Do I Need a Mentor to Start Affiliate Marketing?

This is a great question and in my experience as an affiliate marketer, I have tried to learn affiliate marketing on my own as well as with a mentor (check out my Zach Crawford coaching review). I’ll do my best to answer the question, “Do I need a mentor to start affiliate marketing?” by sharing my personal experience.

Do I Need a Mentor to Start Affiliate Marketing? My Personal Experience

The short answer to this is no. You do not need to have a mentor to start affiliate marketing. Many successful affiliate marketers have achieved success learning everything on their own by trying and testing different strategies.

However, many super affiliates have had mentors and continue to seek mentorship for various aspects of their business. From learning how to grow their affiliate marketing businesses to growth in personal development.

Mentors can guide you on the path to success by sharing their business models and helping you to not make common mistakes that could set back your progress.

Overall, having a mentor can be of great benefit. However, I highly recommend doing your research before choosing one. I’ve heard stories of mentors who didn’t help very much but cost a lot of money.

Can I Start Affiliate Marketing On My Own?

You can start affiliate marketing on your own. Becoming an affiliate marketer is as simple as joining an affiliate program and obtaining your affiliate links. There are no schools you need to attend or courses that you need to take.

The knowledge is there for the taking for free on platforms such as YouTube. The only downside is that it may take you longer to make any affiliate commissions as you piece things together.

Another challenge is becoming distracted trying to implement one strategy after the other. There are so many ways to do affiliate marketing so it is easy to start one method, become frustrated, and jump to another method.

It is a slow process attempting to learn affiliate marketing by yourself. It’s not impossible but it can be frustrating. I spent years trying to do it that way. When I finally stopped being stubborn and got help, it made a big difference.

The Best Way for a Beginner to Start Affiliate Marketing

Now that I have been doing affiliate marketing for quite some time and I’ve made many affiliate commissions, if I had to start from scratch, this is what I’d do:

Create a Traffic Source

Traffic is one of the most challenging aspects of affiliate marketing. Without traffic, you won’t make sales, and finding a good traffic source can be tough.

For example, if you wanted to use a social media platform such as Instagram for traffic, it would require consistent posting of videos, photos, and shorts.

If you wanted to focus on organic traffic such as using a blog, it would require writing content regularly targeting specific keywords.

Content creation in general is time-consuming and a slow-going process. It’s best to focus on one traffic source and become proficient in it.

My choice is to focus on blogging. I like using SEO (search engine optimization) to generate targeted organic traffic.

Although it takes time, it is well worth it in the long run. Blog traffic can last for years if you stay consistent with writing content.

Choose a High Ticket Affiliate Product

I promote low-ticket offers and have made steady commissions with those types of offers. However, it is much faster to level up your online income by promoting high-ticket offers.

It’s easier to sell 5 high-ticket products versus 200 low-ticket products to reach $5K per month in affiliate commissions.

The method to promote products works the same. I also choose high-ticket affiliate offers that pay a commission of at least $500 and up.

Set Up a Sales Funnel

I rarely promote an affiliate product without setting up a sales funnel for it. A funnel is a simple 2-page website. The first page is the squeeze page that collects visitors’ contact information such as a first name and email address.

The second page of the funnel is a bridge page or thank you page. This is where you have information about the product you’re recommending as well as a call-to-action button or link using your affiliate link.

Your sales funnel is also used to build your email list so that you can continue marketing to your subscribers for as long as they remain subscribed to your list.

Once your affiliate funnel is up, you can begin sending traffic to it using any of the traffic sources you choose. The goal is to obtain new leads daily.

How to Start Affiliate Marketing with No Money

It is possible to start affiliate marketing with no money but you likely won’t pick up any momentum that way. For example, you could promote affiliate products by placing your affiliate link in your social media profile.

However, by doing so, you’re leaving a lot of money on the table since you are not building an email list. Those visitors you send directly to the affiliate offer are lost to you.

Since they are not on your email list, you can’t continue to market future affiliate offers to them. That is why the phrase “The money is in the list” is so popular. You’ll hardly ever come across an experienced affiliate marketer who isn’t building an email list.

So while you can start affiliate marketing with no money, I highly recommend at least investing in sales funnel software, building your funnel, and driving traffic to it.

How to Find a Mentor to Start Affiliate Marketing

We’ve talked about the challenges of learning affiliate marketing on your own as well as the benefits of finding a mentor. If you are interested in having a mentor to speed up progress and reach success faster, then you’ll want to begin doing some research and narrowing down your choices.

I have invested in a few online mentors and like what each offers in terms of education and coaching. You can begin your search on YouTube. Search for “high ticket affiliate marketing” and click on the links in the descriptions of the top videos.

Chances are the video creators are promoting a high ticket affiliate coaching program. If so, collect as many of these as you can so that you can start researching each online business coach.

Here’s what I would check for:

• Is the online business coach accessible? Are they active on social media? Is there a Facebook Group you can join?
• How long has the coach been doing affiliate marketing? Are they at a level that you want to be at?
• Is the reputation of the coach good? Do they have negative reviews on websites such as the Better Business Bureau?
• Check reviews of the coaching program on Trustpilot (if applicable)

Search for as much information as you can. You’ll come across a lot of reviews on blog posts. Most will only talk about the course. Search for reviews of actual students (they do exist – check out my online coach review.)

In Conclusion

You do have the option of not seeking out a mentor to start affiliate marketing. However, it can be a longer process to learn and begin making affiliate commissions.

A good online business coach can serve as a mentor and help speed up the time it takes to reach success as an affiliate marketer. It will take a lot of hard work and consistent effort.

If you utilize your business coach and stay consistent, it is highly possible to reach your goals sooner than you think.