Affiliate marketing is a tactic for selling the product online. In order to target the same audience, the marketers give permission to some other people. These people are known as affiliates. The affiliates recommend the items to others and earn a commission. A number of myths surround this type of marketing, so we can say that it is full of controversies. Your partner will get a definite amount of commission which you can easily determine. You can take advantage from a number of channels (affiliate networks, referrals like Amazon and paid search) with this holistic approach. All this makes this an effective marketing tactic. Now I am going to describe 8 affiliate marketing myths that are holding you back financially.

1. A lot of competition exists in this – A number of people think that making money through this type of marketing is very difficult as a lot of competition exists in this. In the crowded marketplace you have to be louder than others, only then you can earn a profit. But this is actually a myth. There is a lot of user demand which makes it competitive and because of this in this industry you can make a lot of money.

2. It targets niche products only – Reports suggest that for sustaining and growing the revenue a number of items are taken into consideration by a lot of publishers. Finding profitable publishers is required here. For this, it is necessary to use paid media channels and organic search. If you will not do this then it will be very difficult for you to target niche items. But it is a myth. For creating a program, you can use your own following. The advertisers will take interest in it by themselves. Knowing about the publishers is important for the advertiser. With this the audience can get flexible incentives which you will create for them. Both of you will benefit from each other.

3. Links of affiliate marketing are not good for SEO – From an SEO’s point of view, placing links is affiliate marketers’ basic concern. There is a myth that after getting a paid link from a different website a penalty can be imposed on your website. But this is false. With your business’s clout, all the guidelines of SEO are in proportion. You need to understand this first. If a number of advertisement links to different websites are put on your blog or ecommerce website having small amounts of content then the visitors will not buy from your site or do not read the blog. There are chances of penalty imposed on your site. So, it is important to properly create a website and don’t use so many ads in it. To prevent the crawling of the paid links you can incorporate a number of technical parameters which are:

·       To track your campaign, use a tracking URL or a masked URL.

·       For the website’s every affiliate link, implement a 302 redirect.

·       In the robots.txt file you may be using a URL path. For this URL path you need to include a disallow line command.

·       In each affiliate URL, insert a link attribute of ‘no follow’ type.

4. When using coupons people don’t take interest in spending so much – It is important for you to provide the required items to the customers so that their basket value can increase. Give an attractive offer to the customers so that they can get ready to spend more. You can also offer discounts to the customers on the basis of the average order value and with this you can still earn a profit. In order to make customers feel that they are investing in the right product, offer them a discount. We can call it the affiliate marketing’s core component. As compared to your competitors you can offer better deals to the consumers who are actively using the coupon site. This will help in attracting new consumers as well as encouraging the people who have purchased from you earlier to purchase from you again.  

5. You cannot persuade previous buyers to purchase again – A great deal is always liked by everyone. Have you ever heard of a decrease in online customer loyalty? If yes, then it can convince you that the people who have purchased from you earlier will not come to your website again. But it is a myth. If you have offered a good deal to the customers and after seeing it, they become ready to purchase from your website then there are more chances of those customers to buy from you again. For instance, if on the birthday of customers or on any special occasion you offer a discount code to them then they will be delighted to purchase from your website again and again.

6. Incentivising people for signing up your newsletter will not work – As compared to the paid ads the content shelf life of emails is more. Using emails is a marketing scheme that is permission based and so you can trust these a lot. If you have very good click through rates or open rates for all your emails then you have to use this opportunity and use email marketing to offer incentives.

7. You can get success by managing a large number of affiliate programs – On the basis of the perfect execution of the program, an affiliate marketer will be called as great instead of being called as good. If you are not getting success then there can be a number of reasons behind this such as your conviction, expectations and setup are not right. However, there is no need of getting discouraged because of this. If you will make good efforts then you will get good rewards.

8. You can quickly become rich with the affiliate networks – A considerable amount of effort and time is needed for getting success through affiliate marketing programs or affiliate networks. If according to you just by setting up a website and choosing an affiliate program you can get success at a very fast rate then you need to change your way of thinking. It is necessary for you to foster very good relationships by selecting the right partner and for this you have to:

·       Start programs for new partners.

·       Seek out partnerships that are more effective and much better.

·       Devise a strategy for writing an updated content.

·       Promote all the programs effectively.

If you run an online business and you want to drive conversions and achieve sustained growth then it will be beneficial for you to contact a Digital marketing company.