By Dush Ramachandran

In working with some of the most successful affiliates in the world over the last 6 years, and observing the thousands of aspiring affiliates entering the industry each year, I have noticed that there are some common themes that run through the activities of the most successful affiliates.

In the same way, the affiliates that remain unsuccessful even after a few years of trying, interestingly all seem to make the same mistakes. Over the last few years I have had the opportunity to speak to a number of aspiring affiliates, at conferences or trade shows. It is uncanny how all the unsuccessful affiliates seem to make the same three mistakes.

If you have spent time in Affiliate Marketing, and you’re wondering why your efforts haven’t paid off in the way you expected them to, maybe it’s because you’re making these same mistakes:

• Picking the wrong products to promote: Most novice affiliates pick products to promote without much research or thought. Just because some people have been successful promoting health and fitness products, doesn’t mean everyone can be successful promoting those products. What is more important, is whether you know the niche, have a passion for it, and know how to reach people that may be looking for that type of product. Affiliates who research the niches and the product that they promote, and have some passion for the subject matter, are usually much more successful.

• Not sticking with a program or method: Novice affiliates are constantly being bombarded by offers of “the next big thing” in Affiliate Marketing. Either it’s a new system to get traffic easily or it’s a “killer new way to improve conversions”. Rather than sticking with what they know and trying to improve their results, they go from one system to the next in search of the ‘magic bullet’ that’s going to make them wildly successful with very little effort. Needless to say, they end up frustrated and not especially successful at any one system. The successful affiliates learn all they can about a method, work with it, refining their efforts until they are successful and their results are predictable. This is not to say successful affiliates don’t try anything new. They always do. But when they do, they test it out on a small campaign instead of moving from one system to the other without really testing out their results.

• Giving up too soon: When affiliates tell me that they aren’t successful and they are thinking of moving on and finding something else to do, I ask them how long they have been working at Affiliate marketing. I never cease to be amazed by how quickly most people who came into Affiliate Marketing are ready to give up and move on. Much of the blame for this goes to the vendors who promote various affiliate marketing how-to products as tickets to impossible wealth without any effort in the shortest time imaginable. When the novice hasn’t struck it rich after a few months from starting, he often seems to decide to quit. Perseverance is the key to success.

Are you making these mistakes in your efforts to be successful in Affiliate Marketing? Remember: Pick products that you know something about or are passionate about, stay with a system or method that you know and can refine, and persevere in the face of all odds, and success cannot be far behind.

About the Author: Dush Ramachandran has built, grown and sold two of his own companies and most recently served at Vice President of Sales and Business Development at ClickBank where he was instrumental in growing the company’s revenues nearly 500% in five years. Dush is a vocal participant in the Internet marketing industry, the host of the ‘Entrepreneur Effect’ radio show, and serves on the board of several industry organizations including Affiliate Summit and A4U Expo in Europe. He is also the author of an upcoming book on entrepreneurial success. He can be found at : www.dushramachandran.com