Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to earn money from home. You get commissions for promoting people’s products or services. Most of you know that Clickbank is one of the largest merchants who pay big commissions to affiliate marketers. Many consider it to be a very simple and easy way to earn a good income. However, most people try their hands on affiliate marketing only to be frustrated and not see any results. Thus, only a handful of affiliate marketers do find success in this business and make huge commissions.

This article discusses the three major mistakes made by affiliate marketers which make them give up or fail.

Now let’s take a look at these mistakes made by affiliate marketers:

1. Sending prospects directly to an affiliate’s website

This happens to almost anybody who just started affiliate marketing. Sending prospects directly to a website without getting them into your mailing list or without offering them a free product is one of the biggest mistakes you can ever make. They will just visit the website and if they do not like the product, you will lose your potential customers forever.

There are a few ways to get around this. First is to get them into your mailing list. For example getting them to sign up to a newsletter or to a free product will most certainly get your potential customers into your mailing list. Adding good content or bonuses through your emails will also most certainly keep them in your mailing list.

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By doing this, you can build a loyal group of customers who are interested in what you say or what you have to offer and these can translate into future sales.

2. Commission thefts

One of the biggest problems in affiliate marketing is commission thefts. Although it is not possible to eliminate it, there are a few tricks that can be done to minimize it. Let us take Clickbank as an example. Most Clickbank affiliate ID comes under this affiliate link http://USERID.xxx.com

Replacing the USERID with your own affiliate ID is not a good idea because just about anyone can replace that link with your affiliate ID and make a commission instead of you. In other words, sales are made but you are not credited for it. Some will know that a particular link has an affiliate ID and will not purchase the product through your link and decide to get the product through other means.

One way is through link cloaking. Link cloaking helps mask your affiliate ID and makes it less obvious that it is an affiliate link and prevents commission thefts

3.  Designing a website full of affiliate links, flashy banners and Ads

Having lots of affiliate links, flashy banners and other advertisements can make your visitors confused. If they are new, they would not know where to start and may just simply leave your website. Most people prefer clear and easy to understand websites. An honest review of a particular product does grab your visitor’s attention more than having a website full of links and reviews everywhere.

As for ads, text ads can work better than graphic or flash ads.  Some people do prefer to see what they want and text links banners have been proven to be more successful than flash or graphic banners. Having less of these kind of ads reduces page load time and people like sites that open up quicker in comparison to fully loaded graphic websites.

In conclusion, affiliate marketers should try to avoid the common fatal mistakes to become successful in this field. Always try to collect the email addresses of your website visitors by offering them some free gifts like newsletters etc. Then use their email addresses to start your advertisement campaigns. Keep your website design simple and easy to understand for the visitors. Most people don’t like fancy graphics and loading times when searching for something to buy. Make sure to cloak your links to get maximum benefit. By avoiding these main mistakes as an affiliate marketer, you will being to reap the benefits sooner than later.

To Your Success,

Bryan Wong YH