Top 20 Affiliate Publisher Mistakes: The Ultimate Affiliate Publisher Guide

Over the past few years, we’ve analyzed thousands of publishers worldwide — from coupon sites and cashback platforms to content media and influencers. We’ve worked personally with hundreds of them as consultants. Some skyrocketed from zero to hundreds of thousands of euros per month, while others stagnated or burned out quickly. Why such a difference?

We’ve selected the most common and costly mistakes that affiliate marketing partners make and detailed how to avoid them. There won’t be any magic hacks here, only strategic and tactical solutions for those who take affiliate marketing seriously.

This article isn’t for beginners: it assumes you’re already in the know and familiar with basic tools and terminology. If something is unclear — use AI assistants, ask questions, and figure it out.

Most mistakes are typical for small and medium publishers. If you’re already a major player and found your “bugs” in this article — consider it a new growth driver. Fix them!

Let’s go.

1. Ignoring the Lack of Traffic

This is the most painful situation to see, so let’s start with it right away :).

Mistake: Publishers focus on technical improvements while forgetting about attracting real traffic to the site. Or they keep perfecting their project so it “will be ready.”

Solution: Launch earlier. Focus on traffic generation, not just technical site improvements. Polish as you go. The sooner you start getting feedback from real users and building an audience — the better.

2. Working Blind: Lack of Analytics

Mistake: Publishers don’t analyze which offers actually work, which pages convert, or what traffic brings money.

Fact: 68% of small partners we worked with lacked even basic tracking of sources and pages.

Supposedly, affiliate marketing is part of performance marketing, where everything should be counted to the last penny. But in reality, many simply copy someone else’s business model, ignoring the basics of analytics.

Solution: Set up basic analytics: UTM tags, conversions by offers, event goals (click, sale). Use ready-made tools: RedTrack, PostAffiliatePro, Google Analytics with e-commerce.

Now, thanks to ChatGPT, you can learn literally with a couple of queries.

If you haven’t already, study what unit economics is and calculate it for your project. You shouldn’t rely on it completely, but as an additional source and perspective on the project, it’s super useful.

What to look for — audience is not uniform. You’ll definitely have one audience segment that brings you $100, while another only $1, but you look at the average and get $50 revenue from an audience that doesn’t actually exist.

You want to find those segments for whom your product is better suited, and then look for ways to attract them specifically, or maybe even pivot the project and focus it only on the tasks and needs of that audience.

3. Copying Everyone Without Strategy

Mistake: Publishers blindly copy competitors — categories, texts, offers, without understanding the mechanics.

Result: Sites become identical, competition becomes fierce, and margins become minimal.

In business, there are always two options: do more than competitors (bundle), or do less but better (unbundle). The worst option is to copy one-to-one.

Solution: Find your specialization, work with brands on unique terms: increased rates, exclusive coupons, early access. Create a site for a clear target audience (for example, “moms with children” or “gamers with $2k income”).

The advertiser will always ask: “What audience do you attract?” The more niche you are, the easier it is to get favorable conditions.

4. Under-monetization of Offers

Mistake: Technically working offers hang on the site but don’t generate revenue due to broken links or outdated conditions.

Fact: Up to 30% of affiliate links in an average project lead to 404 or irrelevant pages.

Solution: Check offers with link checkers (ready-made or custom-written), track 404 errors, monitor EPC and CR. Replace broken links immediately.

5. Too Late Reaction to Seasonality

Mistake: Launching special projects when the sale has already started.

Example: If your Black Friday compilation comes out on November 24th, you’ve already lost to those who started on the 10th.

Solution: Plan ahead (40–50 days before the event): create content, SEO pages, landing pages. Key dates: Singles Day (11.11), Back-to-School, Christmas. Seasonality can provide more than half of your annual income.

Stay up-to-date with affiliate networks internal communications in blogs, newsletters and social media not to miss such events.

6. Ignoring Audience Retargeting

Mistake: Not collecting email addresses, push subscriptions, or other retargeting. Every visit is one-time.

Fact: An email base of 10,000 people gives 5–15% return traffic. Push subscriptions have a 2–5% CR.

Solution: Launch a simple funnel: “Best deals of the week.” Use OneSignal, Mailchimp, PushEngage and similar tools.

You want people who came to you once to leave you their contact through any platform.

7. Poor and Boring Offer Descriptions

Mistake: Texts are boring, taken directly from advertiser landing pages.

Solution: Use triggers: time limitations, exclusivity, FOMO. A/B test headlines. Even an average offer can be presented interestingly.

Even if everything on the advertiser’s site is described boringly and uninterestingly, it doesn’t mean you should present it to your audience in the same way. You can always rephrase or wrap it in a story, or provide more visuals, and even an average offer will look much more interesting.

8. Dependence on One Channel (SEO or Social Media)

Mistake: Focus only on SEO or Instagram/TikTok.

Fact: Google Core Updates 2023–2024 cut 50–80% of traffic for many coupon partners.

Solution: Diversify to at least 2 channels: SEO + email, social media + push, etc. More actively use zero-click channels (AI assistants, messengers).

Search traffic is falling significantly because it’s being eaten by ChatGPT. Therefore, more attention to virality, community, email, social networks, messengers.

9. Ignoring Mobile Version

Mistake: Mobile version loads for 7 seconds, banners are crooked, links are misaligned.

Fact: More than 65% of purchases are made from mobile devices.

Solution: Check the site from mobile devices. Use Lighthouse and PageSpeed Insights.

Try to proceed from the mobile-first principle — your project should work quickly and be convenient on phones, desktop is priority number two.

10. Poor Communication with Network or Manager

Mistake: No communication with the manager, not participating in special offers.

Fact: Active publishers earn 15–35% more revenue.

Solution: Write to your manager. Ask: “What offers are growing now?”, “Can you give a bonus for testing?”, “What categories are growing in Turkey?”. It’s free — but gives ROI.

Just ask your manager — there are often many limited promotions, and they go to those who have built normal relationships with their manager and network. It’s like in life: you’re more likely to treat your friend to coffee than a stranger.

11. Unpreparedness for Moderation and Approval from Advertisers

Mistake: Publishers submit applications with low-quality sites and presentations that don’t pass advertiser moderation. And then they complain: how come they didn’t let me sell the famous brand X?

Put yourself in the advertiser’s shoes. They’re seeing your site or presentation for the first time in their life — would they want their brand on your project?

Solution: Describe in more detail who you are and what you do when submitting for moderation. If the site isn’t ready — supplement the application with a link to a presentation where you show in pictures that it makes sense to work with you.

12. Ignorance of Cultural and Language Specifics When Working with International Geos

Mistake: Common practice of translating sites into many languages at once. Or being in country X but making a project for country Y.

On one hand, the approach is good; on the other, many make language and cultural mistakes, making the site suspicious to the local audience.

Solution: Study cultural and local characteristics of countries before launching campaigns. Again, ChatGPT is your helper.

It’s very common that a project for country X will be very different from a project for country Y. Both in site phrases, interface, and the process of how your service is delivered. This is normal — you’re not alone in this.

13. Underestimating Site Loading Speed Impact

Mistake: Slow sites lose traffic, dramatically cut conversions, and lower search positions.

Common situation: a publisher is super excited about project development, new features, search promotion, community development, but ignores such a basic thing as site loading speed. What’s the big deal if it loads for a couple of seconds, is that really a problem? Yes, it’s a problem and a big one.

Almost half of visitors expect a page to load in less than 2 seconds. With a delay of more than 3 seconds, a significant portion of users leave without waiting for loading.

According to various studies, conversion drop per 1 second of loading delay is about 7%. For e-commerce and mobile sites, this effect can be even higher: up to 20% reduced conversions for each additional second of waiting.

Walmart showed that speeding up site loading by 1 second led to a 2% conversion growth, which is super significant for a project of that size.

Solution: Regularly check and optimize technical site characteristics. Fortunately, services for this can be googled and ChatGPT-ed in 2 seconds.

And most often it’s better to choose higher loading speed than more functionality.

14. Wrong Offer Selection

Mistake: Publishers choose offers by rate, ignoring more profitable conditions by other criteria.

Super important point that deserves a separate article (stay tuned for updates), but for now I’ll briefly list the main problems.

Conversion is more important than rate. If one store has 4 times higher conversion than another, even a 2x rate won’t save you.

Does the store deliver to your geo? How long do cookies live? Confirmation percentage. Processing time.

Solution: Rate alone isn’t enough — look at other parameters too. And a simple rule — it’s better to focus on the EPC parameter — revenue per click on the offer, than on the rate written for the offer.

15. Focus on Traffic, Not Money

Mistake: Many visits, little money.

Solution: Calculate eRPM (revenue per 1000 visits), ROI by channels, subscriber LTV. Set goals to “increase revenue from 1k visits” — not just “get more traffic.”

Don’t confuse commercial and informational traffic.

We literally have a project in our portfolio that we invested more than $1 million in, which tried to learn how to get CPA conversions from informational traffic. It had A LOT of traffic, but no money. The project closed. Save yourself time and money.

Informational traffic — people came to get some information. Commercial — they have a motive to buy.

Compare:

• A) you can have 1 million traffic per month for the query “Billie Eilish”
• B) a thousand uniques for the query “buy sneakers like Billie Eilish’s”

Believe me, publisher B will earn much more on CPA.

Niche focus, quality, audience motivations are much more important than quantity.

And a few more tips/mistakes in blitz format:

16. Lack of Trust in New Cashback Services and New Services in General

Users don’t register and don’t use services, fearing financial losses.

Solution: Use influencers and authoritative partners to increase trust.

17. Lack of User Feedback

Publishers don’t find out the reasons for low activity or refusal to use the service.

Solution: Conduct regular user surveys, call, correspond, create a common chat in a messenger or Slack — this is a super treasure trove of useful information for you.

18. Ignoring Factoring and Payment Acceleration Opportunities

Publishers wait months for payments and lose the opportunity to quickly reinvest in traffic.

Most often it makes sense to talk to your manager. If you show that you can increase volumes and just need more funds for turnover, ways to help you can often be found ;). Companies like Admitad offer solutions like Instant Payout that accelerates your withdrawal to days, not weeks or months.

19. Lack of Additional Monetization Models

Completely dependent on one model (CPA), ignoring AdSense, display advertising, fixed placements, paid services and site sections.

There’s no point in limiting yourself to just one business model, whether CPC or CPA — combine and mix.

20. Lack of AI Solutions and Automation of Routine Tasks

It’s an interesting time now: AI is dramatically changing everything — traffic sources and processes. Large publishers are no longer as strong in new conditions. The right attitude toward AI is like a toy store — joyfully use everything that’s there. AI brings both risks and opportunities for you. You can’t fight it, so let’s get maximum benefit.

Conclusions

Try to make your project stand out from those that already exist.

Be understandable to both your project’s audience, advertisers, and the network. If someone needs to walk around your site for 5 minutes to understand what it is and who it’s for — you’ll have a hard time.

Remember that users are only one side of affiliate marketing. Relationships with the network and advertiser also need to be built and a decent amount of time spent on this.

Don’t try to deceive the network. Short-term you might succeed, but if you want this to be your permanent income source and a real asset that can be invested in or bought for big money, then a cheater’s reputation will put an end to your plans, and the internet remembers everything.

Nothing will happen quickly — this is a marathon. Build your audience, help them solve their problems, count metrics, don’t be afraid to change, try different ways of attracting audience. Remember that a good product without distribution will always lose to an average product with good distribution. More focus on traffic, channels, how to bring it back — repeat visits are the key to high income.

Good luck.

This article is originally create by Max Volokhoff, Chief Innovation Officer, Mitgo. For further info and discussions – don’t hesitate to contact Max!