Many affiliates view their affiliate business as a get-rich-quick opportunity, rather than devoting significant time and effort.  This is the most common reason why as many as 99% of affiliate have trouble earning a decent living with their affiliate programs.  The remaining 1% of affiliate marketers who succeed in earning healthy profits do so because they treat their affiliate business just as they would a regular brick-and-mortar company.  They make a serious effort to succeeding in their affiliate business which makes all the difference.

You need to truly understand how marketing works in order to earn decent money by using affiliate programs.  You must learn how to pre-sell your visitors, rather than selling to them directly.  As an affiliate, your main goal is to pre-sell or recommend people to purchase the products or services your merchant sells.  The merchant will actually sell the items, but you must be able to attract people to the merchant’s site and pre-sell them.

Another common mistake made by affiliates is not learning how to properly build relationships with their prospective customers or visitors.  If you choose to create a website, you will need to include an opt-in list that will capture the email addresses of every visitor.  This is very important because not every person who visits your site will actually click through to your affiliate links and purchase any products.  However, if you already have their email address, you can follow up by sending them an email message.  This prevents you from wasting any online traffic that you end up attracting to your site. 

You will find it much easier to convert sales if you establish solid relationships with your prospects.  People who trust you will have a much greater chance of actually purchasing products or services you recommend.  You are probably much more apt to try a new menu item at your local restaurant if many friends and family members recommend it.  This same principle also applies to affiliate marketing.

Last but not least, be sure to provide proper content for your visitors.  People who end up visiting your site are looking for certain content they require.  If you are able to provide them with the content they want, you can establish a solid relationship with them. This will make it much easier for you to convert these people into actual sales.