The majority of affiliate marketers will fail, then rest will make a very meager amount of money. This is a very simple fact, and it only happens to those that deserve it.

I make large sums of money each month, and I'm not saying this to be cocky, it is a fact. "Super affiliates" make up 80% of the sales for many programs yet they account of less than 5% of the total registered affiliates. The reason for this is that the successful are in such a superior position online that they are able to generate money at incredible paces.

The reason why everyone can't do this is that they lack the knowledge to do so. Most people will settle for mediocre results, they will be excited over making $50 a month online even though they are putting in a good amount of hours into their work. There are also people that make no money, because they are impatient and selfish.

How to not fail at affiliate marketing:

• Put in time and effort
• Acquire knowledge - through various affiliate marketing guides if need be
• Think like a visitor, not as a webmaster
• If you are successful, replicate your success do not settle.

Good post. Most people are not immediately willing to put forth the productive effort needed to excel in affiliate marketing. It takes patience and productive ACTION to build a successful business. Sitting around thinking about your dreams just isn't getting things done.

This is all well and good, but laws of limited supply mean you're only ever going to have 5% of people being the top earners, just like in any other commercial sphere.

Firstly, not everyone can be a super affiliate, as there are only so many customers to go around.
The customers, by and large will be driven towards sites that are better advertised. And not everyone can top up their adwords account to meet price rises that will inevitably happen if everyone starts to pump money into these things. Then the only people that get rich are the people providing the ads.
Finally, there's a VERY finite limit on good TLDs. Until new memes show up, it's going to be very hard to acquire a TLD that suites a niche that already exists, even more so one that gets type in traffic unless it's a common typo (in which case, expect a law suit from the person that owns the non-typo form of the TLD in question).

Sorry to sound like a cynic, but the lesson here is that if everyone does this, it just raises the bar higher.

Yeah, but there's still alot of customers still to go around right? Considering that it's a growing market (internet sales/leads) and that there are still 'few workers' when the harvest is plentiful.

I'm wondering if the rate of internet and online purchase adoption growth rates compared to the growing number of active affiliates out there, are increasing or declining?

Possibly in the US, it's slowing down? And there should be a slight gradual shift of focus on international markets?

I don't think there are too many affiliates. I also think that only a small percentage will ever make it to super affiliate status, but I don't think most people need super affiliate status to be happy.

I'm happy carving out a small niche and making six figures a year - I'm not there yet , but it's on the horizon. While six figures a month would be nice - I'm not greedy!

Just set goals you can live with (live well) AND Take Action Daily!!

And - yes I think most new affiliates will fail - but that's just life.

if the majority fails then it should be a great advantage and stimulus for you to work harder:)

Affiliates fail because at one point of time they are not interrsted in it as the payment may be unable for the amount they intended.

so you have to do a research and check what you need and what you can do about it later:)
just research and strateguy and a little bit of luck!

One of the main reason why a lot fail in AM is that they jump into it just so they read somewhere that some guy made big bucks from it.

Like any other business - a lot of research, knowledge, time and dedication should be put into AM to be able to make some a decent earning.

Because it takes work, self discipline, time, thought, planing, doing, listening, and reading... Lot's of reading, doing and putting things into action....

Most people don't really felling like doing much of these things or any of them after a asinine day at work listening to some day job lifer all day bark orders to them.

They just want to watch T.V.