10 Affiliate Marketing Lessons I wish I knew 10 Years Ago

Affiliate marketing is an excellent Internet money-making business; It has changed the lives of many online entrepreneurs for the better. From zero to millions in affiliate commission, it has helped many live their dreams. 

They are going on vacation, living in palatable country homes, buying luxury cars, helping those in need, investing in multimillion-dollar businesses, etc. This business model is worth all the effort and investment.

But, as profitable as it is, affiliate marketing is more challenging than it sounds. Doing it for over a decade, I have seen the ups and downs of an affiliate marketer’s life, the struggles, the wins, and the heartbreaking stories. 

Today, I am sharing with you ten affiliate marketing lessons I learned the hard and easy way. You will benefit from reading the diary of an affiliate marketer. 

1. Don’t Focus on Selling

If you focus on selling the affiliate products, you’ve already lost the customers. 

Nobody wants to be sold; they want to be told. Your job as an affiliate marketer is to educate a potential buyer on why the products/services can be of good value for money. 

Your content should help a buyer learn more about the advantages and disadvantages of the product. It should share more information about why product A is better than product B and why A might be the better option based on XXX’s reasons. 

You should also tell why product B could be an option, maybe regarding the buyer’s budget, needs, or experience. These are just examples; there are many reasons why subpar products might be the better option. 

At the beginning of my affiliate marketing journey, I focused on selling the products. My review always focuses on singing praises of the affiliate products because I’m more concerned about the commission than helping a buyer make the right decision. 

This strategy led to no sales, no commission, and no payment. 

I struggled with this for a few years before I realized that I was not helping people; I wanted to trick them into buying to get a commission.  

2. Build Trust and Authority.

Trust and industry authority play crucial roles in affiliate conversion rates. 

The more your readers trust your recommendations, advice, and tips, the more they will be willing to click on your affiliate links. 

Here is a typical scenario: imagine Neil Patel recommends an SEO tool, and Justin Bieber (the Singer) recommends another one. Which SEO tool will you purchase based on the influencer recommending it? 

Of course, the one recommended by Neil Patel is because he is a known figure in the digital marketing space. He runs a digital marketing agency, blogs about SEO, does SEO, and teaches it. 

His advice on SEO and marketing is more trustworthy than that of Justin, who promotes the tool by chance or partnership with the SEO tool developer. 

Focus on building trust and expertise in your industry to make more affiliate marketing sales. It will help increase your chances of making consistent affiliate revenue in the long run. 

3. Pay Attention to Your Affiliate Dashboard

Monitoring your affiliate account activities is crucial to your success as an affiliate marketer. If you suspect something is wrong, the best thing to do is to contact your affiliate manager. 

Affiliate managers are there to assist you, help you succeed, and ensure the dignity and safety of their affiliate program, above all things.

I once actively promoted an affiliate product that paid well at the time. However, I noticed an inconsistency in the tracking links at one point compared to several weeks or months back, based on the traffic to relevant pages on the blog promoting the affiliate product. 

So, this makes me curious as to why there is a sudden low conversion rate and fewer clicks on the affiliate links. 

I decided to test the affiliate links. I open another browser on a different computer, open the page, and click on the affiliate links using two different email IDs to sign up for a free account.

To my surprise, while the account was created, it was not recorded in the affiliate dashboard. There was no record of these leads in my affiliate dashboard. That was when I realized the links had stopped working. 

I emailed the affiliate program manager, but there was no response after several attempts. So, I decided to reach out via their official Twitter account. Luckily, I was able to get someone to respond to my DM.

Here is their reply…

While that was pretty good and assured, I lost the seal and energy, prompting the affiliate products further. Transparency, trust, and accurate analytics are crucial to an online business like affiliate marketing campaigns. 

Promoting an affiliate product to make sales takes lots of effort and resources; any slight sense of inaccuracy or transparency in analytics could lead to affiliate demoralization and a loss of interest in the program.

I hope you learned something of great value from this section. 

4. Join Reliable Affiliate Programs

There are thousands of affiliate programs, but from experience, not every program is rewarding and worth the time and effort. 

You must put your time, resources, and efforts into a program that maximizes your potential to generate regular, high affiliate incomes. Programs that support their affiliate to succeed usually pay on time and have a reliable affiliate tracking system. 

If you need a list to get you started, I have compiled reputable programs in several posts:

I have signed up for numerous affiliate partnerships, some of which have been fantastic, while many weren’t worth checking or putting in too much effort or time. 

Before joining an affiliate program, ensure it aligns with your industry topics, that there are several relevant affiliate products, and that you check the payout methods, structure, and affiliate terms and conditions. 

A good rule is to check if the affiliate programs have a preset payout schedule. 

For example, some affiliate programs release affiliate commissions on a specific date every month. Shareasale, for instance, makes payouts on the 20th of each month. You will receive the commission earned in the previous month for sales past the locked period on the 20th. 

I have had affiliate programs that don’t have a set date, but in a particular week of the month. The Astra affiliate program makes payouts in the third week of each month for sales older than 45 days. 

You need to consider these things when joining an affiliate program. Minor things like this may generate arguments or payout disputes in the future. 

However, affiliate programs with preset payout dates are more reliable and give more confidence. The payments are automatically released on schedule per your payment details on file. 

In other affiliate programs that don’t have a specific payout date, I have had to contact them a few times to arrange my payment. 

5. The Money is Not Yours Until it is paid.

This is one of the affiliate marketing lessons I learned the hard way. When I encountered this, I lost concentration in my marketing. 

You see, it’s a good feeling when you see sales notifications like this: 

But these commissions are not yet yours until the payout date, when this money is released to your bank account. 

Each affiliate program has a refund policy and terms and conditions governing the affiliate and the program. A refund or money-back guarantee is one policy you should be aware of. 

Customers may return the products and request a refund, voiding their affiliate commission. 

I have had 17 transactions reversed since I joined the Shareasale affiliate network. The last reversal happened on the payout date, leaving me speechless and confused about why affiliate sales would be reversed on the supposed payout date. 

As you can see, the commission is only yours once it is paid. So don’t count your chickens before the eggs are hatched. 

6. Analyze Performance Data

The program you joined can make or break your marketing efforts. If you’re promoting low-quality affiliate products, your marketing efforts won’t yield better results.

Regardless of your efforts and affiliate strategies, you will need help to make sales. Studying the affiliate program performance data becomes essential to ensure you’re promoting the right products. 

Affiliate network programs have performance data on every product or service in their network. These details help determine if an affiliate program is worth the time, effort, and investment. 

If you look at Shareasale or Impact affiliate networks, they have data that will help you analyze program performance data. You can get insights into a program’s payout history, approval level, cookie length, conversion rate, average sale per order, EPC (earnings per click), etc.

Here is the Heart Display affiliate program on Shareasale. 

First, the Heart Display affiliate program is in the Shareasale top 100 Power Rank, has an average ECP of $1,096.62, and converts well on mobile and desktop traffic (20.27% conversion rate). But, wait, you may have to wait for 240 days to receive your payout (extended lock period).

In comparison, the Cloudways affiliate program is on the 1,000+ power rank, with 90.17% conversion on desktop traffic, 45 45-day extended lock period, a 3.26% conversion rate, and an average ECP of $49.40. 

Suppose you’re choosing between these affiliate programs; you must weigh your options – expected commission payout time, marketing strategies, audience type, and traffic source. 

One converts well on both devices, while the other focuses more on desktop users. This tells us that Cloudway users might be business people and advanced online users, not regular internet users. 

Though the Heart Display affiliate program converts better and, by all indications, it is a better affiliate program, the extended 240-day lock period is something to consider. 

As an affiliate marketer, you must read, analyze, and understand this data to make the best out of your affiliate marketing campaigns. It will help you build up your expectations and marketing strategies.

7. Review Affiliate Program TOS

This is a crucial affiliate marketing lesson to take seriously; otherwise, you will get kicked out of the program.

Affiliate programs have strict policies against PPC advertising, fraudulent traffic sources, self-referrals, etc. You should read the affiliate program terms and conditions carefully before promoting the program.m

If you run pay-per-click advertising to promote your affiliate offers, ensure you’re not bidding on the merchant-branded keywords. Also, don’t send traffic directly from your paid promotion to the affiliate product landing page to be safer.

Instead, create blog posts about the products or services and write detailed reviews or product comparison lists. Then, run your campaign to drive traffic to the post. 

Note: The post headline and URL should not contain the merchant-branded keyword or name. The post URL and title should be neutral, not directly at a particular brand.

For example, I could write about 10 WordPress cache plugins in 2024. In the post, I have WP Rocket listed. Such a headline does not violate merchant policy because I didn’t mention any variations of WP Rocket in the URL or post title. 

Most affiliate programs have a system that checks brand mentions online, especially in search engine marketing. I had my WP Engine affiliate account suspended once due to running PPC advertising unintentionally targeting WP Engine trademark search terms.

Though I was starting with pay-per-click marketing, I knew very little about keyword targeting and negative keyword setup at the time. I was doing things to the best of my knowledge and learning. 

You’re lucky to have read this article today because you may not be lucky enough to get a second chance from your affiliate manager. After removing the trademark search terms from my ad campaign, I was fortunate to be reinstated into the affiliate program. 

8. Build a Niche or Focus Blog.

You will increase your chances of being accepted into an affiliate program if you have a focused blog that aligns with the program’s target audience. 

Also, having a focused affiliate niche blog increases your chances of driving the right traffic. You will attract the right audience, who are responsive to your offer. 

Most affiliate managers will be eager to have you on board if they know you’re a good fit for their program because your success is their success. If you succeed as an affiliate marketer, the product owner is also succeeding.  

Again, I have had several affiliate program applications turned down because my blog topic is not focused on the program’s target audience.

Another one….

Even though the disapproval might be because of several reasons, content mismatch is always on the list. Building a niche site focusing on narrow topics is an ideal strategy if you want to succeed sooner in affiliate marketing rather than wait longer. 

Here is how to start a niche blog that helps you build your affiliate marketing business in six steps.

9. Invest in Paid Marketing

It isn’t easy to build a six or even four-figure-income affiliate marketing blog relying solely on free traffic sources. It is doable, but you may need to wait longer for that to happen. 

Affiliate marketing is not a hobby; it is a business that requires your utmost attention and investment. The more effort, resources, and investment you put in, the higher your chances of success are. 

At the beginning of your affiliate marketing career, learning the terrain with free traffic sources is good. You will learn many tactics and build effective strategies along the way.

However, as you get more confident and understand what you’re doing, I suggest you try paid marketing channels such as pay-per-click search engine marketing and paid advertising on social media. 

This will help you scale marketing efforts, drive more targeted traffic, and generate more qualified sales. Still, you must be careful running paid ads; losing a fortune and getting nothing in return is easy. 

Start with a limited budget, an amount within the range you’re comfortable losing. 

This is because PPC, like affiliate marketing, has its learning phase. You need time to understand how PPC works, what campaign setting brings better ROI, the proper advertising channels, the target audience, etc. 

By combining organic traffic channels with PPC marketing, you can have solid traffic sources that help build and scale your business. 

If you need more information on how to run effective PPC for affiliate marketing, check this post on the Affiliorama blog. 

10. In-House or Networks? Choose Wisely

I have better experience with affiliate networks than in-house affiliate programs run by individual merchants. A consistent, regular payment schedule is often a problem for in-house affiliate programs; this is based on personal experience with the in-house partnership programs I have worked with. 

It is either that I need to reach out requesting payouts, or there will be a delay in receiving the payment, even after getting a notification that the payment has been released. 

Another thing I noticed is that it is easier and more convenient to review several of your affiliate programs in one dashboard than to do the same individually. If you’re not keeping a record of the in-house program you’ve signed up for using a centralized account to manage your affiliate business, it is easier to forget to log in to your account for a long time. 

Additionally, you will reach the payout threshold quickly compared to in-house affiliate programs. Also, many in-house programs offer limited payout methods, mostly PayPal only.

In comparison, affiliate network programs usually offer several options to receive affiliate payments – PayPal, Payoneer, ACH, Wire Transfer, Check, Direct Deposit, etc. 

If it comes to choosing between affiliate networks and in-house programs, I will choose affiliate network programs all the time.

Conclusion…

I’ve been into affiliate marketing for a while, more than a decade, to be precise. I wish I had known these things when I started; maybe I would have been more successful. 

But that’s me, not you. Now, you have the chance to write your destiny by learning from my experience and that of other affiliate marketers. 

The experience and affiliate marketing lessons shared with you today are a goldmine if you carefully learn from them and apply the tips and lessons to build your strategy.