Affiliate marketing is a waste of time, effort and money!

im open to different business vehicles, trying out AM right now, i enjoy it, people love what i write. I'm a marketing nerd, so learning more and experimenting with traffic and conversion is always fun for me. I love writing.

build your list, that you care about, treat them like yourself, reccomend products, have upsells and continuity programs that pay monthly and initial sales that make you XXX - XXXX figures

it cost me $12 to get started and i'm set for a year. can't go wrong with that

I guess for me AM and doing my own products appealed to me more. I do not like to put too many of my eggs in other people's baskets. Amazon commission rates are small and make it hard to make any kind of volume sales (2-4%), I prefer digital products. I actually enjoy writing and making videos and I am blessed to have a girlfriend who is an amazing digital artist. So I enjoy the stuff that you don't like. I think there is room for each to take their own path. Whatever works for you and makes you happy... do that

If only online marketers would realise that there is an affiliate marketing goldmine in NON IM niches.....

Affiliate marketing works well for some and perhaps not so well for others. It does have it's place in the money making mix. Never hurts to have more than one egg in your basket.

I've been doing affiliate / CPA marketing for over 16 years.

I promote PPL (pay per lead...lead generation) offers, so I don't have to make a sale, all a user has to do is fill out a form for me to make money. Plus I acquire fresh / targeted data (email) for the verticals I work with. So that giveme an edge over those that have to pay for traffic.

Had I of not lucked out into to using the above method when I started. I have no doubt that I would have never been anywhere near as successful. So I can understand what you are saying.

Yes, affiliate marketing can be very tough especially if you don't have the copywriting skills that can arouse people interest. However, it is still doable profitable if there is a ready system whereby just need to get the traffic to it. For example, AMP - Associate Marketing Program is a good combination of affiliate marketing plus mobile app opportunity. They have a high converting landing page ready with opt-in form. All the email follow up already provided by them. The work need to be done is getting traffic to the landing page. The best part is you able own your own app store and make money from it from in-app purchases, advertising fees and referral fees. This is their landing page, http://myvault.ampstore.io/tour/

I think you've failed therefore you assume everyone else failed.

Fail.

Dropshipping has alot of issues that you won't have to face as an affiliate.
1) Orders closing before they are shipped cause you are shipping to multiple
addresses around the world with your credit card. (Typically registered as a fraud by the banks)

2) Delivery issues (delayed, lost, damaged and etc)

3) Unscalable due to inventory issues, (You can't scale if it runs out of stock)


App reskinning is profitable back in the 2012 when no one is doing it.
Now, competition are tough and you are likely to spend thousands in app
promotions to have a chance against big developers and companies.

I still stick to AM and it has always been a BIG passive income stream for me
since I have outsourced most of my work.

The best thing out of it is you don't have to worry about competition
and inventory since everyone is flocking to ecommerce.

Translation: "I can't make any money with affiliate marketing, therefore affiliate marketing must suck."

P.S. Affiliate marketing is just a monetization method, nothing more, nothing less. And while your idea of using an email list to direct users to a landing page on blog with paid traffic hints at one way to use affiliate marketing in an online business, there are roughly 5,396,931,593 other business models that you might develop that might also incorporate affiliate marketing. (Notice that I said "develop" not "choose" -- business is a creative process after all, not just something you pick from as if you were ordering an appetizer from a restaurant menu). Regardless, if you're having trouble making affiliate marketing work, maybe the problem is with your business model. And if you're having trouble developing a working business model, maybe the problem is you.

The more I do affiliate marketing (that's my main biz model) the more I realize it's just getting the right offer and message in front of the right people.

Once you know what your email lists BIGGEST questions/concerns/problems are and put a relevant offer in front of them... and use things like scarcity and fear of loss to get them to take action... thats when the money comes in.

I guess go try telling Pat Flynn that Affiliate Marketing doesn't work. See what he says


- Robert Andrew

this title is very stupid => "Affiliate marketing is a waste of time, effort and money!"

totally DISAGREE about it

Most people fail at everything. Not just affiliate marketing.

It's January now and how many people do you think made a New Years resolution to get into shape?

Most of them will fail. That's life.

You can take the same business opp and give it to 2 people, someone who knows how to sell and someone who does not.

Their results will be totally different. Most people don't know how to sell.

I am a little biased because affiliate marketing has made me thousands of dollars.

It can be difficult at first but that is how it is with any skill or endeavor worth accomplishing.

OP I agree that affiliate marketing can be tough. But sometimes folks make things harder than it needs to be. I've made money simply direct linking CPA offers to youtube videos. That was years ago but I just chose a high-converting, popular offer, made a video and uploaded it. It paid out $35 and made me around $180 a month while I did nothing.

The answer is not to re-invent the wheel or overly complicated sales funnel but chose offers that are already popular and just ride the wave. Plus there are a million other things to do besides affiliate marketing. EPN is another easy way I made money and I would barely consider it to be an affiliate program.

Setup a blog
Write plenty of time consuming blog posts
Creating funnels and squeeze pages
Setup an autoresponder
Writing follow-up sequences
And above all that, you just make a small commission when hopefully someone buys something

Many of the elements you describe are part and parcel of most online marketing and by learning how to do them you will be acquiring valuable skills that will serve you well in any business that has an internet presence.

Don't like small commissions? Promote high ticket items, or at least has high ticket items as part of the product mix.

There's a whole bunch of skills you can learn my taking a reputable marketing course. And as a previous poster indicated, you can take what you need or like an leave the rest alone.

Don't like writing blogs? Do video. Camera shy? Do podcasts. The list goes on and, if you are willing to invest, you can farm out some of the work to freelancers.

No doubt, affiliate marketing is a challenge. That's part of the fun and part of the learning process.

Rosalind Gardner ( known as a super affiliate ) will be glad to take your money to help you with your affiliate marketing pursuits....

Here are her websites below:

Consultations - RosalindGardner.com
Affiliate Blogger PRO

Last month I had a $1,200 day from (1) sale that I made right here on the Warrior Forum. And it was from an old post.

I don't run and paid ads and usually get my traffic and leads from blogging, youtube and even some forum marketing.

This person bought a $1 trial sale and eventually stepped up to a $1,997 product (on the back end).

Conclusion: I do have a blog and lead capture page so I do have an active email list but this sale was made by a person who got the trial without receiving constant emails from me. He took action after he opted in with the 'trial' sale.

I have made other knock over sales like this before by just using FREE Traffic methods that I listed above.

Note: Yes I do have experience and successful IM is still a process that everyone needs to learn and master.

But you don't have to run paid ads or really need a list to make money. However it is a good idea to build a list because that would be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Setup a blog -- I love blogging, so this doesn't bother me
Write plenty of time consuming blog posts -- I love writing... it is my passion.
Creating funnels and squeeze pages -- I wouldn't do this!
Setup an autoresponder -- I don't need this! Been there done that. Waste of time and money.
Writing follow-up sequences -- absolutely not!
And above all that, you just make a small commission when hopefully someone buys something -- This is never my GOAL. I always make sure I have my own products and services to sell on my blog.

Anthony, do you ever wonder if you are losing sales because you only have them while they are on your blog? Do you maintain contact with an email feed that updates them when you post? Yours is a different model so I am curious how it works for you.... It would be cool if you could email people who leave without buying, but maybe they never would have if they did not during the visit to your blog

Yes I aleady waste lot of time with Affiliate marketing using bing ads

I don't even fool with affiliate marketing anymore. Why? Too much BS and time wasting effort like you've stated. Also, there's a lot of BS people many times behind the products and you never know if they're shaving your leads and sales unfairly - which I have discovered people's hands in the cookie jar several times.

I wasted many years fooling around with different affiliate schemes, and yes I made a little money here & there amongst all the BS. But I didn't start marking any real money until I started launching my own products & services and/or marketing products & services where I could cut out the middle-man completely, such as buying full resell rights of a product or service.

There are some good affiliate programs and operators out there, but it would take a lot of convincing and investigation of who's behind it for me to waste my time fooling with it. Every heard the saying "I can do bad by myself"? Well my saying as far as AM is concerned is that "I can do better by myself"!

While I agree that with affiliate marketing the money is in the list and is the best way to do it. You can still make money without one, it's just not as efficient.

I also do prefer paid traffic but I do know people who do make money from free as well.

No Internet Marketing is not a waste of time, i am making thousands each month that way but e-commerce is the new hot thing such as shopify etc.

Depends. I think if your passionate about MLB you can find a an affiliate program thaat will be very lucrative in that area. Whether its sports equipment, ticket sales, uniforms, clothing, etc You can turn that passion into a business very easily because people will respond to your passion with purchases. Not only can you use the web, you can use offline tactics like flyers, business cards, word of mouth.

Maybe the program you joined you weren't happy about it. And you went into the program trying to get rich and not following your passion.

There is a lot to affiliate marketing. One of the big things you should figure out is what are passionate about. What makes you happy. Is it travel, the beach, kids, family, relationships, love, grocery shopping, cars, lawncare, green house effect, etc... Amazingly all of these passions can turn into a business for yourself where you will be more happy. Even if they don't have a lucrative affiliate program you can do keyword research to find some lucrative keywords that will turn your pages, and hence website, into a Goldmine for selling ads or even third party sales. Not necessarily an affiliate sale, but a partnership with a company related to your particular niche. Once you develop that passion into a business, you can run that business on auto-pilot, sell it, etc and start another passion or even learn something your interested in and turn it into a business at the same time.

In the end its the mindset of the person behind it. Why is one person successful and other not at exact same thing? It's the person behind it and nothing else. In order for things to change we must change. Only about 2% of people will take the time to understand that! The rest are all caught up in this system of things...

Affiliate sales make up a proportion of my business model.
I make good money. I find it incredibly easy. Maybe I am doing something wrong

Different strokes for different folks,

Personally, I lover AM, but this is just me.

And honestly, it does not take that much to get started, a domain, hosting and blog--you do not need aweber right away if money is tight.

Roll up your sleeves and get started from there--yes, free traffic methods take time--but they work--and it you are short on money they are the best way to get started.

Once you have some sales rolling in you can start building a list and you can try you hand at buying traffic.

In reality, you can do affiliate marketing with nothing more than an affiliate link.

People want things to be more complicated than they actually are or need to be.

If user click the link from phone, but purchase from desktop. That means the referrer don't get the commission, right?

So, with the era of mobile, this may happen often more than before. We use phone a lot, but when purchase, we use pc, right?

I think that is one of the reason that affiliate is a waste of time and effort.

I don't have all things you mentioned above but I'm earning good revenue monthly in affiliate. Almost the way I did are SEO strategies, getting traffic to my site and converting them to sales and leads.

Well it depneds from person to person .In my case i like AM because its my passion .Its not an easy process but its nice to see that you have an autopilot income and you work when you want and how much you want .For example in an offline job you must go everyday wake up in the mornings etc and the salary its not so big

Every business needs investment would you prefer wake up every morning by alarm clock and go to work for 35-40 years or better invest to yourself and make your dream come true?Is it worth it?

but what about your own business and the fact that you do the big work one time and you just reframe it all the rest of the time