It’s Hard Out Here for a Traffic Pimp
This session, How to Build a Profitable Affiliate Channel, suffered from a problem that seems to have been shared with several of the other sessions. The panelists didn’t cover a single thing mentioned in the description. The conference program claimed attendees would learn “essential techniques for you to launch, re-launch and grow your affiliate network.” It promised discussions of how to use everything from blogging to phone techniques to grow a profitable affiliate network. While these panelists may have had knowledge of all these topics, they neglected to share them with their audience.
Panelists Ola Edvardsson (Performancy, Inc), Jeff Molander (Molander & Associates), and Amanda Watlington (Searching for Profit), along with moderator Declan Dunn (Dunn Direct Group) spent the majority of the time explaining how Google and the rest of the “big three” discriminate against affiliates. Unfortunately, a lot of it started sounding more like paranoia than anything else. In listening to what they were describing, it seems in that affiliate marketers are having problems with Google’s attempts to weed out trash like spam-blogs. And based on much of the conversation, it’s possible that many of the spam-blogs are affiliates. Another complaint by the panel was that Google’s attempts to ensure that the ads placed on the site are as relevant as possible is hurting their business. Apparently what’s bad for affiliate marketing is good for the rest of us. To be fair, I saw the reactions of someone who works for an affiliate network, and he looked pretty displeased by what he was hearing too.
The only techniques offered were pearls about scalability, living by the golden rule, and that affiliate marketing requires work which is a major issue “the industry is grappling with.” When pressed by the audience to live up to the session’s billing and actually talk about how to grow a profitable affiliate network , the answers were also less than compelling. At one point Ms. Watlington stated, “we still don’t know enough about conversion—what makes a page convert.” Can someone please direct her to any number of studies by MarketingSherpa.
I’ll leave you with this final quote from Jeff Molander [see update] that should just make you want to rush out and learn more about affiliate marketing.
“It’s hard out here for a traffic pimp.”
[update: I’ve heard that there is controversy over who actually said this. According to my notes I’ve attributed it properly, but will verify this when the podcasts are posted. I will also clarify that I do think it was said in tounge-in-cheek.]
