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View Full Version : Is Affiliate marketing dead for the small guy ?



Harold Mansfield
12-08-2009, 06:48 PM
The news the other day of British Police shutting down fake websites really couldn't come at a worse time.
BBC News - Fake websites shut down by police (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8392600.stm)

I have suspected and seen with my own eyes that the gap between larger, well known retailers and smaller privately owned sites. I kinda figured it would come down to this sooner or later as the dust settled from everyone jockeying for position in online retail.

Do any of you think the recent news of fake websites stealing information will scare people away from shopping smaller sites?

Business Attorney
12-08-2009, 07:13 PM
I suspect news of fake sites will scare some people away from buying at smaller sites, but frankly I think people SHOULD be more wary. When I shop online, I will always opt to buy from a large known site over a small anonymous site. Why take a risk to save a few pennies?

vangogh
12-09-2009, 11:29 AM
Something tells me most people will never see that news in the first place and even for those that do it will hold a temporary place in their thoughts. Kind of the way most people are.

I would agree it's going to get harder for the small affiliate. Google for one has been making changes that seem to reward brands over the new guy and they've generally showed they don't care much for thin affiliate sites. The key is going to be to add something of value on top of the products. If all you do is list a bunch of products and hope for traffic then you probably are in trouble. But if you can build a site useful to real people that happens to use affiliate products in its business model I think you'll be fine. You're trying to build brand recognition with your affiliate sites.

Dan Furman
12-09-2009, 12:53 PM
I never understood the appeal of affiliate marketing anyway - not in the "lots of affiliate links" sense. I DO see the appeal if you are a trusted, known resource, and you have links to products (which you endorse) that are of interest to your particular niche audience. THAT I get.

phanio
12-09-2009, 02:48 PM
Seems strange to mention that google is supporting larger brands more - when they have their own affiliate marketing company - that anyone can join as far as I know.

Harold Mansfield
12-09-2009, 07:31 PM
Seems strange to mention that google is supporting larger brands more - when they have their own affiliate marketing company - that anyone can join as far as I know.

Google has an ad program, and they have a shopping portal, and you have to be a retailer to join, but as far as I know they don't have an affiliate program.

As far as affiliate marketing is concerned, I have noticed this year that it takes a lot more than it used to , to make a few sales.
I still do OK with Ebay, but affiliate product links from larger retailers are all but dead for me and I am moving away from them.

I have shut down my Amazon stores, they never really did much anyway (even I don't shop at 3rd party sites, I just go straight to amazon) and am starting to move more towards PPL/PPA (Pay Per Lead/Pay Per Action), and straight ad revenue.

I'm sure the economy has something to do with it, but I also think the days of blogging with affiliate links and banners are over for the small guy..but still work well for larger companies. For instance, You Tube will do fine with iTunes links attached to videos, but I don't see it worth while for a small site, unless they can provide a niche, and a large catalog of entertainment as someone like You tube can.

People are leaning more towards well known or heavily marketed sites to purchase from.

billbenson
12-09-2009, 08:30 PM
I believe most affiliate sites tend to promote one affiliate. Promoting Amazon, for example, doesn't make a lot of sense because the client can just go to the source.

If you promote something more obscure I would think things could still work quite well for the little guy. It might need to be ecommerce rather than affiliate though.

As I mentioned in a different post, I saw a site the other day that was selling medical scrubs, caps, etc. A site that has hard to find products in a small niche from various sources, not just one affiliate in the case of an affiliate site. I think something like the medical scrub site might make a nice niche.

Have you ever tried to search for something you aren't very familiar with. You don't know the brand, what its generic name is, etc. You run around on the web for 30 minutes finding only one. You buy it because you want it and you don't want to go price shopping for something that hard to find. Maybe it would be easy to find if you knew the manufacturers, specifications you need, etc. To me that is a good niche.

I like microniches, b2b, drop shipping, good margins, expensive, ability to do a value add on the web site in looking at products for a site.

Maybe a good example to look at are dating affiliates. You know the ones; you click on yahoo and there is an add for find girls in "your town". There are a ton of them. Most affiliates on dating sites put filler ads if they don't have enough results for "your town". I talked to a guy that does some dating affiliate sites once and he said there was only one that he knew of that was completely legit. Most sites in this area don't make money. Some do, and some of the ones that do are run by "the little guy".

I think there is a good market as a little guy if you do it right. Don't try to be amazon, you will loose. Be cleaver and unique. May take more time than it did in the past (and in my past sites already take a lot of time).

vangogh
12-09-2009, 09:34 PM
Google does have an affiliate program under AdSense.

As far as the brand thing it's about trust and authority. Brand doesn't have to mean the original manufacturer. More that Google wants to favor sites that have history of being trusted and offer something of value beyond a list of links to the affiliate.


I believe most affiliate sites tend to promote one affiliate.

Depends on the site. What an affiliate could do is create a site around a single topic, say pets. Then they could find as many affiliates products as they want. One for pet food, another for pet collars, etc. I think that's more the successful affiliate model. I suppose in some industries you would mostly go through one affiliate and in others it could be a combination of affiliates.

With Amazon sure people can go directly to the site, but they don't necessarily know what they're looking for. For example take the pet site above. You have a blog on the site and you write several posts about how to train a dog and in those posts you mention some books you found helpful. The person reading the post wouldn't have necessarily known to search for that book or even thought they wanted a book about training your dog. But they trust you as someone who's given them good advice and trust the book you recommended is good and click on the link to Amazon...

There are people who do very well with Amazon.

Harold Mansfield
12-10-2009, 12:50 AM
I believe most affiliate sites tend to promote one affiliate. Promoting Amazon, for example, doesn't make a lot of sense because the client can just go to the source.
Definitely. Promoting big named retailers is definitely over for me.


If you promote something more obscure I would think things could still work quite well for the little guy. It might need to be ecommerce rather than affiliate though.

As I mentioned in a different post, I saw a site the other day that was selling medical scrubs, caps, etc. A site that has hard to find products in a small niche from various sources, not just one affiliate in the case of an affiliate site. I think something like the medical scrub site might make a nice niche.

Have you ever tried to search for something you aren't very familiar with. You don't know the brand, what its generic name is, etc. You run around on the web for 30 minutes finding only one. You buy it because you want it and you don't want to go price shopping for something that hard to find. Maybe it would be easy to find if you knew the manufacturers, specifications you need, etc. To me that is a good niche.

I like microniches, b2b, drop shipping, good margins, expensive, ability to do a value add on the web site in looking at products for a site.

Maybe a good example to look at are dating affiliates. You know the ones; you click on yahoo and there is an add for find girls in "your town". There are a ton of them. Most affiliates on dating sites put filler ads if they don't have enough results for "your town". I talked to a guy that does some dating affiliate sites once and he said there was only one that he knew of that was completely legit. Most sites in this area don't make money. Some do, and some of the ones that do are run by "the little guy".

I think there is a good market as a little guy if you do it right. Don't try to be amazon, you will loose. Be cleaver and unique. May take more time than it did in the past (and in my past sites already take a lot of time).

Yep and I think that's why I have some success with ebay, because I advertise, or promote things that no one would think were available.

I am seeing a trend towards smaller affiliates. As you said, niche providers that specialize in one thing. The larger affiliate programs have steadily gotten worse , at least for me, and the programs haven't stepped up with more creative or dynamic tools.

Personally, I never had the inclination to do dating sites...I always felt like the market was saturated and most of the dating sites were rip offs..with the exception of one or two larger companies...which as you said...people would just go to the source, especially since they are all over television.

I am definitely going to have to make some adjustments for 2010...I have a few domains that I have been holding on to that will need big content sites..but I am letting others go.

One thing for sure, what was working last year has tapered off and now it is time to up the game a lot.

billbenson
12-10-2009, 03:38 AM
I believe most affiliate sites tend to promote one affiliate.

VG, I'm really saying that if you look at affiliate forums you will find most people managing affiliate sites have one to 3 affiliates per site. Others promote more affiliates and probably have larger sites to do that. I'm not commenting on what is better, just saying that it certainly appears that a lot more affiliate sites have one or a few affiliates than a ton.

I'm not saying you can't make money promoting Amazon or the evil adsense either. I do think its going to be much harder to do so, starting a new site than look for other niches.

Should you want to promote Amazon, as an example, would something like this work: If I understand it correctly, if you want to display a bunch of ads from Amazon, you effectively do a search for a product and present it on your web site. Some time ago, Eborg said they were iframes. Are they XML as well eborg?

Lets say they are xml. Lets further say you want to promote bicycles and everything related to them. Ok, generate a bunch of ad groups you would like to display on your site via Amazon. Bicycles, bike pumps, water bottle holders, parts, lubrication for storage...

Ok, so you take the xml data from the feed and stick the individual ads in a db with a category. You might also gather supplemental text for categories.

Ok, someone googles mountain bike model xxx. Your page on that mountain bike comes up. Your page has that bike including a review, upgrades, bike clothing that matches the bike brand etc.

How do you do the SEO for something like that? Dunno? The page has some boiler plate content but most of it is dynamic and not unique. However the page is unique in that no one else out their is going to be displaying those same Amazon ads in that manner. No idea how G would treat that, but it would have to be better than displaying the canned amazon feed for mountain bike model xxx. A ton of people would be displaying that.

You could also try adwords. Maybe optimize some ads for some lesser used keywords to keep the ad cost down and boost your ctr.

I think the above is doable, albeit a lot of work. A lot of the unique descriptions to go along with the bikes or product categories could be farmed out.

Do you think something like this is doable Eborg, and if so would it make money and be worth the time and effort?

vangogh
12-10-2009, 02:59 PM
one to 3 affiliates per site

Different than one. That's all I was saying. I do agree with you. I wasn't trying to suggest the current landscape is any different. Just tossing some ideas out there.

I think too many affiliates just grab all their content from the main company and leave the site as is. I'm suggesting you write completely unique content around a topic and drop in affiliate links and images where it make sense. Then ranking is no different than ranking for any site.

Take a look at Digital Photography School (http://digital-photography-school.com/). This is Darren Rowse's (of ProBlogger fame) site. It predates ProBlogger and I believe it's where he makes most of his money (or at least did early on). The site didn't always look the way it did now and it's clear he put a lot of work into it.

He does have some ads on the site, but I think most of the money comes in through affiliate links and many directly to Amazon. Granted digital cameras are a high paying niche so one sale can result in some nice money.

But look through the site. It's not a site about an affiliate product or company. It's a site about digital cameras and teaching you how to use your camera and how to be a better photographer. The site has a lot of value to anyone wanting to learn more about photography and their cameras. Where appropriate there are affiliate links.

Click the image for the top 10 popular DSLRs. It takes you to a page with a brief description of each camera with a link to Amazon.

Looks like he's built the subscriber numbers over 350,000. Next time he writes a post reviewing a new camera or some accessory for a camera how many people do you think will click and buy. Darren's been running the site for years. His readers trust him. He provides quality information.

Compare that site to one that simply pulls in a few feeds from whatever affiliate with the same old description you can find anywhere. I think that's why many affiliates don't make the money they want and why the small affiliate marketer may be having trouble.

Darren built a great site around a topic people are interested in and happens to use affiliate links and advertising to make money. He's built a brand over the years, gets link, search traffic, probably uses AdWords, etc.

You mentioned mountain bikes. Why couldn't someone build a similar kind of site around mountain bikes. Think site and site quality first and run your business model around affiliate products and advertising if you want. You can build the site with great content, free maps of trails, a forum, etc. I bet though if I search mountain bikes now what I'll find is sites for the manufacturers and affiliate sites showing mostly the same content as the manufactures have on their sites.

billbenson
12-10-2009, 05:16 PM
You mentioned mountain bikes. Why couldn't someone build a similar kind of site around mountain bikes. Think site and site quality first and run your business model around affiliate products and advertising if you want. You can build the site with great content, free maps of trails, a forum, etc. I bet though if I search mountain bikes now what I'll find is sites for the manufacturers and affiliate sites showing mostly the same content as the manufactures have on their sites.

All good points VG. I agree with the quote above, and that is what needs to be done. As you also pointed out, the camera site has been around for years and has a lot of good unique support documentation built around it for both G and visitors. That's hard to do quickly. One reason to concentrate on a niche and as you and I have both said, build a GOOD site and they will come.

However you also brought up the point that people make money on Amazon as a one (probably) affiliate site. I spent the bulk of my last post throwing out ideas on how you might be able to do this.

What I don't know is what format(s) they give you the different affiliate content in. If its an iframe or js, its more difficult. If its xml, you can manipulate it and put it on your page in a wide variety of presentations along with unique content. One thing IMO is if you just plop the information out there in the format Amazon gives it to you, you are just one of thousands of identical sites. Call it lazy webmaster syndrom sites. Can't see making any money at that.

I think it's just going to come down to being clever in the future. But then, how many people have you seen that thought you could make billions on the internet, plopped up a template site, didn't make money in 3 months and quit. Is anything really different?

vangogh
12-11-2009, 12:08 AM
Definitely not something that happens quick, but good things come to he who waits.


Call it lazy webmaster syndrom sites.

Guess this is what I'm arguing against. Why does an affiliate site have to be about pulling in an XML list of products? In fact what value does that really add? Why would someone want to visit that kind of site and why would a search engine want to display it prominently in results?

If those are the sites we're talking about in the initial post then they probably are a dying bread. Not dead, but with powerful enemies who'd like to see them dead.

Those kind of sites are going to be identical or nearly identical to thousands of others because they're easy to create. You parse the XML, pop it into your template, and move on to the next site.

Looking at Darren's Photography site, how easy would that be to replicate? Not easy at all. It adds a lot of value to the topic and easily attracts new and repeat visitors. You're not going to build it overnight, but I'd rather spend time building something that will last that building something quickly that won't last. Darren's site has had a lot of time to grow, but I believe in a relatively short time he was making a living with most of the money coming from a much earlier version of the site. The site didn't always look as good as it did now, but it's been making money for years.

billbenson
12-11-2009, 02:35 AM
The problem is that many manufacturers or master distributors keep adding, changing, their product offering. Or take something like eborgs upcoming concert date feed. Thats the sort of thing that is incredibly difficult to maintain. For the manufacturers that provide current data and pricing via an xml feed to their distributors, it makes a lot of sense. They can make sure their distributors have up to date information. Most manufacturers don't do this yet. Mine keeps adding new products, obsoleting old product, adding new support materials, but never tells the distributors. They don't even have images of all of the products and about 40% of the current products aren't in the price list.

So I would see feeds growing not shrinking. Its a good hands off way for companies to make sure those selling their products have good current information. The companies doing it today are ones that have an affiliate marketing plan as part of their business plan. Most companies don't and don't even know what it is. It amazes me when I need a part number and price for a product that I need to call them to get it. I may need an XL and only have the part and price for the Large. They must field hundreds of phone calls a day when all they need to do is provide this data to the distributors.

I think the only way is to take this data and augment it with unique content when possible. Thats really the same thing as your friends camera site with unique content for products and good support material. Figure out better ways to present it than your competition. Profile your visitors and present them with different information based on gender, age, whatever.

vangogh
12-11-2009, 03:23 AM
Good points. I do realize there are manufacturers who add and change their product offering. I think XML feeds can be a great thing. What I'm saying is that feed shouldn't be the sole content for the site and I think too often it is. Not necessarily with you or eborg, but with too many sites I come across.

I think feeds or other ways to share data will grow too. To me it's about how we use that data. I realize this isn't you or eborg, but there are a lot of sites who present the feed and that's it. They do it because they can set it up once and let it run and move on to something else. So can thousands of other people so that's not really a solid plan for a site. If I can replicate what you've done in a day or two or even week, you really don't have anything.

I see it has having the data augment the site and not having the site augment the data. Maybe that's just semantics. It's probably more that both compliment each other.


It amazes me when I need a part number and price for a product that I need to call them to get it. I may need an XL and only have the part and price for the Large. They must field hundreds of phone calls a day when all they need to do is provide this data to the distributors.

Yeah, that's nuts. It's ridiculous for them not to provide a better system for helping others sell their products. I know in your industry you're limited in where you can get product from, but in many other industries if the parent company doesn't get it you can move on to another company that does. Affiliate marketing works both sides. The main company needs to be working at it too.

yoyoyoyoyo
01-15-2010, 03:16 PM
I don't trust small-unknowns (on the net), at all.

As far as brick and mortar is concerned, I make sure to support the local mom and pops before I support the corporations; if I can help it.

vangogh
01-15-2010, 06:48 PM
I don't trust small-unknowns (on the net), at all.

Is that fair? After all I'm guessing you're a small unknown as far as most people online are concerned. If you want them to trust you don't you have to also have to be willing to trust other small unknowns that can show they can be trusted?

If you're willing to support mom and pop at their store why wouldn't you trust them online too?