Dissecting Affiliate Marketing

Ok - this is an attempt to sum up all the ways affiliates make money and my take on them.

1. PPC
   Pretty damn obvious what this is, but there are so many flavours of affiliate ppc'ing.
   
   a. First off you've got the traditional PPC'ing using landing pages on your site which you expect people to use fully. With this you have to make the offer and call to action extremely compelling to prevent users being distracted by your content. There are advantages of this form off PPC as search providers don't particularly like "Made For Adwords sites". But there is the advantage of allowing users a true alternative to the merchant or product you're offering.
   
   b. "Made for Adwords" Sites, I know a number of highly successful affiliates that do this they'll create landing pages that don't offer any other content than to get the user to click on the affiliate link. They're successful for now, but I see the SE's putting pressure on to make the site's more useful.
   
   c. "Mimic-sites". I've seen this recently with Virgin Atlantic on Affiliate Future where someone bought a domain similar to the virgin-atlantic.com one and copied the site and then ppc'd. I'm not sure how long it lasted, but I can't see it now. This is a risky approach as you pick a merchant that is hot on it's brand you could be in hot water.
   
   d. "Direct-to-merchant". This approach has variable results and 90% dependent on the products you choose to promote, 10% general merchant factors such as the buying process etc. It is crucial to talk to the merchant or network first to find out what is selling and jump on it ASAP.
   
   e. "Brand-bidding". Awe "brand bidding", many have made a nice mint out of it (I've made a few quid too), but it's slowly unravelling. Merchants are getting more clued up about it. It's always worth giving it a go when you're allowed, but don't be stupid. Be careful with your budget before you get too far out of pocket. Know who you're up against and get to know their tactics. Each affiliate competitor has their own approach and when you've got enough experience you'll know how to beat them.
   
   f. "Arbitrage". This is where you pay say 5p per click and hopefully earn multiples per click on your own site. I don't like these sites as they generally don't ad value to the user.
   
   
2. Respectable SEO
   
   This is my preferred route, there's so much to write about it that'll have to a full-length post to get my thoughts across.
   
   But the basics entail:
   
   a. Start off by working out if you want to create a site around a topic, product or merchant.
   
   b. Look ahead for what's going to be big in the next year, 2 years, 3 years etc and get building.
   
   c. Think about your hosting, 1&1 has it's hosting in Germany think about how this will affect your GEO-location in the search engines.
   
   d. Think about how you're going to create it. Do you need a CMS, will a Dreamweaver site do the job? Will you need a bespoke solution created for a price comparison site?
   
   e. How much competition is there?
   
   f. How much work will you have to put in?
   
   g. How much do you expect to earn per visitor? Will the site make money for a week, a month or for ever?
   
   etc. etc.
   
   
3. Community Sites
   
   a) Work out what software you'll need? Blogger, WordPress or Drupal.
   
   b) Can you really create "buzz" about your site?
   
   c) Do you have the features to create a community site?
   
   d) Do you really have what it takes to spend hours with no return for the first few months?
   
   e) Can you keep it going?
   
   I love these sites when they're done right, if not, they just end up being the belly-button fluff of the Internet.
   
   
4. Web Spam / Made for AdSense / Blog spam
   
   Ooh this used to be good for me. I used to earn shed loads knocking up thousands of pages a day and waiting a few days for the Google listings. Now I suppose its a case of "Poacher turned Game-keeper" as they really annoy me now. There are still way too many of these, create some good content and you'll be loved for ever! Well nearly!
   
   
5. Email Spam
   
   Will you bugger off now please! I've had my main Hotmail account for 10 years now and it's just bombarded with spam now that I've moved over to Gmail. But it does pay! There's a serious amount of cash to be made if you've got the data and the technology. If you can sleep at night knowing you're sending lonely, single men adverts for Viagra then good for you. Just leave it.
   
   
6. Spyware / adware / malware
   
   It's been many a year since I got vocal about affiliates fighting together against spyware. And today we've seen a massive improvement. But I do think we're due another audit on spyware and how/if merchants are working with those companies. Cue Fraser ...
   
   
7. Affiliate Referral
   
   This where you get loads of affiliates into your second tier and let them earn for you. This reminds me to get my backside in gear over my "affiliate marketing India" site. I've even got a kick-ass domain for South Africa for the World Cup and must get round to setting something up.

So the basics are:

• think months and years ahead,
• think about creating sites that you can easily manage,
• think about SEO from the outset,
• think about playing by the rules - there are advantages in it,
• think about listening to sucessful affiliates,
• think about creating an affiliate business built to last.

What I'm listening to: Fasten Seatbelts - Space