Four Key Factors that will Impact Success as an Affiliate

Thousands of people every year get online with the dream of making a living as an affiliate marketer.  Sadly, most of them fail miserably and either make very little money or nothing at all.  Even those that stick with it for a year or longer are often stuck making less than they could earn flipping burgers or doing other ‘real world’ tasks for minimum wage.  Then there are the very small number who actually end up either making a decent living or even becoming extremely successful.

Affiliate Marketing - Arrows Hit in Red Target.

The question, therefore, is; what is the difference between those who make it big and those who don’t make a dime.  Naturally, there are many factors that are involved here and it is impossible to give a one size fits all answer.  After years of working with and for affiliate marketers, however, I have found some important similarities in those who are successful and some similarities in those who end up failing.  Read on to learn about a few of these key factors.

Your Niche

Like it or not, the niche you pick is going to have a huge influence on your success or failure.  No matter how passionate or how hard you work on a project, if there is no interested audience, you won’t make any money.  On the other side of the coin, no matter how large a niche is, if you have absolutely no interest in it, you’re not likely to stick with it long enough to be a success.  With that in mind, you need to find the right balance of passion and profitability.  You’ll make more money, for example, off a small to mid-sized niche that you are passionate about than you would a larger one that has no interest to you.  Take your time and choose wisely.

Products You Promote

Another key factor with affiliate marketing is which products you promote.  Some products seem to generate huge sales no matter what kind of traffic you drive to them.  Others just don’t inspire people to pull out their wallet no matter what you do.  If you want to make it as an affiliate marketer, you need to learn to choose the products you promote wisely.

Supporting Your Customers

Here is a big one.  Even though you are just an affiliate promoting someone else’s products, YOU are the person a customer is buying from.  This means you need to offer them something that other affiliates can’t or won’t.  This could be things like after the sale support, a helpful guide, videos on how to use the product or any number of other things.  This will not only help to reduce returns, but will build trust with your customers and they will come back to you again and again.

Focus is Essential

I believe the number one reason people who start out in affiliate marketing fail is because they lack focus.  Some of them give up on affiliate marketing all together, and others will jump from project to project without ever giving one thing a chance to succeed.  With this in mind, you need to choose one project that you are interested in and become laser focused on it.  Don’t move on to something else until you have either achieved success (ideally) or proven to yourself that the project has no chance of being successful.  No matter how good the ‘next great idea’ seems, it too will fail if you don’t give it the attention it needs to succeed.

While these are some key factors, there are many others too.  Things like having a great looking site, filling it with high quality content and even catching a little bit of luck here and there are all essential for those who make it to the ‘big leagues.’  If you keep trying and learning from mistakes, you too can become someone who makes a full time living from affiliate marketing.

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