Whenever something grows in fame, rumors and myths start to develop centering it. One simply can’t expect that an idea that has virtually unlimited possibilities won’t have any tales rumbling around it. Yes, I’m talking about affiliate marketing, it does have some crazy myths around it too.
Affiliate marketing is a $12 billion worth industry today where thousands of people are making millions. It is an idea of earning money by promoting products made by other people. The industry is so open that anyone on the internet can join and make some smart money, ensuring that they have done their homework.
With endless possibilities, it has opened a new dimension, a source of hope for thousands of unemployed people, or even the employed ones in the world today. Unfortunately, it has also created an idea that anyone in the world can simply enter the market and start making big bucks.
A great philosophical thought is only great until someone misinterprets it. Like the great BO Bennet wanted to interpret that people can make millions by affiliate marketing is sometimes understood as this industry has some easy money for everyone.
“Affiliate marketing has made businesses millions and ordinary people millionaires.”
Bo Bennett
But myths are still false beliefs. To make money in this industry, you’ll need to know the difference between reality and myth. So below are the 15 crazy myths about affiliate marketing.
15 crazy myths about affiliate marketing
- Affiliate Marketing is Easy
- More Products, More Earning
- More Traffic, More Sale
- Earning Depends on Luck
- Popularity on Social Media is a Decisive Factor
- Managing an Affiliate Marketing Website is a Piece of Cake
- Skill is Not Necessary
- It is Better to Select Popular Niche
- Success Only Depends on Contents
- High Commission, More Revenue
- Consumers Don’t Trust Affiliate Marketers
- Only Professionals Can do Affiliate Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing isn’t Worth the Effort
- It’s an Effortless way of Becoming Rich
- Affiliate Marketing is Dead
Affiliate marketing myths explained
Evidently there are a lot of myths surrounding affiliate marketing, and they are quite baseless. So what’s the reality then? Affiliate marketing myths have arisen from both experts assumptions as well as the noob ones.
I will explain why these exist and what the reality is. Let’s break down the 15 crazy affiliate marketing myths!
Affiliate marketing is easy
Of course not! If you think it’s a child’s play, you’re daydreaming. From selecting a profitable niche to earning stable affiliate revenue, it takes affiliate marketers a lot of sleepless nights and a lot of hardship.
Affiliate marketing is not putting up random websites with some product links; it involves time-consuming tasks like market research, planning the marketing efforts as well as putting up some innovative ideas to get noticed.
Besides, every market is competitive, and affiliate marketing is no different. As a result, about 95% of affiliate marketers don’t make as much as the rest do.
So unless you are ready to take up the marketing challenges as well as the technical ones, don’t make the industry overcrowded. And also, don’t spread affiliate marketing myths!
More products, more earning
Unfortunately, some people take up the opportunity to promote almost every product that they are allowed to advertise. There’s a myth behind it too.
While promoting a lot of products, they think that at least a few products might generate some affiliate revenue. Although it might have worked if you were promoting products in person, or in the past days(because you would have had something to offer anyone), affiliate marketing doesn’t work the same way anymore.
Nowadays, affiliate marketing focuses on building authority in a particular niche and becoming a market leader of that niche someday. Besides, putting too many affiliate links also places your website into the danger of being penalized by Google.
So rather than spreading myths and promoting thousands of unknown products, find a niche that suits your knowledge and audience’s requirements. Only then you will gain authority in the market and earn a lot of affiliate revenue as a result of it!
More traffic, more sale
Although earning a lot of visitors is a fantastic achievement, it doesn’t mean that every visit is going to be converted into sales. General statistics show that only 5% of affiliate website visitors convert into a sale. That means you will make only 50 sales if you have 1K visitors.
Well, let’s assume that even 50 sales out of 1000 visits can produce an acceptable profit. But what if I say that you may not achieve a minimal sales conversation?
Accept it or not, the number of affiliate product sales won’t necessarily depend on the visits unless those visits are from your targeted customers.
Think about it, would you buy anything from someone who misdirected you, or, would someone buy a good from a website while they were looking for something else? Probably no!
Then what’s the point of buying online traffic or directing people into your website from wrong keywords? That’s why more traffic doesn’t always bring more sales.
So don’t believe in affiliate marketing myths that say you only need a substantial amount of traffic. The correct approach is to direct people from the right keywords and the proper advertisements. Only then most of your visitors will convert into sales.
Earning depends on luck
Like I have mentioned before, some people expect things to happen rather than making it happen. Similarly, some people think that successful affiliate marketers are often lucky in their quest. But the reality is different.
The best affiliate marketers believe in working diligently and making the right call at the right time. They start with a well-organized plan for every marketing effort they’re going to make.
Even before starting an affiliate blog, good marketers try to learn the ins and outs of their selected niche. They wield a lot of technical knowledge, experience, and innovative ideas that earn them the affiliate revenue that some may call “lucky money”.
Success isn’t earned overnight. It’s drawn by spending sleepless nights and by making heart and soul efforts. If you don’t have the heart to do so, you don’t have the right to label someone’s achievement as ”luck”.
Popularity on social media is a decisive factor
This one is one of the silly affiliate marketing myths because having a lot of fans in social media and selling things by creating a promotional campaign are entirely two different things.
Besides, thousands of websites can offer millions of free Facebook likes or Instagram followers. So it won’t be wise to judge an affiliate marketer by his//her popularity on social media.
If you wonder why these likes won’t matter at all, I should remind you of what targeted customers mean. Targeted customers are the ones with the buying instinct and being popular on social media doesn’t have to mean every follower is a possible buyer.
Now you might ask whether social media popularity matters at all?
For me, there are possibilities that you might not get your targeted customers on your social account. But It won’t be wise to cut off social media.
Top affiliate marketers use social media to complement their marketing campaigns. They drive people into their social accounts through email campaigns or ask them to join them on social media directly from their website.
It enables marketers to connect with their audience and also allows them to reach audiences quickly when they have something to offer.
Did you know that you can drive people on your social accounts directly from your website? Check out WP Social Reviews, you won’t believe what it can offer!
Managing an affiliate marketing website is a piece of cake
Again, some people also believe that managing an affiliate marketing website isn’t too hard. Like I mentioned earlier, they think affiliate marketing is all about creating a website and putting affiliate links on it.
But the truth is, it consists of way more intricate work than it seems. Firstly, optimizing the website for a niche, then creating primary content for the site such as articles, webinars, etc. and also making sure that the website achieves every possible treatment that it deserves before going live. Operating an affiliate marketing website requires a lot of calculated decision making.
Even after going live, an affiliate website requires more work than a typical web store does. Aside from that, you also need SEO for your website.
You won’t earn that $1000-$100000 doing anything. It takes hard work, strategizing, and patience for maintaining a website. But the results are as sweet as the effort, so don’t let those hardships prevent you from affiliate marketing.
Quick tip: Use an affiliate marketing plugin like AzonPress for your website. It can minimize your Amazon affiliate product linking efforts and maximize your conversion rates!
Skill is not necessary
Again, if you have read about affiliate marketing somewhere, it might seem easy on the eyes and may not sound/look like it requires a particular skill.
But the truth is, you will still need some technical skills as well as digital marketing skills for promoting affiliate marketing. Having one skill won’t do the trick, and that’s why successful affiliate marketers are generally multi-skilled.
As they know how to create and manage an affiliate website, they also know how to create online marketing campaigns that persuade people into affiliate products.
If you are interested in affiliate marketing, I would suggest you learn about it as much as possible. The internet is wide open, and plenty of free learning programs are there through which you can learn the skills required for affiliate marketing.
So instead of listening to false affiliate marketing myths, grab a cup of coffee and start learning! It won’t take more than a month or two!
It is better to select popular niche
A popular niche can bring excellent returns, but it will also put you into extreme competition with other affiliate marketers.
Like thousands of bees chasing honey, thousands of affiliate marketers are chasing niches that are well known and popular, thinking that it will be easy to extract affiliate revenue from those popular niches.
But the reality is often disappointing. The more affiliate marketers chase a niche, the more competitive it will become. As a result, it will be incredibly challenging to reach people, let alone selling in a popular niche.
Besides, you should also consider your knowledge of a niche before selecting it because you need to know about a product before going into the market with it.
Success only depends on contents
Although contents are a significant part of any affiliate marketing website, it’s not necessarily the most important one.
Remember that you won’t be the only one who comes out with content on a particular product. There will be others who’ll come up with the contents of their own. Sometimes, they might exceed the quality of the contents you produced, and they will also exceed you in that niche as a result.
But there’s always an option. Although your competitors might exceed your content with theirs, you can implement off-page SEO strategies to outrun them. Some people might also call it “backlinking”.
SEO will give your website an extra authority boost in search engine algorithms. As a result, your website will rank higher and reach more targeted audiences despite sometimes having less effective content than your competitors.
Besides, you should also stay ahead of your competitors through email marketing campaigns, social media, and so on.
People tend to choose what’s in front of them rather than looking for the best one. Even if they don’t, you can at least ensure that they see you. Unless your affiliate links appear in front of target audiences, you can’t expect to sell.
So don’t consider content as your only marketing option. Explore all of your options and give affiliate marketing your best shot.
High commission, more revenue
The higher the commission, the more the revenue you will earn. Is it true, though?
To be fair, generally subscription-based products, for example, Softwares, plugins, themes, and electronic products offer a high commission rate.
But these products aren’t things that people will repeatedly buy. Softwares, ebooks, plugins, theme stuff are even less likely to be sold too often. While it’s great that this category of products offer very high revenue compared to others, and some of them even offer recurring revenue, it’s a bit harder to pursue people into buying them. Unless you make a sale, you won’t earn revenue. So “higher commission, more revenue” is partially among the affiliate marketing myths.
I’m not saying that you can’t make money promoting these products. But a higher paying affiliate product also requires better marketing efforts and skills to maximize the affiliate marketing commissions.
To conclude, high commission products doesn’t necessarily mean that you’ll earn a significant amount of affiliate revenue. The amount of affiliate revenue you’ll receive will depend on how good you are at promoting something.
Consumers don’t trust affiliate marketers
Say that in front of a successful affiliate marketer, and he will be laughing at you!
Jokes apart, it’s not at all true that consumers don’t trust affiliate marketers. Let me explain a bit about affiliate marketers. They are a connection between product makers and consumers.
Product makers create various kinds of products, and they may also add some documentation about the product, whereas affiliate marketers present the product in multiple ways. They produce excellent marketing campaigns and try to solve the audiences’ problems.
In a way, they don’t sell products; they sell solutions to people’s problems and requirements.
Besides, even if someone wants to buy a product, they go straight to the internet to find information about it. Affiliate marketers provide every little piece of details one needs to know about a product, and often they end up convincing people to buy it from their affiliate link. So the above statement also falls in the category of affiliate marketing myths.
As an affiliate marketer, your objective should be creating trust instead of thinking if they will trust you or not.
Only professionals can do affiliate marketing
This can be explained in two ways. Firstly, if it’s about the requirements of joining affiliate marketing:
Affiliate marketing is open to everyone. While some affiliate programs may require you to achieve some feats before participating in their affiliate program, some affiliate programs such as Amazon associate don’t need anything at all.
Although some affiliate programs require you to comply with their minimal requirements, they aren’t too hard to achieve. All in all, anyone can participate in an affiliate program, ensuring that they qualify for the minimum standards of an affiliate program.
Now if it’s about success, I’ve mentioned earlier that affiliate marketing comes with unlimited possibilities. It’s not about how many visitors you have, how skilled you are, or how good is your luck. It’s all about executing the right marketing strategies at the right time.
Affiliate marketing is for every single person who has some marketing knowledge and technical skills, and it’s not only meant for professionals. Everyone can earn fantastic affiliate revenue, ensuring that they can persuade people into buying products.
Affiliate marketing isn’t worth the effort
I’m not sure how this myth even exists. Because the industry is worth $12 billion and thousands of millions are making more than 1,00,000 per month.
From my observation, I think this myth became popular among those who are stuck with a single niche website. I won’t say that a single niche website can’t bring huge affiliate revenue. But if you’re not a market leader already, it’s pretty hard to make more than $5,000 from an affiliate website.
That’s because an affiliate marketer’s revenue is entirely dependent on commissions. It’s hard to make 20K+ with those $10, $15 commissions.
So what’s the alternative then?
Simple! Work for more niche. Affiliate marketing is an open industry, and nobody will ask questions if you work with too many. Ensuring that you’ve put the correct efforts and implemented the right affiliate marketing strategies, the more niche websites you work for, the more revenue you’ll earn.
It’s not about how much affiliate programs pay; it’s about how often you can earn it.
It’s an effortless way of becoming rich
Again, affiliate marketing is an excellent way of generating that lucrative affiliate revenue. A lot of web content will make you think that it’s an effortless way of becoming rich.
Although it’s an enormous industry, it won’t make you rich overnight. In fact, no industry can make you rich overnight unless it’s an illegal one, or until you win an incredible lottery.
Whenever I talk about affiliate marketing, I keep mentioning that the only way to succeed is to be patient. Generally, you need to track things at least six months to get an idea of how well your affiliate marketing efforts are performing.
Once you’ve built a foundation, you have to keep monitoring things. You can never stop trying if you want to become rich through affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is dead
This myth probably came to light while comparing the success of past affiliate marketers with the success of present ones.
In the past days, affiliate marketing wasn’t too competitive, and people could start without planning. Besides, search engines weren’t too picky while ranking a website on top of SERPs. Furthermore, people didn’t care much about where they were buying things from(although it goes against what was said while explaining the eleventh myth).
Aside from these common assumptions, there are a few more reasons why the myth evolved. But wherever it is from, it would be foolish to say that affiliate marketing is past it’s best days.
Let me share a small piece of statistics: more than 1,68, 000 affiliate marketers generated at least $100000 worth of Amazon marketplaces sales alone in the USA in 2019!
If only amazon affiliate marketers were able to generate so much affiliate sales and that too only in the USA, Imagine what would be the total around the world?
According to experts, affiliate sales will only increase day by day, and why not? Because affiliate marketers are adding value for both the web and people. So affiliate marketing is not a dead end after all.
Wrapping it up
Myths are false beliefs. Although science generally takes myths as a possibility, affiliate marketers shouldn’t.
Affiliate marketing efforts should be made according to data, calculation, and creative thoughts. As long as you have the courage to put in the hard work and learn more along the way, the affiliate marketing industry is big enough to provide you with deserved results.
