If you’ve spent much time doing affiliate marketing, you know the benefits: flexible schedules, low start-up costs and overhead, the potential for passive income and quick expansion, and not having to bother with employees, fulfillment, or customer service.
On the other hand, you’ve probably faced many challenges and discovered why most people fail at affiliate marketing.
If you love all the great things about affiliate marketing but want to give up on the rest, you’re not alone.
“This is an amazing field that can be hugely profitable if done right. If done wrong, it can end up being the same as the 9-to-5 job you were trying to avoid – a waste of time and bandwidth without adequate reward,” says Chris Reeder. And Reeder knows it: he's a rising star in the affiliate marketing industry, an eight-figure earner, and the mastermind behind the Profit Singularity course that simplifies and automates the affiliate marketing process.
Here are some of the main problems with affiliate marketing and how to solve them.
1 – Creativity is drying up
If you’re the creative type, affiliate marketing has likely sparked your interest from the get-go. Do you want to create compelling ads? Write compelling copy? Binge-churn out Oscar-worthy videos? Yes, yes, yes!
But creating ads and content every day can be really exhausting. Even great artists can get burned out. Michelangelo took multiple breaks from painting. Marcel Duchamp gave up art altogether to play chess. If you're running out of ideas and need some creative help, you're no exception.
Solution: Use your resources. There are plenty of resources available to help you stay in the game.
“AI is a gift to affiliate marketers if you use it well,” says Chris Reeder. “It can generate great copy that you can use as is or build upon.”
You can also look for affiliate marketing courses that offer plenty of tested and proven templates for ads, landing pages, videos, etc. These courses can give you fresh inspiration to keep your campaign on track.
Templates are especially useful in areas like video creation. If you love making videos for YouTube or other platforms, but don't want to go through the trouble of making them from scratch or dealing with all of the technical logistics, templates can be of great help.
2 – It's taking longer than expected
The big advantage of working for yourself is that you can do what you want, when you want (at least to some extent), and you're not a slave to a 9 to 5. But it's not uncommon for entrepreneurship to be just as taxing as a traditional job. You're still a slave…just a slave to your own business. That might sound a bit appealing to you, but it's not the answer.
The dream of working just a few hours a day, at times that suit your needs, is entirely possible if you know how.
Solution: Affiliate marketers live in an environment where you get praised for working harder than your competitors and you earn what you make. Frankly, you shouldn't do affiliate marketing unless you have a strong work ethic, but that doesn't mean you should work yourself to death. “Work smarter, not harder” is a great mantra for affiliate marketing.
“I help students in my Profit Singularity course find untapped areas of the internet where there's less competition,” Reader says, “and I steer them to high-value offers so they only have to manage a few high-return campaigns instead of dozens of low-return campaigns. What you advertise and where you advertise can make a big difference in your quality of life.”
3 – I’m tired of platforms that move the goalposts
Got banned on Facebook again? We get it. Getting out of the danger zone can be hard because you don't always know what it's going to look like. Many affiliate marketers report being banned on multiple platforms for things they didn't even know were in violation, and then living in fear of having to go through the trouble of restoring their accounts.
Solution: Templates can help here too, as you’ll be working with proven ads instead of reinventing the wheel and venturing into “banned” territory. You can also work with a mentor who can help you choose platforms and niches wisely to minimize the chances of getting banned.
4 – Too much competition
Affiliate marketing can be a dog-and-dog world in some niches. In this highly competitive environment, you might feel like there’s no way to differentiate yourself and make enough profits.
Solution: This goes back to choosing who to advertise on and what platform to advertise on. Sure, parts of the internet are saturated, but not all of it.
“We have a lot of students who aren't having consistent success on Facebook, so we steer them into the lesser known areas of YouTube, and now they're thriving,” Chris Reeder said.
If you're not sure which direction to go in, don't just throw spaghetti at the wall. Talk to a mentor or take a class from an expert who keeps their finger on the pulse of the internet. You don't want to rush in full speed and end up in a dead end.
5 – Benefits are too uneven
The low overhead and scalability of affiliate marketing opens the door to sometimes huge profits. Remember, it depends on many variables, including merchant rules, the number of competitors in your niche, overall market trends, etc. If you don't have a fixed income, it can be very difficult to plan and budget financially.
Solution: If you want a steady income, affiliate marketing isn't the solution. However, there are things you can do to make your income more stable. First, sell higher value products, preferably ones with a subscription. One of the challenges with affiliate marketing is that no one will buy a second product from you unless you sell a product with a renewing subscription that gives you a recurring passive income.
Then use testing and analysis to find the best ads. Once you find one or two that work, don't move on to the next step – stick with those ads and keep expanding them.
6 – Stagnant
“A lot of people get stuck when it comes to affiliate marketing,” says Chris Reader. It could be about personal time management, creativity, overall strategy, or anything else. They may feel like they've tried it all, but just can't achieve the high revenue they achieved when they first started out in affiliate marketing.
Solution: Consider joining a mastermind or community that helps you think outside the box. Mentors and fellow marketers can share ideas for invigorating your ads, content, and videos.
7 – I always wonder if I’m doing the right thing
To be a great affiliate marketer, you need expertise in many areas: you need to write compelling copy and engaging content, create compelling videos, build beautiful and intuitive landing pages, use SEO to drive traffic to your landing pages, know basic psychology to understand what your target audience thinks, strategic thinking to build a game plan, and the logistics to run tests and continually check your analytics.
You may be good at some of these, but most people aren't good at everything. Imposter syndrome is a huge problem in the affiliate marketing field. There's a lot to learn, and no one is standing over your shoulder telling you to “add this” or “tweak that” for maximum success.
Solution: Pay someone to tell you if you're doing it right. Find a course or mentor program where you can learn from someone who has unlocked the secrets of affiliate marketing. It may be an investment at first, but it will pay off once you've mastered the art of creating consistently profitable campaigns.
“You can figure a lot out on your own through analysis and testing, but it takes time. Hiring a mentor who can critique and fine-tune your campaign is often a better investment. A mentor can help you learn in a few weeks what it might take you years to learn on your own,” says Chris Reader of Profit Singularity.
