Let's talk about Affiliate Marketing (AM)

[Kay]

Yes, I know various aspects of the subject have been discussed many times before on here, but I want us to go right back to the basics before we get into some of the more complex matters. I've no doubt that some people will disagree with my take on it, that's fine, then maybe we can all learn something from the discussion.

The first thing which causes confusion for me is when I read that people want to find affiliates. Is that really what they mean?

If you have something to sell and you want other people to sell it on your behalf (they usually earn a commission for the sales they make) then you are a vendor or merchant who wants affiliates to sell your goods or services.

If you don't have a product or service to sell, but you want to sell someone else's product, then you are an affiliate.

I am an affiliate of Amazon because I sell books on their behalf. Amazon is not my affiliate, they are a merchant, (or vendor, if you prefer).

Even some people who have been in the AM business for years still talk about their "affiliates". They don't have any affiliates, they are affiliated to certain merchants. It confuses the heck out of me in the same way as when people can't seem to tell the difference between AdSense and AdWords. Sure, they're very closely related - the other side of the same coin - but they are not the same things. You have to know which side of the coin, fence, or whatever, you're on before you start discussing these things. People can often figure out what you mean, but it's maybe better to make it clear what you're talking about in the first place.

Now I will go and hide behind a sofa and wait to have some people disagree with me. I would have put a smiley at the end here but the new ones look too weird even for me. LOL.

[crabfoot]

People might want to find affiliates if they are running a WSO or Clickbank campaign based on a product they have originated - other people see the syntax and think that is the way to express their thoughts. That's how I see your problem.

Or maybe there's people waiting out there to annoy you. That's what they do to me.

[TheodoreK]

You are right Kay.

However, some people might be signed in multi-tiered affiliate programs.
In such programs you are an affiliate yourself, much like how you describe in your post, but you can also sign people under you to be "your" affiliates.
These people promote the same product like yourself, usually directly competing with you, but for every sale they make you get a "cut".
Yeah I know this sounds a lot like a pyramid scheme (and sometimes that's exactly the case!)

(I wanted to make this longer and more detailed but no time today! )

[Kay]

Sorry, Theo, I don't agree.

A situation such as you describe would make the person who signs up under me a second tier affiliate (or third, etc, depending on how the merchant works their affiliate programme).

I sign up to sell the merchant's products. That makes me an affiliate.

Then I tell you about this fantastic thing I'm promoting and say, "Hey! This is great, sign up using my link!" I will get a percentage commission of what you earn but you are not my affiliate. You are an affiliate of the merchant. You are a referral for me, because the merchant will pay me commission on the sales made by affiliates I recruit.

This isn't meant to be a big argument about what words people use but I just find it very confusing when people talk about "affiliates" when that's not what they mean at all.

[KenW3]

The first thing which causes confusion for me is when I read that people want to find affiliates. Is that really what they mean?

If you have something to sell and you want other people to sell it on your behalf (they usually earn a commission for the sales they make) then you are a vendor or merchant who wants affiliates to sell your goods or services.

If you don't have a product or service to sell, but you want to sell someone else's product, then you are an affiliate.

I am an affiliate of Amazon because I sell books on their behalf. Amazon is not my affiliate, they are a merchant, (or vendor, if you prefer).

That's perfectly clear. Vendors and merchants have salespeople and affiliates.

The way I would write a description of an affiliate is: A person or business that agrees to act in a sales capacity for a merchant, selling the merchant's products or services for a benefit to themselves (payment, commission, or other incentive).

Even some people who have been in the AM business for years still talk about their "affiliates". They don't have any affiliates, they are affiliated to certain merchants.

I've run across people who speak of merchants as 'their affiliates', and that usually requires a lesson in semantics. A merchant is someone who sells products or services, on or off the internet.

Some very successful affiliates take their sales efforts off the web, and promote locally for an online company. It is an approach that can often have less competition and less sales resistance.

some people might be signed in multi-tiered affiliate programs. In such programs you are an affiliate yourself, much like how you describe in your post, but you can also sign people under you to be "your" affiliates.

I can see how this would be interpreted as having affiliates, as this is a variation of multi-level marketing (MLM) aka network marketing. On a multi-tier affiliate program, new affiliates referred to a merchant by an existing affiliate will receive bonuses or percentages. These are not affiliates of an affiliate (or an MLM downline) but are an affiliate of the same merchant.

Some of the descriptions refer to these 'lower' tier affiliates as a subaffiliate, but only for the purpose of explaining payouts. For the purposes of definition they are just known as affiliates. Unfortunately, someone was inspired to create a definition for MLA (multi-level affiliate) programs to correspond to MLM descriptions; This further clouds multi-tier affiliate definitions.

Semantics is a pain, especially across countries with differing definitions for the same words. This is confusing just trying to write it. The other difficulty is descriptions of joint venture marketing agreements in contrast to affiliate marketing. Anyone care to take on describing those differences?

[Kay]

Now we've got what an affiliate is out of the way, let's look at AM itself.

I got an email today (from an MMO vendor) full of burble telling me that AM is dead. But wait a minute, it's not dead really. It's just that the old ways are dead and there are untold fortunes to be made by those of us who are early adopters of the new ways. That sounds nice!

Some of the old ways are dead, for sure. A lot of traditional SEO, such as gaming the search engines, is a bit old. (Old hat rather than black hat?) But I don't think they're all dead.

For example, doing a product review of a product you've used yourself and recommending it to other people along with your aff link could still work on the right site. (I think it's illegal in the USA these days to 'recommend' a product that you haven't actual tried. FTC rules.) And you can still promote products on your websites for things you haven't actually used yourself. I guess it comes down to whether you're just saying that this product exists as opposed to giving it a testimonial. Maybe some more learned person can clarify that.

Anyway, among all the drama in a "The king is dead. Long live the king" sort of way, they said that we need to address the new ways, such as using social media and mobile technology. Gee, I can be a slow adopter sometimes but even I know that stuff isn't "new".

The point of all this (oh, what a surprise) was to try to sell me something, despite saying at the start of it that they wouldn't. I won't be buying but I did think about the contents of their missive in as much as to consider the alleged fundamental shift in the market for AM.

There was fast easy money to be made before by playing by the old rules. Panda kinda changed all that and there are new rules now, but they're not that new. Some of us have been following the "new" rules for years - good quality content, etc. In typical MMO fashion it seems like a bit of alarmist "news" to entice me to buy something.

But has the market really changed that much? Did Panda change the world? Other than creating content for mobile devices and Tweeting at people, what ARE these "new ways" to our untold fortunes? I confess that I'm not doing much that's different to before. IMO, we should never have been Pandalized in the first place.

If there's anyone here with AM experience, then please share your insight into whether there really has been a major structural shift in marketing online and what you think about this new marketplace.

[cyanweb]

Did Panda change the world?

Yes it did...

major structural shift in marketing online

Facebook / Social Network advertising... I have gotten pretty amazing results from FB targeted ads - like $0.05 cents a click for highly targeted converting traffic - reminiscent of year 1+2 of Google Adwords...

Free traffic from Google / Global search is going to dwindle more over time with each "search algo update" as these giant search controllers funnel as much as possible into their own coffers...

Personally I do think we need a "social on-line revolution" to take back our local economies from these big boys...

[KenW3]

But has the market really changed that much? Did Panda change the world? Other than creating content for mobile devices and Tweeting at people, what ARE these "new ways" to our untold fortunes? I confess that I'm not doing much that's different to before. IMO, we should never have been Pandalized in the first place.

If there's anyone here with AM experience, then please share your insight into whether there really has been a major structural shift in marketing online and what you think about this new marketplace.

The web is maturing. Large businesses are making web sites and social media more of a focus for sales and marketing. Google is adapting to this shift. Are they rewarding big business? or are they just setting higher standards that require greater professionalism? From my perspective, G is certainly giving higher rankings to sites that sell products and services, that take credit cards, have addresses and telephone numbers, and shopping carts.

Panda farmer only has an effect on SERPs. Small businesses that learned to rely upon traffic from this single source are not prepared. I have no problem with SEO activity. It is a part of the overall marketing process, and does bring sales. This is a good article from the CMO for the Siemens marketing plan, and describes part of their approach.

The change is helping real businesses selling products and hurting affiliates. For one product line, I have three stores targeting a B2B product type. Three months ago, I had the 1, 4, and 6 spots, and affiliates and competitors were scattered about the page. I had a few on each of the next pages also. Over the weekend when I looked, I do not have numbers 6 and 39 of the first 40 results. The effect is less time due to orders and interest, but won't complain The Panda Farmer is gradually moving results to real businesses and away from affiliates (but stores can be affiliates also so we promote related products that aren't stocked).

My parking revenue has suffered (SmartName payments have held up the best), I lost ranking on affiliate sites, advertising income has decreased, but physical product sales have increased. To be honest, I would prefer to get away from taking and filling orders to be able to run a web business from anywhere, but G seems intent on throwing a spanner in the works.

[Kay]

The Panda Farmer is gradually moving results to real businesses and away from affiliates (but stores can be affiliates also so we promote related products that aren't stocked).

OK, so it's up to G how they run their business, but that seems a little unfair. Life ain't fair, I guess. But there are cases where affiliates can add considerable value to what a merchant might be offering themselves. We can use one of my sites as a real example.

I needed information about facilities for disabled people - where to go, info about special assistance at airports, etc, etc. It wasn't easy to find what I was looking for so I decided to create a site to provide such a thing. I've spent considerable time, effort and money on that site, including outsourcing articles and paying for relevant news articles, as well as writing heaps of stuff myself. I would argue that it IS good quality content and is a useful resource.

We even get several campaign groups writing to us about various matters. So, it's not just an MFA with no value. (There are a few AS ads on it,) It's supposed to be an affiliate site. We're selling hotel rooms, etc. So, for example, if you go to a page to get info about the facilities at a certain airport, we'll give you our aff link to book suitable (accessible) hotels near that airport as well as the info about the airport and its website.

Despite getting OK traffic - we're relatively new and still building it - we don't make any money from this. Is this because G doesn't like aff sites? I don't think so, and the site wasn't Pandalized, it seems more likely that we're not getting enough traffic to convert, or maybe I'm approaching the AM the wrong way. I really don't think it could be a case of G not liking the site because it's an affiliate site rather than one belonging to a vendor of goods and services.

Therefore, some advice on how to go about AM would be useful, if anyone reading this thread has something to say about making a success of AM. If G really is pushing aff sites out of the SERPs then much as traditional AM needs a rethink, so what are the "new ways".

PS:
(Hope that goes properly this time, I've had a bad time of it today with crappy internet connections.)