Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?
Posted by RohailR | Posted in Affiliate Marketing | Posted on 14-06-2010
4
Hey everybody.
So I’m finally a graduate as of a month ago. Since then I’ve been pretty much enjoying my freedom and more recently cracking down on myself to focus. It’s make it or break it time for me in affiliate marketing. I really have to take a hard look at what I’m doing right, wrong, and whether this is what I should be doing right now.
Time goes fast and I’m already 22. I’m not working for an investment bank nor a start up like I had imagined just three or four years ago. I’m still working hard at being an affiliate and haven’t ever stuck to anything for as long as I have AM. I love the challenge and I love the potential to make a huge amount of money. There are downsides of course like the nightly grind and frustration from having so many campaigns fail after some short term success. I’ve been learning every step of the way though.
The reason why it’s make it or break it now is because if I don’t get a job now and instead wait even one or two years before trying to get one, the odds are unlikely for me to be able to get one at that point. Employers are obviously going to be asking what I’ve been doing in the meantime and if I haven’t done anything impressive in the mean time by chances are pretty much shot (who knows what they think about AM). But in any case, my whole heart is in AM. It’s just hard now getting back into it after an entire semester. It’s like starting from scratch. Things are completely different in the industry and truth be told it just doesn’t feel like the same place it was before. Sure people are still making money here and there, but it’s been pretty quiet on the stage other than the inevitable guru guides that come out from time to time.
Facebook which is where pretty much 100% of my AM has taken place has changed it’s rules almost 180 degrees and especially for affiliates (yet Facebook loves affiliates, right? 
) I haven’t had that much trying trying to gets ads approved, but more so it’s the fact that even with CTRs of 0.20% and above click costs don’t come down enough to even be profitable enough with 60-70 cent epcs. I keep asking myself if I’m doing something wrong, but I’m running my highest ctr ads with the highest converting ads. Of course there’s still money to be made on Facebook, but for the amount of time I’ve been putting into it lately and for the lack of longevity, it really hasn’t been worth it. I’ve never figured out how to make Facebook profitable on broad demos, but I’m trying that now – we’ll see if it’s possible. I’m tired of running short term small scale campaigns – it’s too much of a headache for too little of a profit. I need change. I’ve been here way too long to not be hitting big league campaigns now.
Ruck from Convert2Media recently published a post where he talked about the need to focus on one offer when starting out. That’s partially been my problem as I’ve been very ADD in the past with offers and probably still am. It’s like why waste time waiting for ads to get approved when you can find new ones — but that doesn’t always work out so well. I do need focus and I have been focusing primarily on one offer this month. However, it seems I’ve run it too long already as its being scrubbed from $1.00 EPCs initially to now 60 cents. I guess focusing on one offer doesn’t always work out and unfortunately there are no good offers out there right now to replace this one – I’ve tested them all (if anybody has hot dating offers hit me up!)
I remember reading Robert Kiyosaki’s books Rich Dad Poor Dad and Cashflow Quadrant years ago. And in it I remember he told us to focus on building assets and more specifically a system for those assets to self-sustain. I highly doubt that’s what 90% of affiliate marketers are doing and I know I haven’t been doing that. I used to consider campaigns assets, but what kind of asset only lasts a month or two? I know some guys are with sustainable offers like CPS and maybe even some CPAs along with guys building lists which is a definitely a great way to build an asset. But that’s definitely something I see lacking in my own operations that I need to fix. What’s the point of being on the computer 16 hours a day if what you’re building isn’t going to last and you’re not getting to spend time away from your campaigns because you always have to be watching your stats? That’s no business. I need to start seeing that and change my strategy.
So some things I need to consider:
- Risk not getting a job in the future by staying full time AM now with student loans to pay off
- Focus on one offer at a time in a niche that offers several alternatives
- Build a list or some other form of an asset
- Start to scale out into broader audiences if I want to reap greater rewards
What are your guys’ thoughts on the matter? Do you guys see yourselves running a sustainable business? Or are you like me and you’re always chasing the next hot offer?
Popularity: 1% [?]
i wouldnt take the advice of robert kiyosaki as the end all be all of investment advice. the guy makes his money by selling a dream of having financial freedom.
i’ve been doing affiliate marketing full time for almost 2 years now and it has its ups and downs.
before doing this i was doing investment banking and its not nearly as sexy as it may seem. long hours and now that i’ve done affiliate marketing the pay doesnt seem that great either. however there is the dream of becoming a managing director or higher and making millions a year. a job like investment banking can make you a millionaire provided you play the game right.
there are ways to build online assets like websites and email lists like you said. ultimately campaigns are assets which are short term in nature. your ROI is high for a short period of time. wall street would kill for returns like i’ve gotten on some of my campaigns. in business, conditions change and you need to adapt to those conditions. you cannot sit still so ultimately i think all businesses you have to be adapting and changing to the environment you’re operating in. affiliate marketing is no different. with the high ROI and the income you make, you can take some of your profits and invest in assets that you may think are more stable. that may help put your mind at ease about doing this.
you need to figure out where you want to go with your life. being an affiliate or having your own business will be tough. its not easy. you’ll have to make sacrifices. a job will be more comfortable and more stable but most likely you wont make as much money and more importantly you give up some of your freedom in exchange for a steady paycheck.
yea, offer ADD can be quite terrible. Pick something broad that doesn’t have too much seasonality behind it and just attack that using one traffic source.
seems a lot of affs are branching away from the big 3 traffic sources for something shiner.. maybe give msn and ysm another run. these social sources seem to be great for short term bursts of profit which should be viewed as bonuses and not the meat.
Ben- You had some really good insight there. You’re right about that bankers would kill for some of the ROIs we get, even though it’s more short term. And you’re right there’s the need for adaptation in both the corporate world and affiliate marketing. I’m ready to and have been making the sacrifices a long time. It’s just time to see if I can really make it happen to the point where it outweighs the benefits of a job.
Michael- I see myself shying away from the big 3 as well as I’m testing the waters with PPV. I just never found real success on Google primarily. Maybe I’ll give it another shot with Yahoo and MSN. Social is such a beat, but yeah it’s probably not as long term as keyword optimized search campaigns.
You seem to be focusing only on pay-per-click arbitrage.
My first try at AM was pretty successful (hell, even John Chow had it as a 5-part guest post series)!
http://www.nevblog.com/my-affiliate-marketing-experiment-part-1/
Or even checkout his post here I thought was great:
http://www.johnchow.com/how-to-really-make-money-with-clickbank-or-any-other-affiliate-network/
You might want to learn more about marketing and optimization if you’re not getting things right.
I’d suggest start with chapter 1 or Gary Halbert’s Boron Letters:
http://www.thegaryhalbertletter.com/newsletter-archives.htm