Affiliate Marketing has become a buzzword for countless bloggers crowding out the already over-saturated, often regurgitated “Make Money Online” niche. Nothing wrong about making money online with affiliate marketing but there is something wrong with all the self-proclaimed gurus who claim anybody can be successful at affiliate marketing. This simply isn’t true.
Think about this… If somebody said you could become a famous actor/actress by buying an e-book, would you believe it? What if they told you that you could learn brain surgery from an e-book? Would you buy it? Affiliate marketing may not require as much skill as performing a lobotomy but there are fundamental skills required to achieve success in any field. Unlike brain surgery, affiliate marketing is not taught in universities, there is no collective intelligence pool and you are on your own competing against unknown adversaries.
If that’s not enough to scare you away from the challenge, here are 5 more reasons to quit affiliate marketing before you start…
Affiliate Marketing is highly competitive - One thing to remember when venturing into affiliate marketing is that you will be competing against other marketers. This business is about selling and salespeople can be ruthless when gunning for a commission. Every time you tap into a successful niche, be prepared for somebody else to step in and rain on your parade by copying what you are doing. Whatever you do, don’t lose site of your goals over competing with another affiliate for sales. The trick in this industry is to always keep moving while staying one step ahead of the competition.
Affiliate Marketing is hard work - Many times I ask myself why am I doing this when I know I could go back to a comfortable job as a corporate programmer and make $90K per year for writing code. I’ve never had a bad experience at a day job and my position always guaranteed me a modicum of respect, however, I believed I was sacrificing my freedom for a 9-5. Now that I’m past the point of no return with my affiliate marketing career, I find that I’m working longer hours, feeling more frustration and losing a lot of sleep over my choice. Would I turn back? Not me. I have perserverence and a hard work ethic which makes me a sucker to finishing what I started or die trying.
You have to spend money to make money - Despite what you might have heard about “bum marketing”, read in an e-book or on somebody’s blog, you will *never* make money without spending some. If you think you’re going to setup 100 free Blogspot or Blogger blogs, a ton of Squidoo lenses or Hubpages and promote your affiliate offers for free, guess again. Eventually you will have to pony up some cash and buy domains, pay for web-hosting and even purchase some PPC advertising. There’s no getting around it, so I recommend starting out with a budget within your means and building from there. Also, never use credit cards to seed your initial marketing budget. In addition to paying interest on seed money you may never see any profit from, it’s just plain stupid to use credit cards for risky business ventures.
Nobody will teach or guide you - If you think all those “Make Money Online” blog gurus who post articles detailing all the money they’ve made in a month are telling you the truth, guess again. 70% of affiliate marketers who are blogging about it are only a hair’s breath away from losing their shirts, 20% are nothing more than con-artists and the other 10% are just stealing content from the other 90%. Most of them are inflating claims because they assume most people are ignorant sheep who envy shiny happy mistruths. You have to take everything you read with a grain of salt and my greatest recommendation to you, if you’re serious is to learn for yourself the old fashined way, by trial and error.
The industry is flooded with cheats - Unfortunately, where there’s money or potential to earn money, there are cheat, liars, thieves and con-artists. It’s not just black hat marketers you have to worry about, sometiems it’s the affiliate networks and programs themselves. Nothing is more frustrating than finding out that your affiliate network is scrubbing leads or stealing your commissions. This is why it’s important to partner with the most honest networks in the industry from the start, regardless of higher or faster payouts from less established affiliate networks.
If you’re still not ready to think twice about playing the affiliate marketing game, you just might have the right stuff to actually make a go of it. Just remember that you will be struggling to make ends meet until you hit a breakthrough and even after that, success is often difficult to repeat. Affiliate marketing is not for the faint of heart or for quitters.
If you can’t handle pressure and you’re hesitant to take risks, you might be better suited for that 9-5 where you can leave responsibilities behind when you clock out. If you’re a glutton for punishment, bull-headed and can’t back down from a challenge, like constant change and can survive on a steady diet of uncertainty, affiliate marketing just might be for you.
Any comments ??
You do know that some people will actually find this article inspiring despite of the fearful overtone. Good reading. Keep it up.
Amazing. This post is #2 in Google for the keywords “quit affiliate marketing” within an hour of posting it!!!
Nice post, however with point number 3 on having to spend money I disagree, I have been making a living online for ages and hardly spend any money on advertising..
About 60% of my traffic comes from the serps and link referrals. Paid advertising if I do any, is less than 5 % of this..
Other than that I agree with you, it is hard to get started in making money in affiliate marketing.. :)
I guess to be able to see all this SO clearly, you too must have been an affiliate for some time. It’s great to hear so honestly from someone else with the “do or die” work ethic.
Make sure you let is all know when you’ve made your first million.
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@Timon - Good points. Most of my traffic comes from serps and social media so I don’t spend much on advertising. My main expenses are domain name registrations and dedicated servers.
Well, Your points are correct. But I dont agree with them fully. Every genuine business is hard. Every successful person should learn from himself. Its no reason to quit. We have to face it.
I think you right. but i stil learn about affiliate marketing. because it’s very interesting to me to know it.
regards ridnmoney
A very interesting post - but there’s a lot of truth in it. The point is, I suppose, that those who do succeed will not be daunted by reading this! It is absolutely essential that anyone doing affiliate marketing should learn from trusted mentors how to do it, otherwise they will flounder. I’ve been at it just over a year and I’m still learning….
Ros
I agree that affiliate marketing is not an easy business. However, it’s like anything else. If you work smart, you will reach your goals.
I really love the concept of affiliate marketing. It at least gives you chance with little of money.
Totally agree with you that affiliate marketing is not an easy business we tried it and it was not working for us .. Great post thou
Dave, great post! Of the five points, I think numbers 1,2,3,4, and 5 are the best. It’s hard work, costs money, not easy, lots of scam artists etc. I have found a couple of people who seem to know what they are talking about so there may be a few genuine teachers out there who share their knowledge. But, you’re right, definitely not for the feint of heart!
There are a lot of good bloggers out there who can inspire you to develop your own ideas. Darren Rowse, Caroline Middlebrook, Gabriel Goldenberg, Zac Johnson are just a few that spring to mind.
I like Caroline Middlebrook. Her blog is one of my inspirations.
I guess to be able to see all this SO clearly, you too must have been an affiliate for some time. It’s great to hear so honestly from someone else with the “do or die” work ethic.
Make sure you let is all know when you’ve made your first million.
Every great thing actually starts with small beginning. That should be the principle every Affiliate Marketer should establish. Though it’s hard but they have to attain that eagerness to do such thing. Thanks for the post anyway. This will serve as a stepping stone for the future Affiliate Marketer. At least it’s fair enough for them to know that this is really not a simple thing. It’s for them to decide anyway. Lol..Good luck!
Affiliate Marketing is hard work, good point. i’m lazy for hard work, i don’t know why
I am about ready to throw in the towel. No matter how hard I work affiliate marketing never seems to pay off for me.
This is my first visit here and you have already made me think of affiliate marketing in more realistic ways than at other places.
To start earning money with your blog, initially use Google Adsense but gradually as your traffic increases, keep adding more and more money making programs to your site.
Dave,
Entertaining and informative writing! Nice post. When you refer to quitting affiliate marketing, do you mean in the sense of trying to make money with your blog through advertisements or are you involved in other ways in affiliate marketing? As an Adsense alternative, I am trying to make sense of affiliate marketing or other alternatives as a way of earning money through ads on my site. Do you consider Adsense affiliate marketing?
Thanks, Alan
A very interesting thread for someone new to the whole concept of affiliate marketing. I can see the points are generally valid but isn’t making money the secondary effect of getting noticed, or have I missed the point? Would like some feedback? This perspective is from an established business fighting off competion from substancially lesser businessses who have succeded in getting a better profile? Smoke and mirrors spring to mind!
I think the key to having a bit of success with Affiliate Marketing is to target a market that isn’t so saturated. But like everything else, it wouldn’t be easy unless you’ve had some training in whatever it is you don’t know much about yet.
Agree that the internet is flooded with cheats.Affiliating market is hard to survive unless you have great determination.I think I will be glad on SEO that affiliation.
The problem is that most people online seem to be just looking for a quick buck. They believe the BS about getting rich overnight. The truth is that it takes persistence, hard work, and oh yeah, good content. I continue to be amazed by the copycat sites where all they did was change their name.
Those are the best 5 tips I have read about quitting affiliate marketing. I have now second thoughts about this, so thank you for pointing me in the right directions.
Performance-based Search Engine Marketing is what its all about these days. Firms are much more sensitive to spend, so campaigns have to be performing, and that includes landing pages.
This is inspiring information to remind me of what I’m doing in my own online business. I’m on ebay and all these SAME ideas apply. But if something inside you keeps telling you not to quit, then you ought to keep going. Either you’re really going to ride that wave or it’s going to pull you down into the undertow.
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affiliate marketing is so hard to make some money. You definitely have to invest alot of time to make money.
Yes you are right! Itz´s a hard work as affilate marketer, you have to learn a lot of skills and of cours you have to spend some money too, but if you know how and if you do what you have to do you can earn a nice income with affilate marketing!
Thanks for the nice work and go on with this well written blog!