There is a reason why affiliate marketing, despite being a very powerful way of earning money online and in spite of proving itself for more than a decade as a legitimate business, still leads to many novices failing and giving up – it’s because there are a number of problems that need to be hurdled first before one finds success, here are 10 of the most common ones and their solutions:
1. Choosing the Right Niche
It doesn’t matter how great of a salesman or copywriter you are. If you want to be successful and to earn a profit for the long term, you have to be careful when choosing your niche. If affiliate marketing is going to be your career, you have to find the perfect balance between choosing a profitable niche and choosing a niche that you are interested in. Most likely, the affiliate marketers who gave up only chose one or the other. Since the factors involved in this problem vary greatly between people (not all marketers will enjoy the same niche or topic,) the solution to this is to do your research carefully and don’t just jump into the niche that other people claim to be profitable. Research, and then test.
2. Confusing HTML Code and Affiliate Links
In this industry, in-depth technical know-how isn’t needed, much less coding skills. However, you need to learn how to use HTML links at the very list, because the code and scripts that will allow your affiliates to track your sales will require you to fiddle with inserting code into your newsletters or websites (unless you just want to direct traffic and sales to their pages for free.) Thankfully, many merchants and partners make it easier for affiliate marketers by providing ready-to-use code that you can simply copy and paste,. Add the fact that there are free resources on the Internet that will help familiarize you with HTML codes and their usage.
3. Attracting the Right Kind of Traffic
Getting traffic is easy these days. You don’t even need to get them on your own – you can buy traffic from other people. However, what many novice marketers don’t understand is that traffic alone isn’t enough. In order to succeed, you need the right kind of traffic. Traffic from people who are interested in your affiliate’s products, and traffic from people who will buy. It may seem like rudimentary advice, but the solution to this is to avoid getting traffic just for the sake of numbers. Optimize your pages and campaigns, do your research to ensure that you will only get traffic from people who want to be sold to.
4. Poor Sales
This problem should be pretty self-explanatory. Without sales, you don’t make any money. If you don’t make any money, what’s the sense of continuing, right? The elephant in the room is that many people don’t see beyond the lack of sales, thereby failing to recognize whether the problem is rooted from lack of traffic or poor conversion rate. Without this knowledge, people don’t know where to start and get stuck.
The first step to find out where your problem is stemming from. Is the lack of sales the result of not getting any traffic or poor conversion rate. The answer should be pretty easy to find out. Just check how much traffic you are getting. If you aren’t getting much, then that’s your problem. If you are getting massive traffic, then you’re dealing with poor conversion rates. In which case you have to drive more targeted traffic to your affiliate offers. To do this, consider using affiliate email marketing software. You can convert the people visiting your site and send them deals and new product updates whenever you update your affiliate links.
5. Producing Content
This becomes a big problem for many people because this is the part that requires time, effort, and skill. Add the fact that not everyone is born with the necessary skills and you’ve got a recipe for failure. The solution to this is fairly straightforward, if you don’t have the skill or don’t have the time to devote to creating content. Outsource. There are many freelancers on the net who would happily write your content for you. Now, finding qualified ones who ask for payment that fits your budget is another matter. Practice your haggling skills, and always remember the adage “you get what you pay for.”
There are many other problems commonly encountered by novice (or even longtime affiliate marketers), but the above five seems to be the more common ones, and their solutions can be applied to other minor problems not listed in this article. As always, the most important part is to research, study, and accept that there are facets to this business that you might not know about yet.
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