5 Myths About Affiliate Marketing
So you want to make money from your blog or online business?
You know you need to diversify your monthly income, but you’re hesitant to try affiliate marketing?
I totally understand.
Between all of the blogs and the articles written online about affiliate marketing, it can be hard to decipher what is true and what is false.
There are some pretty big misconceptions I hear over and over again about making money as an affiliate partner.
This post may contain affiliate links
I used to be one of those people who thought it was sleazy, and I thought that you couldn’t actually make any real money from it because it didn’t work for me at the time.
Instead of putting it off for years because I wasn’t seeing results, I wish I would have taken the time to figure out how to do it right. Promoting affiliate products and services actually makes up 58% of my two businesses’ income combined.
Affiliate marketing can be a surefire way to diversify your income, but there are so many myths that surround this concept that a lot of people are losing out on the money they could be making every single month.
It is crazy to me when I hear someone say that they can’t do affiliate marketing because they would be a sell out to their readers, or that they couldn’t make money from it because too many people are already doing it.
Let me help you with the fears and myths you have about affiliate marketing.
Are you ready?
Here are 5 of the most popular affiliate marketing myths or excuses that I hear that prevent people from using this monetization method.
5 Affiliate Marketing Myths:
#1 - Affiliate marketing is spammy
Over the past couple of years, affiliate marketing has gotten a bad rep.
Most people hear the term affiliate marketing and they think of a sleazy sales gimmick to make money, but honestly it is the complete opposite.
You don’t have to feel like you are selling your soul to make money. You can still use affiliate marketing to diversify your income while keeping your integrity.
It is not spam when you are recommending a product or service to your audience that you know will help them or provide some kind of value.
When you use affiliate marketing, you are still fulfilling your audience’s needs. You are showing them a product or service that you have used and have seen positive results with.
If done right, you can make money without being spammy.
For example, I have a post called Why I Switched to Convertkit. In this post, I share how and why I love Convertkit, and some of my favorite features.
This post still focuses on providing value to my readers, because it is a service that I know can help them to grow their business. I would have written this post even if I wasn’t an affiliate for Convertkit.
If you check out that post, you can see that I am not spamming my audience by saying they need to purchase Convertkit just so that I can make money. I am showing them how and why I like it.
I now make a recurring commission every single month from referring my audience to Convertkit.
#2 - You need to plaster affiliate links and banners all over your website to make money
This is 100% wrong. A lot of people are under the impression that you need to place banner ads and pepper blog posts with affiliate links in order to make money.
There are so many different ways that you can earn money from affiliate marketing, such as doing joint webinars, promoting other blogger’s online courses, and even sending out email promotions that include affiliate offers.
For example, if you take a look at Melyssa Griffin’s site, you wouldn’t even know that she is an affiliate for any kind of product or service. She doesn’t have banner ads and images telling you to ‘BUY NOW,’ but you can see in her income report that she makes thousands of dollars per month as an affiliate partner.
#3 - You need a large audience to make money
This is a common myth that I hear over and over again from bloggers and online business owners. It is also something that I believed for a really long time.
I always thought, “I don’t have a huge audience like these other business owners, so I won’t be able to make money with affiliate marketing.”
This misconception prevented me from making money as an affiliate partner for years. I worried that I would not be able to compete with these large bloggers so it wasn’t worth my time.
This was SO wrong!
It doesn’t matter the size of your audience, you can still make money as an affiliate partner.
I have found that quality is much more important than quantity when it comes to affiliate marketing. If you are promoting the right product or service to your audience, then it will not matter how big or small that audience actually is.
#4 - You can only make money if you are in the business blogging niche
This is definitely a myth that I hear all the time. I think this one came about because there are a lot of bloggers who teach people how to make money with an online business. And those same bloggers also share their income reports.
So over the years it has become somewhat popular to see that these people are making money with affiliate marketing, because they are giving you a “behind-the-scenes” look at how to do it, or how much they make.
But that doesn’t mean that it can’t be done in other niches too.
For me, my frugal blog, Frugal Fanatic, earnsthousands of dollars per month just from affiliate sales.
Here are a few examples of bloggers who earn more than $2,000 per month with affiliate marketing, who aren’t in the business blogging niche:
Parenting Niche: Pulling Curls
Frugal Niche - Making Sense of Cents
Food Niche - Pinch of Yum
Budgeting Niche - The Busy Budgeter
You can see, if you checked out each of their income reports, how much they earned in 1 month from affiliate marketing.
It is all about finding the right offers to promote to your target audience. You don’t have to be in a particular niche to successfully make money with affiliate marketing.
#5 - It is too much work
This is another affiliate marketing myth. People are constantly saying that it is too hard to get started or too much work every month to maintain.
One of the best things about affiliate marketing is the fact that it almost entirely passive. Once you have implemented a few strategies, you can start to generate money every single day without having to put in more work.
I have created an Affiliate Marketing for Beginners guide to help you if you are worried that it is too hard to get started or too much work.
Once you have signed up as an affiliate, it is very easy to start making money. One of the easiest ways is to write a tutorial, or guide post, like the one I mentioned above about Convertkit (thats my affiliate link).
Write an amazingly valuable post for your audience that includes an affiliate offer and you will make money.
You are already spending time writing awesome content; why not monetize it?
With affiliate marketing, you don’t have to put in hours upon hours like you would when you are creating a new product.
With affiliate marketing, you don’t have to constantly create new blog content to make money.
I have posts on my blog from last year that consistently bring in money every single month without me having to put in more time or effort.
If you are worried it is too much work, then just start small.
Become an affiliate partner for one product or service. Promote it to your readers and show them in a tutorial post why you like it or recommend it.
Dedicate a few hours a month and you will see results. From the income reports I showed you above, don’t you think a few hours is worth making a couple thousand dollars every single month?
If you still think that affiliate marketing is too much work, then check out the difference having affiliate partners made in Bryan’s launch here. He paid his affiliates out about $80,000 for promoting his course.
The people who promoted it did not have a lot of work to do to make money as an affiliate.
Have you fallen victim to any of these affiliate marketing myths? Share in the comments!