If set up right, online marketing can help you generate a steady passive income. There are many stories of how first-time entrepreneurs have made a lot of money selling their products and services through online marketing. But there are hundreds, if not thousands of times, more stories of how people failed badly. Investing your money and losing it or recovering little.

In its simplistic model, online marketing has three phases. In phase one, you get traffic to opt into your system. In phase two, you convert your opt-in leads into customers. Then, in phase three, you retain these customers by making them buy from you again.

However, each of these stages has inherent risks. And if you were to commit just one online marketing sin, it could wipe out your entire business.

Here are 7 fatal sins of online marketing. Why you should avoid them. Plus, what you need to do instead to be more successful.

Fatal Marketing Sin #1: Sending Traffic to Your Home Page

The money you spend on traffic is a sunk cost. The only way to get a return on your investment is by selling products and services. So if you were to get someone to click on your ad, you would want the best chance of selling it.

Yet 92 percent of consumers who visit a brand’s website for the first time are NOT there to buy. And only 32 percent of those who visited the site with the intention of buying rarely or never make a purchase. This according to a study of 1,112 consumers in the United States by Episerver.

That’s why it’s critical that you first have your potential customer sign up and give them permission to send you emails. Then you can establish a relationship with them. Also, nurture them with educational information to establish trust and credibility. All of which can lead to sales conversion.

The best place to send traffic is to a landing page focused solely on getting visitors to sign up. But a home page is the wrong place to send traffic. This is because most landing pages have a menu and too much information to distract visitors from signing up, even if you include a signup form.

Fatal Marketing Sin #2: Sending Cold Traffic to Your Sales Page
Sending cold traffic to your sales page before they opt in can be worse than sending it to your home page. Less than a third of prospects who would otherwise buy from you buy on their first visit.

By sending traffic to your sales page, you risk losing them forever by revealing your price, without first establishing a relationship with them. If they leave without buying, you have no way to follow up. Then you waste your advertising investment.

Fatal Marketing Sin #3: Investing in Traffic Before You Invest in Your Sales Funnel
Why spend money on website traffic that you can’t convert into sales? Don’t put the cart before the horse, because you may not get where you want to go.

The key to making sales is having a good sales funnel. This way you can generate sales conversion. A good sales funnel includes a series of email letters with links to content to build trust and credibility. Plus one or more landing pages with compelling content and a strong offer. And an order page that confirms the offer with a quick and easy way for buyers to complete and submit it.

Fatal Marketing Sin #4: Not Knowing Your Target Market
Too often, marketers commit the sin of having too broad a target audience. However, targeting a broad audience will not only cost you more, it will also lead to a lower sales conversion.

The best first step before investing in traffic is to conduct market research. An in-depth survey to help you find the demographics, psychographics, and buying behavior of your true target market. The results can help you identify the most appropriate marketing messages.

Fatal Marketing Sin #5: Not Segmenting Your Contacts
The era of one message to all is dead. The advantage of online marketing is that you can segment your contacts and give each one a personalized experience.

Two common ways to segment your contacts are through custom fields and labels. You can then group your contacts according to those that have a certain tag or custom field data. And you can customize the marketing message based on this criteria. That can lead to both higher sales conversion and higher customer satisfaction.

Fatal Marketing Sin #6: Not Split Testing Your Campaigns
Split testing allows you to compare results between 2-4 versions of your landing pages. So you can improve your results. For higher subscription fees. Or higher sales conversion.

The key to split testing is to focus on only one variable at a time. This variable can be to compare headlines, prices, offers, or even the design of the landing page. Simply designate the current version as the control and send a certain percentage of contacts in your funnel to the “test pages”. When the results of a “test page” outperform the control, it becomes the new control.

Fatal Marketing Sin #7: Not Investing in a Downsell Campaign
As many as 67% or more may abandon their shopping cart. However, you can recover more than a quarter of these lost sales with a sales reduction campaign.

A downsell campaign consists of a series of messages to contacts who abandon the shopping cart. Each message contains a persuasive message with a link to a dedicated landing page with a special offer. What was once lost sales now turns into increased sales conversion.

In short, engaging in any of the above online marketing sins can kill your business. But when you execute the suggested strategies instead, you can help your business grow. To help you achieve higher signup rates, higher sales conversion, and higher ROI.