Affiliate Marketing Downturn?
I started a thread and poll on the A4U Forum which so far, is coming back with some surprising results. Basically, it’s all to do with my personal circumstances since getting back from the Affiliate Summit.
Overview
As many of you know, I am employed fulltime in a role that I find enjoyable, challenging and constantly evolving. However in coming months this may change depending on an outsourcing due diligence thats currently underway. The results of which could mean that I remain as I am, become outsourced to an IT company, or am made redundant (which I am not overly concerned about).
I posted this outline, with a bit more information, on the A4U Forums and asked what OTHERS would do if they faced the same dilema, with the options being;
- Start looking for similar role in other organisations
- Sit still to wait and see what happens, possibly remaining, being outsourced or being made redundant
- Make a concerted effort to head down the FT Affiliate Marketing route
- Try to get a position with a network/agency/merchant with 7 years AM experience
- Something else
Firstly, there was a bit of confusion as to whether I was asking for advice, but I think the majority of people understood that I was interested in what THEY would do if they faced the same dilema.
I honestly thought the majority of people to vote for ‘Make a concerted effort to head down the FT Affiliate Marketing route’ but it appears that it isn’t the clear winner I expected.
This now has me wondering if the Fulltime Affiliate Marketing arena has reached a peek after a huge growth seen over the past 4 years? Has the constant ongoing battles with Google, PPC rules or the constant SEO battles and algorythms put people off? Have the main players pushed the smaller fish out of the equation?
1 Comment
Leave a Reply
Social Stuff
Damn good question Chris.
I’d say that affiliate marketing is suffering from a huge influx in the number of affiliates.
Merchants can’t cope with the level of work they have to do to maintain communication with affiliates. They don’t have the capabilities to work with a large number of active affiliates because they’re consumed with with noob’s.
In other cases, affiliate managers are brought into roles that they have no, or very little experience of and subsequently the larger affiliates suffer then as well.
Then we’re also squeezed by changes with google, (ppc & SEO) as well as the marketing and search agencies that want their pound of flesh.
So I’d like a new network that only focuses on affiliates that deliver or can prove their potential so the employees can actually build even better affiliates and programmes.
There are too many affiliates that deliver too little but take up too much time.
Just me being provocative, but I’ve got first hand experience of this recently.
Lee