Affiliate marketing is a compelling means to make money online. Despite proving to be an incredible source of income for over a decade, it still is not comprehensible for newbies.
Consequently, they fail and give up. What are the possible causes of failures? What do affiliate marketers struggle with?
People typically fail in affiliate marketing because there are many challenges associated with it. What are the affiliate marketing problems and challenges, and how can one overcome these challenges?
This guide will address some of the prevalent challenges of affiliate marketing with their solutions. Let us get started and address such challenges one by one.
Q. What makes a good affiliate partner? How to choose one?
See, it is okay to be on your own, but how long can this help you survive in the business? So, why not consider collaborating with another individual or a brand, and form a partnership of some sort.
Now, finding the right partners is one of the top-most affiliate marketing challenges. But, before we give you the right way to overcome this challenge, you need to understand why is it so vital for you to have an affiliate partner?
Your affiliate partner is not your regular marketer. They are exquisitely hired to assist you in publicizing your brand and share the insights with you to help you understand how their efforts are beneficial for you.
However, as it is a collaboration, they want you to put in the same effort for their brand. Thus, looking for an affiliate partner from a related niche or market is always recommended. They will share congenial thoughts and have the same goals as you.
Hence, it can prove to be incredibly beneficial for you. A well-planned and thought-out collaboration will provide you access to your partner’s customer base and vice versa for them. Consequently, both of your presence in the market can elevate.
Now, how to find such a partner? To tackle this one of the key affiliate marketing challenges, you must look for individuals or brands who are the right match for your business.
Before you get anyone on board, consider how this partnership can help you achieve your individualistic goals. On the contrary, regardless of how massive their following is, it will be challenging for you to build a profitable partnership with you if the two of you have nothing in common.
So, it is okay to settle with a small-time influencer from a similar niche. Do not rush into things, be patient, and you can find your right match.
Q. What niche should I pick for affiliate marketing?
Another one of the most prevalent challenges of affiliate marketing is the inability to decide on the niche that best works for you. Regardless of how good a copywriter or a salesperson you may be, the regret will be painful if you make a mistake in niche selection.
So, if you intend to make affiliate marketing your profession, you have to be very careful, as this is indeed one of the most significant affiliate marketing problems.
The idea is to pick a niche, which is profitable and something that interests you. Typically, an affiliate marketer tends to give up after a year or two into the business because
- they do not select a niche that interests them
- their chosen niche does not earn them enough money.
So, before selecting the niche, do adequate research and do not jump into anything that everyone else is doing.
Q. How can I get more traffic & sales in affiliate marketing?
When someone says, ‘I want to get into affiliate marketing as my primary profession,’ our biggest question to them is, ‘how will you get traffic on your website?’
Yes, getting traffic on your affiliate marketing website is one of the biggest affiliate marketing problems, but the problem does not end here. Another one of the key challenges of affiliate marketing is linked to it.
You need ‘qualified’ traffic coming to your website. What does it mean to have qualified traffic? It implies that the visitors who visit your website are indeed your potential customers. They want what you offer or nudge them into believing that your product or service is what they need.
So, where can you get this traffic? Of course, the search engine is the most obvious choice. So, naturally, you need to have a solid SEO to ensure that your website or affiliate platform ranks somewhere at the top when the potential customers search for something you are offering.
Hence, start optimizing the page and score a good ranking on search engines. Always remember, it is quality over quantity. The people you target should precisely be the ones who need what you offer. This may mean fewer visitors but greater conversions, resulting in higher sales and better commission.
In addition to search engines, there are other traffic sources to help you overcome this one of the most significant affiliate marketing challenges. These include:
- Off-site content marketing
- Niche communities
- Guest blogging
- Social media
- Advertising
You can blog on your website or publish your content in other places, such as HubSpot, Squidoo, Wikis, etc.
Q. How to understand the affiliate code?
One of the biggest affiliate marketing challenges for newbies with little to no technical knowledge is their confusion with the codes.
The affiliate networks have indeed tried their best to help you with this one of the most uncomfortable affiliate marketing problems, but there are HTML codes, which can be challenging to deal with, especially if you wish to make changes in the code.
However, you can find the documentation to make changes and overcome this problem.
Q. Do you need content to do affiliate marketing?
When we were doing market research on – ‘What do affiliate marketers struggle with,’ a universal answer that we found was creating content. This is a deceptive practice and needs time and effort.
In addition to good writing skills, you must also have the ability to engage customers, and unfortunately, not everyone is well equipped to do that.
So, if you find this to be one of the biggest affiliate marketing challenges, you can hire a content creator. Some freelancers can help you create top-quality content on a budget.
Q. What is a good commission rate for affiliate marketing?
This is one of the biggest affiliate marketing problems because you need to assess, would the buyer prefer to buy without going through an affiliate?
In all honesty, this is not very hard to determine. So, look at the product’s price, and then decide on the number, which seems fair to both of you. For example, it could be $5 per click or 10 percent on every sale. The right way to decide on the price is to get a sense of your audience.
If the audience is vastly different, you can fix a high affiliate rate, as it is bringing a cold audience that has never engaged with your content before.
Q. How to increase your affiliate sales?
This is indeed one of the self-explanatory affiliate marketing challenges. As a matter of fact, it is one of the affiliate marketing problems, which can have the maximum impact on you. See, if you do not make adequate sales, you will earn little.
If you do not make sufficient money, would you be motivated to continue? Unfortunately, so many affiliate marketers never make it beyond poor sales. This is why they give up and leave the market.
It is because the problem is quite deep-rooted. Your sales might be low because of the low conversion rate or poor-quality traffic. If you fail to identify the problem, you will be forever stuck in the loop.
So, to overcome one of the most significant challenges of affiliate marketing, you need to understand the root of the problem. Identify whether there is ample traffic but little conversion or low traffic on the website?
To assess this, check your dashboard and analytics to get an idea of your traffic. If there is low traffic, try to tackle it. If the conversion rate is low, you need to drive more targeted traffic to your website.
Q. How to keep your program shielded from the fraudsters?
There is burgeoning popularity of affiliate marketers. Unfortunately, this has also resulted in an increasing number of people using illegal means to earn more commission. So, one of the most severe challenges of affiliate marketing is keeping these fraudsters away from your program.
Unfortunately, there is another to this one of the biggest affiliate marketing problems, that is, the fraudsters employ an array of fraudulent methods to earn clicks. This includes using bots to drive traffic, registrations and clicks to steal content from other marketers to redirect the traffic to other websites.
So, what should you do to over this problem?
Today, several platforms come with in-built tools that guard you against these fraudulent attempts and scammers. When you have these tools handy, it is easy for you to detect any suspicious activity and take actions to guard your platform against them.
Q. The Under-selling or Over-selling Debate!
Another one of the affiliate marketing challenges that you may experience is coming on too strongly to sell a product. In this attempt, you might end up sending across spammy emails or pinning the affiliate links on every end of your website.
In contrast, you must avoid the flip side of the situation too. Do not be too passive about writing excellent content or making sales with an attitude that people will buy if they wish to.
To overcome this, one of the leading affiliate marketing problems is by striking a balance between these two situations.
Q. Is there a guarantee to succeed in affiliate marketing?
The last one on our list for the affiliate marketing challenges is that there is a significant degree of risk involved. Every pay-per-performance is risky. So, your life as an affiliate might not be easy, and you might not earn significant revenue right away. Unfortunately, there is no way to tackle this problem. Be patient, and keep at it. If you take the proper measures, you will indeed find your way.
Related: Affliate Marketing Books, Learn to Do Affiliate Marketing Online
