The affiliate marketing journey is full of twists! My affiliate marketing journey took many turns. Since discovering affiliate marketing in the early 2000’s I took several different routes. One course I took taught blogging and use of Google Adsense. I would make tiny amounts after months and months of work! Then I took another course which taught paid advertising, use of email marketing and selling a digital affiliate product. My Adwords account got shut down shortly afterwards much to my dismay and I couldn’t get it back. Back then, Google Adwords was pretty harsh and losing your account meant you had lost it for good!
I tried another course called the Keyword Academy which taught blogging on your own website. Months in to this strategy and I still hadn’t made any money! Again this was using Google Adsense! On and on it went. My affiliate marketing journey wasn’t fun. But I knew if I cracked it, it would mean I wouldn’t have to work another crappy dead-end job! So I didn’t ever quit!
My Affiliate Marketing Journey
Long after my affiliate marketing journey started I found another course which is the one I promote now. The SFM Mentors taught me a few strategies for selling affiliate products and within a few months I had made my first even high ticket sale. High ticket affiliate marketing was something I was completely unaware of for most of my early days as an affiliate marketer. Recurring income affiliate programs were also new to me. By using both high ticket and recurring commissions I was able to achieve far more far more quickly than I had done in the past.
But the success didn’t last forever. I was soon wondering why I wasn’t getting anywhere. The answer was of course my lack of understanding. While the top affiliates knew to reinvest their commissions into their marketing budget, I spent mine and had assumed (wrongly) that I’d cracked it and wouldn’t need to work again! How naive I was!
It was some time before I picked up the training again and admitted to myself that I needed to keep learning. You can’t outrun bad thinking when it comes to running a business. I wasn’t well versed in business and simply expected affiliate marketing to be easy. How difficult is affiliate marketing? I found it to be pretty difficult. The hard part is sticking at it when nothing is happening. But if you do, eventually it blooms and you can start making sales in your sleep! How long this takes will depend on the route you take.
Affiliate Marketing Customer Journey
The affiliate marketing customer journey is something I was unaware of as a beginner in affiliate marketing. The customer journey is the “journey” your customer takes from your advert to your landing or sales page to your email list and finally to the affiliate product you are promoting. This journey is of major importance because to a large degree it will determine whether someone purchases an affiliate product from you or not.
As a short explanation, lets look at the path a (potential) customer takes from hitting your advert to clicking through to your website landing page. Lets assume your advert is a video advert which they see on YouTube. You explain the product in your video and the benefits of what it can do for them. Perhaps you are promoting a free video series or downloadable book.
Once they click on your link and go through to the landing page, they are confronted with a choice. Do they sign up and give you their email address, or leave? A good customer journey will connect the advert and the landing page by connecting them in some way. Perhaps use a picture on the landing page which is similar to the video, or which shows up in the video. Any disconnect from your advert to the landing page will have the effect of putting off a number of potential subscribers. To increase conversion rate on a website or landing page, you need to create a well connected customer journey between the two. Good use of colours, text, and a clear benefit driven call to action are important factors to consider.
Advert to Landing Pages & Email Follow Up
Once someone takes the action of following up on a landing page and opting in, you should give them what they expect from your email messages. If your emails aren’t aligned with the subject matter in your earlier video advert, they are likely to react to this disconnect and unsubscribe quite quickly.
If this happens you’re not going to be able to even get them to your affiliate products. Hence why customer journey in affiliate marketing is so important. Without a clear and concise connection through all of your marketing materials, (advert, landing page, website, emails and affiliate products), the disconnect will likely drive away customers.
Shortening Your Affiliate Marketing Journey
My affiliate marketing journey took years before I was able to make a consistent income. Yours can be much shorter. Much of my struggle was mental before it became physical. I doubted each course I took, and in the back of my mind wondered if they were all scams! This doubt doesn’t lead to fruitful activity! I stalled, procrastinated and threw in the towel many times! But I always came back because I needed it to work for me, such was my situation.
Affiliate marketing is tough and there’s no guarantees. You’re effectively in business for yourself. There’s no shortcuts, but there are better ways of doing things than the many ways I failed with. High ticket products and subscription products are just a couple of the things which made my journey shorter. Use them if you want to avoid many of the problems which I faced.
Get help! For years I struggled alone and only found a mentorship program in 2014. You can access it here through these free videos. Or dive straight in and get started here.