Could PPC for affiliates be coming to an end? I think so...

[Nick Brighton]

Ok, I am not a fan of the "death of" threads, reports and ads in our community, but I do think this is a legit concern. Feel free to chime in and prove me otherwise...

We all know about the PPC spy tools right? For example, KeywordSpy, PPCBully, etc etc.

Now, they are obviously great tools. I don't dispute that.

But here's the problem...

If you've been running a profitable PPC ad campaign for any length of time and it contributes to a large portion (maybe even all) of your income, then what happens when some dude comes along and swipes all your best keywords which you've spent a lot of money finding to be profitable, and swipes your ads, and copies your entire marketing strategy, from landing page onwards, to "muck in" on your business?

In a matter of minutes (yes, that's all it takes with these services), your entire advertising lifeblood could be chopped in half...

...and what happens when another marketer swoops in a month later too? Now your ads are getting pushed down, and you're competing against similiar (or often identical) PPC ads, and you have to literally start again, and hope you can create some new ads and find some new keywords that they have missed...

...oh yeah, until they just run your domain through their keyword tool for 20 seconds, and see what you're doing.

The way I see it, if you're using PPC to get traffic and promote offers as an affiliate, then it won't be long before somebody uses these types of PPC spy services to find your ads, entire keyword lists and how you're marketing your offers.

There's no competitive advantage anymore, unless of course, you are the product owner.

Anyone can rip you off, steal your hard work and literally nudge their butts side by side to yours, stealing half (or more) of your traffic sources within 20 mins or less.

My question is, is this the end for affiliate only marketers on PPC platforms? If not, how can affiliates survive such circumstance?

Yes, affiliates can build lists, or go on to create their own products...and yes, that will remove them from the vulnerable position of relying on their "secret" keywords and ads to be kept secret.

But if you rely on promoting affiliate programs via PPC, and have no real assets of your own, how will you protect your business from these tools and services?

Does this just highlight yet another downfall and vulnerability of relying on affiliate income to make a living online? Or do you think that free traffic is the escape plan you can rely on to keep commissions rolling in after PPC marketing is dry and blood drained?

[Paul Schlegel]

Nick,

It sounds to me like you've answered much of your own questions in your post.

One thing that comes to mind - even if someone were to swipe your landing page and follow up sequence, etc. The one thing they CAN'T swipe is your relationship to your customers and potential customers...well, I suppose they sort of can with SideWiki now. :-(

[Nick Brighton]

Originally Posted by markquinn

Nick,

It sounds to me like you've answered much of your own questions in your post.

One thing that comes to mind - even if someone were to swipe your landing page and follow up sequence, etc. The one thing they CAN'T swipe is your relationship to your customers and potential customers...well, I suppose they sort of can with SideWiki now. :-(

Very true and I agree. I think now is the time to really think about creating your "own" business instead of mass promotions of "OPP's".

There's no leverage in affiliate marketing, well, not a lot anyway. Plus, you are more vulnerable than ever to having your business shadowed and taken away from you.

It's like somebody being able to build a McDonald's next to your humble burger bar within minutes, no matter where you try to hide your location in the city.

[David Wolfman]

Not much you can do to your competitors except to outsmart them and outlast them.

My tactic is to diversify:
- use various tactics for traffic, not just PPC, and not just through Google,
- build the list where you can; they can't take that away from you,
- build some online real estate, start a proper niche portal and let your visitors build it and expand it,
- own the product, get affiliates and let them kill each other over your keywords, let your competitors work for you.

PPC affiliate marketing needs constant tweaking and monitoring so it is never a long term tactic. It's more like a quick cash thing, that's why it's more competitive.

Also the PPC market saturates fast and key niche players can outbid anyone, so it takes more resources to take a bite of the niche pie, it costs even more if you want to establish yourself. People just don't respond to PPC ads as good as they used to.

Lastly - it's all legal so you also can use these tools to do the same thing as your competitors do.

[Learnanew]

There are ways to block people from finding out about your keywords and products you promote.

I'm not gonna go into it as some of them can be quite blackhat, but I know a couple super affiliates that do this, so even if the person finds the host ip of the domain and tries to track it, they'll head to a couple unplesant sites. :/

There are ways.

[Jesus Perez]

Use .htaccess files to block KeywordSpy, SpyFU and PPCBully IP Addresses.

This invisibility will protect you from 99% of the people you're mentioning.
The remaining 1% won't care. They're waaayy past these methods.

[Michael Nguyen]

I was thinking about something similar while on my long drive back to London.
IMO PPC is like relying on the search engines for your traffic. A competitor can swipe your keywords where as Google can de index you or does the Google shuffle on you forever. Both will produce cash granted, BUT these are the types of business models that can be shut off any time. Even if you scale up again you are still at the mercy of either your Competitor PPC campaign or the search engines.

I think this thread has highlighted something very important here in internet marketing, which is build an asset........................THE EMAIL LIST. Forget the product, its the email list you want to build.

Man I should take my own advice!

[Catalyst eMarketing]

I don't think this is the end of PPC for affiliates.

I've heard about so many things over the years that were supposedly going to kill affiliate marketing and none of them ever did.

Those spy tools have been around for awhile and there are still lots of PPC affiliates doing well. If you are playing in the super competitive niches everyone else is in, so many of those guys are already copying each other. But many are still doing well.

I think one of the keys to this particular problem is to try to find niches that aren't the same old Acai, ringtones, diet, IM markets the masses are doing.

I personally see some of the moves Google has been making with Adwords lately more threatening to PPC affiliates than the spy issue.

But with either challenge, the smart affiliates will find a way to overcome the problems somehow.

[ppcpimp]

the main thing to take away from this is not have all your eggs in one basket. Diversify your revenue streams.