Doesn't amaze you when you see how many people are still blind to AM?

avatar33

avatar33

e-Hustler
Dec 5, 2009
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I've been doing SEO for this client that provides 3d software training online. They're US-based too. They have about 5k UVs per day and thousands of online students. They have a "Resources" page where they added bare links (not affiliate links) to a few applications and books.

I told them that if they turn these into affiliate links (since most of those vendors have affiliate programs) they would probably make an additional 4 digit income per month MINIMUM. The CEO's answer? "We'll consider" it." It's been months and they're still sending free traffic. (WTF?!)

This is just one example. I've seen so many websites that have great amounts of traffic, add non-aff links to vendors that HAVE an affiliate program.

Why are these people sending free leads? Is it (1) because they don't understand AM, (2) They understand it but think it's too complicated or (3) They know what it is and how it works, but they think there's no potential for serious money in it

Thoughts?

Your thoughts?
 


I think its a combination of things. Some people are just oblivious. Others are too lazy or just confused.

It amazes me how people will stand in their own way. Happens all the time, in every aspect of life.
 
this is EXACTLY why I think entrepreneurs are better off being affiliates first ;) I think conv3rsion said it best "Todays affiliates are tomorrows entrepreneurs"

fucking Google don't get it though. No, we'll ban you for life!!! These motherfuckers went to Stanford and shit?
 
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yep... and amazing how many people at "advertising agencies" have no fucking clue what affiliate marketing is.
 
Its amazing how much potentially $$ and profit slips through the cracks of literally every and any business. Especially when people are set in their ways....often times the fear of change or doing things differently far outweighs the extra income that may come in.
 
I've always been curious to know what would happen if big companies started hiring good affiliate marketers to run their online advertisements. Big companies always look for those guys who just got out of college with all these amazing business degrees, but wouldn't you want people with experience?

Even your above average affiliate marketer (who runs legit) has to know quite a bit in order to turn profits with such low margins to work with. Would be interesting to see what would happen if you gave a group of good affiliate marketers a huge marketing budget from a big company and see what they could do with it.
 
OP there may be another side of the story that you're not aware of. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

They might not want to send the message that they're trying to make a buck. And all of a sudden people question the validity of a recommendation when there's a commission attached to it.

A small step further would be go ask businesses why not sprinkle adsense on their corporate site. A lawyer's firm might grab a decent chunk of change from those law keywords.
 
I love it that way. The less people know the better, there is this facade of a barrier of entry into AM that you have to be super coder computer nerd to do it. That plus half the people I try to explain to how it works dont understand.

In OPs situation it probably comes down to not understanding.
 
Your doing it wrong. This isn't an affiliate squeeze page. This is a brand. A BRAND, which the CEO want people to TRUST. And not today. Not tomorrow. But for years, even decades to come.

Some things like affiliate links, adsence, and others can dilute your corporate image. Honestly, if I was on an online course and saw the affiliate links; I'd think twice about paying them. I mean, how successful can they be if they want to hussle a few bucks off me from affiliate commissions. It would also put into question the reason of their recommendation.



There is a gap to be crossed when you go from being an affiliate to a full blow, large scale business. This thread shows me many don't even see it.

(I'm not saying you should NEVER put affiliate links on a corporate site; just that; doing a simple profitability analysis from an affiliate stand point is rather short sighted, there is more to it than that)
 
erifdekciw said:
I've always been curious to know what would happen if big companies started hiring good affiliate marketers to run their online advertisements. Big companies always look for those guys who just got out of college with all these amazing business degrees, but wouldn't you want people with experience?

Even your above average affiliate marketer (who runs legit) has to know quite a bit in order to turn profits with such low margins to work with. Would be interesting to see what would happen if you gave a group of good affiliate marketers a huge marketing budget from a big company and see what they could do with it.
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I'll tell you exactly what will happen. Affiliate improves nearly every metric, cuts out wasted spending, and frees up hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars for the company to use on other stuff. Company then says, "But what about our branding?? The Google rep says we're missing out on a percentage of the market? Why aren't we averaging position #1 on this search term? How can we succeed if we don't show up for every random, halfway related keyword that probably isn't relevant but maybe just might be??" and proceeds to give the Google reps (or insert whatever other traffic source you're working with) permission to run wild with the budget in the name of exposure and maximum market share.

I did exactly this with a large company earlier this year and cut TONS of waste out of their online advertising budget - but the problem is that they didn't know how to process that. After the second or third conference call where their employees sat around questioning the "mindset" of someone searching a random term while completely ignoring that they had spend $200k on it with almost nothing to show for it and a 90+% bounce rate...I was ready to blow my brains out. I dumped them after 4 months.

They're not ALL that bad, and there are a few chains and big companies I do enjoy working with...but they can be a monstrously huge headache and most aren't willing to believe that one lone person can use data and dramatically improve the efficiency of something they believe should cost much more. I'm not saying there's no value in exposure, frequency, branding, etc, because there is - but a LOT of big companies will use those words as an excuse to completely ignore results and spend boatloads of money for the heck of it.
 
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4.) Advertising affiliate links generally hurts your companies' image. You lose respect from users with aff links.
 
Kiopa_Matt said:
4.) Advertising affiliate links generally hurts your companies' image. You lose respect from users with aff links.
Click to expand...

greenleaves said:
Your doing it wrong. This isn't an affiliate squeeze page. This is a brand. A BRAND, which the CEO want people to TRUST. And not today. Not tomorrow. But for years, even decades to come.

Some things like affiliate links, adsence, and others can dilute your corporate image.
Click to expand...

ebtek said:
OP there may be another side of the story that you're not aware of. Give them the benefit of the doubt.

They might not want to send the message that they're trying to make a buck. And all of a sudden people question the validity of a recommendation when there's a commission attached to it.

A small step further would be go ask businesses why not sprinkle adsense on their corporate site. A lawyer's firm might grab a decent chunk of change from those law keywords.
Click to expand...

How about hiding your affiliate links bros? Isn't that a win-win situation? On my websites you wouldn't know the difference between an affiliate link and a regular link. We've evolved brothers! I understand that these big companies want to preserve their reputation as much as possible and wouldn't want their visitors knowing that they are making a buck out of every purchase, but there's nothing wrong in hiding your affiliate link and making a buck "in the background", without your visitors knowing anything.
 
Not every company will resort to AM due to several reasons. But for one, they have an image to protect.

Say for instance, companies like Apple, you don't see on their website that there is such thing as "affiliates".

As I have read on the news for the past weeks or month that the total income of Apple is enough to pay off U.S debt. Even a company as big and successful as Apple can be on great heights without having to resort with AM.
 
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