Forum Moderators: skibum
Right now aff's can insert themselves in the market because there are huge inefficiencies. Once more affiliates come in competition will increase, but not nearly as much as when companies fill the role of the affiliates - most notably the search engines themselves.
Some can argue that if the search engines remove all commercial results from the free listings (Google mentioned this before no?) then any purchase will need to take place through their paid commercial listings.
I think we will continue to win. Their engineers are getting better, but options aside we get paid more. ;)
What's happen if all search engines banned a affiliate websites and Then what will you do?
Why in the world would they do that? 8 out of every 10 websites I've been to has affiliate marketing. It'd be like cutting off their own nose.
Of course not. Nothing lasts forever.
If this follows a typical industry life-cycle - and there is no reason to expect it wouldn't - we can expect increased competition and dimishing profit margins in the mid-term future. There will still be money to be made, however, as these effects will likely be coutered by growth in the overall market.
Business cycles being what they are, though, there WILL be another recession at some point, which would probably correspond to drop in demand for consumer goods. This would have a grave effect on individual affiliate marketers. In this situation, one could expect a shakeout through which a lot of the smaller, independent affiliates get swallowed or driven out of business by competition from bigger opperations that take advantage of economies of scale. While niche marketers will continue to exist, they will have a harder and harder time making a living. Eventually, the next round of disruptive technology and innovations will come along, making affiliate marketing obselete.
Will take 5 years or 20 years? I have no idea. But you had better cash in while the getting is good. And be sure put some money away in savings; this racket will be hit hard when the next recession comes around.
Eventually, the next round of disruptive technology and innovations will come along, making affiliate marketing obselete.
... in its present form, yes. Aff mkt, like everything else, cannot last forever.
The sun will burn itself out in 5.5 billion years, so the world will not last forever, anyway :)
We have to be on the lookout, always learning and upgrading to keep up with the changes ahead.
I think a different form of "aff marketing" will come along. Maybe it won't be called aff marketing but whatever it is called, there will always be a role for "value added middle men" like us ;)
Think retail. The big guys have cost and infrastructure advantages. The local niche players have the most important customer knowledge. Everyone else is screwed. Once in a while, the locals figure out how to go national. That's the good news for the small players. Life in the big leagues, I'm afraid. No patterns here that unfamiliar to those who've been around the block.
As cavegramps used to say, if you don't know who the pigeon is...you're the pigeon. ;-)
As mentioned earlier, it is just the natural lifecycle of a market. In my opinion this market has reached it's profitability peak. There is still a lot of money to be made, but it will only get harder to earn it.
Some can argue that if the search engines remove all commercial results from the free listings (Google mentioned this before no?) then any purchase will need to take place through their paid commercial listings.
Possible for sure. However, I don't see it.
If, for example, google were to remove affiliate sites for their "commercial" nature, this very site we are posting on would be gone. :)
I can see the removal of blatant, spammy, no-content affiliate sites, but it is going to be very, very hard.
If it impacted the quality of search for the user (remember, a lot of affiliate sites have great content), it could be suicide for the SE.
