Affiliate marketing: yes or no?
-
Hello,
A colleague recently asked me about affiliate marketing for our clients, and my answer for a few years now has been emphatically "no", because I had not seen it done in positive way. How does everyone weigh in affiliate marketing, and what companies and/or software would you suggest? For example, is http://www.admedia.com/ a reputable source? I see lots of bad reviews on these guys. Any thoughts, suggestions, etc would be extremely valuable.
Thanks in advance!
-
I've been doing affiliate marketing since 2000 - when it really was a good solution for banner space (those things that used to get clicks) from smaller publishers long before a thing called Google came around.
Now, candidly, I see it mostly as a pathway for parasitic marketing - with little to no benefit to you.
Coupon and deal-site Affiliates will bid on your trademarks (even if you prohibit it) - and fight for your own organic SEO. Now, depending on what you sell, you might like getting a bunch of traffic from someone like retail-me-not, but keep track of how many customers are 'new' versus saw your coupon box and search for a coupon - used it for a discount, and then you paid a commission for that sale...?
For us, we do it - but we try to focus on review sites; odd-sites where you never know where the traffic comes from; and then yes, discount and coupon sites - because we get more new customers than for what we eat on customers (I call it "round-tripping") being on your site, finding a discount code box, and then searching the web for a deal.
-
Like Martijn Scheijbeler already said, this should not be run by someone with "a lot" of experience managing an affiliate campaign. If done wrong you can cannibalize your own sales, and worse. I would recommend MaxBounty to anyone. They have dedicated management teams for both advertisers, and affiliates.
As an alternative, you could seek out successful affiliates directly, and give them an exclusive offer, a relistic incentive. hint hint mike [at] informlocal.com
The benefit to the advertiser is a win win. They don't have to outlay money for ineffective advertising, and they get new customers. As the advertiser you have to set the ground rules to protect your self, or only deal with an reputable company, or individual affiliate like me.
-
Hi Guys,
I have always been super interested in affiliate marketing but never knew where to start in order to head down the rabbit hole. Any suggestions on any good blogs, sites that you recommend that pack some helpful and informative info on the subject?
Thanks in advance!
-
Affiliate marketing is a great way to expand your brand awareness. There are various sources of publishers that could work perfectly with your brand. Blog publishers, mobile publishers, charity publishers, coupon publishers, loyalty publishers etc. the list goes on and on.
In my experience my top Affiliate Networks are , Linkshare, pepper jam, Commission junction
-
Thanks for the response Martijn. Do you have any recommendations?
-
Affiliate marketing should always be a yes if done properly. I don't have any experience with Admedia but as long as you're on top of your affiliate marketing and working closely with the publishers you both will be happy in the end.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Setting up small affiliate network - Do follow?
I have a client that I help with both SEO and marketing. I have thought about approaching 5-10 niche appropriate bloggers to join a custom affiliate network. I'd like to gain both sales and backlinks. I know it's gray, but do you have any advice?
Affiliate Marketing | | julie-getonthemap0 -
Any Good Email Marketing companies - CPA ?
Hi Guys Looking for some advice - are there any good email marketing services companies in the US that can help us to sell our health and pet products and would operate on a CPA basis ?? Any help much appreciated - thank you Gareth
Affiliate Marketing | | GAZ090 -
How to track Affiliate Clicks to Google Analytics
Hi, We would like to track the affiliate link clicks. Is there any way to track it from Google Analytic? Rajiv
Affiliate Marketing | | gamesecure0 -
Affiliate Programs
Hi, I am wondering what if any affiliate management applications are being used out there. Anyone using Shareasale... I am looking into them.
Affiliate Marketing | | unikey0 -
What is the negative effect of getting affiliate links to your domain?
Are the negative effects of affiliate links to your domain bigger than the positive effects? Is it better to use a subdomain for your affiliate campaigns? (Because of linkprofile no follow links or time on page effects?) Thanks for responce!
Affiliate Marketing | | ltom0 -
Affiliate code in urls? affiliate link landing pages?
Is it considered a good or bad practice to have the affiliate code present in your affiliate link url's ? (as opposed to disguising them with something like phpbay) Does the general public not scour the hover-over url's of links they click? Also, is there any way of keeping customers on site when they click affiliate links? (via frames or something more modern) Or is that frowned upon by advertisers?
Affiliate Marketing | | Mozzin0 -
How many affiliate links is considered too many?
Hi, Let's say you have great reviews for 50 products and some of these products do have affiliate links on review pages. And then you have user scores and you come up with a top 20 product list sorted by user scores. Now if you have the list of top 20 products on one page and all these products have an affiliate link (with nofollow relation and a 301 redirect) on the same page with only a couple of images and a summary of the review linked to the review pages, would this still be considered as what Google calls a "bridge page"? Would it be better to still generate the top 20 list but rather link to review pages only? (to avoid too many affiliate links on one single page).
Affiliate Marketing | | Gamer070 -
Does an affiliate link bring the same SEO juice as a standard link?
I wonder if affiliate links, like the ones offered by Amazon Associates program bring the same SEO as would a link to the same page without this additional "ref=..."?
Affiliate Marketing | | maciek-0