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“You’ve got a new sale”.
This is the most amazing thing you see as a notification in the morning on your phone.
I still remember the day when I first got my affiliate sale. It was overwhelming and I was on top of this world.
That was the ahaaa moment of my life.
90% of the blogger people jump into affiliate marketing for ONE reason: to make money.
There’s nothing wrong in that.
In fact, if done right, affiliate marketing can become a money printing machine.
But here’s the thing: there are so many myths around it.
So in this post, we’ll discuss some of the worst myths about affiliate marketing that need to be debunked so you can actually start making money from it.
Are you curious to find them out?
Let’s get started.
7 Dangerous Myths about Affiliate Marketing
1. It’s Easy to Start
If you think affiliate marketing is an easy way to start and make money then here is one fact for you.
Did you know that of all the people who try affiliate marketing, only around 3% make sales?
Before starting an affiliate marketing business, you need to accept that it could take up to a year to make a single dollar out of it.
Many people think that affiliate marketing is all about grabbing links from Amazon, JVZoo or ClickBank and suddenly they will start making money with it.
They feel that they will start pushing this link on social media sites, and video sites, and soon they are going to make thousands of dollars every month.
Wait!!
If you want your marketing strategy to work, you need to be familiar with the process and put in immense efforts.
It’s not easy to bring more customers and convince them to visit your website and indulge in your products and services. You will need to monitor how many of your customers are clicking the links of your affiliate programs and how many of those are actually following through to purchase.
Here are the few things, you need to consider before you think it is easy to start.
- To set up an affiliate marketing site, you need to do a lot of research, planning, thinking and use a lot of time and some effort.
- You need to figure out what your niche is. What are you passionate about?
- You need to write relevant content for your blog and decide on the type of content you will use for your blog.
- You need to figure out who your audience is.
- If the chosen niche is already existed then how to become successful at it.
- You need to find a good and reputable affiliate program to join that sells the products you want to promote.
- You have to note which strategies are working and which are not.
So, affiliate marketing is not an easy task.
Maintaining it requires time, effort and resources. Your site has to be updated regularly with fresh and relevant content.
In the field of marketing, selling is an important skill that has to be learned.
You have to know what your customers actually want. And they are usually not very good at telling you so you will have to dig more to figure it out.
In order to be successful, you need to accept that there are no shortcuts. You have to work for it.
Bottom line: If you go into affiliate marketing thinking that money will come quicker than in more conventional businesses, then it will be a big failure.
So, first try to understand what your customers really want and design a great marketing strategy.
And in this process, don’t lose patience. Be prepared for obstacles and setbacks.
Maintaining an affiliate site or blog requires commitment more than you think.
2. It’s a Get Rich Quick Scheme
It is one of the biggest myths of all.
They think that it's an overnight success.
Affiliate marketing is not a get-rich-quick scheme. Of course, there is money to be made, but earning a full-time income could take years.
Top affiliates which you see around you have been doing this for years, they have mastered copywriting skills, website optimization skills, and team development skills, and above all, they have trained themselves to become one of the top players in the world.
Before you start to make money, you need to produce highly trustable and useful content and build some authority within a niche.
There’s nothing ‘quick’ about affiliate business. Affiliate Marketing is all about building an audience who trusts you on your advice and the products you promote. It takes at least two years to know the rules of business to make good enough money.
The one reason most of the bloggers fail in this field is they give up.
Yes, many bloggers give up once they see that they don’t make any money after a couple of months. It takes time for the search engines to trust a new website and start to rank it higher.
You may have to work for up to a year before your business starts to earn any commissions. Remember, this is a field just like any other, so it requires doing your homework. You need to have an out-of-the-box thinking.
So, If you think affiliate marketing will make you rich overnight, then that will not happen. But the truth is, that if affiliate marketing is done right then it makes you rich.
3. You Need a Blog or Website
Most people think they need a blog or website to start affiliate marketing.
But in reality, you don’t need.
If you have a blog or website, then it is absolutely okay. But never keep a reason for not having a website to start the business.
Usually, most of people follow the path of creating a blog or website to give value to their business, as it gives them a chance to communicate with their target audience and showcase their products and services.
And you invest on your website and spend hours choosing themes, plugins, and colours. It will cost you thousands of dollars.
You will wait for traffic, clients and sales.
But what if, if you don’t need a website to get started!!
Yes, if you are clear about these three then you can start affiliate marketing straight away.
- What type of business you want to get in.
- Maintaining consistency.
- Getting yourself in front of your target audience.
How you can get a target audience?
Be active on Facebook and LinkedIn groups related to your business. You can share tips on what you learned. This will get you more contacts because you are helping others with valuable content. You are solving the problems of others.
When you give value to your target audience consistently, people are bound to notice you.
Money is in the list, not in the website or blog. Collect email addresses by offering users something of value that helps them solve a problem in exchange.
Collect email addresses by offering users something of value that helps them in solving a problem in exchange.
You can use services like LeadPages, ClickFunnels, and InstaPages to create professional-looking pages and send people on those pages to collect the leads. Here you don't own any website yourself, you are just using a third party service and collecting leads.
Pro Tip
You can start pinning some attractive images on Pinterest and insert your affiliate link with then to generate good sales.
4. You Can Make a lot of Money Through Affiliate Marketing Without Learning
“Learning is the EYE of the mind” – French Proverb
That’s so true.
Without learning the basics of selling, it is never possible to make even a penny. It is not at all a complex subject. What you need to do is work hard over a sustained period of time, just like you would with any other kind of business.
I read many books every month to keep me updated and in the pace to do things in a better way.
I attend many conferences worldwide to learn things directly from the experts.
Here are some of the things you need to learn:
- You need to know what kind of affiliate programs are success.
- How to promote the products and avoid spamming?
- How to build up relationships with the customers?
- How to market properly and effectively to get visitors attracted to your affiliate programs?
- You need to know the interests of the audience. For what problems are they looking for a solution? Can you solve their problem?
- How to find an affiliate link for any product?
- How to find new products to promote?
- You need to find affiliate programs that sells the products.
And much more.
There is a big difference between purchasing a product from a shop having lots of choices and purchasing an affiliate product from a blog.
Bottom line: Start investing money on yourself to learn the basics. You cannot succeed if you don't now the basics. Start reading good books and attend good conferences.
5. The More Website Traffic You Get the More Money You Can Make
No, you don’t need a million website visitors to make millions of dollars.
Even if you have a loyal fanbase 1000 people, you can make millions. That’s the truth about making money online.
Usually, most of people think more website traffic leads to more conversions and, thus more money.
But the truth is website traffic is usually not the problem regarding online marketing. If you are diverting so many visitors to your site but there is no conversion then what is the use of that traffic?
The main issue online business face is conversions. There are several mediums you can use to get website traffic like LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, or setup Google Adwords etc. But when people come to your website or landing pages etc, how certain are you that they will take the next step?
Then you may be wondering how to get conversions.
Do extensive research and figure out what your ideal prospects want.
So that, you can create something that will help them. There is a chance that your offer will resonate with the individuals who are looking for the solution to a concerned problem. So that, you can convince your prospects to take up your offer.
In Affiliate marketing, you need to aim to achieve a relevant number of quality visitors rather than large numbers of uninterested visitors.
Bottom line: The success of affiliate marketing is not based on the amount of traffic you have acquired, but it is based on the conversions you get. It depends on your ability to create recurring revenue in your business.
6. Affiliate Marketing is only Suitable for Smart People
While the name affiliate marketing gives the vibe of a highly professional marketing subject, it is not necessarily the one that can only be pursued by smart people with an academic association with business studies.
I know some of the best affiliate marketers who have finance background, hotel waiter, sky diving expert, a marketing background and from many non-IT fields.
Affiliate marketing has more to do with intuitive and creative skills than the knowledge of several technical words that are not used in daily life. To become highly skillful affiliate marketer, you need patience, perseverance and passion to learn new strategies.
It is all about finding the right offers to promote to your target audience. You don’t have to be smart to successfully make money with affiliate marketing.
Bottom line: Affiliate marketing is more about brains than qualifications. As long as you have the desire to learn new things, and the passion to succeed in the field, you can always take up affiliate marketing.
7. Affiliate Marketing Can be Completely Automated
Affiliate marketing takes a lot of time and effort.
If you try to automate every step of the process, you will create an impersonal, unprofessional relationship with your customers.
Unfortunately, there are a number of ways you can streamline the process using automation:
- Using social aggregator tools that help in scheduling your social media posts.
- Using automated email workflows to monitor customer engagement.
- Segmenting emails to promote your content.
It’s not good to use the automation at every step.
It destroys the relationship with customers.
Bottom line: Even the most efficient affiliate marketing strategy takes time and resources. You need to dedicate good amount of time to do all the tasks by yourself or you can hire an affiliate marketer. Automation kills the trust.
Conclusion About Affiliate Marketing Myths
Affiliate marketing is all about trust, relationships and the ability to sell without sounding like an idiot. If you know how to sell stuff with your content, you can make a TON of sales.
The best part is, you can make money even while you sleep.
That’s the beauty of affiliate marketing.
But just make sure to the affiliate marketing myths shared in this post to make more sales.
So what do you think?
Did I miss any other affiliate marketing myths?
Share your thoughts in the comments.
Very nice post and very well explained. Thanks Kulwant Bro for this post.
Thanks kulwant for deep clarification but I’m surprised that you never describe the email marketing as a myth in your list, it isn’t important?
Hi Usman, I myself never focused much on email marketing so I don’t have that deeper knowledge about that.
Nice one. A lot of myths do fly around concerning affiliate marketing and people that spread these myths are usually those that a desperate to sell their affiliate products.
Thanks for bring that to light.
#1 jumps out at me so much Kulwant. Folks start affiliate marketing because they believe it will be easy. Money in the bank. Not true. The thought, planning, effort and energy you gotta put into this is serious! I get Amazon Associate payments monthly because I bust my tail in creating helpful content and building bonds with rocking bloggers like you.
Those sales you see are SO sweet but it takes work, thought, energy and persistence to build a profitable affiliate business. Super post 🙂
Yeah Ryan, it’s a real business. But the problem is, most people think it as a part-time business or just a hobby. Results come when we put efforts.
I am very happy to have an awesome online buddy like you.. Keep putting the best work.. I have seen you growing. 🙂
If I share the links of the products to what’s app or facebook and if any sale coming out if them. Companies are not paying for them why so.
I have an affiliate of hostgator and I shared the link and coupon on what’s app and I got confirmed three sale but paid for none. Why so
Pls guide
This is not a real promotion. You are just pushing the links.. and further, all advertisers have some terms and conditions to approve the sales. So make sure you read all terms and conditions before promoting any product.
Hey Kulwant Nagi,
Brilliant indeed!
Whatever you input in affiliate marketing concept seems to me advertising myths.
Lolz… Sounds like interesting but works great. 😀
You really did a great job and collect all the important points with popular views. 😉
I actually not a dummy in affiliate sector but however its typical often in quality measures.
Love the way you work. It’s worthy! 😉
Keep it up though. Thanks! 🙂
Thanks a lot for the nice words, Shakoat. Keep visiting my blog. 🙂
Great stuff to do affiliate marketing.
This helped me to improve my blog next level. Thanks
Thanks so much bro
You are the scientist of the blog and always clear our doubt.
If in my blog 10 visitor then there is possibility to make a sale
Thanks Sunil. 🙂
Whew! great list and to be honest there is one I used to believe but now I believe it was just a long story myth.
You can proceed with clarity now. 🙂
Hi Kulwant,
Nice Post!
Affiliate marketing exists because it can be very successful. However, there are quite a few affiliate marketing myths that revolve around this topic.
1) Affiliate Websites Don’t Require Much Management
2) You Should Always Choose the Niche that is the Most Profitable
3) Affiliate Marketing Won’t Last Much Longer
4) There is no brand control in affiliate marketing.
I will tweet your post.
Thanks a lot for sharing.
Very true, Manish.
Thanks for adding value in the article. 🙂
Thank you, Kulwant for such a great article. I also used to have some of these myths about affiliate marketing but the more I read about it the more I understood these facts. Now I recently started affiliate marketing with right mindset and I also got my first sale with Amazon 🙂
wowww that’s awesome. Many congrats..
Hi Kulwant,
I was extremely lucky when I started affiliate marketing on a serious note early this year: within a month, I made my first sale and have been making sales almost on a daily basis.
However, I spent more than 5 years preparing for this indirectly by mastering SEO, understanding human psychology and importantly, researching what makes readers use their credit/debit cards when online.
For a beginner who’s yet to record success, these tips will certainly point him/her to the right direction.
Make the day great.
Always,
Akaahan Terungwa
Hi Akaahan, happy to hear that you are seeing success in online marketing. Yeah, you said it right, it’s a long journey where we have to master a lot of things to see the success.
Would love to see you on my blog again. 🙂
Hello Kulwant,
Great tips over here 🙂
Indeed affiliate marketing could be one of the most effective ways to make money online. But it do really needs a lot of homework to be done, so that it can generate the amount of money we all think of it.
Surely its not a one day game play, it needs time and more over things can too go in negative directions. Affiliate marketing is something which is need to done smartly, so that the results could be fruitful.
Thanks for the share.
Shantanu.
Yeah, you know it very well. 😉
Hello Kulwant,
All the time you bring new content which is really very very helpful. it really motivates to youth to start their own startup without depending on their boss or parents if it comes to me i’ll give my entire credit to you.
Few Days before i have desgined a site after Knowing about wordpress and according to me it’s even looks quite professonal in compare to my competitors. But its running slow in compare to them can you please suggest me a good hosting and a suitable platform.
Thanks a’lot sir
Bye
Hi Ram, thanks a lot for such a nice feedback. You can start using DigitalOcean hosting (it’s an unmanaged hosting) and WP-Rocket plugin to boost the speed.
Wow Kulwant great post. You’re very true that, people think Affiliate Marketing is all about getting links from Amazon, Clickbank, Commission Junction, but there are also other ways as well to earn money without blog, like paid traffic and CPA ad networks.
Yeah Arjun, there are tons of methods to make money online.
Thanks for the help. You have touched on several points that were confusing me about affiliate marketing. I am learning fast and your information will direct my focus to the relevant actions. All the best
Glad that it helped. 🙂
Nice Sir, well explained!
Thanks a lot. 🙂
insightful. would love to learn more on marketing affiliate blogging
I am planning more posts about affiliate marketing soon.. Keep visiting BloggingCage. 🙂
So Money is in the List.. But Website is not mandatory. How it is possible. Can you pinPoint few methods to generate leads without website.
If it is possible in many ways. Looking for that next post.. But point few here ..
You can use service like LeadPages, ClickFunnels, InstaPages to create professional looking pages and send people on those pages to collect the leads. Here you don’t own any website yourself, you are just using a third party service and collecting leads.
1 does jump out at. I didn’t start what I do to make money. I do it for the community. Finding the best deals around to save money. After starting a month in I was making a little bit of money. Now 3 months in still making money. I put effort in 15 hours a day.
Very good Thomas. Cheers!!
Hello Kulwant,
Affiliate marketing is not an easy job as most of people think. I am 100% agree with you that Affiliate Marketing needs a lot of work and patience in order to generate sales. I remember the days when I get first affiliate sales from ipage affiliate program and make $300 from it. It makes me so happy and also encourage me to do more with it. Thank you for this detailed post.
Have a great day 🙂
Vishwajeet
It’s like an iceberg, you see only 5-10% from the outside but below the water resides the main portion.
Hello Kulwant,
I really really loved your post. I came to know and learned lot of new things about affiliate marketing. I’m looking forward on how to promote affiliate marketing and also how to generate content on affiliate blogging.
Cheers!
You can email me if you need any help.
Thanks for this awesome article on Affiliate marketing.
I am using some affiliate marketing stretigies and glad to say that we have got 2 affiliate sale this month and earn 130$.
Some of my affiliate marketing stretigies are:-
+ Making Sale Funnel
+ Build trust
+ Special offer type articles etc.
Thanks again Kulwant sir for this awesome article.
Waiting for your next article.
Congrats Sumit. 🙂
Lovely as Always 🙂 But i have one question can You Please Suggest which is the best Affiliate Marketing or Blogging Using Google AdSense?
I personally love affiliate marketing. 🙂
Hi,
This is nice affiliate marketing myths and having right idea here for better marketing. Thanks a lot for sharing
Regards
Rama Krishna
Guess what, content again came in the way of affiliate’s success. And why not! Content is the heart of any blog or website. Also, any affiliate marketer has to understand the user persona and build the strategy around that. Blind promotions are not going to get you a single penny also.
Hard work, Patience and learning are the keys here.
Very well written post, Kulwant.
Content is always the king. 🙂
Hi Kulwant,
Thanks for the great post. Do you recommend to start affiliate marketing doing CPA lead generation with paid traffic, or building up a list and then promoting offers to it.
Best Regards,
Deepak
Both are the good ways to make money with affiliate marketing. Paid ads will bring quick results, whereas building a list might take some time.
Very deep insights you have shared.
I really appreciate your work.
Looking forward to more actionable tips on affiliate marketing.
Rightly said, we have to solve problems of our visitors. And like you, we have to answer the queries on social media also. By answering right, we will be able to win trust of the other. That’s the path, from where we can convert these visitors into our clients. Thanks for sharing.
Hi Kulwant,
It was a very informative article! I think affiliate marketing is the best way to monetize your blog, I have helped several bloggers on my list join programs and earn money from affiliate marketing. I have seen some of these myths first hand, and I appreciate you taking the time into curating an article and talking about them. It was a great article and tackled several myths, I especially loved the one about more traffic means more money. I enjoyed it a lot and looking forward to reading more of your amazing articles.