AFFILIATE NETWORKS – ARE THEY UNATTAINABLE FOR BEGINNERS?

Hello, community! Starting your journey in any field, you definitely spend more than a week wandering the vastness of the internet, searching for useful information. Rules, secrets, insights, interviews with top experts, subscriptions to dozens of thematic channels next to which the unread message count eventually shows almost a thousand.

But no matter how much you scour for new info, breaking into a new world and landing a good job is still a challenge. This pit of despair is a common place for IT professionals, affiliate marketers, and designers alike. The list is endless, and you’ve definitely heard those conversations and jokes about “no one hires without experience, but no one tells you where to get that experience.”

To pour traffic, an affiliate will likely want to partner with an Affiliate Program (AP) that acts as a mediator between the advertiser and the affiliate himself, controls compliance with requirements, helps solve various issues, and pays for the work.

If you’ve read all our reviews of affiliate networks, you might have noticed that most of them immediately state this requirement — collaboration is only possible with experienced webmasters. Yes, you could avoid getting into details and just sit on the windowsill with cocoa, watching the rain (what, did you expect snow from a Ukrainian winter?) and bitterly cry.

But everything has a reason, right? Let’s discuss this phenomenon today, which relates to almost all niches, but we’ll focus on Affiliate Marketing.

We also hint that you can find many useful materials with us that will help you dive deeper into affiliate marketing: why it’s important to be able to choose GEOs, whether it’s worth getting into affiliate marketing now, crypto today: relevance and risks, everything about the new subscription from Meta, and much more.

WHAT’S THE SPECIFICITY OF WORKING AS AN affiliate?

Whether you work solo or in a team, making good money while doing nothing is not going to happen. Besides your knowledge, time, and effort, you’ll also have to invest your own money for the initial tests to test creatives, GEOs, and find effective connections. Here, we already see several nuances that might affect your decision to become an affiliate:

• you need to invest your own money;
• you need to learn a lot to continuously acquire new skills;
• you need to constantly compete.

If the first and second points are clear, the third can make even experienced webmasters nervous.

Indeed, affiliate marketing doesn’t welcome those who lag behind. If you can’t adapt to constant updates and changes, it’s highly likely you won’t last in this field. Therefore, the Affiliate Marketinge community is stable. Experienced webmasters stay there for a long time, as they know the specifics and can handle its dynamism.

AFFILIATE NETWORK OR DIRECT ADVERTISER?

Starting your work, you’ll ponder how exactly to work: look for an affiliate network or an advertiser who wants to work with an unknown affiliate. What’s the difference?

• Offers. Working with an affiliate network, you’ll have access to a vast number of offers from different verticals and a wide selection of GEOs. With a direct advertiser, you’ll be promoting only their product.
• Tools and opportunities. Affiliate networks usually have a plethora of useful tools that simplify the work of an affiliate and increase the effectiveness of campaigns.
• Support. If you encounter problems while promoting a direct advertiser’s product, you’ll have to solve them on your own. If the situation is complex, it will lead to hours of research and communication with other webmasters who agreed to help. In the case of working with an affiliate network, all nuances typically fall on their shoulders. They help with various issues and are maximally interested in solving them. From advice on the best landing pages to solving problems with payments.
• Bonuses. A huge advantage of working with affiliate networks is the various bonuses webmasters receive for quality, long-term pours. Also, referral systems that allow receiving payments for friends who also joined your AP.
• Payment solutions. Usually, affiliate networks add a large number of payment systems from which you can choose the most convenient.
• Payouts. And here’s the catch (not really). Since affiliate networks need to earn something, they take a percentage from the payments from advertisers. Therefore, working with them, you will have smaller payouts than when working directly.

As in the case with direct advertisers and affiliate networks, starting collaboration will not be so simple. The choice is yours, but we believe that starting to work with an AP is a good start with guarantees. Though indeed, it’s hard for newcomers to break through.

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH NEWCOMERS?

Any affiliate network wants to receive a constant flow of quality leads. As we’ve mentioned, surviving in Affiliate Marketing is hard, so they have no guarantees that a newcomer won’t drop out after a week of work.

Investing resources in unreliable partners makes no sense. This rule applies almost everywhere. Companies want to attract already trained specialists who will immediately produce the desired result.

So in Affiliate Marketing. Affiliate networks choose to invest in those who will guaranteedly bring positive results. Therefore, they always support top webmasters, throw many bonuses their way, and do everything to ensure such participants in the process stay with them longer and supply quality leads.

However, this doesn’t negate the fact that even among the experienced, there are those who eventually leave the game, and new ones come in their place. Someone changes their occupation, someone moves from one AP to another due to not comfortable enough conditions, someone just starts working worse (for personal or other reasons).

SO HOW DOES A NEWCOMER START?

Of course, to gain experience, you need to start working. Don’t worry, there’s always a solution. Not all affiliate networks are so strict with approval. There are several types of affiliate networks among which you will surely find something to start working with.

• Affiliate networks that work only with experienced webmasters.
• Affiliate networks that are quite picky in selecting partners.
• Affiliate networks that approve everyone, regardless of professional experience.

The last two types of APs give hope for your bright Affiliate Marketing future.

In every affiliate network, there’s a standard scheme for selecting affiliates. Initially, the webmaster fills out a special form (registration), then communicates with the AP manager, who asks various questions related to your experience. This is necessary to establish your competency level and determine your value .

Decided to try partnering? Be sure to prepare statistics of past pours. If you really understand what you’re doing, even at the beginning of your journey, a decent affiliate network might approve you. We advise paying attention to those affiliate networks actively expanding their market. Usually, they are ready to help newcomers enhance their skills.

CONCLUSION

The world of Affiliate Marketing is harsh but loves the persistent. Try all possible ways that will allow you to start working and accumulate cases. Each case is valuable experience that helps practically test all the theory learned.

To start working, you’ll need to accumulate some patience (maybe quite a bit) and do everything to make your advertising campaigns as effective as possible. Remember: test, test, and test again.

When choosing between cooperation with direct advertising and an AP, weigh the benefits of working with affiliate networks that are important to you: a wide selection of offers, a variety of useful tools, assistance in solving work-related issues, additional bonuses for the results of pours, payment solutions, sizes, and payout conditions.

Affiliate networks often give preference to experienced webmasters, but it’s quite possible to find those that take newcomers and help them grow along with them. Therefore, it’s worth putting in a bit of effort and perseverance, and then do everything so the affiliate network does not regret their choice.

Thank you for your time, and traditionally, we invite you to our Telegram community to share thoughts, experiences, and advice on starting as an affiliate. There we communicate, share useful stuff, and publish important news. )

With love for the Affiliate Marketing world, Your Geek!