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A lack of effort and focus. This is the main quality of any failed affiliate marketer. The chances you are going to drop a couple ads you stole off a Facebook spy, take the exact images and ad copy and make $100 bucks, these days, is slim to zero. I try to teach my coaching students the best I can, giving them whole campaigns that are currently profitable, but after a few days of testing I always get this reply – “This seems like too much work. Is there any easier way to make money?”

The mindset that affiliate marketing is “easy” is a problem a lot of people are stuck with. Bloated affiliate network newsletters that provide very little details other than “This offer is generating huge EPCs for our affiliates across all traffic networks with an xyz style landing page” and lame informational products filled with misinformation, developed by those that don’t actually know jack$hit, don’t help with AM being perceived as “easy”. This is what I tell my clients when they ask that previous question:

“Sure, but it involves flipping burgers and dropping buckets of fries all day long.”

I imagine all of my affiliate marketing work as a large part of my business. Like almost any other business, it doesn’t just launch and blow up overnight. I’ve got research to do. I have to know what my target market wants and how they want it. I need to know how to deliver it before they get it. And then even when I know all that, I still need to test it and other similar variations to get in the black. There is no “easy” way to get around that. Even if someone hands a campaign to you on a silver platter, if you aren’t analyzing why it works and how you can improve it, you’ll always fail and end up back in square one.

You do need to focus, and put effort into building campaigns up, 1 at a time. Test 10 landing pages instead of 2. Test 100 images, rather than 10. Try 5 very different headlines, then test adjectives on your best performing ones. This extra effort and focus is what has made some of my clients $500 campaigns after 1 week of coaching, and I believe it is one of the redeeming qualities that has made me the marketer I am today.