Clearly Facebook and Google and the other big fucking gorilla networks can't be bothered with jacking a sub six figure campaign. But why wouldn't directCPV or MediaTraffic or another small network jack my campaign? Or really any campaign of any size? You know you would. And these adware people are pretty much as sketchy as possible already.
Why wouldn't a traffic source jack my campaign?
- Thread starter vigorish
- Start date
Google keeps all the ppc data and now can also see your conversions for words. You can't tell me they aren't using this for their mortgage affiliate program they have set up as well as the other ones they have coming.
Don't use their tracking pixel. They'll have a rough idea of what's working for you but when you track it with them they can see exactly what to replicate
Affiliates are at the bottom of the food chain.
As affiliate, you can be a giant specimen (making lots of money), but you are still just a prey to the ones above you.
Shit, I constantly see affiliates targeting my sites and promoting various offers through the Adsense units I run. And if I see one ad that doesn't disappear in a few weeks -- which probably means it's profitable -- guess what happens?
I add that domain to my competitive ad filter, and then set up my own creative or banner for that offer and rotate it in place of the Adsense unit some percentage of displays.
So the bottom-feeders end up first paying me money to do market research for me, and then if they are successful I simply separate them from my audience and take over.
Get out of the aff marketing while you can. You need to control the audience. If you can't do that, then control the product (that's second best). But if you control neither, then you are just a glorified hustler. And sooner or later you'll get tired of hustling.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying affiliates can't make it big. But what you should be thinking is how to use your current affiliate income to become something else other than being an affiliate.
Whoever controls the audience is at the top of the food chain. Product owners/service providers come next and form a symbiotic relationship with those who control the audience. And "pure" affiliates (as in don't own the audience and don't own the offer) are nothing more than short-lived scavengers.
Sticking in affiliate marketing for long is like first becoming a stripper "just to pay for college", and then turning into a crack whore some years later.
Do what you need to do to make money now, but don't plan the rest of your life according to what your current campaigns make you.
As affiliate, you can be a giant specimen (making lots of money), but you are still just a prey to the ones above you.
Shit, I constantly see affiliates targeting my sites and promoting various offers through the Adsense units I run. And if I see one ad that doesn't disappear in a few weeks -- which probably means it's profitable -- guess what happens?
I add that domain to my competitive ad filter, and then set up my own creative or banner for that offer and rotate it in place of the Adsense unit some percentage of displays.
So the bottom-feeders end up first paying me money to do market research for me, and then if they are successful I simply separate them from my audience and take over.
Get out of the aff marketing while you can. You need to control the audience. If you can't do that, then control the product (that's second best). But if you control neither, then you are just a glorified hustler. And sooner or later you'll get tired of hustling.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying affiliates can't make it big. But what you should be thinking is how to use your current affiliate income to become something else other than being an affiliate.
Whoever controls the audience is at the top of the food chain. Product owners/service providers come next and form a symbiotic relationship with those who control the audience. And "pure" affiliates (as in don't own the audience and don't own the offer) are nothing more than short-lived scavengers.
Sticking in affiliate marketing for long is like first becoming a stripper "just to pay for college", and then turning into a crack whore some years later.
Do what you need to do to make money now, but don't plan the rest of your life according to what your current campaigns make you.
Were it so easy and short-sighted to say "Affiliates are just mopping up the dregs of an otherwise efficient advertiser-publisher model."
Fact is, there are millions of publishers and millions of advertisers. The size and complexity of the online advertising ecosystem is growing every single day. Affiliates are a byproduct of this inefficient system and are only to become a bigger part of it as it grows - unless someone can develop a magical bot to automatically match every merchant to the ideal traffic source(s).
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keeper33, I don't disagree with you. But still, it's just a giant hustle.
There will always be affiliates, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to be one.
Just like there will always be overworked underpaid office drones, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to be one.
There are better ways of making money.
And when I say affiliates, I mean pure affiliates with nothing but campaigns. If you own your audience and promote affiliate offers, that's a totally different story.
Only when you are acting as a middleman between two parties and your barrier to entry is almost zero - then you really have no future.
Being the lowest in the food chain, means competition for limited resources will hit the affiliates the most.
And since every day there are more and more people trying to "make some monies online", you can expect the affiliate competition only to get worse.
I never said that affiliates are useless. I think affiliate marketing has an important function. But so does the grass that gets eaten by a cow that gets eaten by me.
There will always be affiliates, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to be one.
Just like there will always be overworked underpaid office drones, but that doesn't mean it's a good idea to be one.
There are better ways of making money.
And when I say affiliates, I mean pure affiliates with nothing but campaigns. If you own your audience and promote affiliate offers, that's a totally different story.
Only when you are acting as a middleman between two parties and your barrier to entry is almost zero - then you really have no future.
Being the lowest in the food chain, means competition for limited resources will hit the affiliates the most.
And since every day there are more and more people trying to "make some monies online", you can expect the affiliate competition only to get worse.
I never said that affiliates are useless. I think affiliate marketing has an important function. But so does the grass that gets eaten by a cow that gets eaten by me.
I agree that affiliates have taken a small hit recently but just means you have to be more innovative. I do think many should start taking a look at creating their own products or services as there are too many offers now on all networks that say "don't mention us, don't bid on these 10,000 protected keywords, and don't put any likenesses to us anywhere, but sell our product".
True true bcc, I definitely agree with you on the points of multiple income streams, and yes there are more sustainable ways of making money.
You do bring up an interesting point with the statement, "and the barrier to entry is almost zero." I can definitely see the impact of being an affiliate where the barrier to entry is almost zero, i.e. running dating on Facebook. However, being an affiliate where the barrier to entry is higher, i.e. media buyers, the outlook is going to be much different.
You do bring up an interesting point with the statement, "and the barrier to entry is almost zero." I can definitely see the impact of being an affiliate where the barrier to entry is almost zero, i.e. running dating on Facebook. However, being an affiliate where the barrier to entry is higher, i.e. media buyers, the outlook is going to be much different.