On the one hand, the promise is great…
You don’t have to create products, worry about fulfillment, customer service, or bad reviews.
Your only job is to get the right customers in front of the right offer, and take a commission when they buy.
And – theoretically – you can do it all in an hour a day from the beach.
Sounds simple, right?
Well, not really. Driving traffic (that’s internet speak for getting customers) is single-handedly the hardest part of the entire marketing process.
Later in this review, we’ll talk about all the different skills you need to drive traffic successfully.
For now, let’s just say the promise doesn’t really match up with reality.
At best, affiliate marketing is a job. You’re working for someone else, selling their products, and at any time, they can change your commission structure or block you from selling their stuff entirely.
In this business, you don’t really own or control anything. Since – for the most part – you’re driving traffic (again, the hardest job of all) and sending it to someone else, you don’t even get to keep the customers, who are the most valuable piece of the puzzle.
At worst, affiliate marketing is a pyramid scheme. There are certain – ahem – programs that charge you a monthly “membership fee”, under the guise that you will learn how to be a “wealthy affiliate marketer”.
Once you join, however, you find out the only way to really make money is by being an affiliate for that program.
That’s pretty much the textbook definition of a pyramid scheme.
Now, let’s say you really want that hour-a-day-work-from-the-beach lifestyle.
What if there was a way you could build a passive income stream that’s actually passive?
An income stream that doesn’t require:
- Thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours before seeing your first dollar
- Doing all the hard work of driving traffic to only get a tiny commission
- Running your business on someone else’s terms
An income stream that brings in consistent revenues every single month (from a couple thousand dollars to well over $10,000)?
An income stream you could actually build in your spare time, and grow as large or as small as you want to, without having to spend hours a day testing, tweaking, and risking your money in the hope you can finally start making sales?
If that sounds like something you’d be interested in, check out Digital Landlord.
Top 5 Reasons Why Affiliate Marketers Fail
- Picking The Wrong Niche
- Lack Of Patience
- Lack Of Capital
- Choosing The Wrong Platform
- Not Knowing Your Profit Margins
1) Picking The Wrong Niche
Nothing will cause you more headaches or cost you more money in affiliate marketing than picking the wrong niche.
Why?
Well, take it from me, picking the perfect niche is a big pain in the ass and there are so many rabbit holes that you could go down that will leave you questioning your sanity.
Here’s what I mean…
Number 1a) You could pick the absolute wrong niche right out of the gate which means your chances of making money with affiliate marketing is dead in the water.
Now, one or two things could happen…
You either throw in the towel and decide that affiliate marketing just isn’t for you, or that those guys in the YouTube videos are just lucky or full of shit!
Either way, what could have resulted in a thriving affiliate marketing business ends up getting sucked into a vortex of crushed dreams.
Honestly, it really isn’t your fault.
Some niches are just losers, and really hard to spot.
In fact, if you listen to any Affiliate Marketing expert who’s made it to $10-20k per month, they’ll be the first to tell you that only 1 out of 10 niches they pick are home runs.
Now, the problem is that in order to find that 1 successful niche, they had to spend quite a bit of money testing one after the other.
On the upside, they will tell you that when they do find the home run, it makes up for all the money they lost in testing. But, since they now have a niche that makes them money, it’s all a matter scaling.
But let’s face it…
Who has $10-20k lying around for paid traffic, testing different product niches to see what takes off.
Paid traffic, if done correctly, can be a magic bullet.
But on the other hand, if done incorrectly, you could end up running up a tab higher than you would in a Boston Pub on St. Patty’s Day.
Number 1b) They don’t even pull the trigger.
What I mean is that if your dream is to become financially free, then it’s likely you’re a slave to your 9-5 J.O.B. (Just Over Broke)… which means that you really don’t have the kind of money to throw away on something that might or might not work out.
The other reason that we see pretty often is that people actually do pick out a handful of potentially good niches, but they never act on it because they spend too much time trying to determine if they really are good niches or not.
This is called the “Paralysis of Analysis”… and it’s a dream killer.
2) Lack Of Patience
Have you ever seen those YouTube videos with little kids in front of a cookie jar being told…
“If you can wait until I get back, I’ll give you 3 cookies. But if you eat it, you won’t get any.”
What happens?
You guessed it…
Some decide to wait… but most decide to eat a cookie right away.
LOL!
You see, when it comes to affiliate marketing (or even business in general), you really need to have a sense of delayed gratification. Most of the time, Success isn’t hard to find… it’s just hard to wait for.
Am I right?
In the beginning, people can get really excited about the prospect of making big money, buying their dream car or house, or taking that Alaskan cruise…
But, more often than not… it’s just not that simple.
It can take a lot of time with all the due diligence it takes finding a niche, launching your campaigns, and testing to see what works and what doesn’t.
On top of that.. it can take anywhere from 6-12 month before you see any profit from all your campaigns. And I don’t mean months of working here and there… I mean working 8-12 hours grinding every day.
It’s certainly not for the faint of heart.
Have you ever heard the saying… “New Year, New Me?”
Yeah, you know what I’m talking about.
When people make their New Year’s resolution to lose weight, they’re all Gung-Ho in the beginning, right?
But when Valentine’s Day runs around and they’ve only lost 2 pounds, they get all depressed and start eyeing that box of chocolates like a pack of dogs on a 3-legged cat!
My point is that people quite way too soon without giving themselves a good solid chance to see the returns on their investment.
3) Lack Of Capital
So let’s say you’ve picked out the right niche and you have the patience to delay gratification… but unfortunately you just don’t have enough money to run the campaigns and do the testing that you need to turn a profit.
The reason why most people try their hand in Affiliate Marketing is that it’s easy to get involved with and it has very little overhead costs.
As a matter of fact, it would probably only cost $200-300 at the most to get on your feet.
What people may not realize is that if you’re looking to pull in organic traffic to your website, well… it’s going to take a while to get listed high in the search engines.
On the other hand, if you want fast traffic to your website… then it’s going to cost you in paid traffic. Paid traffic can really put a damper on things.
If you go through most affiliate marketing courses, they’ll tell you that you should run your campaigns at about $5 per day. I don’t mean to bad mouth anyone, but that really won’t get you very far.
If you go to YouTube and watch any videos on affiliate marketing campaigns using paid traffic, you’ll find that they are running campaigns that are costing them thousands of dollars every DAY!
You see… you don’t create an empire on $5 per day.
Is it possible? Maybe.
Does everyone do it? NOPE!
The problem is that when most people realize that it’s gonna cost them $1,000s to run 6-figure campaigns… or that it’s gonna take months to organic traffic to their website, they call it quits.
4) Choosing The Wrong Platform
There are so many choices out there that it can be a little intimidating to decide on which platform to go with. The best way around this problem is to choose multiple platforms.
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Sign up with multiple affiliate marketing companies and run your campaigns, if you find one that works out for you, then go with it. If you find that the platform is more of a hassle, cut it loose.
Also, don’t be afraid to contact your affiliate account manager to see about increasing your commission percentage for bringing in more sales.
5) Not Knowing Your Profit Margins
So here’s the deal.
When you watch all these Youtube gurus flashing their $100,000/mo screenshots, take it with a grain of salt. There’s a big difference between how much you make in sales and how much you actually put in your pocket.
Let’s say that you sell a weight-loss course for $97 and your commission is 50%. That means you put $48.50 in your pocket, right?
Wrong!
Don’t forget, you still have advertising costs.
If it takes you $10-20 in ad spend to make a sale, then your profit margins are nearly cut in half.
Just imagine what your profit margins are if you’re spending $1000/day!
Final Thoughts
So these are the Top 5 reasons why affiliate marketers fail.
Now, I don’t want to be a “Debbie Downer”, but then again, I don’t want you get yourself in over your head either.
This doesn’t even touch on the amount of competition that you’ll be running up against primarily because it’s so easy to get involved, but that’s a totally different conversation.
So what is the best business model when it comes to creating an online empire?
Do We Recommend Any Affiliate Marketing Programs?
Yes, there are plenty of Affiliate Marketing programs and resources to choose from if you want to pursue this business model. Here are just a few:
- Affiliate Marketing Mastery
- Amazon Affiliate Marketing
- Commission Junction
- Wealthy Affiliate
- Clickbank
What Is Our #1 Recommendation For Making Money Online In 2024?
The review team has spent months researching, reviewing, and vetting dozens of business models and thousands of programs.
While there may be no “perfect business”, the research IS conclusive:
Digital Landlord is the #1 online business model for those just starting out.
Whether you’ve never made a dollar online, or you’ve been in this space for a while but never really “made it,” Digital Landlord is for you.
Why?
1) It’s Flexible: got an hour a day? You can do this. Ready to drop everything else and dive in full time? You can do this. Yes, the more time you put in, the faster you see results. But even with a little time each day, you can move the needle in a Digital Landlord business.
And because this system is so flexible, you don’t have to constantly be working to make more money. It’s called PASSIVE INCOME because if you stop working, the money doesn’t.
Imagine taking 3 months off to just tour around Europe, rent a cabin in the woods to write a book, hike the Appalachian Trail, or live on the beach and surf all day.
This is only possible if you have an income stream that’s not tied to your time.
2) You Own & Control EVERYTHING: With Amazon FBA, you don’t really own anything. Yes, you technically own the products before you send them into an Amazon warehouse, but that’s it.
You don’t own the sales platform, you don’t own a brand, and you don’t own the customers.
Not to mention, Amazon can literally shut you down at any time if they believe you’ve violated their constantly changing terms of service.
So you’re building a business that could be completely taken away from you in the blink of an eye.
With Digital Landlord, you own the assets, which means you have all the power and all the control.
3) Little To No Startup Costs: It’s possible to get into Digital Landlord with zero dollars upfront. Because, using the strategies outlined in this program, you can get a client to pay you BEFORE spending a penny out of your own pocket…even before you do any work.
Even without getting paid in advance, you can have your first Digital Rental Property up, running, and generating profits for less than $100.
4) No Inventory: As mentioned above, spending 4-5 hours a day prepping and packing products to send to Amazon is a huge time commitment.
Plus, you constantly need to be buying new products if you want to maintain your business. You need to spend even more money if you want to scale up.
With physical products, you’ll always have limits on your time and freedom.
With Digital Landlord, a 100% online business, you never have to worry about that.
5) Easy To Duplicate: Ok, here’s the best part: once you have your first Digital Rental Property up and running, you can literally DOUBLE your income with a few clicks, a couple keystrokes, and a single phone call (and you don’t actually need the phone call).
Remember: each Digital Rental Property is worth $500 to $2,000 a month in semi-passive income (over 95% profit). Every time you decide to create another one and increase your income, it gets easier.
Because you have more knowledge, more experience, more results, and more momentum.
If you wanted to double your income with Amazon FBA, you’d have to double your inventory OR your profit margins. And, guaranteed that’s a lot harder than a few clicks and a few minutes of your life.
6) Make Money Helping Real People: This part is what makes it all worth it. Amazon FBA is a decent way to make yourself money, but it doesn’t improve anyone else’s lives.
After all, there’s always someone else selling rubber spatulas and umbrellas. That might be fine in the short term, but in the long run you may feel like you’re missing a purpose.
With Digital Landlord though, you’re actually helping people by solving your clients’ biggest problem…
Small, local businesses need more customers, and with Digital Landlord, you are unleashing a flood of happy, paying customers for these businesses.
You make money by helping them make money.
Not a big, faceless corporation either…a small business owner who’s using that money to put food on the table for their family, start a college fund for their kids, or take care of a sick parent.
Once you see how Digital Landlord makes a real impact in the lives of real people, you’ll sleep like a baby with a big smile on your face.
Now, the choice is yours. You could continue browsing, looking at opportunities like Ippei Kanehara which could one day make you money.
You could continue researching, never making a decision.
OR, you could take a look inside, consider what you really want, and join a program that makes your dreams a reality. At the same time, joining a community of over 2,000 successful students that are living life on their own terms thanks to Digital Landlord.
A consistent, reliable, semi-passive stream of income that doesn’t depend on you or your time to keep producing profits.
All while genuinely helping real people who are grateful and happy to pay for it.
If this sounds more like what you want out of life (or if you just want some nice side income), click here to learn more about Digital Landlord.
