Affiliate marketing is definitely not rocket science for you to master studiously. But if you thought it could be a breeze or a walk in the park where the internet is filled with cash for you to milk, you would have to stop over, pull yourself back a moment and indulge in reality checks before you start again. It is true that Affiliate Marketing is an option that could change your life and lead you into prosperity. But the road to success is ridden with problems, and more importantly failures.

The rule of the thumb is applied in such cases as the 80-20 rule, where 80 percent of efforts lead to 20% results and 80% of the results are obtained from 20% of efforts. In the internet marketing and affiliate programme arena, the rule is a bit different – you would have to put it down as the 90-10 rule. While not many would like to admit and some would want to portray an image of success, it is a fact that 90 to 95% of all affiliate programmes have been failing. The rest of the 5% component in the affiliate marketing puzzle is what is rocking. In other words, the top 5 – 10% affiliate marketers are taking home all affiliate marketing cash, leaving the rest wondering where they are lagging.

Where are you lagging? Believe me, Affiliate Marketing is here to stay. And if you have made a choice to make it big in the jungle, you need a little discipline, focus and consistent drive to succeed. Invariably, people miss out on their long term approaches as they end up getting nowhere after trying a few tricks out there. And then, they get into the twin traps of Affiliate Marketing Failure:

Trap 1 – The Two-Tier Affiliate Programme: The Two-Tier programme has the regular aspect of selling a product after you have become an affiliate; the other aspect is about getting people join as sub-affiliates under you. Obviously, the latter is the easier part. All you have to do is to create a page that lets people join you as a sub-affiliate or you approach a bunch of folks to join under you. You get a part of the commission of what your sub-affiliate gets, when he sells the product in question.

The problem with this approach is that the product sometimes never gets sold! What if your sub-affiliate does not sell the product and instead enrols another sub-affiliate? In effect, you may have a long list of sub-affiliates but no product sold! I have not seen many cases of this Two-tier Affiliate programme approach yielding results. The two-tier programme could only be a supplementary approach to your main priority of selling stuff. When you know how to sell and when your affiliates get in line and start selling, the two-tier affiliate marketing programme makes sense and you have found a second source of income to complement what you earn selling stuff. If you have not yet mastered the art of selling with affiliate programmes, do not resort to the two-tier approach and end up being a spent energy.

Trap 2 – Preaching what you Never Practised: When people have tried out things and they found that things do not work the way they thought, affiliate marketers get into the second trap, where they decide to tell people how to succeed in the internet mine. There is nothing wrong with the approach as such. There is a market and there is substantial demand for the product as well – to learn how to make money online.

Yes, you can throw in a few tricks, toss a few tips up about internet marketing and host a few articles on your website. But, a word of caution: You are literally pitting yourself up against thousands and thousands of other websites that claim to do the same – helping people earn their living online. That apart, the worst part of the second trap is that you would be competing with the real masters of the trade – people who have already made their millions in e-commerce and remain focussed on the job of making people flock to them. And these are the people who do things, not just talk. Would you bet on the approach still?

Remember – you did not get into the business of winning on-line by telling people how to do that. You can not teach medicine if you yourself failed to get into the medical course.  And you can not sustain in the business of teaching people what to do, when you yourself haven’t learnt the art of doing.

All it requires is some perseverance and patience on the job – and a lot of learning. Do your research, get your materials, educate yourself, try out different things and try things differently. Study what needs to be done, analyse what went wrong, find out a better way of doing things and stay on the job. As I said, the pie is enormous and internet marketing is here to stay. It’s up to you to stay focussed and make it happen without falling by the way side and drifting away.