7 Common Mistakes Committed By Affiliate Marketers
As a beginner experimenting with affiliate marketing, there are a lot of unknowns. It is a demanding field and needs you to focus on a lot simultaneously. Unfortunately, this leaves a lot of room for improvement and error. These mistakes or errors often become huge for the prospect in the long run, and results in some serious business loss. In this post, we are covering the top seven mistakes committed by affiliate marketers so that you as a newbie, can avoid these. In case you are an expert — well, the sky’s the limit when it comes to improvement!
- Focusing On Conversion Rather Than Content
A huge mistake that more than 80% of the affiliate marketers commit is focusing more on conversion than content. You may yourself visit and analyze even the leading affiliate marketing websites and wonder where the concern about the customer and the content is! Grammatically incorrect sentences, short information highlighting a link or some long boring posts — this is what most of the affiliate marketing websites revolve around today. Rather than throwing a boring bunch of links on the customer’s face, try making your page more customer friendly. You could try shooting a video of yourself establishing a bond with your customers so that they feel you are trustworthy enough to buy products at your suggestion.
Another common mistake committed by affiliate marketers is not testing or proofreading their content enough. Whether you are a novice or an expert professional, you need to test whatever you are sending out to your customers beforehand. A little character here and there can throw off your entire article. A lot of affiliate marketers cannot care less about where the links to buy the products are leading. Make sure that they lead the audience where you intend. Nothing irritates a prospect more than a broken link or a link leading to somewhere not expected.
Not only does it ruin the entire shopping experience for the customer but also spoils your reputation as an affiliate marketer. Eventually, the customer may start considering your article or links as a wastage of time.
Testing everything beforehand saves you from a lot of trouble. A credible link, article or suggestion establishes a trust between you and your customers. A suggested practice is to send yourself a test email. Rather than automatically trusting that the affiliate link is guiding your readers to the intended spot, click the links and check! In fact, nobody can be blamed for such mistakes. The volume of links that an affiliate network deals within a day is huge. A misplaced link here and there is common.
2. Being Biased And Unnatural
Just because they call it ‘Affiliate Marketing’ does not mean that you actually have to market or favor a brand! Your job as an affiliate is to suggest people and ‘try’ that they buy it at your suggestion ‘through your link’. That’s what you should be focused on. If you are giving links to 10 pages, doesn’t mean you have to favor anyone. If you are highlighting their prospects and consequences, make sure you do it for all the products, not for a few — so that you do not come across to someone as biased.
There is no need to scream ‘BUY IT NOW’. Rather than begging people to buy stuff, try making your content, articles or emails more informative and credible. Help the readers understand the prospects and consequences of every alternative -no need to urge them to buy anything! Have you ever wondered why people always focus on reviews for products available at Amazon, Flipkart, and other E-commerce websites? It is because of the simple fact that they consider them unbiased and the feedback is mostly considered genuine as it is from the people who (usually) have no personal gains when the product is sold. This is what your thought process as an affiliate marketer should be!
If the tone of your review is unbiased rather than you looking as a trained salesperson, you will find a lot of people being genuinely interested in your stuff. Odds are that they will visit your website again and will trust your advice for other products in future. Consumers are not idiots! They like to know what they are being sold or guided towards.
3. Joining A Lot Of Affiliate Programs
Yes, it is tempting to join as many affiliate programs as possible and increase your income. But in the long run it causes more harm than benefit. It makes you lose focus. It is completely justified that you want to have multiple uninterrupted streams of income, but there comes a point when it becomes unmanageable and you start compromising on quality. Hence, you must choose your programs carefully.
Please note that it is not suggested here that you put all your eggs in one basket. Wisely choose a few and stick to them. Establish a business using these. If they result in a reasonable profit and you got some spare time on your hands then maybe you can join a few other affiliate programs. The idea is not to rush.
Quality affiliate marketing programs like LambdaTest, Shareasale and Click bank etc are worth a try. Startups are taking the lead in today’s era. LambdaTest is one of the most prominent and popular SaaS startup working with cross-browser testing. You can join their affiliate program, test their products and earn some quick money by promoting LambdaTest platform.
4. Not Selecting Your Niche Carefully
Whether it is life, race or business, do not underestimate your competitors ever! See and analyze what your fellow marketers are doing. If they are successful, learn what is making them successful! Likewise, analyze their mistakes and do not commit them yourself. It is good that you want to achieve something big and experiment with established and huge niches like insurance, real estate etc, however, note the fact that it has a huge competition. A lot of people are doing it and they are an authority in the field. Ever wondered if you could select a less popular niche and establish your authority at it? Hope you are getting the idea! Select a niche which has enough opportunities to flourish but is not competitive enough to blend you in itself.
5. Making False Claims
Another common mistake that affiliate marketers commit is venturing into a niche that they know nothing about. Due to a lack of knowledge, marketers sometimes make false claims. Make sure that you do not make any false claims through your articles. If you know personally that a product is not worth it, please avoid selling it. When you try pushing a product on someone with sugar-coated claims, a majority of the times they can see through it. No wonder they only see it as just another item on the list and reject it. It will steer people away from your website. The golden rule for becoming a successful affiliate marketer is to find a niche that you actually have some interest and experience in! and make sure to produce quality content to publish on your website.
6. Not Understanding The Number Game
- Which article or e-Mail garners rave reviews?
- Which content is being shared the most?
- Which caption converts the highest number of prospects?
See where is it going? Hope you get the idea. It is important to understand all the terms, facts and figures associated with affiliate marketing. Analyze the statistics and patterns carefully. If you’re not analyzing the results and your weak areas, you are not improving. If you are not improving you will never be a winner!
Successful affiliate marketers have a habit of testing and tracking. Conversion Rate, Click-Through Rate, Average Order Value, Earnings Per Click, Campaign Return on Investment - they know it all! Affiliate marketing is all about statistics and numbers. Know your numbers well to succeed in your business.
7. Too Many Advertisements
Lastly, avoid too much of everything! Advertisements included. It is okay you want to monetize your website but keep the number low. It is irritating and annoying for the readers. A few are okay but a person looking for 5 best laptops to invest in would certainly not appreciate a useless advertisement. Besides, too many advertisements slow down the running of your website.
Hence, these were some of the most common mistakes committed by affiliate marketers. It is sad that even expert affiliate marketers are not left untouched here.
Article Resource: https://medium.com/@abhayit2000/7-common-mistakes-committed-by-affiliate-marketers-5b716ba26626