You’re getting traffic, the problem is you’re not getting any clicks or sales.
A successful affiliate marketing business runs like a well-oiled machine and if you’re getting traffic to your website but no clicks, sales and conversions then clearly something’s up.
But we don’t need to panic, it’s just a case of lifting the bonnet and checking the common problem areas to help diagnose and fix the issue.
Let’s waste no time and start with the biggest culprit of them all…
Reason #1: The Wrong Kind Of Traffic
Getting clicks and sales is as easy as matching the right products with the right people. You might have the product part down but you could be driving the wrong kinds of traffic to your offers…
Traffic that’s not interested in what you’re promoting.
Traffic that’s not buyer ready.
Traffic that doesn’t convert.
Not all traffic is going to convert at the same rate; there’s no solid data on this (it will always vary depending on your affiliate marketing niche) but SEO.com says traffic from search engines converts the best for them (19%), followed by Google Adwords (8%) and social media traffic doesn’t convert at all.
I’d say this is pretty standard across the board.
Traffic sources that don’t convert so well are:
- Email solo ads
- TikTok
The highest converting traffic sources for affiliate marketers tend to be:
- Google search
- Google ads
- YouTube search
- YouTube ads
Why?
Because everything comes down to intent.
Google, YouTube and other search engine traffic will get you more clicks and sales because someone searching “best fertiliser for house plants” is far more likely to buy garden-related products than someone casually scrolling their Instagram feed.
There’s intent.
Think about how you behave before you buy anything online. If you want to buy a toaster you don’t head to TikTok, you go to Google and type “best toaster”, “Cuisinart Digital Toaster review” or something similar.
Makes sense right?
That’s why, at Commission Academy, we show students how to launch an affiliate marketing website, create content that targets buyer-related keywords and gets ranked on Google.
Follow our free step-by-step course and you’ll be getting clicks and sales from 100% free and organic, buyer-ready traffic. Then, once you’re making consistent sales, you can scale up with Google and YouTube ads.
Reason #2: Bad User Experience
If you’re getting organic search engine traffic but no sales then it could be a user experience issue.
That’s is, when people land on your website, there could be conversion blockers that give people reasons not to click your affiliate links or exit your site altogether.
- Does your website take a long time to load?
- Do you have annoying popups?
- Is it obvious what your site is about?
- Is your content easy to read?
- Do you give clear call-to-actions?
- Does your site work on mobile?
You can check if your website is putting potential customers off by taking a look at your Google Analytics data. Go to Audience > Overview and you’ll see stats on:
No. Of Sessions Per User
This is how many pages people on your site visit on average. Any lower than 1.6 and there could be a problem.
Average Session Duration
How long visitors stay on your site on average. This should be at least 1 min 30 seconds.
Bounce Rate
The percentage of people who visit only one page on your site before exiting. should be below 80%.
Nearly 70% of all website visits come from mobile so check the mobile data as well.
These metrics are important because they show you how engaged people are, and how they behave which could act as a clue that user experience is blocking conversions on your site. and how they behave could be a clue there’s something wrong with user experience.
Reason #3: Lack Of Relevant Products
The key to earning daily commissions online is relevancy.
What your website is about, the keywords you target and the products you promote should all follow a flow of relevancy. Miss the mark at any point and you’ll struggle to turn your website visitors into paying customers.
Promoting products unrelated to your niche is a big no-no because your audience doesn’t need them, want them and they’re not going to buy.
If you have a website about guitars, you’re going to make money selling amps, strings and effects pedals. Promote something unrelated like women’s fashion and you’re going to make very little sales (if any!)
In the same way, target the wrong keywords and you’ll not attract the kind of people interested in what you’re offering and that’s going to have a knock-on effect on your conversion rates.
A person searching for “best running headphones” for example is far more likely to click through and purchase the headphones you’re promoting than someone who just landed on your site after searching “best running playlist”.
Check your price point too. Promoting high ticket affiliate programs doesn’t always mean you’ll make more money and ten $50 commissions are better than a single $300 commission.
You’ll get more clicks and sales if you promote products that are:
- Relevant to your niche
- Genuinely helpful to your audience
- Reasonably priced
If not, this could be why you’re getting traffic but no sales. Look for new affiliate programs and switch up what you promote.
Reason #4: Broken Affiliate Links
This may seem obvious, but if you’re getting traffic but no sales then it’s definitely it’s worth checking your affiliate links and ruling this out anyway.
You could go down the manual route of opening your website up in an incognito tab and go through your posts and pages (starting with the most popular first) and click on every affiliate link to make sure it works.
Or you could automate the process by using Screaming Frog’s SEO Spider to scan your entire site in minutes and identify where your broken links are so you can fix them.
Getting Traffic But No Clicks: Final Thoughts
In theory, converting website traffic into sales and clicks and making good money with affiliate marketing is as simple as matching the right products with the right people.
But in practice, there’s a lot that can go wrong to stop that from happening…
The good news is if you get good-quality traffic, have a clean site layout, promote relevant and useful products and your affiliate links are working then you’re bound to get clicks and sales. It’s just a matter of time.
