Is being an Affiliate Marketer a bad thing?

Submitted by htxb on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 18:23.

Hi everyone,
I just finished watching Jason Calacanis' keynote speech at the Affiliate Summit West. I gotta say, it left me feeling kinda bad about aspiring to be a successful affiliate marketer.

Has anyone else watched it?

He painted a not so pretty picture of how affiliate marketers are viewed in the web/tech industry. It left me with a question - Is it possible to be a successful affiliate marketer while creating a site that serves a genuine purpose other than making money? Can anyone list some examples of successful affiliate sites that have real value to the user.

I guess another question that I have is about the guys he referred to as pathetic for posting their commission checks of $100k or more. Did those guys make those $100k checks using methods that provided the user with real value?

Thanks for any feedback.

-Carl

Very successful affiliate site

Submitted by kuproverto on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 21:00.

http://www.moneysupermarket.com/

Predicted to make £1bn at IPO, actually made £843m. Obviously, this is an extreme example but it just goes to show what can be achieved.

This article by Shawn

Submitted by htxb on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 21:58.

This article by Shawn Collins makes me feel better...
http://tinyurl.com/5ypzbk

-Carl
do you twitter? i do!
http://twitter.com/htxb

Before I internalize

Submitted by Jeremy Palmer on Thu, 05/01/2008 - 22:57.

Before I internalize something I try to understand the context in which it was written, said, etc. Jason's motivations are less than sincere. He thrives on being controversial because it brings him traffic and attention. He gave the same speech about SEO a year earlier. In fact his tagline was exactly the same - "SEO is bullshit!".

Did he have some valid points? - you bet. There are a lot of affiliate sites out there that are simply brokering clicks. These sites tend to have a short shelf life and are more susceptible to becoming irrelevant. You can make good money brokering traffic, but if you want to build a sustainable affiliate business you need to focus on building a web property that becomes the de facto destination for your target audience.

After giving it some thought...

Submitted by htxb on Fri, 05/02/2008 - 03:10.

I've come to the realization that he's just blowing a lot of hot air. I guess the initial shock of some of the things he had to say caught me off guard. I wouldn't expect a Keynote Address speaker at a convention for affiliate marketers to do nothing but hate on the affiliate market industry.

To his credit, though, he did make me take a hard look at my intended approach to affiliate marketing. I appreciate what he said about "thin sites". Like you said, Jeremy, he did have some valid points. They just kinda fell by the wayside with all the affiliate marketer trash talking he did. Take out all the overstated, overexaggerated statements, and there are some really good things to keep in mind.

All things considered, the answer to my question of "Is being an Affiliate Marketer a bad thing?" depends on the answer to another more important question - "What type of affiliate do I want to be?"