One of my friends is a amazing Cook.
I think he’d kill it if he were up on those top cooking tv shows.
A few years ago he decided to make a big career leap – he wanted to build his first restaurant from scratch.
Most new restaurants fail within a few years so I told him I would be here if he needed advice. I have no idea about gastronomy, but I’m sure I could at least give him some marketing tips.
A few weeks later he calls me:
“Charles, I need to figure out how to get my restaurant on the front page of Google.”
You can imagine my confusion – aren’t there more important things to think about so early?
He spent the first few weeks designing business cards and building a website himself. These can be important …he hadn’t even signed a rental agreement or had any suppliers pending.
What do you think is more important at this stage?
He focused 80% of his time on the 20% of the activities that didn’t matter.
We have all been guilty of this before.
Instead of filling out the PowerPoint presentation, we play with the fonts, designs, slide transitions, etc.
Instead of exercising, we waste weeks trying to find the “perfect” exercise program.
After seeing and responding to thousands of newbie affiliate marketing emails over the years, I’ve seen some patterns emerge.
A big one that caught my eye is newbies rethink everything. Seriously. They waste their intelligence on things that don’t matter in the bigger picture.
Why is this happening?
1. You don’t know.
You think a task is important, but you have not yet had the experience of knowing the difference.
2. You want to make progress without failing, working hard, or feeling uncomfortable.
This is an important one.
Talk to and negotiate with suppliers uncomfortable. They might decide they don’t want to work with you. Rejection sucks.
What about affiliate marketing? Nobody likes to lose money on campaigns.
So it’s easy to spend hours reading blogs, Facebook groups, and forums every day. It feels like you are making progress, but a few months later you are exactly where you were before.
This is not progress.
Nothing beats action and real experience.
3. It’s fun.
Training for a 10K run? Painful and sweaty. Buy running shoes? Yay!
You get the picture. People by nature go down the path of least resistance and that which is fun.
So let’s start by linking this back to affiliate marketing.
I want to point out a few tasks that newer affiliate marketers have gotten stuck on – but that doesn’t matter.
Focus less on these and focus more on the essentials.
Let’s get into that.
Your domain name doesn’t really matter
Your domain name is important in building a brand or business.
But the domain name of your landing page Not important when running campaigns. This is especially true if you are still in the testing phase of your campaign.
I used to waste time figuring out the perfect domain name.
“Ah, man, all the great .coms are taken”
You can use .co, .us, or .biz and it doesn’t matter.
Don’t spend more than $ 10 on a domain name. I’ve seen people waste hundreds of dollars buying a cool domain only to end up with an unprofitable campaign.
If you are new to affiliate marketing you can save money on hosting / domain names by doing it all on one generic Domain.
832recommends.com/diet
832recommends.com/carwarranty
832recommends.com/ competition
I remember one of the biggest campaigns I’ve ever seen in my life didn’t even have a domain name – the ads were only linked to the landing page’s IP addresses.
Pick something and go!
Your landing page doesn’t have to look like the landing page
I’ve always heard the idea that you should look at things from the customer’s point of view.
Put yourself in their shoes.
One thing I was persistent on was trying to create a meaningful “user flow”. In particular, I’d spent hours making my landing page look like the listing page.
It was the same font, the same green Color scheme, and overall the same design.
You click the ad, go to the landing page, and then convert on the landing page. I thought the conversion rates would be higher if the customer felt like everything came from one company.
I was so proud of myself.
Then my affiliate manager told me about an offer that broke it. He told me I had to test it asap.
That wouldn’t work for my campaign – my landing page was bright green and the landing page was bright red. I didn’t have time to change the design of my landing page.
I started the split test in the morning and went to work. I checked the campaign on my lunch break – and the 2nd offer traded 30% higher.
That’s when I realized that a lot of affiliate marketing doesn’t “make sense”. What matters are the conversion rates.
Appearance doesn’t matter when it comes to supply
How do you choose which offer you would like to carry out? This is important if you are on a tight budget as you simply cannot test all of them.
I’m telling you one mistake that newbies make all the time – they judge a book by its cover. This offer has a much nicer design, it has to be converted higher!
Anyone with experience knows how wrong that is.
Some of the best campaigns I’ve ever run have been hideous.
Basically, design is just one aspect of the conversion rate. What else is going on behind the scenes?
- How many payment methods does the advertiser accept?
- How fast does the landing page load?
- Is This Offer Shaving Or Exfoliating?
- How fast are the affiliate network’s servers?
- What software are the networks and advertisers using?
- Does the person have to tick a “Terms and Conditions” box?
- Etc.
You understand my point.
To be honest, I don’t care what an offer looks like. Grab the link, make sure the link works, upload it to the tracker and let the numbers speak for themselves.
The offer has too much competition
Beginners fear competition. I get it.
How can you maybe compete with a super affiliate with a big budget, team and years of experience?
So it’s easy to think – “hmm … if only I could try to find an offer that pays well, converts amazingly, but has” zero Competition.”
Affiliate marketing doesn’t work like that.
First, even if you manage to find this mythical unicorn, sooner or later the competition will come. Either the big guys will find it with spy tools or their affiliate managers will give them an advance warning.
And new offers have their own problems anyway. It could be a newer company and they are limited to the cap. You take a risk because you don’t know how well the offer can convert.
Instead, realize that competition is good. It means there is a hungry market and that supply is demonstrably converting.
How can you compete with fewer resources? Remember … you never want to compete with super affiliates on their own game.
- Brainstorm unique angles that nobody else uses.
- Segment a portion of the audience. Promoting a hair loss product? Everyone likely focuses on older men in their 40s.
Instead, why not focus on women or target bald men in their twenties?
- Aim at another GEO. Is it all focused on the US? Go international.
Choosing the right software software
Tracking software didn’t exist when I started. I had to use a combination of SUBIDs, Excel spreadsheets, and Pivot Tables to understand my data.
And then Prosper202 came out.
So everyone switched to it. And then CPVlabs was upgraded over it. And then Voluum was an upgrade over it.
Sounds easy right?
Well, it’s not that easy for you who are new to affiliate marketing. Seriously, I think there are 20+ different affiliate trackers than the last time I checked. It’s the paradox of choice!
How do you choose which one? Making the wrong choice can mean wasting money and potentially incurring “switching costs” later.
This goes for every software down the line.
The decision on which software to use should not be a bottleneck.
When I have analytical paralysis, I usually go with either most popular software, or I’ll find someone whose recommendation I trust.
A few years ago I had to update my AWeber blog’s email system. I was overwhelmed with options: Infusionsoft, Active Campaign, ConvertKit, etc.
I did some research and found InfusionSoft to be the most popular. It was a five minute decision.
I realized that the software I was using is not a deal breaker. The real needle movers write great emails and great funnels.
What you need to realize is that you need this Experience to find out what is the best software for you.
Pick something now, gain experience, and upgrade anytime when the time is right.
The most important thing is to keep the most important thing, the most important thing
At some point my friend started working on the more important things in the restaurant. I asked him why he spent so much time on design, the website, etc. in the beginning.
It is what I predicted.
He’s worked in restaurants all his life. He has another side who loves design and technology.
This was an outlet for him to explore one of his passions.
Starting a business is difficult.
Some of the most important things you have to do are not going to be easy.
Do you want to be successful in affiliate marketing?
Browsing Facebook all day is easy.
Chatting with affiliate managers is easy.
Tearing down campaigns from spy tools is easy.
The world does not reward people who focus on light things.
Starting and testing campaigns is difficult.
Finding and negotiating the best deals is difficult.
Recruiting and training media buyers is difficult.
Thinking of unique angles is hard.
Relentless focus and the discipline to focus on the tough things will set you apart from everyone else.
Featured image by Goir
