The Disadvantages of Affiliate Marketing: What are the Risks – Checkout the 3 Day Challenge at 3DayAccess.com
So go down to the Categories sidebar menu and click the arrow next to E Business and then select SEM and SEO from the drop down.
We’re going to talk about the disadvantages of affiliate marketing.
So as you already know, affiliate marketing is based upon promoting other people’s products, right?
So that in itself says that you have no control over the vendor or the product itself.
So in certain respects, your business is in the hands of the vendor as far as promoting the products.
But now that you understand that you need to do things like building your email list, which is very basic, but if you do that, it doesn’t matter if somebody takes it down, you can always switch it to a different vendor, a different product, or a similar product in that niche.
And that’s the beauty of affiliate marketing, as long as you’re building a list.
Back in the day, like decades ago, I remember when we would promote a product, we would send traffic directly to the vendor’s product and then we’ll make sales.
But then we found out typically weeks later that we were sending traffic to an offer that didn’t exist or the vendor just decided to take the product down without ever telling us.
And this is something that happens day in and day out.
A lot of times there’s very a lack of communication between you and the vendor.
Having an email, that in itself can be an advantage, but it can also be a scary thing at times, especially if you have a product, it’s a really good product, you’re making a lot of money and the vendor just decides to quit.
Right?
So that’s why in that case, there are other things that you can do, which we’ll talk about in just a minute.
So having an email list can be an advantage, but if the vendor takes that down their product, that alone can be a scary thing at times.
So you’re kind of living on the edge.
But that’s why I said if that’s you and that’s your perspective and that’s your expectation of what’s real and what’s not, then it’s not going to become a surprise when that happens.
But I will tell you that happens a lot.
So let me put this in perspective.
Vendors come and go.
That’s the nature of how things go.
In the last decade of being an affiliate marketer, I’ve seen hundreds of vendors come and go.
And a lot of times vendors, they’ll get into these ruts where they’ll create totally brand new products.
Like for example, one vendor sometimes, often will create ten to 20 different products every single year.
And if you think about how many vendors there are, you could find ten really good vendors.
One of those products eventually will become outdated, right?
So if that’s the expectation that you have, then great.
You are now aware and you’re aware of something that not a lot of affiliates are aware of.
So that means that affiliate marketing often has a short term cash flow for each product.
So making as much as you can during that short term period of time is key.
But at the same time, that’s why I say you got to build your list.
If you don’t build a list, you’re building an affiliate marketing business that will fail, not if it will fail, it will fail.
So in other words, if you’ve worked really hard to produce a winning campaign, you’re either going to need to find a new vendor to replace the old if that ever happens.
So you need to make sure that you have a backup plan or you need to work out a special deal with them, assuming you’ve made them a lot of sales and say, hey, I’ve made a lot of sales for you.
I put a lot of time and effort into this.
How can we make a deal?
Maybe you can make a special deal just for my list or maybe they’re going out of business and you can just buy the whole business if it’s making you a lot of money.
So there’s a lot of different avenues that you can take.
Don’t quit.
Just think about the possible solution that there potentially is.
And if not, you have to get into that mindset of letting go if there is no option.
And this is why there is so much hustle involved and it’s more of a short term strategy than a long term strategy.
So what are lessons that you can learn before you get started?
Well, when you promote a product, you want to ask yourself a few things.
So ask yourself this.
Number one, are there similar vendors?
Are there similar products with affiliate programs?
So if you find a product that you really like and you promote it, and it does really, really well, at that point, and only at that point, begin to look for products that are similar and then approach other vendors.
And you could possibly promote those products to your list and say, hey, you’ve bought this product, or I’ve showed this product.
But here’s a similar product.
Check it out and see which one converts the best.
But while you’re doing that, you’re going to have a backup plan.
It’s even better if there’s two, three, four different products, different vendors.
You can figure out which vendor is really willing to work with you and which vendor is not willing to work with you.
Another thing we found over the years is that vendors that are willing to bend over backwards and work with you oftentimes, you’re going to be able to make more money doing that.
Vendors that weren’t really open to working with us a lot of times ended up being very small campaigns.
Yes, they made a little bit of amount of money, but not a lot.
So typically you want to find at least like I said, three or more really good products so that if one vendor takes their product down or they go bankrupt, you always have that backup plan.
And that’s really why I’m harping on this, because we’ve been in situations in the past where we promoted one particular product, we’ve been really excited about how much profit it was pulling in and bam.
Vendor takes the product down or they disappear totally and there’s no other products.
So in that case, you could see it as we lost all the time and effort that we put into it, or you could see it as a lesson to make sure that you have a backup plan.
Now, if this happens to you, you need to ask yourself second question, which is, if there is none, is this a product that you can hire somebody else to produce?
And you becoming the vendor?
Because if you can do that, you’ll actually make a lot of more money.
You already got traffic flowing to the product and then not only do you get a cut, you get the whole cut, because now you’re the vendor.
So that’s more of a long term strategy that you can take.But the question is, how willing are you to put all the effort into that?
Because being a vendor does take a lot of energy and time, but at the end of the day, your long term business is going to stretch further and your profit margins are going to be a lot higher.
So that said, it’s often better to have a long term strategy, to have a mixture of both your products and products that you promote as an affiliate.
And that way you’re not hustling all the time.