Is the production of affiliate revenue the same as ever?

Targeted Traffic + Pages that call forth action

[Webwork]

Is the affiliate game the same as ever? Is 2006 99% the same as 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005? Nothing changes, except maybe CJ rewrites the rules from time to time?

Traffic, by any and all means, is 75% of the game and some intelligence about picking partners and creating pages that call forth "right action" is the other 24%?

I guess the other 1% if the part that no one talks about publicly or shares?

Just confirming that the path hasn't changed before I go hiking.

Anyone care to send me off a cliff with some bad guidance? :-)

Is it 99% getting targeted traffic, choosing wisely and crafting pages handily?

Thanks for not sending me over the cliff, but still, I might enjoy the scenary whilst falling.

"It's not the fall but landing that will alter social standing . . . "

[Webwork]

I'll take that non-response as a yes, affirmative, what could be more obvious, doe's this guy have a clue?, doh!, so what else is new?, you're funny Webwork, get a real job Webwork, . . . sort of reply by not responding.

Sometimes I'm compelled to poke my hand in the flames. :-P

See y'all out on the playing field. I'm finally bored of the domain game and so beyond ready for something new and challenging. :)

Hey, anybody want a link? ;-)

[jomaxx]

OK, here's a start. Several changes I can think of...

There is a lot less buzz around affiliate programs since AdSense began. The affiliate networks and the merchants who rely heavily on affiliate marketing must be suffering. I haven't really noticed commissions rising or an increased hunger to attract super-affiliates, though.

A lot of PPC direct-to-merchant keyword marketing is being done. It's possible that most affiliate marketing, by volume if not by number of participants, is done this way. I don't do this so I don't know the ins and outs, but IIRC Overture didn't allow redirecting when they ruled the roost, so this is mostly new.

Internationalism. I use 2 affiliate programs that support multiple languages. Even though my site is in English I get as much as 1/3 of my traffic from non-English-speaking regions, so I dynamically deliver the call to action in the user's own language. I once tried doing this with Amazon as well, by signing up with several of their country-specific affiliate programs, but at the time the earnings were trivial and it was too much of a PITA.

Heavy-duty tools like datafeeds and dynamic iframes are much more common now. Building a whole site out of an affiliate datafeed was popular for a while, but I think Google is making it tough for such sites to get any traffic.

[humblebeginnings]

I think the number of affiliate programs and networks has been growing extremely fast. These days, publishers have to choose from thousands upon thousands of programs. The result in my opinion is that more trial and error has to be done before you find your gems...

Because of growing competition between affiliate programs and networks, some merchants offer very high commissions. But as it takes longer to find them, I wonder if publishers are better off...