Top 12 Rules For Affiliate Marketing Success

The fastest way to affiliate marketing is this: learn the RULES.

There are some rules in every field. Be it baseball or soccer, and you need to learn those rules. Once you know the rules, you can even break them (later).

I’ve learned a lot along my journey. Through trial and error, I’ve discovered core affiliate marketing rules that you need to follow if you want to be successful.

If you don’t, you end up getting yourself into trouble. I don’t want you to fall into this trap, so here are the top 12 rules you need to learn and understand to succeed in affiliate marketing.

If you follow these, you’re setting yourself up to win.

Rule #1: Follow a PROVEN Process

Most of the bloggers that just started are making money from AdSense and selling banner ads.

They quickly realized such a process wouldn’t work after a decade. I was right. I barely see bloggers making a living from AdSense paychecks.

Below you can see the balance of one of my Adsense accounts abandoned several years ago when I discovered Affiliate marketing. I didn’t even cash out the earnings 🙂

So I came up with a simple process that anyone can use to build an authority site that makes a lot of money.

See how simple the whole process is?

It looks so simple, but it works in the real world. You can also reciprocate the same.

My suggestion is to follow someone who is already making a living from affiliate marketing. Analyze how they are making money.

Follow their approach. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Follow a proven process that works.

It works because most people are not consistent (and ready to do all the hard work). So go ahead and find a proven process.

Rule #2: Give it Time, Be Patient

Most beginners fail in affiliate marketing because they give up very soon. They find a niche, create some blog posts, do random SEO, throw up affiliate links, and hope to get commissions.

They don’t give any time to build an affiliate marketing blog, build trust, find better products to promote, learn what it takes to sell online.

That’s why so many beginners fail to make even $100 a month from affiliate marketing. Just like any other serious business, affiliate marketing takes time.

Your affiliate marketing success depends on your selling skills. If you already know how to sell online, you’ll find it extremely easy to make a ton of money.

But if you’re just getting started, it might take 6 to 8 months (or one year) to start generating decent sales from affiliate marketing.

So give it some time. Be patient and don’t give up within three months.

Rule #3: Go BIG or Go Home

Don’t treat affiliate marketing as a hobby or side hustle. If you want to make a living from affiliate marketing, you should commit fully.

Yes, you can consider affiliate marketing as a side hustle. But don’t expect a ton of sales if you’re not spending enough time.

What if you already have a job? What if you’re still studying?

We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Always remember, “what you do after 9 to 5 decides your future!”. So decide what you want from affiliate marketing.

Are you planning to make a living by earning several thousands of dollars every month from affiliate marketing?
OR

Would you be rather happy making a couple of sales each month (as a side hustle)?

Depending on your commitment, you can scale your affiliate marketing success.

Rule #4: Be Consistent, or You’ll Fail!

Consistency beats talent.

I’ve been blogging for more than 15 years now, and I’ve seen thousands of emerging bloggers every single year. Most of them are not even blogging now. Yes, they were all talented. They had some excellent skills when they started.

But they were NOT consistent. I still don’t consider myself a talented affiliate marketer, but I’m consistent. I firmly believe consistency is the primary reason for my affiliate marketing success. Consistency ALWAYS beats talent.

Do you know the #1 reason most bloggers fail to make any money online?

It’s not the content. Not even SEO or marketing skills. It’s a lack of consistency.

If you want to succeed in affiliate marketing, learn to be consistent. You can’t work on your affiliate marketing website once in a while (or blog whenever you feel like it). That will certainly not get you any results.

Keep the momentum going. Make sure to keep small goals when getting started (such as one sale a week). Reward yourself every time you achieve those small goals. That’s how you’ll be consistent.

Rule #5: Follow The Magic 80/20 Rule

You’ve probably heard of the 80/20 rule. It is also known as the Pareto Principle. This rule suggests that 80% of your outcomes come from 20% of your inputs.

But how can you exactly use that 80/20 rule in affiliate marketing?

5.1 Identify Your Pillar Products

Yes, you need to find a few products (one or two) that you can use as “pillar products.” Pillar products are those products that can be used to promote again and again on your site. For me, SEMrush is an excellent example of a pillar product.

5.2 Promote them smartly.

Rule #6: Find And Promote Recurring Affiliate Programs

A recurring commission affiliate program is something that pays you every time your referral pays for the subscription (not just once). That means every referred user who registers and subscribes through your affiliate link brings you commission for a lifetime.

6.1 Why should you choose recurring affiliate programs to promote?

The #1 reason is you will earn a recurring commission, not just once. That means, even if you generate fewer sales from a recurring affiliate program, you still generate consistent income each month.

But when you’re promoting a non-recurring product, you generate commission only once. So you’ll have to work hard every time to make a commission from that product.

So which one is better to promote among Bluehost and SEMrush?

Promoting SEMrush is an intelligent choice. After all, the SEMrush affiliate program helps you generate commission for a lifetime and not just once.

That’s why you should always prefer promoting recurring affiliate programs over general affiliate programs.

That being said, here’s a list of some of the best recurring affiliate programs for bloggers, SEOs, and affiliate marketers.

Rule #7: Show your results

Social proof is the MOST powerful factor in affiliate marketing. Show your results if you want to increase your affiliate product sales.

For example, I use an SEO tool called SEMrush, which helps me run site audits, find better keywords, analyze my competitors, and so on. I then use these results as proof when I’m promoting the SEMrush SEO tool to my audience.

I created multiple case studies on SEMrush and discussed how this tool helped increase my overall search traffic. I can quickly build trust with my audience by showing that I’ve used and succeeded with a product like SEMrush.

If someone knows the TRUE potential, they would be keen to get their hands on it.

That’s why showing your results always works. It not only helps you build instant trust but also increases your overall sales.

Rule #8: Become the best source of information

You should either have a blog or YouTube channel to promote your affiliate products. One good thing about using a blog or YouTube channel for affiliate marketing is creating helpful content around the products you promote.

You can create ULTIMATE posts such as detailed tutorials, reviews, how-to posts around the affiliate products you promote. I started many articles and detailed tutorials around one of my pillar products, i.e., SEMrush, on my blog. From comparison posts to how-to guides to discount codes to reviews – I became the ULTIMATE source of information for SEMrush.

That’s the reason why I succeeded with their affiliate program. I want to convey that you should become the ULTIMATE source of information for your pillar products if you’re going to generate more commission.

It would help to rank on top of Google search results (or YouTube search results) for those products. Until then, you start creating epic content, use proper keywords, build more backlinks, etc., to boost your search visibility.

Rule #9: Build relationships with the affiliate managers

Cultivate relationships with affiliate managers or product owners. This is a less-known strategy used by almost all super successful affiliate marketers.

Why should you spend your time building relationships with the affiliate managers of the products you promote?

Here’s where affiliate managers come into play. I have a great relationship with affiliate managers. I get in touch with their affiliate managers, discussing insider strategies to grow product sales.

They also often give me insights on what I can do to promote their tool to my audience. When you have such good rapport and frequent communication with affiliate managers of any product, it becomes so much easier for you to find new deals (special discounts, insider tips), etc.

Above all, one other BIGGEST advantage of developing a relationship with the product owners or affiliate managers of a product is that you might be able to negotiate higher commission rates.

That’s why you should always focus on building relationships with the affiliate managers of any product you promote so you will have higher chances to improve sales.

Rule #10: Offer EXCLUSIVE deals

You may already know that I offer 14-day free trials on the SEMrush Pro account if you’re reading my blog. See, you can’t find 14 day free trials on SEMrush Pro account often on the Internet (it’s exclusive for only a few people as they often offer seven-day free trials to most of their affiliates).

When I offer an exclusive deal like a 14-day free trial for SEMrush, more people will be interested in trying 14 day free trials (over seven-day free trials).

Whoever likes using SEMrush within that 14 days will become a customer, which helps me generate recurring commission every month!

So offer exclusive deals for people who are purchasing through our affiliate links.

Rule #11: The money is in the list

An email list is the most powerful asset you can have as an affiliate marketer. Did you know that the average expected ROI is $42 for every $1 you spend on email marketing?

If you’re not building an email list, you should do it from today.

Your email list should become an integral part of your affiliate marketing strategy.

We use our email list to provide colossal value upfront instead of directly selling any product. That should be your goal, too – to provide immense value to your audience before pitching any product.

Rule #12: Stay compliant with agreements and FTC

Every affiliate program has its terms, rules, and regulations. Make sure that you follow them or else you will get into trouble. Make sure that you read and understand what you can and cannot do.

When it comes to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), make sure that you include a disclaimer in your content that delineates that you are an affiliate for the product you are promoting.

Conclusion on Affiliate Marketing Rules

There you have them: Top 12 affiliate marketing rules that you should understand and follow if you want to make decent money through affiliate marketing.

Have questions about affiliate marketing rules? Let us know in the comments form below.