram profile.
If the agreement you made with the owner of the affiliate product is that you will be paid a commission after 10 purchases and you are at the beginning, be prepared that it may take months to complete these 10 purchases. But the more time passes and the more experience you have, the less time you have to wait.
Of course, if you do affiliate marketing with a site or network and you can use SEO and click ads, this time will definitely be less.
7. Disconnect from the user
Again, you have to spend time and earn the user’s trust. If you don’t want to be a failed affiliate marketer, you have to make the user buy a product once based on your introduction; Again, visit your social network, your blog or your site and read other contents and introductions. You are like businesses and shops, you have to make the user/audience loyal to you.
Answer each and every question of the audience. If you do not know the answer to a question and the question is related to the owner of the affiliate product or customer affairs of that business, get the answer from them and pass it on to your audience. Help him as much as possible. Get their email and stay in touch. Tell them to email you if they have any problems.
8. Have a wrong idea about affiliate marketing
If you pay close attention to the 7 mistakes that have been discussed so far, you will realize that these mistakes are actually part of your mental image about sales cooperation. So correct your imagination. If you are not interested in helping people and connecting with them, you will fail in affiliate marketing.
If your only intention from being a sales associate is to make some money, you better go and buy crypto! Because you can be sure that you will not last long in affiliate marketing. It is true that affiliate marketing is a way to earn indirect income and it is not the main job of an affiliate marketer, but it is a very serious and targeted activity.