10 Awful Affiliate Marketing Mistakes to Avoid (in 2024)

Wanna be a successful affiliate marketer, then you need to avoid these affiliate marketing mistakes.

Who doesn’t want to make money from the comfort of their home lying on a couch?

This is the first thought that comes to mind when anyone hears about affiliate marketing. However, this couldn’t be further from the truth.

As a matter of fact, 9 out of 10 affiliate marketers fail to make any money and they eventually quit.

The reason is affiliate marketing is not that simple.

Affiliate marketing takes years of knowledge, patience, and a proper strategy to get it right. Apart from having marketing skills they also need technical knowledge.

A new affiliate marketer who is just starting off shouldn’t take affiliate marketing as a walk in the park. They need to come prepared and be ready to face any eventuality.

To make things easier for you I am telling you the 10 most common affiliate marketing mistakes a new affiliate marketer makes when he/she enters the market. 

10 Affiliate Marketing Mistakes Made by New Affiliate Marketers

Why do affiliate marketers fail?

Here are they… 

1. You Are Working in a Broader Niche

Most new affiliate marketers fail to realize the extent of competition in any given niche. If you take any niche there are millions of affiliate marketers around the world who are competing for the same audience.

Many of these affiliate marketers are very experienced with years of experience and a huge budget for marketing. As a new affiliate marketer, you simply can’t defeat them.

So what is the way around it?

Narrow down your niche. For example, when promoting a product in the dating niche I narrowed down my niche.

I didn’t go for a broader dating niche, which may include all types of demographics and sexual orientations.

I narrowed down the niche and went for senior citizens, people who are above the age of 60 years.

Then I further narrowed it down by targeting straight senior citizens who live on the West Coast (in the USA). 

Choose the niche carefully, Don’t go for a border niche you will be massacred! 

2. Monetizing too Early

New affiliate marketers just can’t wait to make money. They straightway add affiliate links into their content.

First, you have to create value for others in order to justify them paying you. As a newcomer focuses on two things, creating valuable content and marketing that content without paying a penny.

You have to do SEO for your website to get organic traffic. Without any traffic how are you going to convert visitors into customers?

Don’t even think of monetizing for at least 6 months.  

3. You Are Literally Pushing Products on Your Readers

This is one of the vital affiliate marketing mistakes made by new affiliate marketers.

Basically, A newbie simply can’t control his/her urge to up-sell a product. Instead of creating quality and engaging content, they start pushing products onto them.

Their entire sale page is filled with affiliate links, banner ads, and pop-ups forcing them to buy your product. You think this strategy may work but it won’t.

People will turn away from your website and never come back again.

You have to integrate Call-To-Action into your sales page in a way that appears very natural. Your readers shouldn’t feel you are trying to sell something to them.  

4. Lackluster Landing Page – Weak Sales pitch

Selling is not a coincidence! People are not going to come to your site, click on the affiliate link, and buy your product just by chance.

It is never going to happen! You have to convince them to the point that they are willing to pull out their credit card from their pockets.

You have to follow all 5 steps of the sales process, from approaching the client to following up.

Creating a sales page is an art and you are going to take years to learn it.

You can learn copywriting from other experienced and successful marketers.

5. Poor Quality Content

Usually, a new affiliate marketer is very excited to make quick money. They just write a few articles on a topic and place affiliate links related to that topic hoping that someone will click the link and buy the product.

Again it doesn’t work like this. Today quality is more important than quantity. Google search engine algorithms are geared towards punishing content farming.

Google updates its search engine 500 – 600 times each year. Google’s prime motive behind these frequent updates is to eliminate content farming. 

Whether you are an affiliate marketer or just a blogger, old tricks are not going to work. So focus on creating quality content.   

6. Wrong Choice of Products

New affiliates sign up for too many affiliate programs. The problem is more products you promote the less you know about each one.

Beginners should stick to promoting just one product.

Spend all your time learning about the product, testing it yourself, and creating powerful content around the product. Your product must align with the needs of your readers.

You can’t promote a product that you don’t like personally. Don’t choose a product just because commission rates are too high.

If you are new to affiliate marketing, I will suggest you start with the Amazon affiliate program. Though commissions are not very high, the conversion will be better. 

7. Ignoring Basic SEO

It is wrong to expect new marketers to have a thorough knowledge of SEO. However, they must have some basic knowledge of SEO.

Publishing your articles without a proper title tag, meta description, anchor text, etc. If you are on a WordPress website then you can use the Yoast SEO plugin.  

You can also try to get more backlinks by writing guest posts for authority websites.

If you can’t do Off-Page SEO (creating backlinks) then at least you must be capable of doing On-Page SEO. 

8. Overlooking the Power of Social Media

Create an elaborate social media profile of yourself on platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

On these platforms, you can write small posts (100 – 200 words) about yourself and your website including a link back to your landing page. Update your profile regularly.

You create content depending on the social media platform you are using. Facebook content is going to be different than Twitter. Hence leverage a platform accordingly. 

Affiliates can boost their sales by leveraging the power of social media. 

9. No Follow-Up

Follow up with your readers by answering their questionnaires and comments.

Affiliate marketing is all about engaging your visitors in a conversation. Reach out to them by writing a personalized email.

You have to take a personal interest in each of your visitors who is interested in learning about your product.

Closing a sale depends upon a proper follow-up. Be patient with the queries of your customers and don’t get agitated. You will be rewarded later.

Most of the new affiliates don’t follow up that’s why they fail.  

10. Avoiding Self Promotion

Build your own brand!

Your face is very important. You are a human and not a robot. People can get information from Wikipedia but they want to come to you because you are an actual human.

Self-promotion is everything. Most new affiliate marketers fail because they are unable to build their own brand.

You can build your brand with the help of social media platforms.

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Faq: Affiliate Marketing Mistakes

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Conclusion 

These were the 10 most common affiliate marketing mistakes made by new affiliate marketers.

To succeed as an affiliate marketer you need a lot of patience. You are not going to be rich in just one month. It is a long process.

Before taking a plunge keep these 10 points in your mind. You don’t have to spend even a dime to implement them.

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