I hate to talk about affiliate campaign failures but we have to go over this since it happens to everyone. I’m not just talking about when traffic doesn’t give you leads I’m talking about problems on your side too.
#1 ) 404 pages aka paid search donations!
The biggest failure I have seen with affiliate marketing is when the affiliate gets too excited with ad copy and redirecting pages, that they neglect to do one thing. Check the link!!! There is nothing that you can do wrong that is worst then this. You are trying to make profit and you see that you just spent $100 worth of keywords and you wonder why didn’t I make a sale or lead. DUH!!.. So how do I prevent this? Take 5 seconds of your precious time and copy paste your URL.
#2) Offer Expired
This doesn’t usually happen but still good to be aware. You usually get a warning from the affiliate network that the offer is about to shut down. The worst you can do is check your landing page and you think its function properly. Then you find out that when the offer is clicked, it goes to a whole new redirected offer that has nothing to do with you keyword and landing page.
#3) Non Converting Keywords
In order to find this one out you would have to first test out the offer. It takes a while to figure it out if the keyword isn’t searched as much. This is why I always always always i mean always watch the campaign closely within the first 24 hours after the offer is submitted and approved. I usually watch it in the first 6 hours. If I see a keyword is repeatedly clicked and you get charged with no leads after 15clicks or over 150% of the total lead then I remove it ASAP. Hint : Try bidding on the term “free ringtones”. If your campaign isn’t being searched then I usually do a 3 day watch.
#4 Keyword Tracking
Please use tracking. I learned my lesson with this. When I first started I usually test a directlink first then I add tracking. Do not do this and it’s a bad habit. You are already losing ROI (return on investment ) when the offer runs. You might get lucky with the first few keywords and you don’t know which keyword made you the revenue. Keyword tracking can take a while to set up but its worth the extra few mins or even an hour.
#5 Competition, Saturation, & Marginal Revenue.
If you are just randomly reading different blogs and everyone seems to point to an offer such as “ringtones” most likely it is saturated with competition and you won’t earn much. Don’t get me wrong but if you are a newbie, then it is hard to jump in with all the big boys. My first offer to actually promote was ringtones. I learned a lot and I broke even all the time even though I had a good collection of keywords. However people were endlessly changing their bids to be #1. Ringtones was one of the most well watched campaigns in the affiliate marketing in the past. People were constantly changing their landing page and updating every little detail 24/7. It was a high maintenance campaign. However if you were the small percentage that knew how to be on top of the competition then you were making a profit.
#6 Demand Down the Drain
Yep.. virtual markets are the exact same thing as a real life physical item. There are supply and demand in affiliate marketing. You can run an offer and within a week your profits fall rock bottom. Some offers are seasonal which makes it hard to promote without knowning the time frame. You would not run an offer that gives out free Christmas cards in the middle of June. In contrast, you would also not run a free sandals and short offer in the winter. The only way to know which to run is by using your common sense.
#7 Keep your Mouth Shut
Don’t tell another affiliate an offer that you are running. Don’t blog about an offer you are currently running. Why? Check #5. Unless you are in close contact with that person like a business partner then it is ok. But don’t tell people even if they call you names! As you can see us affiliate blogs, are not blogging about the present. We are always blogging a few months if not a year ahead of the experience you learn. I would not post the campaigns I’m running. Simple because you can be an enemy.
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