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Dos and Don’ts of Starting Out in Affiliate Marketing

1009 words · Reading time: 5 minutes
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Starting out in affiliate marketing can be pretty daunting. You’ll be bombarded by information and companies trying to sell you tools that you have no idea whether or not you’ll need. In this article, we’ll give you all the advice you need to make the right decisions and get your campaigns under way.

If you’ve ever decided to take up a new hobby, start your own business or even just get into shape, then the chances are you looked up how to get started online. The minute you hit enter you get bombarded by information from all corners of the globe, each with different facts and opinions and each saying that their way is the best. However, they can’t all be the best, so what’s going on?

The internet is full of tried and tested methods which have worked for other people. However, you are not other people, and if you are just starting out then you probably haven’t tried or tested anything. And you know what? That’s ok!

Everyone has to start somewhere. There’s no use walking into the gym on the first day and complaining you’re muscles aren’t as big as the people around you. There’s also not much use going up to those guys and getting their workout routines off them, because the chances are, they won’t work for you.

If you want to get ripped, then the best way to get started is to start. Something is better than nothing, and if it takes you 2 months to find the perfect workout plan before you’ve even lifted a weight then you’re just wasting your time.

Affiliate marketing is no different. You could spend ages trying to find the best tools, spy on the best campaigns that work for the biggest affiliates, spend a ton of money on the best domain name and then at the end of it, what have you got? A huge hole in your wallet and nothing to show for it.

Don’t worry, this is the mistake 99.9% of people make when it comes to starting something new for the first time.

Why?

Because we intrinsically fear the unknown and believe that knowledge will protect us as we embark upon the journey. However, even the best maps in the world won’t tell you what rain feels like or how to navigate your way out of fog. These are things you just have to learn as you go.

In the world of affiliate marketing, you need to actually put the effort into trying to make things work and then learn along the way. No one else can tell you exactly why your campaigns aren’t working when you start out. There could be hundreds of reasons. It’s your job to keep testing until all of the pieces fall into place and you find something that works. It’s as simple as that. There is no magic formula that will work for everyone, otherwise everyone would use it.

Don’t Waste your Time and Money on…

Finding the Right Domain Name

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The mistake most people make when they start out in affiliate marketing is that they place all of their time, money and effort into areas they think matter, when in reality they don’t. Take domain names for example.

Having the perfect domain name may seem really important, however, many of the most successful campaigns don’t bother with them. Yet newbies always try to go for the .coms and will spend a lot of money in pursuit of one which sticks.

If you’re just starting out, then get yourself a generic domain name and don’t spend a fortune on it. Choose one that is $10 or under and just get started.

Making Everything Look Perfect

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When you’re new, you’ll probably think that everything has to look complettly polished and professional for people to trust your site enough to buy. However, believe it or not, your funnel doesn’t have to look perfect.

Of course, your site shouldn’t look like it’s held together by string and sticky tape, but not every little aspect needs to be slaved over. For example, your ads, landing pages and offer pages don’t all have to be in perfect harmony so that it looks like they are one single company. People are used to jumping from one page to the next, so the unison will be lost on them.

Your task, as a marketer, is to get people from one stage to the next. Therefore, if your pages look like they all belong together, it won’t matter if you can’t get people to go to them in the first place. Remember, people only see what’s on the page in front of them. You have to entice them to get to the next one and hold their attention.

One of the strange things about affiliate marketing is that it doesn’t need to make sense. It just needs to get people to convert and you should make it your aim to do just that. Everything else is ephemeral.

Put the Effort in Where it Matters

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The first place you should put your effort is into actually getting started. You don’t need to spend a ton of money before you’ve even tried to shift a single product. Therefore, try something out first, so you at least get the feel for how affiliate marketing works.

Get yourself a domain name, find an offer, create some ads and then test them on Facebook. Get all of the pieces in place so that you actually develop a funnel from start to finish. If you can do that, then you will have already learned a lot more than people who spend all their time reading about affiliate marketing and never getting started.

The next step will then be to change things, track your results and try to improve your conversion rates. Therefore, you’ll have to add weapons to your arsenal along the way. They key piece of advice to take away though is to not buy all of the weapons if you don’t know which battle you’re going to be fighting.

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