Wednesday

The Future Of Affiliate Programs


I tell myself on a daily basis to be positive, unfortunately I'm seeing too many changes, happening a little too fast, and I think it spells a rough road ahead for affiliate marketers. The internet is not immune to the troubles in the US and foreign economy, therefore we should start preparing for trends in online businesses just as we have seen them in 'brick 'n mortar'. I'm referring to cut-backs, lower wages (see affiliate commissions), and less accessibility.

First let's look at what companies must do to become more profitable in a failing economy. Consumer confidence is way down, so even fewer people will be buying online, therefore less impulse buying. The less impulse buying the less companies will need to rely on affiliates to bring in the long tail consumers. Either a consumer will know what they want and go to the source, or they won't be interested at all. Expect companies to withdraw existing affiliate programs and even more will wait to enter the market place with programs in place.

Lowering wages is a great way to pad your profit margin and in our case it means lower commissions. Lowering a commission on a program becomes much easier when it's spread out over thousands of affiliates, instead of just a handful of employees. Expect large cuts in commissions and new offers looking flatter than usual. I've actually lost track of how many programs are actually adjusting their commission rates from MaxBounty, luckily these have yet to effect me personally. One only needs to look at eBay for another example of 'cutting commissions', in regards to their recent hack of affiliates and the reorganization of their ACRU tiers.

Lastly, accessibility in regards to the ease of joining an affiliate program. At one time even larger affiliate managers accepted almost anyone into their programs, no matter traffic, or even visitor quality. Now things are getting tighter and bandwidth costs money, the days of sending traffic that doesn't convert to affiliate sites may be over. Expect to not be allowed to sign up unless you have a record of targeted traffic, or existing affiliates should start taking steps to record where and how their traffic is arriving on their site and where they are being sent to the affiliate sites. Finding the fine line in fewer affiliates and higher quality converting traffic will save a company countless dollars on less man power, for managing worthless affiliates(in their eyes) and remove thin affiliate competition from search engines.

The moral of this story is to start diversifying now, so if one revenue stream starts failing or making cuts you're not left out to dry. To an extent I'm speaking from experience and to another I'm kicking myself in the ass. Good luck and happy earning.

Tuesday

Affiliate Deals - Bigger Commisions

I've located another affiliate program that offers up some great commissions and has great brand recognition. The BlockBuster Online Rental Program is the newest program within MaxBounty with increased commissions, paired with a great offer to potential customers. BlockBuster customers can sign up for an initial price of $9.99 and receive unlimited rentals for a month. For the affiliate, you earn a commission of $44 per lead after a visitor signs up and submits their credit card to begin their membership.

What made me select this as a great affiliate deal is that it contains a number of key items I look for in any affiliate program I use:

  • Brand Recognition
  • Appeal to a broad base
  • High payout
  • Simple sign ups and lead generation
  • Good support from the program manager. (MaxBounty)
  • Great Creatives (banners, etc..)
It's worth taking a lot at no matter what topic your site covers. Chances are there are visitors that are interested in trying out rentals online and it's a great way to market and compete against NetFlix.


Wednesday

Google Chrome Add Ons


If you are a little touched in the head you may not have heard that Google had officially entered the browser market with the release of Chrome.  This new browser has been specifically designed to work with the latest javascript web applications, be faster, stronger, and basically able to leap tall buildings better than what was previously available.

But why would I be interested in leaving my tried and true Mozilla FireFox?  As it stands I have a ton of bookmarks, where I know I can find them, a sweet theme, and more add-ons than you can shake a stick at.  For the life of me I can't find any addons currently available for Google Chrome, although since it is open source I'm sure they will come along eventually.  Until I can see at a glance if I have any email, what my adsense revenue is, or what the page rank of a website is I'll be avoiding Chrome and sticking with FireFox.

Further discussion on this new Google Browser Chrome looks like there may be some issues with cookie and affiliate tracking.  The option to go incognito in chrome will keep cookies from remaining on a pertains computer, after they close the window the cookie is lost.  So maybe it's not so important whether I use it, but whether or not I can keep other potential buyers away from it.