Some Dos and Don’ts of Affiliate Marketing

The lure of affiliate marketing reels people in and spits people out on a daily basis. Everything about affiliate marketing seems so easy, design and build a website, hire a copywriter to convince people they actually want to buy your cash cow Ebook or video tutorials are what they actually need to becoming the next Bill Gates.
Honestly, I’m tired of seeing the same generic sales copy, graphics of ridiculously happy people surrounded by nice luxurious good all looking far too smug with themselves. What amazes me is people are still lapping this up. But the main problem with this generic formula for creating an affiliate product site, is that too many people are clambering on the bandwagon and I’m reminded of that old saying: ‘too many cooks spoil the broth’ or it may be more apt to adapt this to modern day affiliate marketing: ‘too many pie in the sky internet marketers spoil the broth. So my number 1 don’t has to be stay away of this aspect of affiliate marketing if you’re a newbie, it’s very tough now to make a decent living from relying on this kind of IM.

#2 – Don’t enter a niche without doing the research, especially researching the competition. Before you even start to think about buying a domain, creating content and what have you, you should spend a few good hours finding out how many affiliates are already promoting your chosen product. Then, and only then, should you start looking at keyword research if you really think money can still be made out of the niche and there’s room for one more cook in the there.

Do’s:
#1 – When you join a large affiliate network such as Commission Junction, look for advertisers in related niches. As obvious as this sounds, you’ll be surprised the amount of requests I receive with people in totally unrelated niches, such as lingerie or doll making sites. WTF?!! How the hell is this related to the software industry. What possess people to think: ‘I know I’ve got a site about minature dolls, you know what would be really neat? If I signed up to promote a site completely at the opposite end of the spectrum. I’m gonna make mad money.’ Dream on buddy.

#2 – Don’t list your crappy blogspot sites. They look and send out a message of amateur alert. What’s more don’t expect to get approved by just listing your blogspot sites, the majority of advertisers will auto decline all the time, unless by some freak occurence your blogspot site, has to the 1/10000 that actually has a substantial amount of traffic, and that traffic is targeted towards the advertisers’ niche.

#3 – Don’t expect the affiliate program’s advertisers to be your 101 instructor for affiliate marketing. It’s assumed by very virtue of being an affiliate marketing you should know the basics already. So if you’re gonna ask questions about the very fundamentals such as ‘how do i use your affiliate links’, unless you have an advertiser with the patience of a saint and an infinite amount of time they’re gonna go unanswered and ignored and you may even be removed from their affiliate program. So learn the basics, or hire people that are web savvy.

Lastly, and perhaps the most important, the very nature of affiliate marketing is ever changing and evolving. So if you want to do well and make a sizable living from it, it’s a questions of thinking intellegently, and finding ways which very few others are capitalizing in. If you kind find new ways of getting targeted traffic that no one else has thought about yet, then as long your product is decent you’re surely onto a winner.