If affiliate marketing is easy, why do many still fail to do it?

They fail because it looks easy but in reality it is NOT easy.

It takes time ,diligence, and perseverance.

Its a pretty SIMPLE system and process to be successful at Affiliate Marketing.

But far, far from being Easy.

Big difference


- Robert Andrew

Yes, it is easy if you own a good channel or distribution system like a website with 10K daily targeted traffic. Affiliate Marketing is also 'easy' for people who are highly experienced in sales and marketing with massive lists and JV partners... but for a total newbie getting a good money from affiliate marketing is like winning a powerball...

Easy ? who the hell said it is easy ?

It is about dedication and commitment, nothing is easy about that, if people can commit to things, we would be done with obesity and smoking long time ago and they wouldn't be multi-billion dollar industries today to help you quite or loose weights.

Anybody who bought the idea that affiliate marketing is easy will definitely fail at it.

It's about putting the hours, the work necessary, even if you don't want to.

It's a process, day in and day in of consistent work in order to achieve consistent results. Might take a long time.

Cheers
Dan

Discrat is correct. It's extremely simple as far as getting everything started goes but it's not easy. As internet users become more savvy and discerning about marketers motives, affiliate marketing has actually gotten downright brutal.

"Bum" marketing churn and burn days are long gone. The only way to see real success in affiliate or any other kind of IM is to build relationships and add value to peoples lives. Once you do that for the right audience you're golden.

When I first started learning the business I was told that its simple but not easy, in everything that you do you must take action there is no push button magic.

Biggest reasons for failing I think is education. Everyone thinks it is when they start, but we quickly learn it takes more commitment, determination, and work ethic. You need to be able to walk the walk not just talk the talk. I believe marketing education and giving up to early in the stage are the main reasons.

Those that are stumbling around, including me, are probably doing so because the promoters or gurus are always grabbing our attention about how much money can be made and making it sound too easy. Until.......we purchase their course and we find out it ain't that easy.

Let me tell you, I have bought a number of courses totaling over $17,000. So, yeah I've got some pet peeves about why I have not been successful at IM. Yet.

If there is one phrase that grits me is "Take action. You gotta take action." And one is sitting there saying. "On what?". There is no clear action plan. Or you practically gotta be a technical wizard to build a site, etc.

I have been on courses where the webinar is not the guru but one of his students that is telling us what they prefer doing, totally negating what the guru said! How is that for confusion and not being successful.

Another thing that gets me is Done For You Sites Offers. They do the site for you and then they forget to give you the next steps on what to do with the site. Or if they give you the next steps, it's for building a blog to do SEO that 6 months later they happen to mention in their forum that it's going to take a year to get results! That you needed to actually start setting up a squeeze page first to drive traffic. They will be updating their website with the new "What's Next" steps. Uggghhhhh!!!

Can anyone make it any simpler? I would follow someone who could tell me exactly what to do. And assure me that I can be successful.

I found one. A mentor. Ahhhhhh!!! And he ain't from the USA or Canada or ..... And his mentoring wasn't multi-thousands of dollars either.

I figure if a guru was successful, he could lead his followers. They are all real good at touting statistics and money that they made from their promotions, JV, etc.

What I would really like to know is what is their Success Rate with all the courses they sell. That would be interesting to know the ROI for gurus, don't you think?

Sorry for the rant.

If you are wondering why I am still hanging on to IM is because of a Financial Coach that recommended that I get into IM. I do make 6 figures in my current business, but it is a job. If I don't show up, the money disappears. So I need to make the shift as quickly and painlessly as I can. The internet is the new frontier and I like what it promises.

Just Sharing,

Leilani

Because most people don't have the patience to build something and watch it slowly grow. IM takes time! Rarely does somebody get rich over night. It's really not as easy as some gurus let you think..

Slow and Steady but many people are not

Really quick, this is what I've noticed:

1. Google (and maybe some other search engines) block their content as thin blather. See #3 for why.

2. They advertise to the same, exact people (i.e., people in this forum) that their supplier advertises to.

3. They place too much emphasis on the product itself instead of how it enhances the activities of an ultimate goal. That's why you see millions of single blogs that are devoted to a single affiliate product.

When I first started out, affiliate marketing was a simple recommendation IN a process. But those days are gone.

A lot fail because they're not treating their businesses like a real business. Instead, they treat it like a hobby. Because of that, they don't put in the necessary work. Educating yourself for example is critical. When someone is struggling with something, they don't need motivation, they need education.

Once someone learns a skill, then it's time to implement it. If you ask me, in order to succeed, one must commit to the process of success and see only the light. An affiliate marketer is still considered an entrepreneur and these people have NO plan B's. So in reality, there is no failure, there are just lessons.

So for people struggling (both new and old affiliate marketers), the key is to focus on one thing only because if you're moving around promoting all these different things, then you'll get overwhelmed. Focus on one thing from offer and traffic generation strategy. Keep educating yourself. Don't be afraid or hesitant to invest in your knowledge. Read books daily because mindset is 80% of your success. The remaining 20% is consistent hard work. Create content online through blogging and videos. Make other people see who you are and attract them, don't chase them around and spam them. Give value and people WILL see that.

It's a tough journey, but it's definitely worth it. All you need is focus, faith and hard work. If things are currently complicated in your business, then you need to make it simpler because to succeed online, there's really only 3 things you should be doing daily.

1.) Create Traffic (If you're stuck on this step, most people are, then invest in a program or course that teaches you how to generate traffic.)
2.) Capture Leads
3.) Convert into sales

Simple, right? Do that 90 days straight, you WILL get results.

The process you follow to make money with affiliate marketing may be simple, but it definitely isn't "easy".

Today, it's actually simpler than ever, because you have tools to create squeeze pages, easy to use autoresponders and other tools that make the technical aspects of setting things up a lot simpler.

However, it will still require massive perseverance and determination to figure out both traffic and conversions, and to hang in there until you're making consistent money. The plain truth is that it'll require a fairly significant amount of time and money to get to the point where you're making a consistent amount of money and also getting a positive return on your time and money.

When you're starting out in affiliate marketing, it's most likely going to seem as if you're putting way too much time and money and yet not making enough in return. This is normal until you learn to optimize your traffic and conversions, but the real problem here is that the majority of people quit because they're expecting instant and positive results from their efforts, and this rarely ever happens.

This is where perseverance and tenacity is needed, because you'll almost certainly experience some failures and setbacks in the process of getting to where you want to be in your affiliate marketing.

While I prefer affiliate marketing, the best or the easiest way to make money online depends on the person you talk to and their individual circumstances and interests. With that said, I think the main reason so many people fail at this stuff is because they give up before they see success. It' all about your mentality. We all hit roadblocks, but those of use who are successful look and think to ourselves, "I've got to figure out what I'm doing wrong and fix it" rather than giving up.

Joey

Nothing is easy, you have to work in order to earn it. Some people do it in smart way and some people struggle a lot. But nothing comes soo easily!

Most people are lazy. They want everything handed to them on a silver platter. That is why most fail. They are not willing to actually work.

Re's
Rob Whisonant

______________________________________


Your question tells the answer

Gurus say so, subject to the condition that you learn and act fast upon it with all due effort. Further what is working for one guru may not necessarily work for every body. Internet is a rapidly changing place. You don't know about the next moment.
Unfortunately, people come to this profession thinking that there is some party going on there.... However, what they forget is, there are no free lunches. Then the expectations are very high. They expect some magic bullet to help them become filthy rich in one night.
In order to be successful, you must work your ass off (just like any other walk of life).

They fail because they try hard to make money short time rather than adding value to their customers and add long term benefits . They don't really understand the needs of their customers .

...many fail to do it...

...because it requires discipline, focus and
commitment.

Folks are used to coming from a 9 to 5 job
environment.

Every move they make is analized with a
fine tooth comb.

When to eat. When to piss. When to work.
When to stop. When to speak. When to be
silent. Where to walk. Where to run. Where
to jump.

So when people come from being trained
as employees, to suddenly having to think
for *themselves*...

...things get a little complicated.

They thought it was going to be LESS work.

When, in reality, it's so much more.

You have to be self-motivated to want real
CHANGE.

There's no one really outside of yourself to
push you to greatness. And no one is going
to want you to succeed more than yourself.

So...

...it begins...

...from within.

Why people fail at affiliate marketing...

Simply because they don't know what to do.

They see an opportunity that there is to make money... but they don't know how to leverage what they have in order to make it work.

It too comes down to what they choose to partner with as well... you don't want to be working your butt off and only get 5% commissions when you can be partnered with companies that can offer you 50 - 90% commissions.

Most people are unsure how to leverage what they have... because they haven't been taught or haven't learned how to do it either.

There is a method on how to do it... but most people get caught up in they have to make money now syndrome and don't do their do diligence on learning how to do it.

If anyone needs any help in what to do and wants to bounce ideas off me..

Happy to help out

Cheers

Tiff

Affiliate marketing is insanely difficult.. most top affiliates claim only 5% or less become successful but it's the gurus that bring in all the newbies who expect to make a fortune by pressing a button.

The only people saying that it is easy are the companies getting people into it *cough cough* MLM *cough* In reality it is more about perseverance, and constantly improving yourself through watching videos and reading, then trying it, see how it goes and then make a decision about how to further develop your business. People like internet marketing because most of the work comes from using your brain and not just following orders from a boss.

Expect to be in this business for a while if you want to make relevant money.

- Kabbas

The model is simple but it's not easy..

Cheers,

C.G.

Because if they tell you it's easy you will buy their product. Many top marketers know that the truth does not sell, hype is what sells. It's like losing weight. It's very hard to do and requires lots of work. But they are not going to tell you this in the late night infomercials.

Selling "fantasy island" dreams is what sells. Affiliate marketing is like any other business model it requires lots of work and patience.

I've never liked the term "affiliate marketing" because it leads people to start with the product, in reality, the best and most stable foundation for a business is to start with a deep problem or desire.

Most people fail because they don't focus on building the foundation of their business, they just go for the rest of it.

In business school they begin by teaching basics such as demand/supply theory and sometimes walls to entry dynamics.

For example if the wall to entry is low or non-existant then millions of people will be doing it, which drives down the market asking rate of each person who goes over that wall. It takes very little skills to flip a burger thus millions of people do it and because of such a huge supply the competition lowers wages to an equal degree.

Making money will always follow supply/demand. The supply of people with thousands of hours of internet marketing training is much smaller than the the number of people with a few hours to a few hundred hours of training. Thus the ones with thousands of hours of training can do more, are more valuable to businesses, are in shorter supply, and thus can command the highest incomes in the IM industry.

Internet marketing isn't much different than any other field. Take for example the medical industry. Medical assistants with 100 hours of training making $15 an hour vs MD specialists with tens of thousands of hours of training making the equivalent of $1000 an hour.

tl;dr

You are paid for what you know.

There are many reason to fail in this section. Such as lack of knowledge, lack of patience, hurry. If one can do the Affiliate marketing properly, he will be able to earn a good amount of money.

Most of the people don't have enough knowledge to do the Affiliate marketing. We know an English proverb that a little learning is a dangerous thing. After doing some work, a new comer wants to take cash money only. so he always try to make hurry. It is also a big problem. The lack of patience is also responsible for the failure in this section. Thanks a lot.

Affiliate marketing is NOT easy. I've been doing it for over 20 years and have been very successful with it after a long startup. It's always been a struggle keeping up with changing products, links, presell content, and affiliates coming and going.

I could pretend to be a guru and sell a course on how I became successful but there is no such thing as a cookie-cutter repeatable strategy in affiliate marketing. So what worked for me would almost certainly not work for someone else in a different niche. I can't even duplicate my own success with other web sites that are in similar niches, following my own strategy.

This is the problem I see with gurus who sell IM products in affiliate marketing. Although knowing good techniques, practices, and strategies is important, success is a very uncertain thing, even if you're able to precisely duplicate the techniques of successful people.

Because you (most of the time) only get a percentage of the sale, like 50%, which makes it tougher to use paid advertising since your margins are lowered.

Have you ever considered whiners tend to whine?

If someone is successful they're less likely to post anything on a subject. Not counting the self appointed dolts spamming forum sig. links.

Affiliate marketing is a simple process but its not easy by any means in my view , And a lot of peoples dont have required patients to make it successful.

Many fail, but MANY still have immediate success...everyday. It's just like anything else in life. If you want an easy job, go down to the temp service. If the temp service gives you an easy job (ex: stacking and shrink-wrapping pallets) and you did a crappy job... who's fault is that? Most courses on affiliate marketing give you the simple blueprint. Alot of people are just lazy. They want to try PPC, get 50 clicks, and see $2820 in their Paypal account the next day.

Many fail because they lack of knowledge, thinking it get rich quick as they don't understand.
For many people to buy a product is not as simple as "here you go this product is gonna get you rich" as many think so. Before i started i taught to myself how hard could it be to get an affiliate product and promote it to the right audience. As the audience don't know you, like you or trust you so they don't really care what you offer.
So people mostly quit by then.
You need to understand to put a automated funnel in plan where you offer a free great product and get there email. So it all starts with that email list where you have to give them valuable information and make then like and trust you before you can make that sale.
It is not easy to make a funnel so thats where patience comes in place. People don't like to take baby steps and want to run before they can start walking.
I believe they need to take a step back and start slowly and make there way as they learn. Not every one has that mentality so they quick like in anything in life.

Yes the reality is it is not easy but the business model is a simple, With a few necessary components you need to put together in the right order.

Another challenge is in the begin knowing who to trust as a mentor when buying products or services geared towards helping achieve your goals.

And most don't have or work to develop the right mindset moving forward. You wont likely see result instantly and its a shift in thinking and belief so that you are persistent until you do see your first dollar... then you know its real and there will be no stopping you then... you'll continue your growth and learning, pushing past the inevitable challenges you will experience.

I have been working at affiliate marketing for 4 years, and haven't sold anything yet, one of the problems is you need to have a mailing list of some hundreds of subscribers, but besides that you need to set up a relationship with people before selling to them. i am studying with click bank university, where i feel i am making some progress. I now have some 600 subscribers to build a relationship with giving them good content for some time and every once in a while start sending offers. the process is not easy.

Personally, I've had many different work experiences in life. I'm an entrepreneur and have been involved in all sorts of projects, startups, and investments.

The most valuable thing I can tell you is to get into something that you are not only interested in, but something that you can get excitement out of and have fun with. Out of all of the ventures that I've been involved with that failed, 100% failed because we gave up too early - because we were either bored with it or just had no interest in it. I've never been super crazy about what I call "information marketing" but I've always loved to build businesses. No matter what you do, you have to keep in mind WHY you're doing it. If you're doing it to make money, you should always treat it like a business - even if you aren't making money.

When I was younger, I was in the nightlife business - it was fulfilling, it made money, and it was fun. I stuck with it for 7 years and my team and I crushed it. I started with a partner and eventually went out on my own. It wasn't lonely but what kept us going was our community and the end result.

Find something that really excites you. Start there. Get involved with the community and build your network and really get to work. Stay off this forum.

There are a lot of good marketers on here and there is also a lot of crap. One person "Steve" (not me) always provides great advice and seems to be very genuine. Always good to find that. The people who try to sell you on their crap stay away from. This is supposed to be a community not Craig's List.

Lastly, I've been considering getting a project together for new/mid level IMers to get working together on a week by week milestone basis. You'll work alone but stay involved on progress throughout each step on our private discussion board. If anyone is interested in it, drop me a PM. I've already started drawing up the program. This would be a free fun project to learn and build a better community. PM me if you want to work on it with me or join it. If you think it's a terrible idea, that's cool too.

It WAS easy back in late 90's into early 00's. Now I find it much easier to sell tangible products online.

I also think the sales pitches used in IM give new comers the perception that IM is easy.

Many products use the lure of instant monetary returns to lure people to purchase. Its hard to blame newbies who don't know better to get such a perception. If everyone in the room is telling you money can be made instantly, you would assume that money really is made instant on the internet.

Sad part is that, just like another other business, IM actually takes a good amount of effort and time to get returns. Many just give up within the month thinking that it won't work for them.

Who said Affiliate Marketing is easy!! Affiliate marketing is easy for those who know techniques, who are expert. When starting, it is quite difficult to continue.
Everything requires hard works and dedication. If you can apply everything what you have for earning from Internet; your time, hard works and limitless efforts - you can be successful and then really Affiliate marketing is easy.

Is affiliate marketing really an EASY business model?

That depends on what you mean with "easy".

Affiliate marketing is not easy in the meaning: Nothing to learn.
It's not a shortcut for the lazy person who doesn't bother to get trained. On the other side it's quite easy, if you just know how to do it. So you'll need to learn it from a professional, who already knows the right way to success.

Affiliate marketing is not easy in the meaning: Nothing to do.
It's not possible, as an illusory hype may claim, just to set up a business and start making money per automatic. Affiliate marketing doesn't work, if you don't work. But if you are ready to do what's required, you may easily build a real (professional) business with affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketing is not easy in the meaning: Nothing to risk.
It's true that you may sign up for free in many affiliate marketing programs. But if you want to build a real business, the outcome is always dependent on how much interest, time and money you are investing in it. Most people with an affiliate business doesn't make real profit until they start spending (risking) some money on it.

It's a long process. I was making considerably more money 10 years ago until fairly recently. I knew nothing about building a website back then and SEO did seem like rocket science to me. The thing of it was that the Google Ad policies were considerably less stringent back in the day and competition was a blip compared to what it is today.

Over the years I learned a few things about website building (thank you Wordpress and Xsite-Pro) and I began to tackle SEO (Wordpress plugins like Yoast are very helpful). But these skills went into Ebay sales and $10 t-shirt commissions.

It was when I began to focus on list building and methods for traffic generation that things began to pickup. These are the essentials for any online entrepreneur and I would suggest focusing on these if you are just starting out.

I am reluctant to use the old cliche 'If I can do it, anyone can," but as another cliche would have it: "Cliches are cliches because they are true."

Most fail at affiliate marketing simply because
they do not have a proper system, sales funnel,
or the commitment to consistently fill the funnel
with new prospects.


It's easy...


The commitment is the toughest part.

Half the problem is that we're bombarded every day with shiny new objects and you end up with information overload.

I've found the best way to succeed with affiliate marketing is to focus on One niche, ONE product & ONE method, whether that be video, facebook, a niche website etc - work with it until it's successful and once it's successful, then and only then, move onto another product / method in your niche.

The first thing I did when I become really serious with affiliate marketing was to Unsubscribe from lists that I noticed I wasn't reading their emails anymore. It's just more distraction otherwise!

because its all relative really
what may be considered to some people maybe difficult to others..
i've coached a good few people and the hardest thing about it is
breaking the habit of doing alot stupid sh*t like direct linking, no follow up
,broad marketing etc
i personally think the process is easy enough,
alot of people that fail, just dont do what they're told

The concept of Affiliate Marketing is straight forward and easy.
However, in reality competition is fierce among affiliate marketers and generating quality targeted traffic take time and effort. And buyers are growing wary of affiliate links.
You now need to admit it is an affiliate link you are promoting but why should they click your link? Are you providing bonuses, guidance, advice, help etc.

1. It's NOT easy
2. you need to be very passionate. i know i very talented friend of mine who wanted to get in the business and he was crazy about the money he can make. realizing he needs to keep the fire and the passion all the time in order to move forward... i think that is the most difficult part. because everybody can get excited by their new idea or a new thing that is going to be "the next hot thing!!! I'm sure!!" ...in the first day..or week...

If I were selling a product that teaches you how to build a wordpress platform, of course, I would also tell you that it was easy to do. I want you to buy my product.

I would also tell you that competing platforms,"just don't work anymore"

It's all about the marketing.

If you know how to do anything, you will it it is really easy. On the flip side, if you do not know how to do, you will see, it is hard.

Considering the above statement we can say, it is really easy to the expert only. You need to learn first to be expert. If you can learn, it will be really be easy for you. Thanks

Well, many people get into IM because of the low perceived difficulty at first and the big claim of being able to do it from home. It's about prejudice. Also, a lot of pseudo-gurus claim to be technology idiots and to make six figures so it's natural to expect people who get a lot of exposure to these clowns (especially beginners) to have this distorted view of reality.

It's easy! I did it. Not big money, but enough for me.
People fail because they don't differ. That's it.

Affiliate online or offline is easy... don't make it complicated.
Just focus to shoot your target audience with a single product.
Shoot them again and again and again and again and... you know!

The big mistake is:
1. High hope for big profit.
2. Lazy and want a magic button.
3. Wrong focus on target and product.

That's my opinion based on my own experience.

It's the mindset why most fail. Most affiliates give up before they see results. To win in affiliate marketing you have to test out a lot of things and unfortunately in most cases you have to lose money until you can find that winner to scale it to larger profits. I suggest affiliates test out different affiliate programs such as adsense, click bank, jvzoo and cpa networks. If you test out all of these with targeted paid traffic one or two will be the winner. You have to find the affiliate program that works for you. You may not be good with selling but you could be a superstar with adsense. When you lose money, don't look at it as a failure. Look at it like your paying for education. Also when looking at paid advertising. Don't look at it as being too expensive look at it from the stand point of gettng a return on investment and what is your risk tolerance. As long as you have a ROI your not losing any money.