Is marketing dead? And if not, why isn’t it working?

Is affiliate marketing dead?

You could see this question every once in a while on the web. In fact, the question arises almost every year when a new generation of affiliate marketers find themselves helplessly struggling to make money on this type of ecommerce and failing. So what’s wrong?

Dead or alive?

First of all, let’s get back to affiliate marketing? Is it dead? Yes and no. The thing is what was good and worked a year ago may not be so effective today. Those instruments and strategies that people used some time ago stop working. But there are always new tools and methods that substitute the outdated ones.

It’s like evolution when certain organs perish while other progress. So in other words, one needs to stay up to date in order to make money on affiliate marketing.

There are other reasons why people might think that affiliate marketing is dead, and most of them are nothing special.

Being lazy

Let’s be honest. Whenever we learn about a new type of business – especially so cheap and easy to start as affiliate marketing, – most of us expect to start earning lots of money with a wet finger. In most cases, it is this attitude that makes you think that something is wrong with the business when you find out it’s harder than you expected. And instead of wondering whether they’re doing something wrong, people start asking, ‘Is affiliate marketing dead?’

Misleading tutoring

There’s no special school of affiliate marketing and it’s not taught in universities, so beginners have to look for information on the web. Unfortunately, not all lessons or videos you can find there are useful or up-to-date. What’s worse, a beginner can never tell whether it is or not. As a result, bad tutoring leads to mistakes and gives the impression that the idea just doesn’t work. It is best to use trusted sources.

Spamming instead of promoting

Another popular mistake is to think that placing an affiliate link on your FaceBook, affiliate online shop, or YouTube page in enough to start making money. But what you regard as an affiliate link other people see as spam. What’s the difference? It’s all about trust.

You simply cannot expect people to follow a link and buy something only because you said the product works great. The times when someone could actually click a spam link out of curiosity are long gone! Nowadays people need information and confirmation. And that’s where you need decent content. Show your visitors that you know what you’re talking about, that you can be trusted – and they’ll think, ‘This guy won’t give me a bad advice’.

Scams

If you’re venturing into ecommerce of any type, be prepared to meet these honorable gentlemen and ladies. Because sooner or later you’ll definitely get scammed. The problem is many people give up right after it happens. Don’t!

There are swindlers. Have always been and remain. Just accept it. Sometimes you get tricked, but after that you learn to recognize them – until they make up a new trick and there you go again. It’s totally normal. Nobody died or got injured. Make the air blue and keep going.

Wrong expectations

You’ve probably read a lot of lines like this: ‘I make $500-600 a week on affiliate marketing!’ It’s not necessarily a lie, but people usually forget to mention how long it took them to start earning this much.

Just like any other type of business, affiliate marketing requires time, effort, practice and of course a number of mistakes. It’s just that unlike opening a restaurant, you don’t have to get a loan from a bank, pawn your house and borrow money from all your friends and relatives. It’s a long, yet exciting road with lots of obstacles and victories, ups and downs, losses and gains. Promote your website step by step gradually learning and getting more experience, and one day, when asked, ‘Is affiliate marketing dead?, you’ll be able to say, ‘I make $500-600 a week on affiliate marketing!’