What is the future of affiliate marketers?

[softball]

As someone mentioned in an earlier thread, 40 to 50 per cent of the gross is a very expensive form of advertising. I think the clock is ticking. What do you think will replace it?
Evil got me thinking about this and personally, I see smaller percentages to fewer good webmasters and a lot of owners closing their doors to the dreck. Any thoughts?

[tony404]

I think if I made my living purely as an affiliate. I would start developing mainstream traffic and selling mainstream goods. Because the adult model only worked when buckets of money were coming in. Those days are over. You have big sites that dont even depend on Aff traffic anyone. They create their own and buy traffic which is probably cheaper in the long run because to motivate aff's in adult has become so expensive.

[Toby]

Some are good at producing content and sites to monetize that content. Some are good at generating and filtering traffic. Damn few are good at both.

Buying traffic isn't really much different than paying affiliates, except that you pay for the traffic whether it converts or not.

The adult affiliate model isn't going away any time soon, but it is going to evolve, just like the pay site model is going to evolve.

[tony404]

Originally Posted by Toby

Some are good at producing content and sites to monetize that content. Some are good at generating and filtering traffic. Damn few are good at both.

Buying traffic isn't really much different than paying affiliates, except that you pay for the traffic whether it converts or not.

The adult affiliate model isn't going away any time soon, but it is going to evolve, just like the pay site model is going to evolve.

If you are doing anything on a large scale. buying traffic and ads are much cheaper. No customer service, no giving away bandwidth, no people bitching about wanting more and more. I think adult aff there will be very very few and they will still make their living because of shear volume because the days of pps are coming to a close.

[Toby]

Originally Posted by tony404

...the days of pps are coming to a close.

I think you'll find that the vast majority of the full time well established affiliate webmasters never went big for the PPS carrot, they've been mostly promoting programs that retain via revshare which actually makes more money in the long term.

I've made at least one sale with over 130 different sponsors this year, most of them independent CCBill sites like yours. For most indie sites buying traffic is a major learning curve with lots of potential mine fields. And if the site has a fairly narrow niche focus, finding sources to buy traffic can be very difficult.

What I think we'll see first, from indie sites, are more purchase options. The ability to buy individual video clips or photo sets rather than just site memberships. Many are doing this now, but through secondary sites like C4S and it isn't integrated into their affiliate system so not shown on leak free tours. CCBill, Epoch, et al need to get on the ball and get an integrated clip store billing in place.

[gonzo]

Originally Posted by Toby

I think you'll find that the vast majority of the full time well established affiliate webmasters never went big for the PPS carrot, they've been mostly promoting programs that retain via revshare which actually makes more money in the long term.

I've made at least one sale with over 130 different sponsors this year, most of them independent CCBill sites like yours. For most indie sites buying traffic is a major learning curve with lots of potential mine fields. And if the site has a fairly narrow niche focus, finding sources to buy traffic can be very difficult.

What I think we'll see first, from indie sites, are more purchase options. The ability to buy individual video clips or photo sets rather than just site memberships. Many are doing this now, but through secondary sites like C4S and it isn't integrated into their affiliate system so not shown on leak free tours. CCBill, Epoch, et al need to get on the ball and get an integrated clip store billing in place.

I think you will see a lot of changes in the next few months.
I plan to be on the forefront of it and hop to enlist the help of my friends so we all make money.

[housekeeper]

Cross sales and shifty program practices, along with many programs closing or selling out have narrowed the field for many webmasters. As a result, many are reluctant to take on new programs or take chances adding links to their valuable traffic streams.

Retention is what most are looking for and a constant flow of new content...

[bluemoney]

I just started promoting an indie program that’s been around for 10 plus years but just recently opened up for affiliates. I guess their perspective is a bit different.

[DPTKID]

Originally Posted by rhetorical

As someone mentioned in an earlier thread, 40 to 50 per cent of the gross is a very expensive form of advertising. I think the clock is ticking. What do you think will replace it?
Evil got me thinking about this and personally, I see smaller percentages to fewer good webmasters and a lot of owners closing their doors to the dreck. Any thoughts?

I said the same thing on a different forum and people were telling me most paysites/owners were paying 50-70% which at first I thought was unusual since I am an affiliate for 2-3 sites, yes the sites take time to write manuals and help there affiliates learn some of the business and also have private forums for them. But I dont see how it could be costing them tons of money because thats why were here...to market it ourselves. I think there will be tons of changes but for the better.