Are you wondering how to succeed in affiliate marketing? Perhaps you’re struggling to make any sales? As a beginner you are besieged by different marketers all trying to sell you something. You probably have signed up to many email lists? Do you have constant conflicting information landing in your inbox? This can be overwhelming and very difficult to navigate.

The beginning phase of affiliate marketing is complicated by the various messages you will get from the many affiliates out there. Getting a clear idea of what you are doing is therefore the best thing you can do to get a good foundation for success. It is therefore information that is king as a beginner affiliate. The wrong information can send you down a rabbit hole for many months, getting you nowhere!

A solid and realistic expectation is another important issue. If your expectations are too high, you’ll likely quit when things don’t go as expected. If they are too low, you likely won’t even start! Managing your expectations and following a solid route in affiliate marketing are two of the most important factors. These are of course mental issues rather than practical considerations. But unless you get your head right, you’re more likely to fail as an affiliate like the 95% of those who attempt it.

How To Succeed In Affiliate Marketing – Why Many Fail

When you understand that around 95% of affiliate marketers quit, you will know that it takes more than most are capable of to succeed as an affiliate marketer. Just knowing this prepares you and should give you an idea that affiliate marketing is not at all easy! But why do so many quit? Affiliate marketing is an incredibly easy business to get into. All you need is a laptop and an internet connection to become an affiliate. Join any of the many affiliate partner programs out there and wham, you’re an affiliate.

That hard part of affiliate marketing isn’t joining a program, although some programs can give you a challenge; particularly if they require you to have a large following or a huge email list etc. But most programs only require you to fill out a form to become an affiliate. You get your affiliate link and hey presto, you’re ready to go! But the next step is the difficult one; promoting your affiliate link and successfully making a sale!

There’s many ways to promote affiliate products and most affiliates will focus on promoting their affiliate link online, although you can use any form of advertising as an affiliate – online or offline. The most popular methods involve either content creation (like this article), or paid advertising; using platforms such as Google Adwords, Facebook, Bing, YouTube etc.

How To Succeed In Affiliate Marketing – Knowing Your Audience

Most new affiliates don’t bother to understand their target audience. They run off in high spirits, thinking that spamming their links everywhere will result in many sales. Sadly this don’t normally happen. What happens instead is that they don’t make any sales at all, and wonder why. That’s around the time most will pack up their bags and declare that “affiliate marketing does not work“!

The reason they fail isn’t that affiliate marketing doesn’t work. It’s more that they don’t yet understand affiliate marketing. If only it were so easy, more people would be flocking to it in ever greater numbers!

Target Audience

When you better understand your target audience, you are better able to place your link in front of them in a meaningful way. An example of this might be a product review. A review is where I made my first online sale. Review websites work well for affiliates because they attract an audience who is in the last step of the buying cycle. They are looking for a review because they are wanting to make a purchase. They only want some small insight to know whether the product will fit their requirements. Then they make a purchase – hopefully through your affiliate link.

Once you better understand your target audience and get to know your “perfect” customer avatar, you are better able to focus on a marketing method which attracts them to your affiliate products.

How To Succeed In Affiliate Marketing – Product Choice

Your product choice has a lot to do in whether you are successful as an affiliate. Some products are better than others and if you rush into affiliate marketing and pick a random product to promote, chances are good that you’ll struggle. A good product sells itself and a bad product will never sell, however good a marketer you are! Some products pay much more than others too. Take Amazon for an example which typically pays out around 5-10% commission on products, (although it’s commission structure runs from 1% to 20%). Digital products pay much more – from 30-40% in many cases.

Certain products will pay high ticket commissions and then there are those which pay out recurring commissions. If you can make a sale as an affiliate, it’s worth focusing on those products which will pay out the most; since often the same effort is required in either case.

Marketing Strategy, Method & Marketing Budget

Your marketing strategy and method are arguably the most important factors in whether you’re going to be successful as an affiliate. Choose the wrong marketing strategy, (or give up too soon), and you will struggle. Most affiliates who quit haven’t necessarily chosen the wrong marketing method – more likely they have simply given up too soon.

Since affiliate marketing is a numbers game, the more people you put your products in front of the more will buy. While there’s an obvious targeting alignment issue to deal with, it’s also about getting more eyes on your affiliate link as well as the right kind of people.

A cheaper strategy such as blogging will likely take much longer than a fast method such as paid marketing to attract a large audience. So whatever method you choose for getting people to your affiliate products, you need to consider the appropriate timescale for doing it successfully. A blog will take many months or even years to gain traction with, depending on your topic; while a large marketing budget can see you selling products very quickly with the right message and targeting.

Fail Forwards (Failures Are Stepping Stones)

There’s a saying within the affiliate marketing space as “fail forwards” which simply means you learn from your failures. If you’re too scared to fail, perhaps affiliate marketing isn’t for you. Failures aren’t really failures either. When a small child falls over while learning to walk, they never give up saying “well, walking just isn’t for me”! They keep getting back up and trying again. With affiliate marketing you need this same philosophy. Each small failure is a stepping stone in which you can learn something to make you a better affiliate.

With a small list of subscribers, you might get really upset that you aren’t making any sales. But consider this “phase” the same as a child learning to walk. Most affiliates will quit long before they get even 1000 subscribers on their email list. Affiliate success is there for those who refuse to quit whatever happens and continue on, learning from the problems and difficulties they face.

The Chinese Bamboo Tree

If you’re still wondering how to succeed with affiliate marketing, consider this analogy. A good analogy I like for affiliate marketing is the Chinese bamboo tree. A Chinese bamboo tree has a gestation period where nothing breaks the surface of the soil for 4-5 years. During this time, if you didn’t know the nature of the tree, you might assume that it has died! But if you continue watering it and feeding it, after the gestation period the tree can grow to be 90 feet tall in just five weeks time!

Like the Chinese bamboo, affiliate marketing has a gestation period where you struggle and learn. But once you understand it better and get things running in your affiliate business, you can see very quick gains if you’re prepared to go through the difficulties in the beginning.

Access a free video series here to get help and support and get started with your affiliate business today.