Affiliate - Why Affiliate Marketing Does Not Work

Despite the claims of many online gurus, most people fail at affiliate marketing online. By fail, I mean they do not make enough money with affiliate marketing to be able to afford the mythical Internet Lifestyle.

Yet every day you will read another sales letter making claims about how you can make a fortune without a website, without an opt-in email list, and without a product of your very own.

Now to some extent, those claims are true. But what they fail to tell you, is that you must have systems set up for you to be able to succeed without those things. The sad fact of the matter is, most affiliate marketers, especially those who are new to the Internet, or are just starting out, do not have any of the necessary systems in place.

To top it all off, most people who are attracted to affiliate marketing, just do not have the resources to make affiliate marketing a success for themselves.

They also do not have the training or knowledge concerning marketing in general, and lack the skills to drive traffic to the products they are promoting via their affiliate links.

Which brings up another point. The traffic acquisition cost is necessarily dependent on how much the affiliate marketer is getting paid for each successful transaction.

When the product an affiliate marketer is promoting costs only $37, for example, and the affiliate commission is only 50%, that does not leave very much money on the table for the affiliate marketer to use in driving traffic through their affiliate link. Especially if they hope to make any profit at all.

Which is another way of saying that the profit margins are so low to begin with, it is almost impossible for affiliate marketing to generate any serious income.

What about those high-ticket items which seem to be launched every other week?

Not only does the beginning affiliate marketer have to compete with well established gurus for the affiliate marketing dollar, but the beginner's lack of status in the marketplace almost ensures that nobody will be making a high-dollar purchase through their affiliate link.

The only solution, and as far as I am concerned, the only possible chance a person has who is brand new to affiliate marketing, is to find highly targeted niche products where the affiliate commission approaches or even equals 100% of the sales price.

It would also help if there were a system to support the affiliate marketer with ongoing training and resources, to help them promote their affiliate link.

Highly targeted niche products would help in this regard. The affiliate marketer would only have to focus their efforts on targeting a highly focused group of people. Building a certain level of recognition in a highly targeted niche, is much easier and effective than trying to promote the latest high-ticket Internet marketing products which appeal to the lowest common denominator.