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Affiliate marketing has many benefits. It’s an online job, with flexible hours, and you don’t have to manufacture products, only promote them…the list goes on!
However, what many people don’t realize is, affiliate marketing requires a lot of time and effort in order to be a successful business venture. As such, joining any affiliate program has to be a well-thought-out and researched decision.
In this article, we’ll begin by outlining important factors that you’ll need to take into consideration before joining an affiliate program. Then we’ll explain some of the difficulties and complications that may come with running too many affiliate programs on one site. Let’s get started!
What You Need To Know Before Joining Any Affiliate Program
You’re eager to start making money with affiliate marketing – we get it. However, there are key elements that you’ll need to look for in an affiliate program to ensure a perfect fit.
Scheduled Payouts
Just because joining an affiliate program is free, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t take your pay seriously. As stated earlier, promoting products and services takes a lot of time, effort, and resources. Your work should be compensated adequately and promptly.
Payment Methods are Supported In Your Region
Affiliate marketing is a flexible job, meaning you can work from anywhere, as long as you have a computer and an internet connection. However, you should check the affiliate program’s payment methods to make sure they are supported wherever you are. For example, PayPal is supported in many, but not all, countries.
There are Products You Can Work With
If you’re not passionate about a product or service, you should at least like it. If you don’t, then promoting it would be unwise. You should only select products or services you have an interest in and are passionate about. If the affiliate program doesn’t have them, then you probably shouldn’t work with that program.
Reputable Program and Products
Countless affiliates have been scammed by shady affiliate programs. For example, it isn’t uncommon for unsuspecting affiliates to receive products that are vastly different and/or are of lesser quality than what they were sold online.
When joining any affiliate program, make sure it has a good reputation with high-quality products. You’ll have a tough time selling something you yourself couldn’t or wouldn’t use.
How Many Affiliate Programs Should I Run on a Single Site?
Once you’ve figured out what affiliate program you want to join, next, you may wonder if there is a limit as to how many affiliate programs you should join?
Some say that you should join as many affiliate programs as you want. They argue that more programs mean more sales. Controversially, others suggest that you join only one affiliate program to avoid spreading your efforts too thin.
The Magic Number 3
Depending on several factors, we believe you should be able to join three affiliate programs without any productivity or time issues. Joining three affiliate programs is manageable and gives you great earning potential. Joining more than three could spell disaster.
Why Joining More Than 3 Affiliate Programs Is A Problem
While belonging to several affiliate programs can help increase your income, it can also lead to catastrophic business drawbacks. Whether you are signing up for your first affiliate program(s), or you think you’re ready to join another, make sure to read over these guidelines and avoid getting in over your head.
Doing Too Many Things At Once Diminishes Productivity
As a new affiliate marketer who has recently joined an affiliate program, you can gradually add two more affiliate programs to your resume, and work with all of them at the same time. Just make sure you’ve established a routine that works well for you before you add new programs to your roster.
Once you join more than three affiliate programs, however, your productivity will greatly reduce. With too many products to promote, your time can become split too many ways.
It won’t be long before you notice that you’re not producing good content for your sites, you’re not posting as many links as you should, your ads on social media are nonexistent, and your sales and lead generation have dropped.
It is Time-Consuming
Joining more than three affiliate programs can be very overwhelming, and will take up a lot of your time. How to use your time as an affiliate marketer is already a major concern, and joining more than three affiliate programs will just complicate the situation.
All your time will be spent on research, content curation, creating backlinks, short meals, and even shorter sleep. You’ll end up too tired to do anything else, such as spend time with your family and friends. Remember, a healthy work-life balance is critical to success in business.
Some Affiliate Programs Won’t Allow it
Affiliate programs are also businesses, and all businesses are in competition with one another. Some affiliate programs don’t mind if you join other affiliate programs, while some allow you to join those that have similar or complementary products and services as they do. Other affiliate programs, however, do not allow affiliates to join multiple programs. So be sure to check the rules.
In Conclusion
As a rule of thumb, let the number of affiliate programs you join not exceed three on one site. Make sure you do some thorough research about the affiliate programs you want to join before taking any further steps. And make sure they’re okay with you joining other programs.
Once you’ve figured out all the important facts, narrow down your list of affiliate programs, select the top three you’d like to join, and stick with them. That way you can continue to support the main goal of any affiliate marketer: to get traffic, make conversions, and earn a profit.
Do you have additional questions about joining multiple affiliate programs? Let us know in the comments!
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The best idea I have taken from this article is – It will harm your productivity. That is very true but if people like me who blog on blogging, WordPress always try to find our new products to make money should not confine himself upto 2 or three products, this may be true for affiliate store. What is your idea on my point
Hi Kally,
Awesome article. I think I got a refreshment from this read and I totally agree with this. Thanks for sharing this excellent post.
this types of information is very useful for me .thank you for posting ….
I’m just about to launch my quilting website. This article told me just what I needed to know.
Thank you!!
Best of luck Lyn!
Well am about to launch my new website and start marketing, and this post just solved my problems.
Very much helpful. Thanks a bunch.
I’m new to this haven’t started out yet but really want to just dont know the things I would need to get a good start like training what to do
Being a beginner as blogger and affiliate-marketer, your tips and info is a useful reminder and a warning for us.
Very true that you will lose productivity when joining multiple affiliate programs.
Keep sharing your valuable insight.
Thanks for this helpful informations. I would like to start new in affiliate marketing and that gives me an idea about what I am going to do. Thanks, Again –):
Very informative article. It’s really useful and helpful to everyone who loves to do affiliates!
Wonderful article full of value thanks for sharing it with us