Affiliate offers: About 90-95% of what is available is . . . dreck?

Stuff that looks dodgy, hokey, unmarketable. Am I being cynical or what?

[Webwork]

I've been scanning the affiliate landscape in some detail. To me it looks a bit like Newark: a few shiny towers, a bit of a core and then a pretty wide landscape of run down properties in various states of disrepair and decreptitation, some with a fresh coat of paint to pretty them up but the soot settles on them rather quickly.

So, 2-5% look decent and about 95% of affiliate offers have an air of "we can't really sell this stuff . . so help us out here".

Who actually promotes "the 95%"? Am I seeing the world rightly?

Do 95% of affiliate marketers promote the 2-5% of the affiliate programs that look decent and marketable?

Of course, there's the .025% of affiliate marketers who ain't talking. ;)

[eljefe3]

Nice observation there webwork. You are correct in that most programs will not make affiliate marketers money, but some make a lot and that's why you don't really here those who are doing well talking about it.

For the 95%, who wants to sell a $20 item that only sells a few per month and pays a 10% commission.

There are exceptions to every rule, but I like to evaluate products and I'd say maybe 2 or 3 out of 100 have potential to make both affiliates and the merchant money.

[mfishy]

Try to focus on areas where the customer does not have to pay. Leads of all sorts tend to convert far, far better. If you are promoting something that costs money, make sure that is is an item that folks are likely to buy without much shopping around.

[skibum]

It all depends on your approach. Once you have the traffic to just plug in a bunch of the 90-95% that don't do much & make a little money from a lot of different places it can really add up. There are relatively few programs that can really be blown out to make a lot of money from.

[jimbeetle]

To me, the worst part about this business is the search for good programs. It simply gets tedious and boring reading all the promises and yadda yadda. Eljefe3's 2 or 3 programs out of 100 being viable are just about spot on with my experience.

That said, I also have to agree with skibum. I use some of the smaller programs to complement and as alternatives to my main ones. A few bucks here and a few bucks there spread over different sites winds up being a nice fistful of checks each month.

[buckworks]

an item that folks are likely to buy without much shopping around

This is an important nugget of wisdom. You need to know the mind of your shopper. Some audiences have a grab-it-and-go shopping style, while others obsess about details and compare possibilities in umpteen places before they decide which widget to purchase.

It's possible for an affiliate to make money with either type of shopper, but promotional strategies need to be very different.

[skibum]

The key is to set the cookie when you are pretty sure the consumer has already shopped around, gone to the store to check out what they want, viewed the products on the manufacturers website and has credit card in hand. Where in the buying process does the keyword indicate the consumer is? Figure that out and you can be a pretty lazy affiliate without having to do to much work other than research and hunting down a site that will convert. You can sell stuff online that you would never think people would buy online.

[markwelch]

Of course 95% of affiliate offers are dreck -- 95% of almost everything is dreck.

I've been working on a project which has led me to sign up for many ShareASale.com merchant programs, and while I respect ShareASale as the most ethical and respected affiliate network, I still consider the majority of merchant programs there to be a waste of time.

If this were easy, then everyone would be doing it and then it wouldn't be very easy any more anyway. Instead, you need to spend some time and exercise your brain to identify appropriate opportunities -- merchants who:
- offer products that people want to buy,
- at prices they are willing to pay,
- convert prospects to customers
- fulfill (deliver) the orders
- pay a reasonable commission
- pay as promised (on time, without unreasonable reversals etc.)

[centime]

Might I ask you chaps, would you make your landing pages very descriptive?

Or

would you try to urge the prospect swiftly on to the merchants site?

Adwords quality score does require some content to keep costs down, but would you go beyond that?

I incline to moving the prospect on swiftly,