Feb
Why Affiliate Marketing Sucks
I’m coming off another week of affiliate marketing, with another failed campaign. I ended up losing money again. Now I know a lot of people will say to be prepared to lose money in the beginning, and I am to an extent, but at some point you have to pull the plug. I probably spent about $20-30 this week in Google Adwords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Ya that’s not a lot of money, but for someone who is just testing things out, you can get a good number of clicks for $25 and at least get an idea if your campaign will work. With that $25 I got probably about 50-60 or so clicks (this niche was more expensive then the previous zip submit ones I did). Out of those 55 clicks, only 1 freaking person converted to a lead. DAMN that sucks.
So when people aren’t converting there could be several things wrong.
- Your landing page sucks
- Your ads suck
- The offer sucks
- Your keywords suck
Now, I put quite a bit of time into this campaign. I designed a badass (in my opinion) landing page that was almost identical to the offer’s landing page. If made awesome ads and picked really targeted keywords (Google even gave a lot of my keywords Great and Good quality score… something I didn’t get on my last campaigns). The only thing this leaves is the offer sucking. But really I don’t think the offer sucks either. So I’m at a complete loss as to why I can’t make money from this campaign.
Why Affiliate Marketing Sucks
Because no one will freaking tell you anything! Affiliate marketing is so different then any other make money online method. It is very secretive, if someone finds a good campaign they’ll never tell you and will do everything in their power to throw you off track. People on Wicked Fire forums aren’t helpful either. If you ask for help, half the people call you a newb and just say that you suck to bad.
So why am I still trying? Because Making money from Adsense SUCKS! I’m so sick of watching my earnings drop every single day and I’m sick of getting like 2 cents a click. It’s not worth it. If I had sites that I could line up private advertisers, I would… but I don’t so I’m stuck with the shitty alternative. I’ve got to keep trying though, and keep failing or else I’ll never get anywhere. Like I said, people in affiliate marketing aren’t helpful and won’t show you step by step how to succeed. The only way to succeed is to do it on your own.


Do yourself a favor. Make this campaign, keywords, and landing page public. Have blog readers review it and help you - even if you might give away this campaign. However, the feedback you might receive will help you to do a better job the next time. Feel free to email me with the info as well and I’ll be happy to help you out. It’s the wrong moment to keep this stuff hidden if you want to succeed.
Christoph
[...] post by Blogging with David Lithman - An Internet Business Venture and posted by Alfred [...]
Christoph, I’ll go ahead and shoot you an email with some more details. That’d be great if you could help.
David, I feel your pain. I’m trying to get into affiliate marketing also, but am not having much success. Nobody wants to help at all, and everyone calls me a newb when I ask a question. I’ve lost about $50 on PPC so far, which is pennies to a lot of people, but I’m a college student and don’t have much money to throw around.
I am sorry to hear about your frustration. It can be extremely frustrating when you put effort into it and don’t make money in return. But don’t lose hope.
There are excellent guides out there to affiliate marketing which you should try studying. My company has been at the forefront of affiliate marketing for 11 years and has done very well from it.
We offer a training service in which we share hundreds of tips that we have picked up from spending thousands of hours in the trenches.
Just as you wouldn’t attempt to drive a car without lessons from a professional tutor, getting some professional advice with affiliate marketing can help you learn the ropes - and affiliate marketing is far more complicated than driving a car.
Feel free to get in touch should I be able to assist. The email address is results [at] azam.net
LOL your analysis is funny
I agree though that affiliate marketing sucks
I feel you, man. I pretty much am in the same situation like you in affiliate marketing. Adsense doesn’t really do justice for all the efforts website owners are doing and they totally control how much “leftovers” they’re willing to part with.
Although, affiliate marketing is difficult, and just a while ago out of frustration, I prayed for wisdom and guidance to find the right path to this business - I also believe that given the right opportunity its possible to earn some money from it. I’m not expecting to get rich out of all this effort, just wanted to be able to contribute in our daily expenses to get by everyday.
And you’re totally right about successful affiliate marketers not very helpful to people like us. What they do, as their “supposed” contribution to the affiliate newbies, is sell us their past techniques which are probably failing now - in order to make more money off of it.
It never fails on me though and there’s a word for it - sucker. Pity me.
Your friend in frustration,
Manuel