Pitfalls in Affiliate Marketing
Money made out of thin air can be hard to grab a hold of.
Fact is, when it comes to paid traffic, there are lots of diverging paths, most of them leading to a complete annihilation of the initial campaign budget. Free trackers are littered with abandoned accounts of potential marketers whose first step was onto an industry landmine.
Still, looking at the issues affiliates come across most often, you will notice several common thinking patterns that lead to mistakes, which sometimes turn out career-ending. Without further ado, here are some of the prevalent slips affiliates tend to make in their strategy:
Going All-In Too Fast
This one could fall into general life advice, but it still perfectly applies to most affiliates’ monetization efforts, save for the guys at the very top.
Here it is:
This is a dynamic business and there’s a good chance you don’t really want to throw all of your assets into something you can’t sustain to financially supply further down the road. This will cause pressure, that could seriously mess with your concentration and decision-making.
There simply are cheaper ways to get your shot of adrenaline rather than throwing dice with affiliate marketing. Play the long game. 
Overlooking Equipment
Your toolkit defines the range of your performance.
Some of the publicly available tools can vastly contribute to your productivity, automating routine tasks and simplifying your workflow, so it makes every bit of sense to invest some of your operating costs into a tracking software upgrade or an analytics platform account.
Speaking of analytics, some of the useful data comes pre-packaged in the form of guides and case studies on affiliate marketing forums, so buying a few memberships should definitely be a point of consideration. Two heads are better than one after all.
Entering the market armed only with enthusiasm is a common reason why many affiliate marketers fail to break even.
Running Ahead of Your Own Game
What actually does pay back in our business is a good sense of patience.
Jumping the gun will only make it jam and that’s not exactly the click anyone wants to hear. High-payout offers with difficult flows are tempting to take a shot at, but as the reward grows, the risk grows with it. Same thing applies to saturated and competitive geos..
Carefully pick your battles and you might actually find a goldmine where nobody has looked before. It’s a dynamic business, after all. 
Underestimating The Power Of Community
Networking is the fastest way to get relevant information from the community, and if it’s not on your agenda you are clearly missing out.
Online forums, conferences and meetups will give you the insight and understanding of the industry’s inner workings that you wouldn’t have found elsewhere. Finally, it gives you the momentum to act, and maybe even partners to rely on when challenges arrive.
AM is a tough road to travel, and an army-of-one approach is simply not cutting it in most cases. Collaboration, on the other hand, works wonders for managing paid campaigns, so try to socialize more!
Looking For Shortcuts
A lot of affiliates tend to underestimate the importance of effort and diligence, instead looking for a quick scheme to cash out and forget about.
People who optimize their daily routine, collect extensive data and make decisions based on it are way likelier to turn a profit, opposed to those relying on someone else to hand over the klondike.
Note: sometimes an agency or a traffic source will simply turn out a scam, so do your research upfront to avoid any regret afterwards!
Spreading Out Too Thin
If we were to measure cats by their swimming abilities, this would not be a very well-off species.
Finding where your skillset fits better is essential as it will bolster your growth and simplify the whole process up to a point where you might actually enjoy it, including the hard parts. There’s a lot of options to try before something clicks. Run same offers with different traffic sources. Which of your creatives perform better on a greater scale? In-house or outsource?
This type of questions, backed by optimal amount of testing enables you to create your own “style” and when that’s established – the rest falls into place. 
IS IT WORTH THE TRY?
Affiliate marketing is a tough job with a whole lot of negative aspects to it and quite a low success rate, so if in doubt – better hold it right there.
On the other hand, when you are mindful and firm, ready to go handle the adversity, do your research, and give it time – paid traffic advertising gives back graciously. Remember that choices and habits factor success. If it ain’t broke – don’t fix it, otherwise – analyse, change things around and optimize. Often, it takes a simple tweak to fix a major problem. The challenge is to find the right one.
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