Returning Newbie - Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?

by 82 replies
100
Around 2 years ago I set up around 10 micro-niche sites and I was only making around £100.00/$150.00 - I'm from England.

A number of people told me to stop working on lots of small sites and build one large site based on a variety of products. Around this time Google started to play with its Algorithms and UK based affiliate sites people began to proclaim that affiliate marketing was dead.

So I decided to go college and along with a full time job I dropped affiliate marketing. However I am now looking to return to it but when I Google the key terms 99% of the sites are merchant sites and the UK based affiliate site is now dead and only gets 1 or 2 posts a day.

So my question is, is affiliate marketing dead and should I focus on drop-shipping from sites such as Amazon and eBay?
#main internet marketing discussion forum #affiliate #dead #marketing #newbie #returning
  • Affiliate marketing is absolutely not dead....In fact many people on here are making a full-time living doing affiliate marketing...It's all about finding the right strategy...Lately I have been successful with YouTube....Find something that works for you and stick with it...
  • Affiliate Marketing is NOT dead, but you may want to consider how you do it especailly in regards to Google and SEO. Here is a very interesting article affiliate marketers should read....

    Is it Still Possible with SEO?
    • [ 3 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply
    • SEO will remain alive uptill 2030 with news technologies get embed in it.
  • Thanks guys,

    What has killed me for the last 3 years of looking into affiliate is the concept of link building. Lets say I built a site around plumber supplies. Who in the heck would want to a site about plumbing.

    Also lets say I wrote some really good content based on plumbing. For example, "How 3D Printing Is Changing The World of Plumbing" how can I get it in front of anyone who would event consider linking to it.

    I did locate around 50 blogs based on my sector and 99% of them were dead or had no contact details or any other guests posts.

    Simply put, how can I get the all necessary backlinks to my site?
  • Yip, dead as a Dodo.
    Sorry for the sarcasm but you're asking on a forum where a significant proportion
    are still making money from affiliate marketing... All you had to do was look around...

    That's a question for the SEO forum here: http://www.warriorforum.com/adsense-...cussion-forum/

    Like i said have a look around...
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks,

      So the concept of me building a large site is now a waste of time? I did read this through but I still dont understand the detail of what it is portraying. Is he saying I should find a niche, set up a crappy site with a few pages of content and profit from the initial bounce of the new site or is he just selling linkitpro.com ?

      Is it Still Possible with SEO?
      • [1] reply
  • Done properly AM is not dead. However, the majority of affiliate marketers are not doing it properly. They're still stuck in a '90s mentality, i.e. search a few keywords, write 10 articles, tweak for SEO, upload and make thousands a month... Puh-lease.

    People who think they can just spin a few articles and set up some watery sites are in for a nasty shock. (Google's kung-fu-Panda'd that idea once and for all). (Many successful affiliate marketing sites have 1,000+ pages of meaningful content).

    AM is hard work. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. You have to create top-notch content, attract traffic, convert that traffic to your mailing list, build your mailing list to several thousand subscribers, build trust then sell. It's downright boring at times and it requires a lot of perseverance. If you're not prepared to put in this initial graft, AM is probably not for you. Look at other alternatives, e.g. creating your own products.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks,

      Im ready for the hard work. I learnt PHP and HTML to build the site myself. But I just dont know how to attract traffic and honestly I dont know what top-notch content is. Do you have any examples of high quality content.

      I've set up on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook.

      I'm also trying to give drop shipping a go however I signed up with ebay and listed two products but then it told me I reached my value limit of £600.00 which I was very surprised about.
  • Affiliate marketing is not dead. it is alive and going well. you just may have to adjust to the new algorithms
  • Also 1000+ pages of content could take 18 months to produce just for once site. Does drop shipping provide the benefits of not having to build your own site?
  • Drop-shipping is good, but I'm pretty sure affiliate marketing is NOT dead. I guess people just found different ways to get traffic to their sites, and they've finally realized that putting all your eggs on a single basket is a recipe for disaster.

    So, yeah, make search engine traffic a part of your traffic plan, but don't focus on that alone.

    As for micro niche sites, ya, spammy looking sites with hardly 1 or 2 articles don't work anymore. Frequently updated sites do well with readers anyway. If they know you'll keep providing them with fresh and useful content, they'll keep coming back to your site, and return readers and customers are a key to make a website work.
  • I know that my affiliates make around $50-$100 a month from my product. I also make $50-$100 a month through web host affiliates on another site. Just depends on how quality your sites are.
  • Of course not... no method really dies out... ever. You just need to spin it.
  • I will tell you EXACTLY why you hear you should skip the micro sites and go for a big authority website. The people telling you this are more than likely trying to sell you on some type of program to build an authority website. The reason for this is it takes time and the longer it takes the more you pay them. Also, if you eventually give up, you will just assume it was your fault because you didn't put in the effort required.

    Microsites do just fine in fact you can make a lot of money by just building a landing page and not even having a website. Especially if you send paid traffic to it and continuously work on split testing elements and increasing your conversions. In fact, it's much easier to split test a landing page or squeeze page than it is to tweak every last element of your monster site until you see a sale.
    • [ 3 ] Thanks
    • [1] reply

    • This is funny if you think about it.

      It is like going into a McDonald's and telling the CEO that they might as well close up shop because the City of New York has decided that it is no longer going to allow McDonald's to advertise on any of it's subways or buses.

      These people who you were talking to should have remembered that Google is only one traffic stream (out of hundreds)



      It's not that you need "top-notch content" or even "high quality content"

      What you should focus on is "Relevant Content"

      You have to remember that Google is in the business of satisfying the "search requests" of their customers.

      The better they are at this the more people will use their search engine. The worse they are, the more people will look for another service provider.

      And Google has different ways to determine if a site is what someone is looking for or not.

      One of the ways is through Relevancy.

      The more relevant your content is to the search terms entered, the better.

      Or in other words, the more relevant your content is, to what Google's customer is searching for and wants to find, the better.

      A lot of IMers focus on "gaming the system" and "tricking" google.

      But for me I look at it like this...

      Google will reward you with higher rankings, the better you can help them give their customers what they want.




      I think this is a part of it.

      But I also think that a lot of IMers saw their "small" or "micro" sites tank and disappear and in their panic they just assumed that "Small = bad" and that must mean then that "big = good"

      So they started buildig larger and larger sites assuming once again that the "size" is what Google was looking for.

      But again, relevancy is more important.

      The proof of this is in the many IMers who you can find on the WF who still have "micro-sites" that are only 1-5 pages but are still ranking high and/or haven't been affected.
      • [2] replies
  • Affiliate marketing gave me my freedom from a job and it supports me, my wife, and my 4 kids.

    I'd say it's alive and well.
  • Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?
    No. if you know how to play with it.
  • Affiliate marketing is still alive! it's is one of the best way to earn money on the internet. you should continue doing it if you wan to return in online marketing world.
  • It's not dead, but it might be dead to you if you don't know how to use it to your gain.
  • It's not even ill.
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • Affiliate marketing is not dead. It's still one of the best ways to earn your online income!!
  • Methods can die and for sure change, so have do have to keep up with the times.
    What I can say for sure is that the Mobile Market is hot like red hot...
  • Affiliate marketing will always exist. As long as there are products, people will be willing to promote them for a split of the revenue.

    What changes is the strategies to promote said products.
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • Thanks guys.

    If you had to start over again what steps would you take.

    I started micro sites but was only making small amounts of money.
    • [1] reply

    • Affiliate Marketing has not so much died as it has evolved. Several factors could have given you the impression that Affiliate Marketing is dead

      1. 40% of Internet Marketers don't make any money online at all. For them, affilate marketing is indeed dead. Conversely, however, 60% of IM-ers do make at least some money, and 5-6% have made US$100, 000 or more (according to one survey) in total. Note that that these are simply those who have stuck to it and applied a consistent approach (for 18 months or more).
      2. Many affiliate marketers (up to 80% or more) put up spammy sites that Google naturally doesn't like. The sites populate search engine listings known to SEO pros as immature neighbourhoods, which Google periodically tries to clean up (hence Panda, Penguin and the like).
      3. Because of this, the term Affiliate Marketing has fallen somewhat out of favour and is avoided by savvy markerters and merchants.
      4. Successful affiliate marketers have mostly, by now, built responsive email lists so that they rely less on the Search Engines for their traffic than they once did, which means they can funtion outside of the Google orbit.
      5. You will note that minisites and landing pages lend themselves best to traffic from paid searches than from natural searches. To be successful with paid searches, you need time, patience, practise and money and there is a lot of trial and error. Savvy marketers use paid searches to build email lists, since you can rarely sell a product to someone from a single visit.
      6. Google does prefer larger, so-called authority sites for its natural search listings, but you need to be consistent in building them page by page, day by day or Google will eventually relegate you to obscurity. If you are consistent and build relevant content (not simply keyword rich but relevant - there's a difference), your rankings *will* improve.
      7. In the past, many (digital) affiliate products were in the form of ebook programs that have now morphed into so-called info-products, as Kindle and others have pretty much swallowed up the ebook market and made straigntfoward ebook sales via affiliates sales difficult and unprofitable. Info-products need a lot more promotion than mere ebooks did with the addition of multiple bonuses such as videos, audio files and the like so as to add perceived value.
      8. As someone here mentioned, to rank well in the search engines, relevancy is important, but so is (domain and page) popularity. These are the two main metrics whereby the SEs determine how highly your site should be ranked. Popularity calls for backlinks from popular sites (sites with lots of traffic etc., not just high pagerank sites).
      Social media and other cutting edge linking strategies (such as blog commenting and video marketing) has lowered reliance purely on search engine traffic.

      Note that If you have a responsive email list, you WILL have sales. That has always been the case, and it isn't going to change anytime soon. For example when you were earning 100 pounds a month, with a decent email list you would have earned up to 10 times more.

      You have correctly surmised however that the real issue is traffic and ask how you can get more. The more targetted traffic you have, the more easily you will be able to build an email list.

      If you learn the art of good SEO (read all you can about it), you WILL eventually see the fruits of your labour. SEO from natural searches is still the most solid (but not the only) source of decent traffic.

      Below is a list of all possible traffict sources. Choose 4-5 that you feel most comfortable with. Perfect one before you move on to the other and don't let any source exceed more than 20-25% of total traffic. Those (not just myself) who follow that guideline faithfully claim to have great results!

      SEO (don't ignore, this is the A of traffic sources)
      Blog Commenting
      Gues Posting
      You Tube ( and video marketing in general)
      Podcasting
      Craigslist
      Slideshare
      Social Media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
      Forums
      Squidoo
      Yahoo Answers
      Article Submission
      Paid Ads
      RSS feed (and other forms of) Syndication [Submit your RSS feed to as many RSS aggregators around the web and your content is bound to get picked up and syndicated all across the web - generating unlimited backlinks for you]

      The traffic sources listed below also help with SEO by creating high quality back links for your site naturally:
      Article Submission
      3 way link exchanges
      Guest Blogging
      Social Bookmarking
      Quality Directory Submission
      Classified Ad posting
      Forum Discussions
      Question & Answering (eg: Yahoo Answers)
      • [ 2 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Hi,
    I just saw a video on how to make money with PLR and YouTube. Really pretty simple. Drive traffic to your site through YouTube.
    Affiliate Marketing is definitely not dead. There are millions of niches out there.

    Good luck with your endeavors!!
    http://geririchmond.com
  • [DELETED]
  • Seriously, these threads are a joke. They are nothing more than someone with a lack of confidence trying yet another stall tactic.

    Yes!!!

    Affiliate marketing is dead.
    Adsense is dead.
    Article marketing is dead.
    Blogging is dead.
    List building is dead.
    Video marketing is dead.
    Making money is dead.
    Breathing is dead.
    Dying is dead.

    Ludicrous, right? I loathe all of these whining threads about something obviously NOT dead being questioned simply because the poster hasn't had success with it.

    I so dislike the "I failed at something so it must be dead" threads.

    Of all the things that SHOULD be dead, these types of threads belong in that category.

    Much Success,

    JoeMack
    • [ 2 ] Thanks
    • [2] replies
    • You missed Zed.
      • [1] reply
    • Thanks Joe,

      The thing is before I joined college a year ago many people on a UK based affiliate marketing site were saying that affiliate marketing was dead and they wanted to get it selling on eBay and Amazon. So when I finished college 2 weeks ago I wanted to research if affiliate marketing was dead and clearly it isn't.

      The thing I struggle with so much is...the conflicting message.

      21 people will say "start small 5 page sites and target a micro niche" and 19 people will say "focus on one large site that has 1000+ pages of content".

      Also when I Google the key terms I wish to target no affiliate sites appear. They are all merchants or drop shippers. Thats what made me think that affiliate marketers who link to merchants are dead.

      Was does come up are Amazon and eBay which makes me think I should pursue drop shopping instead of affiliate marketing with my own site.
  • Affiliate Marketing is not dead and won't be. Now-a-days, it is the best method to get a huge income if you use in the right way. I am also using affiliate marketing in my websites and earning great.
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
  • So, I just wanted to say that I understand your predicament. I am actually not a newbie in the technical sense - I've been involved in IM for quite a time. But, I stopped doing it for several years (long story) and when I returned I found things to be much different than they were - largely due to google's changes but also, many of the resources that I used to use don't even exist any longer!

    At its most basic sense, the principals are still the same but the manner of executing the principals has changed. So, I am a newbie with prior experience, I guess. :-) I am indebted to this forum for helping sort through the changes so that I can make myself even more successful than ever!
  • Banned
    Affiliate marketing has become younger, So you are unable to identify him in this new look. Change your spectacles, the world is still in need of Affiliate Marketing
  • affiliate marketing is not dead, its just that the game has changed considerable in the last 2 years, and will change again in the next 6 months, and again and again.
    You can consider the world of marketing like a "metropolitan" niche, its always changing.
  • Justlukeyou,

    I don't think you understand what "Affiliate Marketing" is... Walmart is an Affiliate that sells products from thousands of suppliers. Non-Service Local Businesses sell products they don't create, which makes them an Affiliate.

    Yes, it's different offline because you have to purchase the products up front and have space to store and display them. But the concept is the same, they are selling other peoples products in order to take a cut of the profits.

    People always complain that Amazon doesn't give a high enough cut of the sales at only 4%. What most people don't realize about Amazon is that it's "Affiliates" aren't actually affiliates at all... They are Sub-Affiliates. The only actual product line that Amazon has is the Kindle series. Other than the Kindle, they are selling OTHER PEOPLES PRODUCTS. Whoa, Amazon's an Affiliate! Who would have guessed.

    So, No. Affiliate Marketing is not dead.
  • Hi,

    But why is there some people saying build small 5 pages sites and others are saying build 1 large site with 1500+ pages?
    • [1] reply
    • I can think of 2 main reasons:

      1. Marketer's bias - They've succeeded doing that very thing so they believe it's the best way to go. It's all they really know so they impart their own marketing bias onto you. Or they "tried" the other thing and it didn't work for them (which doesn't necessarily mean anything).

      2. They are selling you a system or some monthly membership or software that ties in with their "authority" website view.

      In reality, BOTH work. It's NOT about 5 pages versus authority sites, it's about serving a market or niche and then getting eyeballs to your virtual real estate and then converting that traffic so it makes you a profit.

      RoD
      • [ 1 ] Thanks
      • [1] reply
  • Good for you, most people don't even get around to doing that much.

    I'm wondering what their motivation is for telling you this. I have plenty of one-page, 3-page, and 10-page websites that do extremely well, mostly because they don't depend on SEO for their traffic.

    You can setup a webpage or blog and buy traffic to it, spend a few days / weeks (or even months) working on increasing your conversions; but most people either don't know to do this or they are too risk adverse.

    Authority websites are great too, they also work, it all depends on how these sites are set up, how you get the traffic, and how you convert the traffic.

    Remember, the term "affiliate marketing" is a HUGE umbrella that covers thousands upon thousands of ways of making money online. So anyone who says it's "dead" would be the equivalent of saying "online paid advertising" is dead. It's too general of a term to be true.

    Affiliate marketing, or making affiliate commisions by marketing other people's products and services, is alive and well. If anything, it's actually grown in the past few years, so it's here to stay.

    When I first got knee-deep into affiliate marketing, I was testing an average of 2 to 3 offers a month along with ad campaigns. After about 6 months I was testing anywhere from 10 to 20 offers in any given month!!!

    And let me tell you, I learned more about marketing, advertising, conversions, etc. in those 6 months by testing different offers and marketing funnels, then I ever did reading some ebook or some DVD course. Yes, I lost money in the beginning, but eventually I had some winners and I was able to use the knowledge that I learned from all the testing and applied it to other niches.

    Many people fall for the hyperbole, the new shiny object syndrome, the lastest gimmick, fad, or software, but in reality this is a business and it's going to take time, money, knowledge, and the ability to keep on going when you face the inevitable obstacles. Can you do all this without money? Sure, people have done it, but it's a lot easier if you're willing to invest some funds into your own business.

    There are plenty of places that have tons of tools and members to help you find your way. There are places like PPC-Coach.com, Wealthy Affiliate, The Online Business Insiders, etc. There are some good WSOs right now that will show you how make money (no, I'm not going to mention them here). It's just a matter of what you really want to focus on and then rolling your sleeves and getting to work.

    In your specific instance, you probably need someone to coach you to show you how to do all this.

    RoD
  • Lets say you chose the Mental Health market (I really dislike Dog Training, so work with me).

    You set up a "Small Niche Site" with 5 content pages about General Anxiety.
    Then, you set up a "Small Niche Site" with 5 content pages about Social Anxiety.
    Then, you set up a "Small Niche Site" with 5 content pages about Depression.

    So far you've spent $30+ on Domains alone, and you haven't even started advertising yet.
    So lets start our Advertising. We're going to want some Social Marketing, so we need to create a Facebook fanpage for each of our websites. Then Digg, Reddit, Pinterest, and whatever other social networks you like...

    Do you see the problem yet?

    Instead of creating 3+ small websites, you could create 1 large website. This costs you 1 Domain, requires less Social and Advertising accounts, and lets you focus on your content and your readers.

    So lets say you get a visitor to your small General Anxiety website. But, the reader doesn't feel that they have General Anxiety, and instead they go searching for a website about Social Anxiety. What are the chances that they are going to find your other small niche website?

    If you target a Market, and discuss many Niches within that Market, you'll be able to keep those readers on your website. This gives you more time to build trust, and turn them into buyers instead of lookers.
  • @Rod

    I do believe you are talking about "Internet Marketing". Affiliate Marketing is a very simple concept, "Selling products that are not yours, in order to take a cut of the profits."
    • [1] reply
    • No, I meant what I wrote. Affiliate marketing is a simple concept, but there are thousands of different ways to make money at it.

      Take an affiliate marketing funnel as just one example, there are almost a nearless endless of permutations. None of my marketing funnels are exactly alike because after extensive testing they get modified.

      RoD
      • [1] reply
  • Hi,

    Yes, if I built a large site focussed on all furnture what should I do with it? How can I purchase visitor?
  • Great to meet you friend. Fantastic question! No Way is affiliate marketing dead. I believe we are going to see a huge rise within the next few years. The internet is getting a lot more traffic these days as well as people looking to supplement their income. The problem is most people are not going to do the steps that are involved in order to be successful. With that said you will have a lot more people telling you it does not work I feel. Affiliate marketing will always be around I feel. supply and demand. Have a great day
  • Hi,

    The problem is I dont know what the steps are. I dont know what works and what doesn't.

    I found a service which exchanges blog content for links but I haven't read that this strategy no longer works.
  • My affiliate income is now better than it ever is because I have surrendered completely to Google. Just do what Google really wants and you be fine. I am now using Google Adwords.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks Derek,

      I did try Adwords myself but I couldn't make it profitable. I have read many people say that Adwords isn't profitable for affiliates as the average margin is only 7%.
      • [2] replies
  • Affiliate marketing definitely does work. Ebay is cool... i personally wouldn't mess with Amazon. Doesn't matter what you sell online, it all comes down to marketing. If you're that distressed over affiliate marketing, create your own product and promote it on your own site. Control is good right?
  • I think the majority of people who make a living in the affiliate market, are providing services to publishers trying to promote products for vendors.
    • [1] reply
    • Hi,

      Was does this mean exactly. Not sure I understand.
      • [2] replies
  • Thanks,

    But this is the point I am really stuggling to understand...when I Google the key terms I plan to target they are dominated by merchants or sites with drop shipping. I would say only 0.5% are sites which link to other sites for a sale to made.

    Can I also use eBay as a source of traffic?
  • Okay, I'm starting to get a picture of what you really mean.

    I think you mentioned that your niche was furniture among maybe other household items. If that's the case, the market for goods of that kind has been swamped with eCommerce vendors based in China and elsewhere, who use eBay among other marketing portals to offload their goods.

    The advice you may be getting about building larger sites as opposed to smaller ones may be valid only for eCommerce. For example Wayfair used to consist of 100s of niche sites, but have now amalgamated them all into a single massive site (Wayfair.com). But this works for the really really big guys like them. The rest of us still need to be focused on niches and microniches (from the outset at least). That's how Wayfair started themselves.

    Online purchases used to be dominated by the sales of digital products, but more and more internet users are buying hard products, too, which means drop-shipping has become more popular with Internet Marketers than it used to be and with eCommerce set to go on booming, there's no sign that the trend will change anytime soon.

    However, far from killing off affiliate marketing, this actually opesn up more AM opportunities for AMers, but increasingly you need to think outside the box, just as you're doing with Amazon datafeeds, for example.

    Why not approach reputable eCommerce vendors who have no affialiate programs to propose doing affiliate sales for them, especially for higher value items (in the range $200-$1000 to ensure you make decent commissions) and negotiate fair commissions? Have you tried Commission Junction, too, to test possible markets and ascertain which products to target in this way, then approach non CJ vendors who don't have tons of affiliates competing with you? CJ are still going strong last time I checked.

    Then again, I see a lot of AMers making money reselling one thing or the other, or selling tickets to concerts of sporting events and so on. The opportunities are endless, but if you become too one track-minded about what products you want to sell, you'll only make life harder for yourself.

    You can certainly use eBay as a traffic source, but with vendors prepared to cut their margins to almost nothing there these days, I wouldn't put all of my eggs in that basket.
  • I hope not, as I just set up a minisite in the relationships niche!
  • Hi,

    What im struggling to understand is that when I Google various terms only merchants and dropshippers come up. Its as if Google has completely killed off an affiliate marketing.

    It seems to be a paradox between people ssying affiliate marketing existing and there being no affiliate sites in Google rankings.
  • Hi,

    Wouldnt it take vasts sums of money to set up as a merchant? Does it count the same for dropshippers?

    Do you mean Google is penalising affiliates from organic searches?
    • [1] reply
    • The actual requirements varies with different dropshippers. Some may require you to put down a deposit while others don't. The quality of dropshippers vary enormously and you could end up losing money if you are not careful. It is best you ask in e-commerce / dropshipping forum here for advice.

      Google does prefer actual merchants' sites. But you can still get a good ranking, or even outrank the actual merchant's site if you have lot of quality content and is not seen as a "made for affiliate" site. Affiliate sites made from product datafeeds often have thousands of pages. When Google sees a suddenly expanding site, it is immediately suspicious.
  • Thanks,

    I have found one good dropshipper who supply a major retailer.

    What does a "not made for affiliate" site look like. The only tip I have heard is not to have products on your homepage.
  • Made for advertising sites, whether made for adsense or made for affiliate are very difficult to define. It is completely up to Google. Basically, the site should be seen to provide good information and good user experience rather than just to sell products. If a site is flagged by Google for manual review, then it is really up to the individual reviewer.
  • Not dead , just 100% harder when it comes to SEO, with all the google updates spam sites in the google's eyes are quickly put on the blacklist. If you find a legit way to use SEO for your site then you won't have a problem.
  • Thanks,

    What is the legit way?

    I have become heavily bogged down in technical problems with completing my site. Could take months to complete.
  • Affiliate marketing isn't dead, but personally I would avoid the "SEO" trap. I'd look into social marketing. The key with all of it is to understand your niche, create some value that they want, appeal to their pain or desires and offer the affiliate product as the solution.
  • It's not dead and will never be. You just need to find the good niches. To do this you need to get a good tool. Don't just promote anything mate.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks,

      What will the tool show me, how can I use it to find opportunities?

      Many people have said that I should focus on something I am passionate about and solve problems.
  • It took a while before I made my first sale. But then the key is to never give up and search for the missing formula. I always believe that there are different paths to success. I agree with the comments that affiliate marketing is not dead. You may want to review what you've been doing and perhaps conduct more research on the best practices and techniques to do AM. Good luck!
  • Thanks,

    When I first had a go at affiliate marketing I made a sale within 3 days but couldn't scale it up. Then Google started to change its algorhytms and many people were saying that it would kill off affiliate marketing.

    I now want to give it another go. Im just scared that I am going to waster alot of time.
  • I am doing good in Affiliate Marketing, It's my full time business. It's just another thread to defame AM and decourage the newbies looking to join AM.
  • Affiliate marketing is NOT dead. I am still making money with affiliate programs.

    You must find one technique which you can use to make money with affiliate programs and even make good living with it.
    • [1] reply
    • Thanks himanuzo,

      What is your top tip for finding that one technique. I am trying to focus on something I am passioniate about.
  • [DELETED]
  • Dead ? Not a chance. Wrong strategy , wrong tools? Yes.
  • its not dead its booming! nowdays even granmothers are online. Only thing i would say thogh is porn marketing is dead and not worth the effort anymore thanks to free sites like porn hub and such
  • Affiliate Marketing is not dead, it has evolved just as other warriors is saying. Gone are the days where things are very simple people are making money just by spamming and making Hype Sales letter and making millions out of it! Those are good old days where you slap your ads make false promises and make a tons of money easily. Building small nice sites and making money through adsense.

    When the Internet has evolved on what they called the Web 2.0 where a lot of social sites such facebook, twitter, pinterest etc appeared. And the Google Updates where websites who produces more social interactions ranks better and not by the amount of articles you have.

    People on the internet became more social they shared their experiences from different products in just a couple of minutes. This is the time when Affiliate marketing changes, it has now evolved and worked just like the businesses in the offline world.

    People are now more expected to interact with their customers, you got to build relationship with them before you get some sales. People are now more aware of their metrics and tends to pay for traffic just like any other businesses do.

    Things are evolving very fast here in the internet and you got to adapt to it. Those people who are telling you that Affiliate Marketing is dead are the people who failed to adapt.

    Internet has become very competitive and Complex today. You got to continuously learn the ropes and be the first one to adapt to changes if you want to get ahead.

    I posted this not to discourage you but for you to stay away from those push button and shiny object business. It will only delay your success. Treat your Internet Business just like your doing business Offline.
  • Banned
    [DELETED]
Join the discussion

Next Topics on Trending Feed

  • 100

    Returning Newbie - Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?

    Around 2 years ago I set up around 10 micro-niche sites and I was only making around £100.00/$150.00 - I'm from England. A number of people told me to stop working on lots of small sites and build one large site based on a variety of products. Around this time Google started to play with its Algorithms and UK based affiliate sites people began to proclaim that affiliate marketing was dead.