Why affiliate and keep 50% when you can produce and keep 100% ?

by akira
25 replies
Hi

I'm new around here and I'm thinking of making a product in the IM niche.

I have a lot of questions and things to learn.

One thing I'm wondering about is why people become affiliates.

For example; if there was a sucessful ebook about how to teach your parrot to talk and you were an affiliate for that product making 50%, why would you not just take the ebook and sales letter, send it to a rewriter, and make your own product and site? That way you get to keep 100%.

Why don't people do this? Isn't it more lucrative for a little more effort? Is there something obvious I'm missing here?

Thanks.
#100% #50% #affiliate #produce
  • Profile picture of the author slvrsrfr
    well, first off that's cheating. and secondly you have to build the traffic and that could take time.

    but more importantly it's something to give a good try to. just create something unique rather than plagiarizing. which i believe it would be even if you rewrite it. read a dozen or so ebooks on that, then toss them aside and make up your own fresh one.

    good luck,

    jason
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    • Profile picture of the author akira
      Jason, you're right, and thank's for the advice.

      Just taking someone else's work and rewriting it wouldn't be too nice. I agree with you.

      But if you can write your own totally original book about talking Parrots, why would you not want to? I guess I'm trying to ask, why do affiliates not just become product creators themselves, if they can see that a particular niche is popular?
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      • Profile picture of the author akira
        Andy, thanks for your excellent reply.

        I want to ask you: as an affiliate, aren't you competing with a lot more people? Say that there are 50 affiliates for a Parrot eBook -- you're competing with all of them! So I guess advertising as an affiliate through adwords or article directories would be difficult.

        Whereas for a product creator, if there are only 2 Parrot eBooks on the market, you're only competing with two people if you launch your own book (assuming that you're able to get as many affiliates as them).
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  • Profile picture of the author Andy1750
    Hello,

    Great question for your first post.

    Agree with Jason's comments above - I would personally find it a little unethical to do the above and you could very easily land yourself in trouble. In addition, affiliate marketing and product creation are two different skills. For affiliate marketers (which I fit into) 50% commission is pretty good and I could spend a few days setting up a campaign for this product and then move onto the next, and then the next and so on and so forth. I do in fact find this far easier than having to fuss around creating products. And if you pay someone else to do it this can be very expensive and it could end up being complete and utter garbage, so it's higher risk.

    Thanks,

    Andy
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  • Profile picture of the author kckaz
    Sometimes it's better to market as an affiliate until you find a niche that converts well, then create your own product. Otherwise, you can spend a lot of time wasted on creating stuff no one wants. Just because there are 50 affiliates and only two books doesn't mean ANYONE is making any money.
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    • Profile picture of the author akira
      Excellent point kckaz. I hadn't thought of that one.
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      • Profile picture of the author pheonix44
        Leverage is the key. For someone who doesn't have much money they can use free methods to promote affiliate products. Then when they see some income they can scale things up by hiring someone to create a product for them and use some of the money to get some good paid advertising. Some people are not serious enough or just don't care to get into it that deeply. They are perfectly fine with building an affiliate empire. Plus if you become a good affiliate you will begin to get first crack at some of the best products out there. It all comes down to what you want
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        • The answer is:

          - Opportunity cost
          - And risk management.

          If you take 10-15 days to create an ebook
          and 10-15 days to create a sales letter, that's
          a 20-30 day product creation process as a merchant.

          (Which means you can create about 12 ebooks
          per year. That's your SPEED of implementation)

          NOTE: Please ignore outsourcing to make
          this example simpler to follow!

          While if you are an affiliate you can create
          a squeeze page in 2-5 days. Create a series
          of 10 emails in 10-15 days and in about 15-20
          days you are moving into the next MARKET.

          (Which means you can create about 24 sales
          funnels per year. That's a better SPEED of
          implementation if you ask me)

          Best part is this...

          As an affiliate you are usually NOT limited to promote
          a single product. For example, I promote MULTIPLE
          products (as an affiliate) in the same market and
          this allows you to grow your commissions without
          having to spend the TIME in the creation process.

          Just as long as you choose markets which sell
          more than ONE product, this works. In fact, I
          would break the analysis into 2 stages.

          ----------------------------
          STAGE 1: Entering The Market
          ----------------------------

          1- Do I want to spend 30 days creating the product?
          2- Or should I simply promote MULTIPLE affiliate products?

          ----------------------------
          STAGE 2: 1-3 Months Later
          ----------------------------

          If you choose the second option you can see WHICH
          one the multiple products you are promoting that are
          converting...

          ... and now you can decide yo create your own product
          and "SWITCH the traffic plug" from the affiliate products
          you were promoting into your own products.

          So the answer is opportunity cost and risk management.
          As later you can still consider to develop your own product
          and you actually REDUCE the risk of failing in HALF!

          ... And at this point for you get any leverage you
          actually need to have a stronger competitive advantage
          so you can win over the guy who was "selling the ebook".

          This is very important lesson and you can do this by
          selling, audios, DVD's or by creating communities. And
          yes, this requires more work!

          Regards,

          Frederico Vila Verde
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        • Profile picture of the author Irene Houston
          Lots of people become affiliates because they don't actually have any products of their own, or even WANT to create them.

          It takes a lot of time and effort to create your own products and it costs money to pay someone else to do it for you - but that way at least you're free to get on with other things to make you money.

          As far as 'borrowing' other people's ideas - unfortunately, it's a fact of life that most successful products have a good chance of being copied eventually. You just have to look at how much money Hollywood spends trying to stop people stealing their movies... without much success.

          Luckily, the majority of people (the old 80/20 rule) don't just rewrite other people's work, and enjoy creating their own products or services.
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  • Profile picture of the author edman
    You've just lost the whole point about doing business

    --- There are a million reasons...

    1... originality
    2... proof
    3... legal issues
    4... ethical issues
    5... your cheating
    6... you can't back your claims
    7... your sales letter will be a lie
    ... and so on


    Other reasons for being an affiliate is that you don't have to do anything other than find the buyers




    Originally Posted by akira View Post

    Hi

    I'm new around here and I'm thinking of making a product in the IM niche.

    I have a lot of questions and things to learn.

    One thing I'm wondering about is why people become affiliates.

    For example; if there was a sucessful ebook about how to teach your parrot to talk and you were an affiliate for that product making 50%, why would you not just take the ebook and sales letter, send it to a rewriter, and make your own product and site? That way you get to keep 100%.

    Why don't people do this? Isn't it more lucrative for a little more effort? Is there something obvious I'm missing here?

    Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Ron Killian
    Legalities and that subject aside, marketing other peoples products does have some great advantages.

    I spent most of my online career only doing affiliate marketing and honestly, some times I miss it. The biggest reason for me, being on both sides, is that with affiliate marketing, or selling other peoples products you have little responsibility. You push traffic to the offer and your done. That's pretty much your only job and only responsibility.

    You don't have to provide any customer support, which can eat up our time and you need to "be there", for your customers. Not saying customer service is a pain, just saying it something that somewhat ties you down.

    When I did affiliate marketing, I could work when ever I wanted, I could take off a day, weeks or months, I did not have to keep check on my e-mail, as I did not have to take care of customers.

    Selling your own stuff does have it's advantages, that's for sure, but it also comes with some strings attached

    Guess it's pro's and con's, like any thing.
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  • Profile picture of the author diger
    You obviously need to do a lot of research on your own question. Just list 4 or 5 questions you are thinking about and Google them and you will find enough advice/information to keep you reading and learning for several hours.:rolleyes:

    There are few short cuts but you have to start some place. Google is hard to beat......
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  • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
    Originally Posted by akira View Post

    One thing I'm wondering about is why people become affiliates.
    Go to the grocery store and walk into the beverage aisle.

    On one end of the aisle, you have Coke and Pepsi products.

    On the other end of the aisle, you have crappy generic store brand products.

    Which would you prefer: 100% of the profits that store makes from the crappy generic store brand, or 50% of the profits it makes from Coke and Pepsi?
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  • Profile picture of the author catthecopywriter
    And of course the fact that some people don't have the ability to be able to write their own products, but do have the ability to promote other peoples...
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  • Profile picture of the author Adrian Cooper
    Originally Posted by akira View Post

    Hi

    I'm new around here and I'm thinking of making a product in the IM niche.

    I have a lot of questions and things to learn.

    One thing I'm wondering about is why people become affiliates.

    For example; if there was a sucessful ebook about how to teach your parrot to talk and you were an affiliate for that product making 50%, why would you not just take the ebook and sales letter, send it to a rewriter, and make your own product and site? That way you get to keep 100%.

    Why don't people do this? Isn't it more lucrative for a little more effort? Is there something obvious I'm missing here?

    Thanks.
    Well first of all reprocessing someone else's work would be just plain wrong.

    As a published author I am always defending my copyright, Scribd being a main culprit.

    That said, making your own products is far and away the best route.

    1. You get to keep 100% of the sale

    2. Accordingly there is much less risk when you are paying for PPC

    3. You can write your own powerful salesletter

    4. There is no interim landing/pre-sell page to dilute visitors to the sale page by at least 90% further greatly adding to PPC cost risks

    5. Affiliates sell for you and you get 50% of all their sales at no risk

    I searched Google for the title of a book I published on CB 3 years ago - using quotes for an exact match - and their are 20,200 pages, virtually all affiliate landing pages promoting my book.

    If there is a niche you want to promote, there are many ways of creating an original book including interviewing local experts, researching on Google, or using a ghost writer, and it would all be original work.

    In my view the only quick and reliable way for visitor acquisition in the short to medium term is PPC, which, for straight affiliate marketing is too risky IMO.

    With your own product PPC is a whole different matter because their is no pre-sell page dilution and you get 100% of the sale.

    Having your own products increases your chances of success exponentially and reduces risks exponentially.
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  • Profile picture of the author akira
    Wow, some excellent and thought provoking arguments here, especially since they are from both sides of the issue!

    Thanks all.
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  • Profile picture of the author jasonl70
    Here's why I originaly decided to concentrate on affiliate marketing:

    1) I didn't have a clue what sort of product would do well
    2) I didn't want to invest a ton of time creating a product and sales letter if it was just going to bomb
    3) I figured it wasn't so bad to avoid all that hassle and still get 75% commission
    4) I wanted to build a list to ultimately launch my own product to, and affiliate sales was a way to recoup my investment in building the list.

    Now that I know I can get traffic that converts, and what products do well in my niches, I'm gradually creating a sales funnel of my own products.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
    I always prefer my own products over being an affiliate to someone else's products. So far, I've made much more money with the former than the latter. For me, it is quite simple:

    I can be one of thousands promoting someone else's product and put in a lot of time and energy trying to drive traffic to my own particular version of the offer and hope I can garner a chunk of the sale (if the buyer hasn't been cookie-stuffed)

    OR

    I can have thousands of people driving traffic at no cost to me to MY offer and garner a chunk of every single sale.

    Do I want to open a store and sell Coke and Pepsi, along with Wal-Mart and Target and thousands of other stores? Or do I want to BE Coke or Pepsi, supplying all of those stores (including Wal-Mart and Target)?

    To me, the latter makes more sense.
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    • Profile picture of the author Adrian Cooper
      Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly View Post

      I always prefer my own products over being an affiliate to someone else's products. So far, I've made much more money with the former than the latter. For me, it is quite simple:

      I can be one of thousands promoting someone else's product and put in a lot of time and energy trying to drive traffic to my own particular version of the offer and hope I can garner a chunk of the sale (if the buyer hasn't been cookie-stuffed)

      OR

      I can have thousands of people driving traffic at no cost to me to MY offer and garner a chunk of every single sale.

      Do I want to open a store and sell Coke and Pepsi, along with Wal-Mart and Target and thousands of other stores? Or do I want to BE Coke or Pepsi, supplying all of those stores (including Wal-Mart and Target)?

      To me, the latter makes more sense.
      Exactly.

      Seriously everyone, making, or having made your own product increases your chances of success and income potential by orders of magnitude.

      If you want to make a chunk of cash for a vacation you just find someone to JV with and book the plane tickets the next day.

      PPC is ideal for own products, very risky and uncertain promoting someone else's along with a bunch of others. I must admit I was pleasantly surprised to find on Google 20,200 affiliates competing to sell just one of my books
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    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
      Originally Posted by Steven Carl Kelly View Post

      Or do I want to BE Coke or Pepsi, supplying all of those stores (including Wal-Mart and Target)?
      Trouble is, you're more likely to be Choc-Ola.
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  • Profile picture of the author GeorgR.
    Originally Posted by akira View Post

    Hi

    I'm new around here and I'm thinking of making a product in the IM niche.

    I have a lot of questions and things to learn.

    One thing I'm wondering about is why people become affiliates.

    For example; if there was a sucessful ebook about how to teach your parrot to talk and you were an affiliate for that product making 50%, why would you not just take the ebook and sales letter, send it to a rewriter, and make your own product and site? That way you get to keep 100%.
    Well..people do that of course

    Furthermore...it's not that easy. Having MANY affiliates who indeed get the majority of the sales is NOT a bad thing. It can be better in the long run to have 500+ affiliates which get 75% of the sales while you get "only" 25% - as opposed to sitting on your own product but having to do all the PR and advertisement alone.
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  • Profile picture of the author Steven Carl Kelly
    By the way: Allen has a detailed advisory thread on this very subject in the War Room. Great stuff in there.
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