How Serious is Affiliate Marketing?

I’ve had this post sitting here for a LONG time, as you can see this post is numbered #9, and what do I do, I completely rewrite it. I just finished reading this blog entry Corruption in Affiliate Marketing by Fraser, sorry, I couldn’t find your last name anywhere Fraser, drop a comment and I will add it. This post talks about brand name bidding and he wonders what lengths affiliates would go to be able to bid on big brand names, would they bribe affiliate managers, would affiliate managers take the bribes etc.. Note: It’s Fraser Edwards. (Thanks Scott!)

What would an affiliate do to try to gain approval to bid on the big brands?

Would an account manager take a bribe when it comes down to deciding who gets these rights to cash in on the brand name?

If you have any information on anything like this then please leave a comment or get in touch as I think it’s important to make sure that the playing field remains level for everyone.

I have some bad news for you Fraser, there is no level playing field in affiliate marketing, never has been, never will be. Is this fair? No it’s not. Is this the only industry things like this happen in? Nope. Everything in affiliate marketing, boils down to who you know and in lots of circumstances, where you work.

We all know many people who worked for companies that are now big names in affiliate marketing, people who worked for companies like Overture, Commission Junction, big Merchants, Performics, many of which left with insider info including top keywords, best means of promotion, the list goes on and on. Many are known, while even more are not known by the affiliate marketing public. This is part of the reason most networks now don’t allow you to work there and have affiliate sites promoting their merchants.

Networks have allowed and even promoted adware, spyware because of the sheer numbers of sales they can attach their affiliate id’s too, I say attach, because, for the most part, some other webmaster did the selling, the programs just get the close and last affiliate id attached to it. For the most part, networks are allowing less program interference, removing the darker programs and allowing the ones in who actually promote them the way they are allowed, for the most part. I went to a couple Merchants at Befree in 2004 because there was recorded evidence of them overwriting my affiliate links. Both merchants said they would talk to Befree about it, both merchants came back and told me that Befree said they didn’t see anything wrong, so there must be nothing wrong. Neither merchant has received any promotion from me other than just adding a link to them because it is expected. I sold 100,000 in computers for one of them that month and I never looked back, of course the adware program had much higher numbers than that, so they are right by default. Maybe if I had better contacts with Befree at the time, or even bigger numbers I might have got some satisfaction, but I would have to be a serious player to get any real consideration. Note: I was going to post the video that was posted on abestweb but I can’t find it.

Anyone remember when KBToys and eToys went “bankrupt” and stiffed their affiliates? I got nailed for over $3,000 dollars, and CJ’s basic was response was, oh well, nothing we can do. I talked to a high profile affiliate, Connie Berg of FlamingoWorld.com, and she got her money, either because she had a good contact or she was driving some serious sales to them and they wanted to make sure she joined their Linkshare program. I have been invited many times and I always reply to them and say, sure, if I get the money that was owed to me, hehe, maybe someday, but I doubt it.

My advice to anyone in affiliate marketing, talk to your network reps, talk to your affiliate managers, if you are driving sales they will know who you are anyway, or at least which site is yours, worst case, you won’t get a bigger percentage or any special consideration, best case, you get a big raise, special considerations, your own coupons, the sky could be the limit. Heck, maybe they will let you bid on their brand name even, but you won’t get anything special if you don’t ask. Name the last time you started doing some serious sales for a program that was managed by a network employee and you get a reward for it without asking? Never happened to me, the only ones who do are ones who are trying to build up a program quickly and want an extra boost, or they want you to promote another program, but these are usually OPM’s, not network employees. Always introduce yourselves and always ask for a raise, bottom line.

So, how serious is affiliate marketing? It’s very serious, but no one will take you seriously if you don’t talk to them, get your name out and ask for what you deserve.

Posted by Jimmy Daniels February 2007

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