Here we are going to discuss 11 important things related to the reality of affiliate marketing, (what is affiliate marketing? types of affiliate marketing? how to be a successful affiliate marketer? In today’s world, most people want to earn some money from affiliate marketing and most of them start the affiliate journey without even doing proper research about it, so that’s why here we are giving a brief answer to the question: does affiliate marketing worth your time and what is the reality behind?
In today’s world, almost every influencer suggests to start doing affiliate marketing but no one will ever talk about the reality behind affiliate marketing. Things have changed too much now. The digital and the real world also changed too much which affects the market as well, which is why it is necessary to understand and study the market with its reality before starting your affiliate website, YouTube channel, social media pages, etc.
What Is Affiliate Marketing In Simple?

In simple words, affiliate marketing is a type of marketing where we promote products and services of different companies in order to earn some % of commission in return. Affiliate marketing can be done by anyone digitally, There are different types of affiliate programs in the market to promote but mainly related to products or services.
Affiliate marketing is a way through which anyone can earn money online in the form of commission or profit by selling other people’s products or services via promotion through social media and Ads. Affiliate marketing is not a complicated thing to do anyone who has digital skills and knows marketing can surely make money through an affiliate marketing stream.
How Affiliate Marketing is Done

There are many beginners who don’t know the real way how affiliate marketing works or how it can be done. In simple there are two ways through which most people do marketing to get results.
1. Ads: You can run ads through different channels like Facebook ads, Google ads, etc where you can promote and sell affiliate products and services.
If you want to try running ads for your marketing then it is really important to at least have the basic knowledge and skills for running ads on different social media platforms because if not done correctly you’ll lose your money.
2. Organically: The organic method means creating content related to the product or service that you want to promote and publish on social platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitter, Quora, Blogs, etc.
Reality Of Affiliate Marketing

1. It Takes Time
Well, many people already know that starting and getting successful sales in affiliate marketing is a very time-consuming process but it also takes time to get results. It is true that in whatever field you want to earn money online you cannot earn money instantly and cannot gain success overnight.
Like the other fields in online work or offline work affiliate marketing needs too much effort, hard work with a lot of patience. From creating and executing an affiliate plan to achieving success in affiliate marketing hard work and patience play a very important role. It is a reality of affiliate marketing that almost everyone ignores and fails as an affiliate.
2. Investment is required
It is also a fact that as an affiliate marketer getting results and making your efforts work investment is a must which you have to manage and give. Investment can be your money, time, and hard work. many influencers suggest doing copy-paste work but in reality that doesn’t work and gives no results to you.
If you are serious about affiliate marketing then you have to give any type of investment required to your work. You can invest money in marketing and creating quality content and for doing that it is very obvious that you will give time and effort.
3. Build Trust
Affiliate marketing is a field where you need to gain the trust of your audience in order to make them support your affiliate links. It is harsh but it is a reality of affiliate marketing that you can’t become successful overnight no one ever can do it. Mostly, 90% of people don’t care or think about buying anything from other people’s affiliate links and the actual affiliate click-through rate is about 1% – 2% who actually buy and support you.
4. First Sales
It is also very hard to get your first sale as an affiliate which is also the base of creating your presence online in the field of affiliate marketing. Basically to get the first sale you have to make sure that every step of your marketing strategy works well.
To get sales and increase you have to know about the CPA, well CPA is an affiliate concept that stands for Cost Per Action which means you’ll receive a commission as an affiliate whenever someone clicks and completes a task of a link that you promote.
It is hard to make someone click on any affiliate link and getting a task completed by someone after clicking is even harder to achieve, thus it is considered that earning money through CPA and getting a first sale in affiliate marketing is very hard.
5. Failure is more than success
Hard to accept but it is a reality of affiliate marketing that not every affiliate marketer can become successful and start earning money from it. Even according to studies, not everyone can earn money as an affiliate marketer only 7%-10% of people were able to earn as an affiliate. It is also necessary to check all facts about affiliate marketing before starting it.
It is hard to believe but due to too much competition and the requirement of hard work, patience, knowledge, and time, 99% of people quit doing affiliate marketing. The chances of getting success as an affiliate are much less than the chances of getting fail.
6. No Guaranteed Income
There is no one you can guarantee your earnings in the field of affiliate marketing, not every affiliate marketer can earn money from it and cannot make a living through it. Only 1% of affiliates get success and make a healthy living through affiliate marketing.
Brands are already promoting their products and services which almost decreases the chance of promoting any product or service successfully and earning commission over it.
There is already too much competition in affiliate marketing and now brands promoting their products and services themselves also results in decreased chances of earning a commission by promoting products and services.
7. Need Of Market Research and Studies
In the field of affiliate marketing those who do not research and study the market to plan their strategies will eventually get fail and quit. It is a fact that to make yourself successful you have to do market research and study the buying psychology of people.
By studying and doing research related to your affiliate topic you not only get success but will always stay updated on new tactics and strategies for marketing.
8. Competition
Well, it is the most common and well-known fact of affiliate marketing that the field of affiliate marketing is full of competition and in whatever niche you look there are already too many people competing to get success as an affiliate and earn money.
In today’s world, approximately everyone wants to make money as an affiliate but after trying and getting too many failures almost 99% of people quit affiliate marketing because of not getting results and too much “competition” and it will continue to rise up in the future.
If you want to start working as an affiliate then it is very important to keep in mind that it is full of competition and for success, you have to work and earn it in any way success doesn’t come on its own.
9. Hard to select an affiliate niche
It may not seem difficult but in reality, every new affiliate marketer makes the mistake of selecting the wrong niche for doing affiliate marketing. In the field of affiliate marketing, it is very important to select a perfect niche or category in which you want to do marketing.
Not selecting a perfect niche results in giving no results for your affiliate marketing efforts which totally impacts negatively on the motivation to continue doing affiliate marketing.
It is also very important to think and study properly before selecting any product or service for promotion, as getting results in products and services from different niches may vary which ultimately makes it difficult to select a perfect niche to market.
10. People don’t click on every affiliate link
It is also a very harsh reality of affiliate marketing that people don’t really like clicking on every affiliate link, it is a game of trust that totally depends on consumer psychology and your hard work and patience for your marketing strategy.
In today’s world people usually don’t look for affiliate links to buy anything and even if they find any affiliate link there is very little chance that people will click on that link to buy the product or service. The psychology of people is changing day by day which makes changes in purchasing decisions for them.
11. Affiliate content plays an important role
It is the most difficult task to do in order to achieve success in affiliate marketing, it is very important to create content for affiliate marketing because content is considered king, and promoting any affiliate product or service without any content is very difficult as well as it doesn’t perform well and get clicks or profit.
As an affiliate creating content and performing marketing strategies is necessary for getting results and success. If someone tries to do affiliate marketing without any type of content then the chances of getting results are low in comparison to affiliate marketing with content.
Types Of Affiliate Marketing

1. PPC (Pay Per Click): This is a type of affiliate marketing in which an affiliate earns a commission based on the number of visitors redirected by his or her website to the affiliate website.
2. PPL (Pay Per Lead): This is a type of marketing in which affiliates earn a commission when visitors provide their info like email, phone no, about, etc on the affiliate website.
3. PPS (Pay Per Sale): This is a type of affiliate marketing in which an affiliate earns a commission by promoting an affiliate product or service based on different categories and niches.
How To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer?

1. Decide a niche and make a plan
For a successful affiliate marketing campaign, it is the first step to make a perfect plan for affiliate marketing and select a niche in which you want to start affiliate marketing. Select a niche then join one of the best affiliate programs and start doing your work as an affiliate.
2. Create accounts on content-sharing platforms
For better affiliate marketing results it is important to create accounts on the best and most effective content-sharing platforms where you can share your content with affiliate links to market it over the internet. Try to create your affiliate blog, YouTube channel, website, social media pages, etc to share quality links and earn a commission.
3. Create and share affiliate links
After creating content accounts on content-sharing platforms and deciding your affiliate niche or topic you have to create and share affiliate content on different platforms. Always try to create helpful content with your affiliate links because it has a greater chance of increased CTR (Click-Through Rate).
4. Get traffic in your content
After creating your platform for link sharing you have to get traffic on it. Try to increase views on your content for better affiliate results with the help of SEO or SEM. It is not easy to increase the traffic in your content but also it is not impossible there are still some good ways in which you can try to increase the visibility of your content over the internet and the best thing anyone can do is to create quality content for affiliate marketing.
5. Optimize affiliate links
It is also important to optimize all your affiliate links because not optimizing affiliate links can reduce your earnings and may have a bad effect on your affiliate marketing campaign. Always track your affiliate links that which link is working and which link is dead this will help you get better results.
Trusted Affiliate Platforms/Programs

1. Amazon
Amazon Associate is considered one of the best affiliate programs to join in the world, there is no charge for joining or earning a commission. It is also best for beginners because it is easy to start and understand all the structures in an Amazon affiliate program.
Even it has a flat rate commission structure which makes you earn a good commission by promoting their product and services. Anyone can join it and start the affiliate marketing journey with ease.
2. ClickBank
Clickbank is also one of the best affiliate programs which you can join to earn affiliate income Clickbank has many products and services that you can promote and start earning.
There are no joining fees and has multiple nice to start with the minimum payout is around 760 INR. If you want to join a platform where you can find multiple niches then this affiliate program will suit you best.
3. Flipkart
Flipkart is also a good option that anyone can join with simple ways as an affiliate from where you can promote products or services easily. Flipkart generally prefers special clicks from its own websites for which it is necessary to create an affiliate website to join the Flipkart affiliate program.
Conclusion

So, these are some of the realities of affiliate marketing that are necessary to know for those who want to start working as an affiliate marketer and earn a healthy living. All these facts or realities which I have shared here are not to demotivate.
The only purpose is to show the reality behind it because everyone nowadays wants to make money online and even started doing work like affiliate marketing which is not a good decision because before starting any work it is very important to collect all positive and negative data about that topic then make any decision. Time is a very precious thing so think before wasting it in the wrong direction.
Related: Reality Of Earning Money Online
FAQ?
What is the harsh truth about affiliate marketing?
The harsh truth about affiliate marketing is that it requires a lot of hard work, patience, time, knowledge, and much more but there is no guarantee of getting success (only a 1% chance).
What are the best affiliate marketing programs to join?
1. Amazon associates
2. Clickbank
3. Reseller club
4. Optimise
5. Awin
What is the average commission as an affiliate?
The average rate of commission an affiliate marketer varies between 6% to 30%