7 Deadly Sins Of Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing concept sounds too simple – You sign up for an affiliate program, the customer comes to your site and makes a purchase and you earn a piece of profit for each sale. If you are not aware about how affiliate marketing works do read the basic guide which I’d written sometime back. 

If you sell affiliate products or drop affiliate links on your blog, you must ensure that you don’t make any mistakes doing them. This post will reveal the most common mistakes in affiliate marketing which you should avoid.

SEVEN DEADLY SINS OF AFFILIATE MARKETING 

Below I have listed seven deadly sins that can smash an otherwise quality affiliate program.

1. Promoting products that you have never used.

It is wise to recommend only those products to your audience which you have used. In affiliate marketing your task is to only get customers to buy other’s products and if there is a fault in the product by any means, you are nowhere responsible. But you need to endorse or promote only those products which you have used and you trust.

This will build your reputation as a marketer and would help you to sell even more products.

2. Not being responsible enough to promote the product.

If you are promoting the product then don’t just add link anywhere or display banners. Go beyond this and describe the product. If you have used the product yourself you will know about it in detail. Provide a short intro of the product so that your visitors can know something about it before they actually click on it.

This approach can also tempt your readers to click the link or banner because you talked about it. Ultimately its your blog and they read it because they trust you. If you recommend the product and mention a few lines about it, it can generate good clicks.

3. Writing posts just to promote the product.

If you are writing posts just to promote the products or drop links within, you are marketing the wrong way. You don’t have to make the post sound exclusively dedicated for promotion. Chances are no one will even care to read it.

Include the links and product description within a post which truly is informative and provides some value. Posts that are written for the sole purpose of promotion appear to be fishy.

Some marketers might think by writing dedicated posts for the products they are increasing the chances of sales but they are mistaken!

4. Sounding like a sales person.

I know no one is going to buy from you if you failed to highlight the product. But don’t get too focused on the sales that you end up sounding too pushy.

You don’t just need to push the products on people rather you need to learn about them, help them with your knowledge and product, and build a trust. Only then someone would ever buy from you!

5. Having ugly offers and Call-To-Action.

Competition is very high so it is extremely important to come up with fresh and unconventional offers and CTA’s. The offers and Call-to-action must really offer value to your customers if you want to stand out from the crowd.

6. Compromising on content.

Poorly written copy or content is not going to appeal to your customers. If you can’t write quality content yourself, hire best writers and place the affiliate links and banners strategically. It is you, who will need to find out what will work and what will not.

7. Promoting products to the wrong audience.

This is the biggest mistake an affiliate can ever make. Make sure you sign up for programs that come under your niche so that it will be easy for you to market them.

No matter how tempting the affiliate offer might be, never ever try to sell something which has nothing to do with your niche.

Over to you! 

These were top seven mistakes to avoid in affiliate marketing. Have more to add to the list? Do leave your thoughts in the comments below.