Many affiliate marketing programs offer affiliates tools to use in their campaigns to help them make money. But do these tools really help the affiliate?

When you are promoting products to prospects, you want to build trust. Affiliate marketing is your own individual business and you should treat it like one. The marketing tools that vendors and affiliate programs provide for affiliates are used by all affiliates who are promoting the same product as you are. You don’t want to use the same marketing tools, mainly the pre written emails and product reviews. I don’t recommend using them on your websites, or in email marketing.

Here is a perfect example: let’s say the vendor has an affiliate tool page and he has promo emails and reviews you can use in your marketing. You decide you want to use the promo emails to promote products to the prospects on your list. Sue, who is one of your email subscribers and is also subscribed to several other affiliate marketers list, sees your email about how to make 100 dollars a day. This email is also the same email that your competitor is using. Sue happens to be getting emails from this person also. Sue is going to see the same email from you and your competitor. Sue decides to unsubscribe from you and your competitor. What happens in this situation is Sue lost her trust in you. Now Sue may write bad comments about your websites and blogs all because you use the same promo emails everyone is using. This is bad for your business and your reputation is on the line or even destroyed.

Once you lose trust of people, it is very hard to get it back. First impressions are lasting ones. You have to make the right choice to be unique and be honest in you business, especially if you are serious about affiliate marketing. Now if you want to use the banners in an ad that’s fine, I use banners myself. But you absolutely do not want to use reviews or emails that 1000’s of other people use also. Be unique and give people helpful tips. You should always be truthful. If you never used a product, you shouldn't even write a review on it. That wouldn’t be fair to people. You have to put your customers first and you have to show them you care and that you are real. This is the only way to make money as an affiliate. People get it wrong daily.

The vendors and the owners of the affiliate programs don’t care if you use the same emails and reviews. They will still make money regardless.

If you do want to use tools in ads, you should stick to banners and graphics. These can be effective in getting a persons attention because people respond better to pictures. You should also consider using your own pictures if you have them. If you use a text ad, I recommend you put the ad in your own words. Just stay away from using the reviews and pre written emails.