One of the most frustrating experiences in affiliate marketing is seeing plenty of clicks coming through your advertising but very few signups or sales.
You spend money on traffic. You send visitors to an affiliate offer. The traffic statistics look encouraging, but your affiliate dashboard remains stubbornly quiet.
So what is going wrong?
I recently received an email from an affiliate marketer who was experiencing exactly this problem. He had been advertising, getting plenty of clicks and seeing very little in return. He also wondered whether the problem was that the “big guys” were getting all the results while smaller affiliates were being left behind.
I made a video in response because I think there are some important lessons here for anyone doing affiliate marketing.
Clicks aren’t the same as customers
The first thing to understand is that a click is not a customer.
This sounds obvious, but it is surprisingly easy to forget when you’re looking at traffic statistics.
You can generate hundreds or even thousands of clicks without building a single meaningful relationship with the people behind those clicks.
If you’re sending cold traffic from a traffic exchange, safelist or another advertising source directly to an affiliate signup page, you’re essentially asking a complete stranger to make a decision about your offer immediately.
Sometimes it works. But it is not a particularly good way to build an online business.
Instead, I prefer to use the traffic to build an audience first.
Send traffic to a lead capture page
A simple lead capture page can make a huge difference.
Rather than sending your visitor directly to somebody else’s sales or signup page, you offer them a reason to join your list.
Once they become a subscriber, you have an opportunity to communicate with them again.
That is the important difference.
You are no longer dependent on getting the sale from that one visit. You have started building an audience of your own.
And your lead capture page doesn’t have to be complicated.
One of the pages I use was created with LeadsLeap. It isn’t some elaborate website with expensive graphics and a huge sales letter. It is simply designed to capture the visitor’s email address and introduce them to what I am offering.
You can even create a basic capture page as a free LeadsLeap member.
The important thing is not how fancy the page looks. The important thing is what happens after somebody becomes a subscriber.
Build a list instead of constantly buying clicks
Once you have people on your list, you can continue communicating with them.
If you have LeadsLeap Pro, you can create autoresponder campaigns and have follow-up messages sent automatically. You can also have multiple campaigns and lists rather than relying entirely on manually sending individual broadcasts.
If you’re using the free version, you can still build a list, although you’ll have to send the follow-up emails manually.
Either way, the principle is the same:
Use your advertising to build an audience rather than simply chasing individual sales.
That changes the economics of your advertising because a visitor who doesn’t buy today doesn’t necessarily disappear forever.
They have become a subscriber.
What about OLSP?
This is particularly relevant if you’re promoting a program such as OLSP.
OLSP has a low-cost entry offer and offers 100% commission on that initial payment, which makes it an interesting affiliate opportunity.
But that doesn’t mean you should simply take every click you can generate and send it directly to the OLSP signup page.
I’d much rather send that traffic to a lead capture page first.
OLSP can then be one of the programs you introduce to the people who have joined your list.
The same principle applies to other affiliate programs.
Prosperity Marketing System and other affiliate offers
Another example I mentioned in the video is the Prosperity Marketing System.
The Prosperity Marketing System is another program offering 100% commissions, and it can be incorporated into a broader marketing funnel rather than treated as a standalone link that you simply throw traffic at.
This is something I have been doing for years.
My approach is not to find one magical affiliate link and then try to generate as many clicks as possible. I want to build a system around the traffic I generate. That means getting visitors onto my list, giving them useful information, introducing them to relevant programs and then following up with them over time.
As the list grows, so does the audience I can communicate with, rather than having to start from scratch every time I want to promote something.
That’s a much more sustainable way to approach affiliate marketing than simply buying or generating clicks and hoping that enough people will sign up.
You don’t necessarily need to spend more money on traffic
There’s another point from the email that I think is worth addressing.
The person who contacted me said that he couldn’t afford to spend any more money on advertising.
That’s fair enough.
But before spending more money, I’d ask whether you are actually making proper use of the traffic you already have.
If you are a member of safelists or traffic exchanges, you may already have advertising credits available.
For example, I’ve used safelists to build lists of more than a thousand subscribers. If you have lifetime memberships that provide you with monthly credits, you may already have a source of traffic available without continually buying additional credits.
LeadsLeap Pro members also have advertising credits included with their membership.
And if you don’t have money for advertising, you can often spend time rather than money. Clicking for credits across different safelists and traffic exchanges can give you traffic that you can send to your lead capture page.
The important thing is what you do with that traffic.
Don’t fall into the “big guys get all the results” trap
This brings me to the other part of the email: mindset.
I don’t consider myself a “big sponsor”, despite what the email suggested. I also started from zero.
I’ve been building online businesses for more than 20 years, so obviously I’ve accumulated experience along the way. But that experience came from actually doing things, making mistakes, testing ideas and learning from other people.
There are certainly people who are much more successful online than I am.
And that’s fine.
In fact, I think smaller affiliates can learn a tremendous amount from people who have already built successful businesses.
The important thing is not to look at somebody else’s results and assume that there must be some secret arrangement behind the scenes that prevents you from succeeding.
If somebody is getting results from a particular marketing method, the more useful question is:
What are they doing that I haven’t learned to do yet?
That’s a much more productive question.
Turn your advertising into a marketing system
The biggest lesson here isn’t really about OLSP, LeadsLeap, Prosperity Marketing System or any other individual program.
It’s about how you think about traffic.
If your entire strategy is:
Buy traffic → get clicks → send clicks to affiliate offer → hope somebody buys
then you’re going to spend a lot of time watching your click counter.
A better approach is:
Generate traffic → capture the lead → build your list → provide value → introduce relevant offers → follow up
Now you’re building an asset.
Your list becomes your audience, and every new subscriber gives you another opportunity to build a relationship and make relevant recommendations.
That’s what I mean when I say you should turn your advertising into a marketing system.
What I’m doing with Evergreen Funnel Club
This is also the basic idea behind my Evergreen Funnel Club where I create ready-made funnels that members can import into their own LeadsLeap accounts using share codes. They can then customise those funnels and use them to build their own lists.
I create new funnels regularly, with different offers and lead magnets, so members have something they can work with rather than having to build everything from scratch.
But even with a ready-made funnel, the underlying principle remains the same:
Build the list first.
The funnel is simply the mechanism that helps you do it.
If you’re getting clicks but no sales…
Before buying another advertising package, take a step back and look at what you’re actually doing with the traffic.
Are you sending cold visitors straight to an affiliate offer?
Are you giving them a reason to join your list?
Do you have a follow-up sequence?
Are you building an audience that you can communicate with again?
And perhaps most importantly, are you treating every lack of results as evidence that the system doesn’t work, or are you looking at what you can learn from the results you’re getting?
Affiliate marketing isn’t a matter of throwing enough traffic at a signup page and waiting for the money to appear.
I’ve been doing this for more than 20 years and I’m still learning.
If you’re just starting out, you have plenty to learn too. That’s not a reason to give up. It’s simply part of building an online business.
So don’t confuse clicks with customers.
Use your traffic to build a list, build the relationship and build an audience of your own.
That’s where the real marketing begins.
Good luck!
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus
P. S. If you need a hand with funnel building and creating email campaigns, check out the Evergreen Funnel Club where I create funnels and lead magnets for my subscribers every single month.
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