How I Made Money with Affiliate Marketing: Things I Learned Along the Way

Affiliate marketing has been one of the best ways for me to make money online without having to do anything. But things weren't always easy when I first started. I followed the "easy steps" I found on YouTube, like a lot of other beginners, but I got frustrated. I'm here to tell you about my journey, the mistakes I made, and the plans that finally worked for me. You're not the only one who has trouble with affiliate marketing; I've been there too.

When I first started doing affiliate marketing, I thought all I had to do was sign up for an affiliate program and share my link everywhere. I thought it would be as easy as putting up a link and waiting for sales to come in. But after days of work with no clicks, sales, or commissions, I quickly learned that affiliate marketing wasn't that easy.

I get why most people quit when they don't see results right away. Affiliate marketing does work, but only if you do it the right way. This is what I learned the hard way:

I made the classic mistake of pushing products just because they paid me a lot of money to do so. I didn't trust them, and I didn't know if they were good products or if they even worked. People could tell I wasn't excited, so I didn't sell anything. The big change happened when I started selling things I really used and believed in. After that, trust and sales started to grow.

For example, I didn't believe in the things I was selling when I first started. I was only interested in the commissions. I learned that the key is to promote products that I like, just like Amazon, Apple, and Target do with their strong affiliate programs. This helps me connect with my audience as well.

Like most people who are new to this, I thought I could just post my affiliate link anywhere, like on Facebook, Reddit, or forums, and get traffic. But nothing happened. I learned that traffic isn't magic and that I needed a plan that was specific to my needs. I did some research on how to get the right people to click on my links and bring in good traffic. You won't get any results if you don't have the right traffic.

I stopped thinking of affiliate marketing as a "get-rich-quick" scheme after a few tries and started treating it like a real business. This change in how I thought was very important to my success. This is what worked for me:

Choosing the right niche was the first step on my journey. I chose a trendy niche that I thought would be profitable when I first started, but I quickly realized it wasn't going to work. After thinking about it for a while, I decided to pick a niche that I really cared about. I focused on personal growth and home office supplies because they were both things that people always needed and things that I was interested in.

I found that making content wasn't a chore when I chose a niche I was interested in. It was actually fun because I was talking about things I liked. Choose a niche that speaks to you; it will make a big difference in the long run.

For example, this method is like the Connector business model used by big companies like Uber and Airbnb, which didn't make their own products but helped people find solutions. You don't have to make your own products for affiliate marketing either. You just connect people with answers to their problems and get paid for it. That's how I got started.

Learning how to trust people was probably the hardest lesson I had to learn. I spent months trying to sell things, but nothing worked. In the end, I figured out that affiliate marketing is all about giving value. I began making content that answered real questions, helped people with their problems, and told them about my own experiences with the products I was promoting.

This is what Vic, my mentor, taught me. He said that I wasn't getting results because I was doing the same thing as everyone else. He told me to do the opposite of what everyone else was doing: "zag" when everyone else "zigged." Things got better after I followed his advice. I started giving value first, and that's when people began to trust me.

Traffic is the most important thing for affiliate marketing, but not all traffic is the same. I began to focus on targeted traffic, which is people who were really interested in what I was selling. I started making content that was good for SEO for Google searches and videos for YouTube. But I didn't stop there. I also used paid ads to reach more people, but only after I had a good system in place.

Instead of just sending paid traffic to affiliate links, I sent them to a lead magnet, like an ebook or checklist. This worked for me. This let me get their email addresses and build the relationship over time. I saw a big rise in conversions when I started doing this.

My YouTube channel, Mahesh Soppari, was a big part of getting organic traffic. I started to see real results when I made useful content and used affiliate links that felt natural. This brought in a lot of money, and I quickly branched out into other areas, like Critaudit.com, which made me $12,000 in six months.

I figured out that I needed a system to automate and grow my work once I had the basics down. That's when I made my affiliate funnel, which helped me get leads, take care of them, and turn them into customers. This is how it works:

I started giving away something useful for free, like an ebook or checklist that fit with my niche. People had a reason to sign up for my email list.

I didn't send people who signed up for my list a lot of sales offers right away. I added value by giving case studies, success stories, and advice. This helped me gain their trust and keep them interested.

I started talking about affiliate offers more naturally once my audience was warmed up and trusted me. The key was to suggest products that really helped my audience solve their problems, which made them more likely to buy.

As I worked on my plan, I saw that I needed both organic and paid traffic to grow. This is how I used both:

I kept working on making high-quality, SEO-friendly content that helped people. I started getting more organic traffic as my content moved up in the rankings on Google and YouTube. Organic traffic doesn't come in quickly, but it lasts and grows over time.

I started running targeted paid ads to get results faster. I didn't send traffic straight to affiliate links, though. Instead, I sent them to free things like ebooks or mini-courses. This helped me build an email list that I could grow over time, which made more people buy from me.

I was able to reach a bigger audience and grow my affiliate marketing business much faster by using both free and paid methods.

As I got better at affiliate marketing, I saw that I could grow even faster by starting my own program. I set up my business so that other people could promote my offers instead of just promoting other people's products.

This is how I set it up:

• High-Converting Offers: I made sure that all of the products in my affiliate program were optimized for commissions and sold well.

• Training and Help: I gave my affiliates the training, tools, and marketing materials they needed to do well.

• Incentives and Rewards: To keep affiliates interested, I paid them up to 50% of the sale price.

  This not only helped my affiliates, but it also let me grow my business by using other people's resources.

I learned the hard way that affiliate marketing is not a way to get rich quickly. Things changed when I started treating it like a business. I stopped worrying about making quick sales and instead built a system that would bring in steady money over time.

I thought of affiliate marketing as a project that would last for a long time. I worked on making useful content, gaining trust, and always improving my strategy. That's when I started to see real changes.

Affiliate marketing has been a very rewarding journey for me. It wasn't easy, but I finally succeeded after a lot of hard work, planning, and changing my mind. I hope my story helps you avoid the mistakes I made and gives you a clearer path to success if you're just starting out or having trouble seeing results.

If you want to improve your affiliate marketing skills, you can either read my free guide to get started or sign up for my Affiliate Marketing Masterclass, where I teach everything I've learned so far.

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Get your free guide and start using the tips that helped me. My masterclass will help you get to the bottom of things faster if you want to skip the trial and error.