Affiliate marketing does have a lot of perks, not the least of which is its huge earning potential. But if you do not have a solid affiliate marketing plan, even if you do get a large number of traffic going into your website you will earn only a fraction of what you’re supposed to.

There are 4 big mistakes that should be avoided at all costs if you want to be successful in your affiliate marketing business.

Mistake Number 1 – Not pre-selling

By only placing links and/or banners on your website, you are not doing anything to entice people to buy products. You can direct people to a page that has a sales letter, that could work, but only to a few people.

People are more likely to buy products when they are pre-sold to them. The act of pre-selling is putting the consumer in an "open to buy" state of thinking. This can be done by using information-rich content, like an informational website, product reviews, blogs, articles, etc.

This will make the customer feel that they know enough about the products to buy them for themselves.

Mistake Number 2 – Choosing the wrong products to endorse

Choosing a product to sell is one of the most important aspects of making an affiliate marketing plan. By checking out affiliate networks like Clickbank, you will get an idea on what products are doing great. But choosing the products with the highest number of sales is not really advised, especially for beginners, since there are bound to be a lot of competition.

Search for products that have a so-so number of sales, or just choose one that really makes a good impression on you. Just make sure that you are selling a quality product so that your customers will keep coming back to you.

Mistake Number 3 – Being anonymous

Would you buy something from a person that you don’t trust? People would tend to buy something from someone who they at least know the name of. You need to build some sort of relationship with your customers in order for them to buy from you. Try and communicate with your prospective buyers as much as you can.

Mistake Number 4 – Not checking if the people actually buy from your link

This is a problem that should not be taken lightly; the gravity of this should not be underestimated since this could mean the loss of your commissions. You should make sure that your affiliate code is transferred directly to the vendor whenever your customer makes a purchase, this can be a problem nowadays since a lot of browsers block cookies, but this can be remedied by using a cloaking program to embed your affiliate code to the buyer’s order.

In order to be successful in any venture, one needs to have a plan. Having a good affiliate marketing plan will ensure your success in this business, and knowing what is the mistakes that often cause people to fail in affiliate marketing will help you quite a lot.