Affiliate Marketing Myths Vs Reality - Is it worth it?

 There’s a lot of misinformation that surrounds affiliate marketing — so let’s clear it up.

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing program, where an external partner has rewarded a commission for delivering a specific result to a merchant or advertiser. The result is often a valid sale, however, it can also be a completed lead form, a new free trial user, or even a new newsletter subscriber.

Although the first affiliate program was developed in 1994, Amazon’s Associate's Program (launched in 1996) is most often recognized as the longest-running program and as the model for others to follow.

As eCommerce has grown over the years, so too has the affiliate space. So much so that it’s now incorporated into the marketing strategy of top Fortune 500 companies like Apple, Macy’s, and Target.

Despite all this, affiliate marketing has been plagued with a bad reputation in the past.

Is affiliate marketing real?

The myth that affiliate marketing is a scam or offers a low value source of traffic and sales is simply not true. The reality is that affiliate programs can be as high value as those running the affiliate program make it.

Myth1: Affiliate marketing is mostly fraud and offers low-value traffic.

Absolutely wrong, Affiliate marketing is a profession where one gets paid on their effort to get more clients and sales. It is as simple as it is. Most of the people who choose to go with affiliate marketing are the people who know how to grab everyone's attention through content and make them take action. 

Only those people who give up too easily and think of affiliate marketing as a rich quick scheme spread this wrong misconception about affiliate marketing. 

It's a legit process, where you get paid for your work done. It is the most wanted profession of the now and upcoming time. Once you get an expert in affiliate marketing, you can be part of multiple affiliate programs to create multiple streams of income with it. 

Myth 2- It’s too late to start affiliate marketing

With affiliate marketing being advertised all over the Internet, it might seem that you’re too late to join the club. However, it’s quite the opposite, and now is probably the best time to become an affiliate. Why? While it has never been easy to succeed, you don’t need to have years of sales experience or strong programming skills to begin.

Naturally, you’ll have to put some work in by creating a web page or social media profile, placing links and tools, delivering valuable content, and building trust with your community. This takes time and effort but isn’t impossible.

Another fear that might stop you from becoming an affiliate is the misconception that competition is too high. Is it? First, there are more and more new companies emerging every year, so the choice of advertisers to promote is constantly expanding. Second, there may be a lot of mediocre websites, but blogs that bring value to others never remain unattended.

If you focus on providing value to your community instead of worrying that the market is too saturated, success won’t take long.

Myth 3 - More traffic = More profit

This is one of the most popular misconceptions about affiliate marketing. Sure, traffic is what every webmaster is hoping for, but it isn’t the only key to success. You might have hundreds of visitors coming to your website every day, but without the right placement of tools and links, traffic won’t convert into sales. To succeed, avoid these affiliate marketing mistakes:

Lengthy page loading time: According to Neil Patel, 50% of people abandon a website that takes more than 3 seconds to load. Users quit the site before seeing any content.

Overloaded site design: The design must be simple and engaging to help users focus on the content.

Non-engaging content: You must create high-quality, valuable content and organically integrate links to the products or services that you are promoting. If the content is not valuable and overloaded with affiliate links, it will not convert.

Lack of keywords: Does your content contain relevant keywords (both long-tail and short-tail) that help search engines match your website to relevant queries?

Myths 4 - Affiliate marketing is expensive to start

This is one of the biggest myths about affiliate marketing that you need to be aware of. It’s quite the opposite in reality. To begin with, you can create your website for free. There are many website builders and hosting servers that offer free plans. You can write the content yourself or invite guest bloggers and free authors to drive traffic through SEO. Moreover, many CPA marketing and blogging courses are publicly available, so you’ll be able to learn independently.

Sure, without any investments, it will take longer to achieve success. But, in this regard, affiliate marketing is less expensive than any other business type, as you don’t need to engage in production, delivery, and so on. 

Myth 5 - You need a blog to get started

You can start with a blog, social media page, mobile application, traffic arbitrage, and so on. The easiest way might be to use your social media profile, which will already have some traffic and readers. Focus on bringing value to your community and post affiliate links where appropriate.

The key to success is building trust with your community. People might need to visit your page several times before making a purchase. It doesn’t really matter what kind of web page you have, focus on your audience and bring them value.

Don’t let these myths stop you from earning

Do you still think that affiliate marketing is a mystical way of earning money by doing absolutely nothing? We’re glad that you don’t anymore. Affiliate marketing is an absolutely legitimate way to earn a living but to succeed you’ll need to invest a lot of time and effort. Unlike other business strategies, affiliate marketing is easy to begin, doesn’t require much financial investment, and can be either your side job or a full-time occupation.

The types of affiliate platforms available 

- General content, media sites, and networks. Think larger media organizations that own a number of websites, some with millions of visitors per month.

- Comparison/review and niche topic sites. These sites typically review products for a specific audience type or compare a line of products against their competitors. You could have a mommy blog that compares all of the large brand strollers, a marketing blog reviewing SEO tools, or a lifestyle site that compares organic makeup products. These sites will review products and push that message out through channels such as a blog post, detailed comparison chart, video, and social media.

- Apps and solution-type partners. These are strategic partnerships where products and/or services are placed in front of a relevant audience through an app partner. Some examples could include a shopping app that can help you find the best price on a pair of sneakers or a beauty app that includes a specific makeup brand, and that allows users to virtually “try on” makeup using swatches of color and their live image.

- Bloggers and social media mavens. Bloggers can be general and organically introduce products they like to their audience. Or, they can be very niche and talk about products they’re passionate about and that resonate strongly with their audience (for example yoga sites, a cooking blog, or a site about learning how to knit).

- Influencers, high-profile leaders, and authors. ‘Influencer’ is a popular buzzword right now, and that space overlaps with affiliates more than you would initially think. Simply put, to earn big commissions in affiliate marketing you want to get the right product/service in front of the right audience with the right message. Influencers already have a strong audience and are determined to continue to grow it into the millions, making them perfect for affiliate programs. For some time, space has been very fixated on monetizing through general sponsorship for a one-time payment, however, an affiliate payout allows the influencer to earn ongoing revenue for as long as the content lives on. This can easily earn the right influencer 10x more in the long term.

- Courses, workshops, and live events. IRL events are embracing strategic affiliate partnership offers, and incorporating them into their workshops, courses, or even live presentations.

Mastermind groups, private, and public communities. Typically these are made up of niche topic groups based on interests, hobbies, course students, or even strategists. I’ve seen these groups range from better parenting topics to French culinary fans to successful entrepreneurs — all working towards improving themselves.

- Paid advertising affiliates. These types of affiliates use paid advertising traffic in PPC ads, contextual ads, or even social channels for the affiliate programs that allow it.

Across all of these methods, authenticity is crucial for long-term, high-earning growth, and top-earning affiliates know it. With a solid affiliate program strategy, and proper execution and management, this channel is often one of the best sources of new customers for merchants who participate in affiliate marketing and is a consistent revenue stream for all affiliates.

How to become a successful affiliate marketer - A right path to get success. 

Just like entrepreneurship, becoming a successful affiliate takes dedication and discipline. Ideas alone won’t cut it — having a strategy and executing it is critical for top-earning affiliates. Here are some tips to win at affiliate marketing:

1. Develop a strategy — What problems are you solving? What niche or audience do you want to serve? Outline the above, and determine how you want to get there while offering something unique or a little different. After that, design your brand look and identify your messaging. While you are at it, set an action plan you can live with based on how much time you have to allocate to your affiliate efforts.

2. Be authentic — Whether you want to be a big voice for a particular niche or a solo blogger, you need to get comfortable with yourself. People like to connect with voices that have an authentic message.

3. Build a brand — Know your brand and audience well, broadcast yourself while keeping both of those in mind.

4. Transparent relationships — If you would like to be privy to special offers, higher payouts, or start a relationship with one of your favorite advertisers, be transparent with them and about your methods.

5. Ongoing learning — Never stop learning about affiliate marketing, online marketing strategies, and trends. Keep up-to-date with the online community DigitalMarketer, or if you want a more in-depth approach, check out Charles Ngo’s Ultimate Guide to Affiliate Marketing.

6. Communicate with affiliate managers — Your affiliate managers should have a strong grasp of your activities and placements of offers. This helps them identify any low-hanging fruit for affiliates. Tap into that knowledge and communicate with them. Although they can’t provide 1:1 training, they can point you in the right direction and help get started or improve performance.

7. Learn how to analyze data — Know how to use marketing tools and analyze performance data. Do the math to determine your marketing costs in order to bring traffic to your site, and calculate conversions and commissions to determine what’s performing best for you. Tweak copy or the location of a CTA to optimize the success of the page. Study success for all of your highest performing pages, and try to lift conversions. A performance increase of just a couple of points could mean a big lift in sales.

8. Be creative — Do your homework. Research the competitive space and figure out where additional opportunities lie. If you learn everyone is promoting on Facebook, consider also testing your offer elsewhere and in a different ad format, or even bundling the offer with other items or services.


So now when you have an idea of how successful the affiliate marketing profession is, let me create an opportunity for you to learn it all in a very professional and advance way to create your first affiliate income for sure. 

Unlock affiliate marketing - A step-by-step guide to master the art of making affiliate income. Make your first affiliate income in less than 7 days.

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