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Is affiliate marketing there to stay?

Your perspective five years ahead

         

aleksl

8:45 pm on Jul 29, 2004 (gmt 0)



Hi guys,

I'd like to hear your opinions on long-term perspective of affiliate marketing field.

Is it here to stay?
Where does it have a potential to evolve?
WHY?

Just do not want to base my long-term business goals on something that may be gone in 2-3 years.

Thank you

dmorison

8:57 pm on Jul 29, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Is affiliate marketing there to stay?

Yes.

"Affiliate Marketing", defined as "promoting goods or services in return for a commission rather than a salary" pre-dates the Internet by eons. It is here to stay.

wellzy

10:06 pm on Jul 29, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I believe it is here to stay.

wellzy

jcoronella

12:36 am on Jul 30, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Affiliate marketing has been here for longer than the internet. Ever get a restaurant recommendation from a hotel front desk? Often they give you a card or something with their initials on it.

It is most certainly here to stay. However, I think that it is far easier to make money in aff. marketing now than it will be. As this industry matures and grows it will become very competitive and you will feel the squeeze from SEO savvy merchants, smarter search engines, and more and more affiliates.

mfishy

12:44 am on Jul 30, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Businesses need customers. There will always be companies willing to pay for quality referals.

shri

1:03 am on Jul 30, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



You might want to take a look at this article.

[dmnews.com...]

Affiliate marketing has always existed, probably two days after the first commercial exchange was made on this planet. In the brick and mortar world, they're known as distributors, resellers, agents and a number of other fancy terms.

aleksl

1:27 am on Jul 30, 2004 (gmt 0)



Well, if we are talking about "middleman" or "intermediary", then yes, but I don't think it was quite "affiliate marketing". Didn't know about the Hotel-Restaurant trick :)

Let me put it this way then - is it profitable for large e-businesses to have a lot of affiliates (eventhough some of them may happen to be rotten apples and try to "trick" the system), or is it insanely difficult to manage, and the field is going towards more controlled, few larger super-affiliates model?

Amazon is a bad example in this case as I think there are thousands of affiliate programs out there that are more profitable. As well as large companies that "pretend" to have affiliate program in order to basically get name recognition. I am talking about real stuff, where both sides can make realistic $$$.