Why affiliates are the bitch of the industry: Part 1

[johnmatrix]

People make money with AFF Marketing no doubt- but if you look at it objectively, you are just working to make someone elses business bigger.

(Not a AFF Marketer)

Isn't that the case with nearly every job?

 

[bluebobbo]

I agree 100%. However there's some great thing the affiliate model allows you to do.

1. Test a market, seeing what kind interest and return there is before creating your own product.
2. Lets you learn the industry. Want to start a network? Well be an affiliate first and understand what's going on.
3. Helps you build relationships with people in the industry. I don't know how much most of you know but a lot of the networks out there were started by people that were originally Richter's affiliates
4. You have a way of getting some sort of questionable traffic you don't want to be directly connected to I think a perfect example of this is theglobe.com the company that got sued by Myspace. Had they run on a network and let affiliates drive traffic to them that creates sort of a buffer for the affiliate and the advertiser.

That's just a few of the reasons. But in reality if you stick around this game long enough you're going to come out with your own offers and maybe ever start your own network. That's seems to be just how it works. But being an affiliate is a very good low investment way to start.

I've been in this game about 2.5 years now and I'm very thankful for the affiliate model as it's served me well. I'm moving more towards encompassing more aspects of the system like being the advertiser and network. However there's not way I could have done that from the start. Only after a few years and strong understanding of how the whole system works do I think I could make a good run at it.

Ask most affiliates how and incentivized path works, how to get product and deliver product, create subscription based sites, what a ping tree is, and the list goes on. Can you have success without all this knowledge? Of course you can but as with most businesses the more you know the better you chances of success become.

Bottom-line is learn to sell other peoples products and services with success and then come out with your own and you have the hardest part handled. Which will next to guarantee successs. ( as long as you're not a retard that comes out with a lame thing, but even those work some times look at the pet rock, it's all about marketing )

Couldn't have been said any better.

 

[aim]

Just for example, when the shit hit the fan about promising "free" gift cards, it wasn't the publishers that had to pay out million dollar settlements to the FTC, it was Adteractive and the other big publishers.

Poor Adteractive, how could they ever afford that?

Entrepreneur magazine's Hot 500 Company Rankings - Adteractive Company Information

 

[bluebuddha]

Quote:
Originally Posted by johnmatrix
Isn't that the case with nearly every job?

No.

Sure it is, unless:

1) You have enough money to start your own business, promote and maintain it for a few years and then slowly delegate.

2) The stock market, or you have enough money invested that you're able to live off interest.

3) Go the illegal route (drugs, fraud, scams, etc) to get enough money to start #1 above.

4) You're very lucky.

Out of these 4, excluding 3 and 4 (YMMV), the only option for somebody who doesn't have much money to begin is option 2... which is more stressful than AM, requires more hours of research (at least at first) and you're competing with 100x richer people than you are in the AM game.

The only better way IMO is doing something you enjoy for a living - but then it wouldn't count as a job. If you enjoy AM, you can do it for a living.

If you don't enjoy it, then do as suggested above and start a network, become a consultant, promote your own products, or use the money to get into stock/investments or starting your own business.


Sure, nobody likes making LPs, writing ad copies or promoting leads to dating sites we've never even been to, but what can you be doing instead of AM, that doesn't suck, nor involve a huge investment in either time (phD, MA, etc) or money, that you actually enjoy?

and it's an excellent skill to have, especially if you can take what you know and apply it in real life, face to face.

 

[HarveyJ]

and it's an excellent skill to have, especially if you can take what you know and apply it in real life, face to face.

You get people to click on you and tell you their email address??