The Affiliate Program Selection Mistakes I Made First

Month-one mistakes documented:

1. Chasing CPA over EPC — a $100 brokerage CPA sounded better than Stock Picks's modest payout until the conversion math ran: 0.2% conversion on brokerages vs 4% on a free product. EPC wins.
2. Signing up for every network — 8 networks joined, 2 ever used. The admin overhead exceeds the payout.
3. No tracking discipline — early links had no UTM; first two weeks of data are useless for attribution.
4. Product-first thinking — promoted tools I didn't use; the content showed it, conversions proved it.

The fix: one program (Stock Picks), tracked properly, content that answers a real question. The revenue followed.