Affiliate Marketing is not easy to get started in, in fact, it’s actually quite difficult for most people.  Of course, there are those rare occasions where someone launched a campaign and see immediate positive results…(like me )  However, this is very few and far in between.  Most people start off losing money, that’s just me being honest my friends!

However, if you are serious about doing this and making a living by working from home online, then you can’t quit.  If you truly are passionate about affiliate marketing then again, don’t quit!

This business changes rapidly, in fact pretty much any online type business does, but it seems that daily there is something crazy going on in the affiliate marketing space.  You took all the time to learn, read, etc about affiliate marketing and if you “take a break” you are going to throw that all away.

Now I’m not saying if you run out of money to just keep charging away, but don’t stop reading, studying niches, etc.  Why?  Because if you do, you’ll come back later only to realize that you’re basically starting from scratch!  I’m not kidding, that’s how fast things can change in this field.  Of course, you may still remember the basics, but that’s about it.

There are new types of landing pages, new techniques, new search engine requirements, etc that don’t stop changing and evolving while you’re “taking a break” from affiliate marketing and when you come back it will suck having to relearn how to do affiliate marketing…

I’ve seen it time and time again and in fact one of the reasons for this post is because I just had someone that emailed me about a one on one counseling session and they had done just that and I decided to blog about it.  And the crazy thing is, it’s not something new, I’ve heard people tell me this over and over that have come to me for advice or counseling.

The bottom line is, even if you go broke and can’t run a campaign, keep up on what’s going on in affiliate marketing at all times…that is if you even think for a moment that you may try it again when you get some more money!

First off, realize that you aren’t going to become a millionaire overnight, in fact, you most likely won’t even make money for your first couple months of trying affiliate marketing…  I know that there are tons of products and services out there that promise to make you 5,000, 20,000 or even 50,000 dollars a month if you buy their product or service, but the bottom line is that most people will never make anywhere near that kind of money because they expect it to happen overnight.

When you are first starting out you need to sit down and make a plan, you need to make an ad spend budget and you need to stick with it.  You need to do some research, find out what others are promoting, talk to some affiliate managers, etc.  Basically get to know what it is you are going to be doing, because believe it or not, most people will simply sign up for a popular network like Market Leverage, pick an offer and try to promote it by throwing a ton of money into Adwords, Yahoo, or MSN.

Don’t fill up your ad accounts with credit cards, you are taking a HUGE risk by doing so, skip some of the extras in your life (five dollar cups of coffee) and use that money instead!  Once you actually get a niche making some solid earnings, then that is a different story!

You need to realize that you are probably most likely going to lose money for your first couple of months and you need to plan accordingly to that!  You need to come up with a budget of how much you can spend, even if means you can only spend a 100 bucks a month.  You have to start somewhere and build up!

You also need to make sure you understand and know how the niche you are promoting works.  How can you promote a product or service if you don’t even know what the heck it is or does???

Pay attention to what other affilaites are doing in a niche, if there are a billion affiliates using review style landing pages to promote weight loss and one affiliate using a fake blog, why in the world would you start with a fake blog as a landing page?  Pay attention, jot down what you see, and make a plan!

The bottom line is that unless you come spend some time figuring out where you want to get to and how you are going to get there and do some research and then make a plan, you will probably fail horribly in this business…

I didn’t ask you when is the last time you heard of something like that happening…..I asked when was the last time it’s happened t you?

You see, we have this really big problem as affiliate marketers and what’s even greater about it is that the internet has made it even more easy to do it…

We as people are huge story tellers, we love to exaggerate…If it isn’t true, we’ll make it up…We aren’t lying…we’re simply making it a little more interesting than it was…we don’t want people to think we’re boring and that what happens to us isn’t cool…

You see, this is where the problem started.  Affiliate managers are human beings…at least as far as I know…Unless the government is tied up in this conspiracy as well…

Anyways, so as humans, they make mistakes and do things they probably shouldn’t do…like tell other affiliates stuff about our campaigns, landing pages, ads, etc…even when they know they shouldn’t.  However, and this is a big however, this isn’t as likely as most of you seem to think…  Very rarely do affiliate managers actually share information that is actually worth them sharing…

One thing most of us seem to forget is that the affiliate companies don’t make any money if we aren’t making money as affiliates.  Again, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, but we take stories that happen once in a great while to an affiliate and start telling everyone that we’ve heard that it’s happened to 50 affiliates!  Ahhh come on…you can admit it!

Affiliate networks seriously aren’t out there trying to screw you over.  They, for the most part, are out there to make money and without your help….they aren’t making any!

So quit listening to what everyone else is saying and give a little trust to your affiliate manager…you might be surprised…

Sorry, just a little rant I wanted to get off my chest, I talk to a lot of people that are scared beyond words that their affiliate managers are going to steal all of their stuff and give it away…  You may be surprised at just how much your AM can help you out!

Is Pay Per Click becoming too difficult for a new affiliate marketer to enter and be successful for long term.  When I say Pay Per Click in this post, I’m talking about the traditional context which would mean using one of the top three search engines.  That would be either Google, Yahoo, or MSN in order to send traffic to your landing page/offer…

My first reaction was very quick and my response only took a second…Absolutely not! I replied almost amazed that he would even ask me that!  I then proceeded to tell him my story that I’ve probably told him 15 times by now! (haha sorry bout’ that!) I told him that I got laid off from a steel mill, was getting ~100 bucks a week unemployment and started in this business and I’ve grown it to a  full scale business that provides a very modest full time income for part time work!  (Okay yeah I admit it…I like to brag just a little)

Anyways, after thinking about it for a while, I realized that my story is now a little over 3 years old and that in internet time that means it’s very… very… outdated! O.o  So my mind started going about a mile a minute thinking and wondering that if I was in this guys shoes would I be able to create a full time income like I did in the past with very little start-up money.

Then my thoughts got worse…I started wondering if I had been given this guy false hope…and leading him on…not intentionally but just because of what I’ve seen happen in my own life…

After thinking about these things for a little while, I finally started to think about the good stuff as well.  I’ve helped over 50 people (that I know of) get started in this business that are now making a full time income using affiliate marketing.  I’m not saying this to brag and in fact some of these were years ago, however, a lot of them have been more recent.  Again I’m not saying this to brag, but instead I’m saying it to say that YES I do still believe that it’s very possible to make a ton of money in this field even if you have very little to get started with.

Do I think that affiliate marketing has gotten harder?  With the three major search engines yes!  However, there are tons of new opportunities out there that when I started weren’t.  Things like Facebook, Myspace, etc that people are blowing it up in!  These are things that are still considered new and in their infancy and they should be exploited as much as possible for as long as they can be, however, I still believe that the three major search engines are where most of your income and stability with come from in affiliate marketing and while it may be harder to learn the ropes and get started and become profitable, once you do it, this thing becomes a heck of a lot easier!

So, don’t discount AM and think it’s a thing of the past and that it’s only for those that have already become profitable because I know several people that have went from “rags to riches” in this business and have done so recently!

Sorry that I kinda rambled a bit in this post, but I just felt my readers could use a little encouragement!  There are still people making a killing in this business!  Don’t Give Up!!!

As most of you know, the FTC is currently posting about grants going after people that are using Obama or Government Stimulus type offers, ads, and landing pages.  I know what some of you are thinking…they have every right!  Guess what?  I agree 100%!  I don’t agree with people that falsely promote offers, there are too many legit ways to make money in affiliate marketing that you don’t have to lie and cheat people!

However, I don’t agree with what Yahoo is doing and that’s the point of this post!  I think it’s crazy and if I was a stock holder in the company I’d be throwing a hissy fit right about now!

Yahoo is currently just going through and deleting all grant ads and stuff in people’s Yahoo Search Marketing accounts.  Now, I could understand if they were just deleting ads of people that are running Obama grant offers, or using Obama or government stimulus stuff in their ads, however, they are going after people that are running these grant offers 100% legit!  They are doing it by the books, but Yahoo is telling these people that they are cleaning house and they’ll be releasing new guidelines for affiliates that are running grants and once they do then these legit guys can have their stuff re-looked at and turned back on!

This is happening to several affiliates that I know are running Grants 100% legit, not just one or two!

Okay Yahoo, so how do you not realize that this is backwards?  Wouldn’t you think you’d release your new guidelines for grants, then give marketers say a week to make the changes and if they don’t then delete their stuff?  That would make a lot more sense!

Now of course, I realize mistakes happen and while companies are cleaning out house they sometimes accidentally affect legit affiliates, however, this number is too big and it’s simply being overlooked when these people call in complaining about it!  Yahoo reps are just telling people to resubmit their ads and they’ll look at them again.

Anyways, I think it’s ridiculous and honestly I just felt like getting it out there cause I know it’s happening to a ton of affiliates in the grant niche and I’m hoping…even if it’s a small chance…that some Yahoo rep that’s a little higher up reads this and checks into it!

Yahoo has done this before in other niches and they need to realize that they need to change it or people are going to stop using their system!

Have you been affected by the recent changes Yahoo has done with the grant niche?

Avoid Becoming Lazy!

One of the biggest mistakes I made when I first started becoming successful online was becoming lazy.  It’s very easy once you start making some decent money online to become lazy which is why I think so many people fall prey to laziness!  It always starts off so innocently with something simple like just skipping a blog post here, or not tuning your keywords just this one night, etc… but very quickly it becomes a nasty habit that you don’t even realize you’ve developed until it’s too late!

Laziness is by far the single most often culprit to online marketers failing and losing their business after working so hard to grow it.  Once you start making some decent money from your online endevours it’s time to start putting in double the effort to make sure it continues growing!

Don’t Quit Your Day Job!

The second biggest mistake I see from time to time is new web entrepreneurs that start making some money and they decide that it’s time to quit their day job and work full time for themselves.  While this is the ultimate goal, it’s very possible and again, easier than you think, to do this too soon!  Quitting your job and working for yourself is something to be very proud of, but you need to make sure it’s the right time.  I don’t believe there’s any magic number of how much you should be making before you quit your job, but I’d personally say you should at least be making double what you are from your day job.

Quit Your Day Job Already!

On the flip side of the last statement, I also see online business owners businesses start to take off and do well and instead of quitting their day job they continue to try to work both which only holds them back from growing their online business and thus stops growth dead in its tracks, whereas, if they’d just quit their day job they could easily triple or even quadruple their income almost overnight!

Again, this isn’t something that is necessarily an easy decision to make, but you need to quit sometime and you better start thinking if now is the time or not!  I’m not encouraging anyone to quit their job if they’re not making enough to support themselves, but if you are and you are just holding onto your day job for security, you could really be hurting your business and yourself!

Don’t Buy a Crap Load of….well CRAP!

Making money is great, however, if you’re not careful you’ll quickly start spending all your hard earned money on senseless stuff that you don’t need to be spending it on when you’re first getting started.  A new car, going out to dinner three times a week, or even that new computer that caught your eye at your local electronics store.

The bottom line is that while it’s great you’re making money and eventually you’ll be able to spend it, in the beginning, you need to reinvest that money back into your business.  While it is possible to build a steady, long term business online, it doesn’t happen immediately, in fact, most often new online businesses are very up and down in terms of how much they are making a month.  One month you may make 5k but the next you may only make 2k.  You need to realize this and not increase your monthly spend and bills only to find out that your income has dropped a few months later and you can no longer afford the stuff or keep your business going.

Conclusion:

While all of the above may seem like stupid simple things that any moron could figure out, 50% of affiliates that start making a little money will lose it all because of one of those reasons!  So instead of saying you would do any of the above, count on doing ALL of the above and start watching for it now that way when you don’t fall victim to these things you can come back to me and tell me how wrong I was and how you did it!  I’ll be happy to hear it!

Affiliate marketing is great!  I love this business, I love talking about it, and I enjoy helping others with it!  I don’t believe in black hat or white hat techniques.  I believe that as long as you don’t rip off, lie to, or cheat people than it’s a technique you should go ahead and use!  However, affiliate marketing and morals is a topic that is discussed frequently on affiliate marketing blogs and basically it comes down to what you are comfortable in doing, however, there is one other thing that you need to realize…

You can get in trouble with the LAW if you are deceiving or ripping off customers.  We have seen the government, attorney generals, etc go after people in the past with ringtones and we are going to see this again with Acai, in fact, the BBB just released a statement about Acai (warning consumers to be careful) on January 6th of 2009.

It’s not okay to lie to customers or deceive them in order to get a sale, you can get in trouble legally, and since I said this isn’t going to be a long post, I’m going to leave it at that!

PS: I’d love to hear what you guys think about people promoting acai, grants, etc with personal blogs acting like people they aren’t and whether or not you feel this is wrong and even more so, something that the government will eventually start bringing charges up against people for?  Leave a comment and let me know your take!

Sometimes being a follower may seem like it’s the right thing to do, however, most of the times when listening to what everyone else is saying instead of actually trying things out for yourself is a good way to fail in your business.

I get a little excited in this video and I wasn’t going to post it, but I was told that I should, so bear with me!

You Suck if you Don’t Vote!!!  Enough said…

Vote McCain!  (Sorry I had add that plug…didn’t want to…)

Think back to the first time you had sex, that moment in your life when you lost your virginity… Do you remember it?  Remember how it went, how well did you do?  On a scale of 1 – 10 with 1 being the worst and 10 being the best, how would you rate your performance?

If you’re like most humans, the first time you had sex, while emotionally might of been frickin awesome, physically it probably wasn’t your best performance.  You most likely stumbled some, maybe cummed to quickly?  Maybe it all happened within 2 minutes leaving your partner feeling less than satisfied???  Women, maybe it didn’t turn out like you expected it to be thus you feel regret over losing it to the “wrong” guy!

Whatever the case, if you’re like most of us, it wasn’t the best.  In fact, you’ve probably had tons of better performances where you’ve felt like you did really swell!  (Yep, I said swell)

To me, this is how it works with Affiliate Marketing, it’s what I see when I do consultations with new affiliates.  Many new affiliates start off not knowing what they are doing, they fail miserably their first couple attempts at launching a successful campaign.  The crazy part is, what do you think they do after they fail?  They run with their tails tucked behind their legs!

When you first started sleeping with members of the opposite sex, you weren’t perfect, you made mistakes, didn’t do things right, yet…YET….YET…..you didn’t stop having sex did you?  Of course not, it was too frickin important to stop doing, not to mention it feels really great!

Then why do you stop trying to go forward when it comes to creating a business that will provide you with financial freedom, freedom from set hours, etc…  It too frickin important to stop doing, not to mention it feels great when you succeed!

Just like you made mistakes when you first started having sex, you MUST (in my opinion) make mistakes in affiliate marketing in order to actually learn and progress.  It’s one of the reasons why affiliate marketing is such a complicated business to get into and why most people fail at it.  They are afraid of making mistakes instead of accepting and learning from them!!!

The first time you had sex you were probably nervous, scared, and unsure of yourself, but once you actually did it, your confidence increased and each time thereafter that you continued to have sex.

This again is the same thing with affiliate marketing, instead of looking at each failed campaign as a mistake, try thinking of it as a learning experience, an experience that will make your next campaign a hundred times better and stronger!

How bad do you want to be financially free?  How bad do you want to be your own boss?  Do you want it as much as you want sex?  Probably not (especially if you’re a guy) but it better be close if you want to succeed in this field!

I know this is a crazy post, but seriously…look at the similarities of sex and affilaite marketing and tell me you don’t think it worked well for this post!