Part of my job is approving Pending Affiliates. I have the chance to talk to seasoned affiliates, as well as, people we call Newbs, (those people who would like to get started in affiliate marketing and are new to the industry).

Most of these people have illusions of grandeur and easy cash. They have no idea what they are going to do, what offers they are looking for or even the marketing method.

So what is it really, that people should know before considering a career in affiliate marketing? I came up with these 5 basic areas.

If you are thinking about getting started in affiliate marketing, ask yourself these questions:

1.) Do I know basic HTML?

Over the years, I have never talked to an affiliate who said, “Yea, I made all this money knowing NOTHING. Isn’t that amazing!!!”

Do I think you can get started knowing basic html? Yes.
Do I think you can get started not knowing any? No, not really. Plus if you want to do this full time, know your craft. You need to know how to optimize your campaigns or you will end up losing money.

For the more complex stuff, hire someone. But you have to have a general idea of what you will be asking the programmer for.

Before you even get started, know HTML.

2.) Do you have a basic understanding of the Internet?

So what is a basic understanding of the Internet? Well, can you use a browser (yea, you’d be surprised.)

Please know that you have to use an affiliate link to track your leads. You’d be surprised how often people forget to do this.

3.) Do you have Realistic Expectations?

Our favorite phone call was from a gal who read about George on a blog. She called in and asked if she only works 10 hours a week, can she make a million dollars in the first year.

I am not making this up. She called for two weeks straight asking how she can make that working just a few hours a week.

For those of you successful in affiliate marketing – how much time did you put in at the beginning? Even now? I guarantee it’s way more than 10 hours a week. Possibly more than 10 hours a day.

Online marketing takes both time and money. If you don’t have enough money to pay your bills – work a job and do affiliate marketing at night, on the weekends or whatever.

I have people that call in and tell me they can’t pay their mortgage, so they need an offer to just blow up for them. I tell them, get a part time job even to pay your mortgage. And let’s get some money coming on the side with affiliate marketing. Honestly, you need to reinvest what you make to build up your earnings to where you can do this full time.

4.) Are you Dedicated?
This one is an understatement. One word – and it means so much.

You need to be dedicated to succeeding in affiliate marketing. You need to want it so bad that it’s all you can see. Because honestly, that is what it’s going to take. You will lose money, offers will go down, and you will get discouraged. There is only thing that will keep you going: dedication to the goal.

5.) Do you LOVE this?
Affiliate marketing is tedious! It’s scraping keywords and urls, it’s setting up campaigns, it’s split testing pages and optimizing everything you can. It’s analyzing data and testing offers. It is tedious work – but inside you still have to love it.

You have to get a bit of a rush when you get that java script working. You can feel your heart beating a little faster once leads start pouring in. A high, so to speak, after you optimized a landing page and your CTR rises 150%. Wow.

If you envision nothing but sipping martinis on the beach after you did absolutely nothing but put a link up on Google – then keep dreaming. You would be better buying a lottery ticket.

I don’t want to discourage Newbies from getting involved in the industry. I just want to offer some help. If you answered YES to all 5 questions, I’d say jump on in and make some money. If you answered NO – then go back to the drawing board. It will save you both time and money.

What do you think? Is there any other must-haves that we should put on the list?