Sphinn - How the Affiliate Marketing Industry Killed Itself

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How the Affiliate Marketing Industry Killed Itself

Posted By: Jeremy 411 days ago
Topic Type: News Story (Jump to http://blogation.blogspot.com)
Category: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketers - most ecommerce businesses either love 'em or hate 'em. Admirers love the concept of having thousands of outsourced marketers working on your behalf and only get paid when they actually drive business to your company. Haters see affiliates as black-hat leaches who will use any underhanded technique to piggy-back on your good name and get revenue credit for traffic you could have driven without them in the first place.

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from flyingrose 411 days ago #

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This article is an eye-opening education in the dark side of affiliate programs. Where that exists there will also be new ways of dealing with these issues.

I wouldn't predict the decline of affiliate programs just yet. Many advertisers whose sales primarily come from Google AdWords today will be forced to find other sources of traffic and they will be a new wave of users of affiliate programs.

from LindaBuquet 410 days ago #

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People will be surprised that I agree with much of what David said.

I blogged a long response to his article. Here's a snippet of what I wrote in reply:

"I agree with that fact that the state of affiliate marketing today is primarily due to the rogues, black hatters and fraud affiliates that have given our industry a black eye. More importantly, the bad guys have made the business so much harder for the honest, value-add affiliates to succeed.

I also agree that had our industry been self-policing or somehow held to best marketing practices, we would not be suffering from the stigma and set-backs he describes. He makes a strong point when he says "Sadly, the weakest link in the chain brings down everyone else."

It's not too late to try to clean things up. When any of you "good guys" out there get the urge to try out a "gray tactic" or an outright "black hat trick" STOP and think about the big picture!

Like I always say "Market with Integrity and Everybody Wins!"

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