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Pioneered by Amazon, affiliate marketing is one of the most common, most effective and most powerful methods of earning income from online sales. It is a partnership between a merchant and an affiliate, which, if managed correctly, can bring significant benefits for both parties involved.

The principle on which affiliate programs work is simple: the merchant decides to promote certain products or services(according to its profile) online, and it creates affiliation programs for them, including detailed payment methods.

The merchant contacts webmasters with the proposition to promote those products/services on their Web sites, against a commission. A webmaster who subscribes to such an affiliate program becomes thus an affiliate. The affiliates will promote the products/services of the merchant by means of text links, search boxes, banner links, product links, etc.

10 Frequent Mistakes When Joining Affiliate Programs

1. Choosing the wrong affiliate

The large majority of those who join affiliate programs want to earn as much money as possible as quickly as possible. Therefore, they usually choose products or services that are in high demand, without actually taking into account that they may not actually like promoting them.

What should be done in such a case is to actually select a product/service that one is actually interested in, then take some time to think of a strategy and plan the actions to be taken for effectively promoting the chosen product/service. It is much easier to promote something that you are interested in than something you chose for the sole prospect of financial benefits.

2. Joining too many affiliate programs

Due to the fact it is so easy to join affiliate programs, you might find yourself tangled up in a web of products and services that you're trying to promote all at the same time, hoping that they will all bring you profit. The reality is that you will not be able to focus on all of them.

The best thing to do is to actually choose one single product/service that has a commission above 30% and to put as much effort as possible into making your promotion work. If you are successful, you can of course choose to promote a second product/service.

3. Not buying/using the product/service you're advertising

There are few mistakes in affiliate programs worse than trying to promote something you're just not familiar with, and on which you cannot form a relevant, objective opinion. Without this, your promotion will be far from convincing and effective.

The best approach to avoid this mistake is to actually try the product/service yourself, so that you can come up with a real testimonial on what you're promoting. Add a dash of personality to what the merchant needs to be promoted.

4. Not writing your own ad copy

You may not be (and most likely are not) the only affiliate marketer of one particular company, therefore the ad of the product you're promoting will be over the Net from multiple sources.

Many web users will perceive this as superfluous, and most of them might just refuse to click on it. Grant yourself some time to slightly modify the ad copy in such a way as to appeal to your target market.

5. Choosing low paying commissions

You will do the same amount of work to promote items for a 5% commission as you would for items that would bring you 30%. Then why choose this path?

6. Not having your own domain name

It is very unprofessional to use a site that seems to come from a free host. It does not inspire confidence and may drive your targeted prospects away. Get your own domain name, it is quite cheap and will only benefit you and your business.

7. Promoting outside the topic

This appears to be a very common mistake. Don't promote things that have nothing to do with your main object of activity. Be relevant and on topic.

8. Failure to communicate with the merchant

Always remain in contact with the merchant whose product/service you're marketing. They may give you relevant feedback and supplementary information that you could use for promotion.

9. Failure to capture email addresses

You should try to collect the addresses of the people you're referring to the main site, so that you can reach them directly the next time. Otherwise, it's like making one single attempt with a prospect and then giving up.

10. Failure to pre-sell

This is one of the most important skills that you should master as an affiliate marketer. Warm up your visitors before sending them to the merchant's site. Get them in the right mood by telling them what they want to hear. The words you use to promote a product/service are of utmost importance here.

Mistakes of Affiliate Managers

It may not always be your fault that your work isn't going in the right direction. This could be the result of poor or bad management of affiliate programs by the merchants.

Among the mistakes made by affiliate managers are:

' Competing with the affiliates

' Not providing the affiliates with useful, real-time statistics and data

' Not remunerating the affiliates according to their effort

' Failure to provide new, fresh ads

' Failure to provide quality support to the affiliates

Affiliate marketing does not qualify as a "get-rich-quick" scheme. You have to put some serious thought into your strategy to promote a certain service or product and to really concentrate on giving all your best in order to make your effort worthwhile.

Learn from professionals and people that have been in the business for a long time how to avoid mistakes in affiliate programs. Don't be afraid to ask, to try new things, new strategies, and above all, be passionate about what you're doing.

The same goes for affiliate managers. Failure to respect the cooperation principle that is the basis of this marketing strategy will have seriously negative effects on the business they are actually trying to strengthen.