The affiliate marketing industry is quite a jungle, especially when you start your own business. However, veteran affiliate marketers will tell you they are still watching where they step on a regular basis. This line of work is unsuitable for the faint of the heart and should not be entered lightly. From fighting for your place at the table among your peers to handling big-name advertisers, these battles never seem to end.

With so many hidden traps along the way, writing a guide detailing the most common issues seemed like a step in the right direction. While we can only cover some things that could go wrong, we intend to touch upon the most recurring issues in this industry across all verticals.

Discover the different factors that can make or break an affiliate program!

• It’s Pay Time
• Keeping It 100
• Treating Your Leads
• Why should You Check out Affiliate Networks

It’s Pay Time

When you sign a contract with any advertiser, the two parties will agree on the payment model (CPA and CPL are the most common), when the payments will go out (once a week or once every two weeks usually), conversion guarantees, and any other applicable aspects they may want to add to the agreement. These are things that need to be dealt with when you join affiliate programs.

The real test will take place on payday. Did the advertiser acknowledge all of your successful first-time deposits (FTDs)? Did the company make sure to pay on time? If the advertiser you collaborate with fails on even one of these two questions, there may be some serious issues down the line.

So, what can you do?

Ask for recommendations regarding the brokerage in question in Telegram groups and see what the community has to say. While there may be unreliable reviews, we believe that most of them will be honest about what goes on behind closed doors.

Keeping It 100

As we have discussed above, a recurring issue with brokerages needs to be more transparent regarding your conversion rate or FTDs. In other words, they hide how well your affiliate marketing campaigns were in order to pay you less. Asking to re-check one or two of your FTDs is not necessarily a problem, but larger-scale inconsistencies should raise several red flags.

Make sure you can account for each one of your FTDs, and if you notice this issue repeating itself or if the advertiser claims you did poorly when your performance suggests otherwise, cash out and get out of there. It does not make any sense to invest in affiliate marketing campaigns and see results only for you not to get paid accordingly.

We can assure you that there are trustworthy advertisers, but it takes time to find the right fit.

Treating Your Leads

Another major reason for concern is how the brokerage handles your affiliate marketing leads. If, for example, the advertiser keeps requesting that you send more traffic their way without any conversion rate to speak of, then something needs to be fixed here. Having a semi-low conversion rate can point to a problem in your campaigns, but little to no FTDs should ring the alarm.

When you join affiliate programs of any kind, you need to ensure the advertiser is a partner you can rely on. Customer service and the ability to sell the product or service are the two most important aspects of any business’ success. If one of the parties is not doing their part, it is time you cut your losses and cut them loose.

Why should You Check out Affiliate Networks

Unfortunately, advertisers’ affiliate managing teams sometimes tend to be somewhat biased against the affiliates. This, in turn, makes it much more difficult to find the right match for your traffic, as transparency is key to the vitality of this type of working relationship. Though there are plenty of great, trustworthy brokerages, we still need to eliminate the problems we have discussed above.

One of the best ways to avoid such issues is to sign up with an affiliate marketing network. The network functions as a mediator between the advertisers and affiliates, thus promising neither get positioned over the other. There also a much lesser chance of unaccounted FTDs, as the networks make their money by buying and selling traffic. Your gain is their gain, and that is unlikely to change anytime soon.

Learn more about how you can join ROI Collective’s affiliate network and enjoy our competitive conditions here.

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