Mistakes made by affiliate marketers

[h1c]

Hi,

What if we build a list of mistakes to avoid for beginners and also for advanced affilaite marketers..

So what mistakes have you made in affiliate marketing ?

PS: If there are many replies, we can gather these mistakes in a single post (to be updated as long as there are more)

 

[savs]

My Two cents as I m also following the newbie journey after, 20 years of coding exp.
1.Refreshing the tracker every 2 minutes to check for conversions

2.Not running the campaign long enough to real test it's potential & decide it's done and dusted

3. Not reading entire @Luke guide with detailed instruction "Read Through this"

4.Expecting CPA marketing is fun to wrok with & needs no time , it needs full dedication and count every penny you spend.

 

[machetecoin]

1.Refreshing the tracker every 2 minutes to check for conversions

Oh man am I guilty of this. As with any behavior modification, it's good to think of alternative behaviors to replace the bad behavior. I have to remind myself that spying on landing pages, learning to code my own landing pages, working on copy and angle ideas, gathering images/icons to be used, and studying FAs are much more productive behaviors.

 

[imskater]

Not tracking the cash flow

It's important to ensure a campaign could be run sustainably (not pausing a campaign as to await for the payout). Therefore, all factors such as refund rate, allowance rate, profits/loss and payout period need to be incorporated. Leverage could also be considered such using credit card etc, but only for a profitable campaign. If money is the problem right from the start, then start saving (by having a job etc).

 

[rayzor]

Here is one. While waiting for a campaign review, don’t start it immediately if it is new and/or you modified the minimum bid! More than a couple of times I saw my budget depleted a couple of hours later because I missed a zero in my bid!

 

[Luke]

Loving this thread so far. This is something I discussed in my webinar with Voluum this week so once the replay for that is up I recommend you check it out.

Also, Zeropark posted this list and it’s pretty relevant

Why Are My Affiliate Marketing Campaigns Failing? Here Are the Top 5 Beginner Mistakes.

Learn about the 5 most common affiliate marketing beginner mistakes and how to fix them.

afflift.com

 

[caleb]

Testing four or five offers and calling it quits. You need to test a lot more offers.

 

[rayzor]

Testing four or five offers and calling it quits. You need to test a lot more offers.

When do you consider a geo is a waste of your time and call it quits? Example... I am testing Egypt and Malaysian traffic. They are dirt cheap (I guess for a reason). I ran a dozen top offers on Monetizer and even resorted to smartlinks and I can not get a single conversion! It is so odd.. I have tried some more expensive geos and they convert so much more easily. The funny thing is that on Monetizer, the offers say they convert at better than 1/100.

 

[jimmyvanilla]

I wrote a post about a month ago that talked about some mistakes we all make (and some of the reasons we make them):

Overcoming Fear and Greed in Affiliate Marketing

afflift.com

The 'moral' of that post is that I think it's a mistake to try to succeed in this business without a solid plan and commitment to a rational strategy.

But let me just put something else out there for the philosophical minded...

I think that trying too hard to avoid mistakes is a mistake. There never has been and never will be a clear-cut forumla for success in this business, so you need to go on a journey of discovery and find 'what works for you'. Being afraid of making mistakes will stifle your confidence and progress on this journey. Of course, you need to learn from your mistakes - making the same error again and again is a problem. But if I'm ever in doubt about whether a campaign I want ro run is going to be successful or not, I'd prefer to run it and see what happens. This often reveals the fact that I've made some mistakes and this is awesome because now I can tweak my processes and try not to make the same mistakes again next time.

I reckon you'll enjoy this video:

 

[h1c]

"It's good to learn from their mistakes, but it's better to learn from others mistakes."

There are many topics talking about mistakes to avoid. Maybe, it would be of use to compile these posts in a single one (with keeping sources/references).

 

[Dereck]

Start with one single landing page - it is better to have several options so that you can make a split test and understand which one is better. Otherwise, you can decide that the offer is bad, but it won't be about the offer.

Take creatives made by other people without changing anything - it is better to add uniqueness to them, because the same creative can convert well and become familiar to the audience and they will not react to it again.

 

[h1c]

Here are some posts talking about AM mistakes :

5 Mistakes You Need To Avoid While Optimizing Your Campaigns [VIDEO]
From newbie mistakes to $$$$ campaigns: Voluum Push notifications
[WEBINAR]: TOP 7 Mistakes that are Killing your Push Notification сampaigns

 

[servandosilva]

This thread is going to be super useful and we can all laugh about it later

- Messed up the bids and spent all of my money (e.g. bid 0.4 instead of 0.004). Instant dead.
- Messed up daily budgets (e.g. $4,000 instead of $400). Instant dead as well haha.
- Paused campaigns too early and then had to come again and re launch them to have enough data to optimize.
- Paused campaigns too late, when they had no possibility from the beginning.
- Copying filters without realizing I'm redirecting all of my good traffic to a SmartLink or broken page.
- Not setting caps
- Depositing money without using it and later realize the network has closed.
- Not adding my payment details and realizing you have a few hundreds or thousands in a network that hasn't paid you


I'll think of a few more later but this is going to be fun!

 

[arif]

Messed up the bids and spent all of my money (e.g. bid 0.4 instead of 0.004). Instant dead.

I still do this - did it last month and I died. Not just once but twice in 1 month in a high volume geo.

 

[nitin]

Will talk mostly about Mindset failures:

-Not focussing on a traffic source that can be scaled big.
-Thinking i'd hit my first 4 figs campaign in just few months of starting affiliate marketing.
-Thinking I could make a lot of money with little money (i did not think about cash-flow).
-Not networking with fellow affiliates.
-Not forming a close mastermind with 1-2 people where we would share every single detail (and trust each other) and crack stuff together (thinking i could do all alone).

Might add more later.

 

[TopOffers]

Awesome thread

 

[sushiparlour]

A lot of the stuff here is relevant but some are honestly unavoidable (like setting the wrong bids by accident, I think to this day we still have that issue from time to time). However so far I like this post the most:

Will talk mostly about Mindset failures:

-Not focussing on a traffic source that can be scaled big.
-Thinking i'd hit my first 4 figs campaign in just few months of starting affiliate marketing.
-Thinking I could make a lot of money with little money (i did not think about cash-flow).
-Not networking with fellow affiliates.
-Not forming a close mastermind with 1-2 people where we would share every single detail (and trust each other) and crack stuff together (thinking i could do all alone).

Might add more later.

Most of the "mistakes" I'm seeing these days especially when training VA/interns is that most of it is expectation and mindset. Affiliate is not easy at all and all the success stories you hear are the filtered success of the 90% that has failed.

Mistakes I've definitely made and hear a lot about:

• Shiny object syndrome - Don't try to test every single idea you hear about/come across. Many ideas in affiliate can work and are ever green but you need the "expertise" edge to make it work. So just stick with a few things at most.
• Giving up too early - I started affiliate many years ago but gave up for a while. If I stayed with it since then probably doing much better than I am now. (I mean Facebook use to let me run the shittiest looking ads). Also I think success in this space is usually exponential (you start of doing like single digit days consistently but before you know it, you'll hit $xxx/day since you just "figured it out").
• Not working hard enough - People seem to think putting in 1 hour of work a day will get you to making $xxx/day. Fact is due to low barrier to entry for affiliate, your competition is also the guys that are working 8 hours+ a day or have a team. So hard to see you beating them with minimal work no matter how clever you are (or maybe I'm not big brain enough to compensate so I'll go with hard work).

Honestly the above is probably applicable to 99% of all industry/crafts you want to make $$$ in.

 

[ArielleT]

Here are the mistakes I made as an affiliate myself and also what affiliates make from a perspective as an affiliate manager at my job.

As a beginner affiliate myself:

• Direct linking. I made this mistake during beginner days. Always having a landing page with you and A/B test landing pages vs. direct linking. 9 times out of 10 having a landing page will help you.
• Rushing to get a campaign live.

As an advanced affiliate myself:

• Not keeping track of billing/accounting. This situation was a recent one. One of the direct advertisers I was sending traffic to on their sweepstakes offers. The affiliate manager never responded back to me. There are going to be days where you're on your own without someone assisting you. If I were to go back, I would have answered these important questions.
  • "What are your payment terms? What payment methods do you accept"
  • What's the click flow, when does the click get converted on?
• Not having a team. Another recent one. Being a solo media buyer is great but once you are managing 20+ campaigns it starts to get tough. Last week I was struggling to get Auto Insurance, Crypto/Forex, Concealed Gun Carry, and iOS/Andriod offers live. There are traffic networks that already have optimization automation ability (Zeropark, EvaDav, Pushground, PropellerAds). I also recommend using the following software and tools to help you.
  • Voluum Automizer or TheOptimizer. This software allows you to automate campaigns such as blacklisting placements, pausing campaign after test budget, increasing bids on certain placement.
  • Fiverr. Great place to hire virtual assistants, graphic designers, web designers.
• Not developing a media buying plan. I think this is the most most most important one ever. Plan your attack here's an example funnel plan for a health insurance pay per call campaign. Which also gives me my 2nd tips, Always monetize where ever you go.
  

As an affiliate manager:

• Affiliates Annoying the affiliate manager. It's extremely rude. Sometimes I get text messages at 3 AM EST in the morning.
• Affiliates stalking people. Yes, some affiliate managers look attractive for sure, but it doesn't mean you add me on Instagram and stare at my headshot photos, try to find my real phone number.
• Affiliates Not being honest. I caught a ton of affiliates sending traffic from sources they weren't allowed to use. This is especially true in the pay per call space where an affiliate said he wanted to send traffic through google call-only ads. After 3 hours I already caught him sending call center traffic. Even worst this affiliate was sending fraudulent mystery shopper calls. Be honest with us 100%, ask us if you want to send traffic through an unknown source.

Edit: I got more stuff to add my friend is rushing me to go to a restaurant lol.

 

[ADxAD]

above all said. I recon that one of the biggest mistakes is not being into the topic. I've met so much people who didn't know what is s2s integration, API key, token, macro, test conversions, pixel firing etc. And moreover, they tried to persuade me in doing it all wrong ... It would be way more easy and efficient if all beginners could just read basic rules and basic terms first, then go to affiliate forums, like Afflift of course, then jump into the biz with respect to their more experienced partners. Because even if you didn't get smth from the 1st shot, you can always ask politely for help and explanation. I do respect those who ask, not push

 

[Tyoussef]

my biggest mistake is not focusing enough.
and that applies lot at verticals and traffic types