Just had an amazing idea Now What?

[SmoothFranko]

So I've seen the topic of affiliate marketing mentioned several times here by reputable members and while I had a brief look at Amazon's affiliate program. I was hoping you guy's could tell me a bit about your experience with affiliate marketing if any. I had looked at Amazon's service and read the threads related to it, but the commission's seems quite low with the average being around a 4-5% return. Is this normal? and does affiliate marketing prevent you from scaling any of the 3 aspects mentioned in TMF at all? My first inclination was that you can't adjust your prices is this correct?

 

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[jon.a]

So I've seen the topic of affiliate marketing mentioned several times here by reputable members and while I had a brief look at Amazon's affiliate program. I was hoping you guy's could tell me a bit about your experience with affiliate marketing if any. I had looked at Amazon's service and read the threads related to it, but the commission's seems quite low with the average being around a 4-5% return. Is this normal? and does affiliate marketing prevent you from scaling any of the 3 aspects mentioned in TMF at all? My first inclination was that you can't adjust your prices is this correct?

@SmoothFranko PM'd me this question and I told him to ask it in public here so others could benefit and so he could get feedback from more than just me.

I'm not the best one to ask. My affiliate experience was not very successful and it has been many years ago, so I'm not current.

I agree with @MJ DeMarco that AM is not a very good use of one's time. And, basically just another form of a job. However, I disagree with the level of evil that some forum members have labeled it as.

We have a couple of AM'ers that claim to be making good money. I can buy into that as long as it's being used as a path to something "better."

Your question though seems to from the perspective of a vendor. That is an entirely different fish. AM for a vendor is just another channel from which to sell through. A potentially messy one though. There's a huge affiliate management issue and a myriad of ways to get ripped off by affiliates. Actually, for a while I consulted between Out Sourced Program Managers (OPM's) and vendors bringing them together for a commission. But, that was also several years ago. So, no AMA by me, as again I'm not current.

So, the man has asked his question let's see how many can help without being jerks.

 

[Dwight Schrute]

So I've seen the topic of affiliate marketing mentioned several times here by reputable members and while I had a brief look at Amazon's affiliate program. I was hoping you guy's could tell me a bit about your experience with affiliate marketing if any. I had looked at Amazon's service and read the threads related to it, but the commission's seems quite low with the average being around a 4-5% return. Is this normal? and does affiliate marketing prevent you from scaling any of the 3 aspects mentioned in TMF at all? My first inclination was that you can't adjust your prices is this correct?

@Tyler Ellison ?

 

[Tyler Ellison]

So I've seen the topic of affiliate marketing mentioned several times here by reputable members and while I had a brief look at Amazon's affiliate program. I was hoping you guy's could tell me a bit about your experience with affiliate marketing if any. I had looked at Amazon's service and read the threads related to it, but the commission's seems quite low with the average being around a 4-5% return. Is this normal? and does affiliate marketing prevent you from scaling any of the 3 aspects mentioned in TMF at all? My first inclination was that you can't adjust your prices is this correct?

1) I would never sell anything for a commission so low as 4-7% (amazon's) unless it was basically no cost to run. As an affiliate, I can't bring myself to spend my time and money to promote a product for 4% when there are so many other products that pay over 50%.

2) I've generated about $500,000 in affiliate commissions this year. If that doesn't make me qualified to give advice on affiliate marketing in anybody's eyes here, just ignore the rest of this post.

3) Affiliate marketing on the internet actually means you have to be an excellent direct-response copywriter. A lot of people get sucked into affiliate marketing because it looks like easy money, but the truth is most folks don't have a clue on how to do advertising that converts to leads and sales and they lose time & money. The first skill you need to be a good affiliate marketer is become skilled at direct-response copywriting. There are many threads on forum here ( https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/community/forums/sales-marketing-copywriting-social-media.79/ ) about that including the Gary Halbert challenge ( https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...ert-30-day-challenge-copywriting-group.50217/ )

4) There are technical skills needed. You can't just direct link to affiliate offers because every traffic source online is already onto that. You need to be able to setup your own landing pages to send the traffic to. You don't learn that in a day, but there are some automation tools to help. Unless you can pay a developer to do this for you, this means more learning and time spent without $ money made. It's an investment in yourself to learn these things.

5) Nobody's offer lasts forever, and one of my biggest problems is that the good offers I run 'cap out' or don't allow additional inventory to be sold. That means the merchant won't allow the product to be sold anymore and that can wipe out a spectacular campaign. So, I have to constantly be testing different offers in and out of the chute so that I always promote the best converting offers and so that I always have other offers to promote if my #1 runs out. But as long as there are good converting offers to plugin to your advertising, you can scale to as high as your traffic source allows.

If you choose to be an affiliate, you still don't own a business and that's MJ's point in TMF . You are essentially a mercenary, because there aren't many assets generated when you send all your ads to somebody else's stuff. You provide a service for as long as the merchant wants you to go out and do the hard work of advertising his stuff profitably. If that's what you're good at, then you can be very well paid. The most you can do is build an email prospect list and remarketing lists with pixels - those are essentially the only business assets you can build as an affiliate. You don't actually have buyers, your client is the merchant.

 

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[SmoothFranko]

@Tyler Ellison Thank you very much this is some great advice for anyone looking into that area. In your opinion would affiliate marketing be considered a good side venture as an alternative passive income or is it something you need to commit to?

 

[Tyler Ellison]

@Tyler Ellison Thank you very much this is some great advice for anyone looking into that area. In your opinion would affiliate marketing be considered a good side venture as an alternative passive income or is it something you need to commit to?

I'd say it depends on what your current skills are. If you're already technical enough to quickly setup landing pages and know enough about advertising that it doesn't take much time to do, then it works fine as a side venture. The idea of it being 'passive income' is a bit of a myth. Campaigns can run without additional work for quite a while, but they all die. Your stuff is going to be seen, complained about, copied, etc.

It can payoff big in that you set things up once, they scale up, and you make big $$. But something always happens to kill it. It still requires consistent action-taking and constant optimization. To be really successful with it you have to commit fully, and long-term it's best to consider it a means to an end. A way to get freedom to build a business you completely control and can leverage better than any affiliate marketing permits.

 

[BellaPippin]

Step 2. Don't forget to bring a towel!

I have no idea what's going on...

(if no one gets that joke, I am on the correct forum)

Don't panic

 

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