There are plenty of people trying to make money with ClickBank who are prepared to put in the work.

I know, because I am one of them.

The problem is not necessarily a lack of effort. Sometimes I think the opposite is true. We can spend an enormous amount of time doing things without necessarily moving any closer to where we want to be.

Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. 
If you purchase through one of my links, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.

In my previous post, I explained why I joined The ClickBank Profit Club free membership and why having a more structured approach appealed to me.

It also made me think about some of the mistakes that are very easy to make with affiliate marketing.

I have certainly made some of them.

 

1. Trying to Do Everything at Once

Affiliate marketing can sound remarkably simple.

Find a product. Get your affiliate link. Send people to it. Earn a commission when somebody buys.

Then you actually try to do it.

Suddenly you are choosing offers, creating pages, writing emails, learning about traffic, setting up tracking, producing content and trying to understand a collection of different software.

What looked simple has become rather complicated.

I have found that trying to tackle everything at the same time usually means that nothing gets my full attention.

There is a big difference between being busy and actually making progress.

2. Chasing the Next Tactic

This is an easy trap to fall into.

You discover a new traffic method, piece of software or strategy and think, perhaps this is the missing piece.

So you stop what you are doing and investigate the new idea.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with trying new things. The problem comes when you continually replace what you were doing before you have given it a proper chance.

Before long, you have several half-finished strategies and no idea which one might actually have worked.

I have been guilty of this myself.

3. Sending Everyone Straight to an Affiliate Offer

This is something I have been thinking about much more recently.

Suppose I pay for an advert or spend time creating content and somebody clicks my affiliate link.

They arrive at the sales page but decide not to buy.

What happens then?

Unless I have some other way of staying in contact with them, they disappear.

All the effort that went into generating that click has produced one opportunity to make a sale.

That is why building an email list makes much more sense to me now.

If somebody chooses to join your list, you have an opportunity to communicate with them again, provide useful information and, where appropriate, introduce them to other relevant offers.

You are starting to build something of your own.

 

 

4. Choosing Products Without Thinking About What Comes Next

It is very easy to find a ClickBank product with an attractive commission and think:

I’ll promote that.

But what happens afterwards?

Does the product make sense for the audience you are trying to build?

Are there other products that could genuinely help the same people?

Could you write useful content around the subject?

Would you still be interested in this market six months from now?

I am beginning to think these questions are at least as important as the commission percentage.

Rather than simply choosing a product, I want to think more about the audience and the longer-term plan behind it.

5. Relying on Motivation

When you first start something new, motivation usually isn’t a problem.

Everything is interesting and you want to get on with it.

A few weeks later, when something isn’t working or you aren’t sure what to do next, that enthusiasm can disappear remarkably quickly.

This is where I think having a system helps.

If I know what the next step is, I don’t have to wake up every morning and decide what I should be working on.

I just move on to the next step.

Simple, but surprisingly important.

6. Forgetting About Follow-Up

Not everybody is going to buy something the first time they see it.

In fact, there are plenty of reasons why somebody might be interested but not ready to make a decision immediately.

They might want more information. They might be comparing alternatives. They might simply have been interrupted and forgotten about it.

Without any follow-up, you have no way of continuing that conversation.

An email sequence gives you that opportunity.

That doesn’t mean bombarding people with sales emails every day. For me, the better approach is to provide useful information and recommend something when it genuinely fits.

Again, it comes back to building a relationship rather than chasing an individual click.

7. Starting Again Before Finishing What You Started

This may be the biggest one for me.

Something isn’t working quickly enough, so you change it.

Then you find another idea.

Then another.

Eventually, you have spent months working very hard but haven’t actually completed the system you originally set out to build.

A half-finished funnel cannot really tell you very much.

A completed one can at least be tested, measured and improved.

That is quite a different way of looking at it.

 

 

What I Am Doing Differently

I am trying to make things simpler.

Rather than continually searching for another tactic, I want to build the basic system properly:

Traffic → Page → Email List → Follow-Up → Relevant Offer

That doesn’t guarantee success, of course.

But it does give me something I can actually build, test and improve.

This is one of the reasons I decided to join The ClickBank Profit Club.

The free membership gives me a structure to work through rather than leaving me to decide which of twenty different things I should be doing next.

I am still working through it, so I am not going to claim that I know what the results will be.

That is actually the point of these posts.

I want to document what I am doing, what I learn along the way and, eventually, whether it works for me.

Want to Take a Look?

If you are interested in The ClickBank Profit Club, you can take a look at the free membership yourself.

[Join The ClickBank Profit Club Free Membership]

There is no need to take my word for it. Have a look inside and decide whether the approach makes sense for you.

Disclosure: I am an affiliate for The ClickBank Profit Club. If you join or purchase something through my link, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.