5 AFFILIATE MARKETING MISTAKES NEW BLOGGERS MAKE

5 Affiliate marketing mistakes that many new bloggers make when they’re getting started can easily cost you a ton of time, reduce your passive income, and add a lot of extra headaches.

If you’re looking to start making money with affiliate programs, these are super simple things that you can put in place upfront, that will pay dividends down the road.

But you won’t find them in most affiliate marketing tutorials for beginners.

So the tips that we’re about to cover, are some of the biggest lessons that we’ve learned the hard way in getting to this point.

This blog is designed to save time.

5 Affiliate Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

MISTAKE NO 1:

ONE OF THE MOST COMMON AFFILIATE MARKETING MISTAKES IS THINKING LONG-TERM

Affiliate marketing mistakes is to always think long-term. Whatever product you’re going to promote, always make it a win, win, win.

1. win for the company
2. win for the audience
3. and win for you

So it’s a win for the company, and for the product, or service you’re going to promote. It’s a win for your viewers and your audience because you’re helping them with a buying or purchasing decision. This then means it becomes a win for you as well, receiving a commission for that lead or for that sale.

NEVER RECOMMEND A PRODUCT THAT YOU DO NOT LIKE

So never be an affiliate or recommend a product that you wouldn’t recommend to your closest friends or family members. Trust is hugely important, but a lot of marketers focus on which products and services are going to give them the biggest commissions. Rather than the best solutions for their audience.

LOT OF MARKETERS FOCUS ON MONEY RATHER THE BEST PRODUCT

Not only is that unethical, but recommending that other people spend their hard-earned cash, just so you can earn a quick buck is the fastest way to lose their trust. So they’ll never listen to you again.

MAXIMIZE THE VALUE FOR YOUR AUDIENCE

So always look to maximize the value that you provide to your audience. Only recommend the products and services that you know are going to help them.

So focus on the best products and never the best commissions, and in the long term, everyone wins.

Related: Best 5 Affiliate Programs For Beginners (Without Approval)

Mistake No 2:

NOT USING YOUR REDIRECT LINKS IS AN AFFILIATE MISTAKE YOU’RE MAKING

The second big mistake is, not using your redirect links. Affiliate programs, change their links, all the time. Meaning the unique link that’s tracked back to you could change at any given moment.

If you’ve got a ton of these affiliate links and they change. Then you’d have to go back manually across everywhere that you’ve ever posted them, and manually update them. If you don’t have redirect links in place.

So to manage the bulk of our affiliate links, we use a

WordPress plugin called Thirsty Affiliates and Pretty Links.

Amazon links, we use a service called Genius Link to manage that redirection.

That there are lots of other options out there as well like BITLY.

Now, if you don’t have a WordPress site, this will be a massive tool for growing your affiliate income over time. This is like a little extra tip, but this is an example of how powerful it can be.

Redirect Link Tools:

1. GeniusLink
2. Thirsty Affiliates
3. Prettylinks
4. Bitly

For anyone starting, you can get up and running for just a few dollars a month with a WordPress hosting plan from a low-cost host like SiteGround.

These days, it’s easy to get a WordPress site set up. You can also use it then to manage your redirect links with a plugin like Thirsty Affiliates.

Related: What are the Best High Paying Affiliate Programs for Beginners

Mistake No 3:

NOT READING THE TERMS OF SERVICE OR THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Number three is not reading the terms of service or the terms and conditions for each of the affiliate programs that you are a part of. Some programs have super strict terms of service.

And one of the most well-known programs for this is Amazon. It’s a great affiliate program, but they have some very strict requirements. And they’re also notorious for just blocking affiliate accounts with no notice if you’re found to violate their terms.

YOU COULD BE BLOCKED IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THE RULES

We’ve heard of several YouTube channels making thousands of dollars each month. Having the Amazon affiliate account switched off without any notice.

And it can take months to get it back online if you can get it reactivated at all. Genius Link has a great resource for helping you interpret the Amazon affiliate program requirements.

Mistake No 4:

NOT DIVERSIFYING IS ANOTHER MISTAKE THAT AFFILIATE MARKETERS MAKE

So that brings us to number four, which is not diversifying. Now, I’ve seen plenty of folks build their entire business around just one or two affiliate programs. Only to have the company have their commissioner block them from the program completely. Make sure that you’re diversifying here.

not diversifying IS ANOTHER MISTAKE THAT AFFILIATE MARKETER MAKE

BNH and Amazon versus just Amazon resulted in more commissions. So not only does diversify reduces your reliance on any one program and builds a more sustainable business. It results in more income and a much better experience for your audience.

Start by making a list of all the products and all the services that you use that you trust and that you recommend. And then you’ll have the makings of an awesome recommended resources list. Featuring a wide range of companies that you’re happy to recommend to your friends.

Related: How to Make Money Online Through Amazon Affiliate Program

Mistake No 5:

NOT REVIEWING YOUR AFFILIATE LINKS

And number five then is not reviewing your affiliate links. This is something that a lot of people miss, and this is a place where a lot of people are leaving a lot of money on the table.

You could potentially have a ton of different affiliate links out there across your YouTube channel in your video descriptions, across your websites, and everywhere else that you’re going to be posting them.

But also over time, things change,

• Your recommendations might change.
• The company might change.
• The products could not exist or might be out of stock,
• Even the affiliate programs may have moved to a different service or a different provider, meaning that your link is no longer working.

So you have to periodically check your affiliate links, to make sure that they are healthy, to make sure that they’re working.

Now, going back to number two, using redirect links and the plugins. Thirsty Affiliates and Genius Link, both make this link reviewing process easy.

They’ll do a link health check for you. Quickly tell you at a glance which links that going to a web page that may not be there anymore, or on the Genius Link side of things. It’ll even tell you if I specific Amazon products out of stock.

And that makes it easy for you to just replace that maybe another seller on Amazon. That’s selling that and has it in stock, or to swap that out for a completely different product.

So for us and reviewing our links, this is something that we’re doing every few weeks. Just to make sure that we’re able to help our people get to the right place and that our affiliate links are working.

So those are the five biggest mistakes that new affiliate marketers make.

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