Nov
Why I Hate Affiliate Marketing Part I
Make Money Online Selling Products You Never Have To Pay For!!!
Make A Fortune Online Without Even Having A Website!!!
You’ve heard these claims time and time again. For those who haven’t been involved with internet marketing for very long these all refer to something called “Affiliate Marketing”. Once again everyone is jumping on the bandwagon of the “latest and greatest” in internet marketing and with the release of Affiliate Elite by Brad Callen it’s just going to get worse.
Why do I hate affiliate marketing?
There really are several reasons but before I go into detail let me tell you I am not a bitter person who hasn’t made any money online. I have made and continue to make money online. I have even made sales of affilaite products. As a matter of fact I earn my living full time selling swords, knives and medieval decor items on my two websites Exalibur Brothers and The Medieval Gothic Shop. I even make a small amount of Google AdSense money each month from Excalibur Brothers. So I truly believe the internet is the place to be if you want to be an entrupreneur in the 21st Century.
The reason I hate affilate marketing is simply this: Lack Of Control
All affiliate programs give you an affiliate link and someway to view your statistics. The vast majority of affiliate marketers will simply post that very link in whatever medium they are using to advertise the product and sit back and hope the money rolls in. The problem is that many people for reasons unknown will remove the affiliate part of the link and go directly to the website. They still pay the same price but the affiliate doesn’t receive his commission because the parent site doesn’t receive their ID to credit it to.
Those who have done some research into cloaking their affiliate links now that you can purchase affiliate link cloaking software or you can do a simple meta-refresh page that redirects to the real affiliate URL but by the time the person see’s the URL the cookie is already set.
This brings us to the next problem. Cookies. Those little pieces of information store by your internet browser (IE, Firefox, Opera, etc) that lets the site you are visiting remember certain pieces of information about you so that it doesn’t have to keep asking certain questions over and over again. Most cookies expire when you exit your browser but some are set for up to a year (which is usually the case with affiliate program cookies) so that if a person leaves the site and returns later the affilate will still get the commission or so the story goes.
If you are on more than one or two mailing lists from the various internet marketing “gurus” you know that when a new product is about to be “launched” you are going to receive a bunch of offers of the same product via those mailing lists. Many of the top marketers have gotten real saavy and started offering their own bonuses if you purchase through their affiliate link. Ever bought one of these products and never received the promised bonus? You probably visited the site through a different affiliate link (one without a bonus at all perhaps) and that link is the one that set the cookie on your computer. Unless you cleared your cookies before clicking the second link the person you thought was getting the commission wasn’t and so you don’t get the promised bonus. Some smarter marketers let their list know it’s important to clear the cookies on their computer before clicking on the link to ensure they get their bonus.
The smartest of these marketers actually get your information before even sending you to their affiliate link through the use of “squeeze pages”. This way even if you don’t purchase the program they have you on their list so they can continue to market to you until you ask to be removed.
So unless you are among the saviest of marketers you can spend hours promoting other peoples product that even when a sale is complete may not create a penny of income for the affiliate marketer themselves.
In my next post I will cover the final and biggest problem that makes me hate affiliate marketing.
Getting Paid
Until Tomorrow
Lawrence
