We have been arguing all along that affiliate programs are one-sided and do not create as much value for a publisher as they do for the merchant. Over a 10-month period, through an aggressive program of working with a range of affiliate programs on our eCreativa network of websites, we have concluded that publishers would be much better off either dumping affiliate programs altogether or minimizing their role in their business (and embrace PPC advertising instead). We have published our findings in the following two articles as well as in the eBusiness blog:
Building a business with affiliate programs
Business model transformation (from affiliate programs to PPC)
While we had suspected it all along, the current strategy in the merchant community with regards to affiliate programs is to use it solely as a vehicle for generating quality traffic and getting a higher PageRank. If they do get some orders, well that is great and they will split the profits with the affiliate but there is no other way to get so much for nothing.
This strategy is very well summed up on the Entrepreneur magazine's website in an article about top ten tips for increasing traffic without spending a penny. Guess what the #1 tip is - Build an army of affiliates to drive traffic to your site for you. Corey Rudl continues, "You can literally get your affiliates to do all your marketing for you. In fact, one of my most successful clients doesn't spend any time optimizing his site for the free search engines—he lets his affiliates do it for him. Many of them go to great lengths to make sure their sites are highly ranked, and because they all link to his site, they boost his search engine ranking as well.
The best thing about affiliate programs is that you don't pay your affiliates a dime for all the work they do unless they help you make a sale."
Recommendations to nano-publishers
Building a business with affiliate programs
Business model transformation (from affiliate programs to PPC)
While we had suspected it all along, the current strategy in the merchant community with regards to affiliate programs is to use it solely as a vehicle for generating quality traffic and getting a higher PageRank. If they do get some orders, well that is great and they will split the profits with the affiliate but there is no other way to get so much for nothing.
This strategy is very well summed up on the Entrepreneur magazine's website in an article about top ten tips for increasing traffic without spending a penny. Guess what the #1 tip is - Build an army of affiliates to drive traffic to your site for you. Corey Rudl continues, "You can literally get your affiliates to do all your marketing for you. In fact, one of my most successful clients doesn't spend any time optimizing his site for the free search engines—he lets his affiliates do it for him. Many of them go to great lengths to make sure their sites are highly ranked, and because they all link to his site, they boost his search engine ranking as well.
The best thing about affiliate programs is that you don't pay your affiliates a dime for all the work they do unless they help you make a sale."
Recommendations to nano-publishers
- Get out of affiliate programs as fast as you can or at least minimize their share in your portfolio. In our experience you will see remarkable growth in revenue.
- Some affiliate programs allow you to put affiliate links so that visitors do not leave your website. Use this feature.
- If you want to stick to an affiliate program, find those where the payout is high. We are currently recommending only those programs that payout at least $50. Trust us - you won't get rich with Amazon or LinkShare or Commission Junction but you may with AdSense.
Recommended article: Make money, like we do, with content