What are the Downsides to Affiliate Marketing?
Uncertainty – As affiliate ads pay out on results, you do not have any guarantees that you will make money. You may have to try a number of different affiliates to find those that your visitors respond to. Remember that you should have a good idea of the profile of people that visit your site to ensure you target them appropriately.
Waiting for Payment – The time from putting the ad up to getting your payment can be several months depending on the affiliate scheme or network you register with. It may take a month to get a few sales in; payment then usually follows within 60 days of the end of the month; although all schemes will vary. However, getting paid with normal site advertising can take just as long!
Profitability – Affiliate marketing can be very rewarding if it works well; but it is rarely as profitable as running normal advertising space. However, it is important to remember that affiliate income is much easier (both in terms of time and effort) to get than advertising income; and sites without thousands of visits a day will struggle to sell advertising to well known companies unless extremely well targeted.
Direct Affiliates - Can be Time Consuming – The process of arranging direct affiliate campaigns can take a lot of time and effort. Many schemes are designed to be as easy as possible; but you still have to go and source them and arrange them individually.
Requires Traffic – As you are paid on results, you need to have a steady stream of visitors to make any significant money from affiliate schemes. If your site is only visited by a few customers a day, you are unlikely to achieve many sales.
Alternatives to Affiliate Marketing
There are several alternatives to affiliate marketing, the suitability of which will depend on the type of site you run and the number of visitors you get.
Search Engine Links (E.g.: Google AdSense) – These are pay per click search engine boxes that you place on your site; you get paid a percentage of the cost that the advertiser pays the search engine company per click made.
The results that are displayed are usually based on the content of your site (E.g.: If your site is about sports then the boxes will display sports ads).The amount each click makes will depend on what the search term is (Costs vary from a few pence to well over £10 per click).
Text Linking – This works on a similar basis to the search engine links, except that instead of an ad box links are added to text in your pages.
E.g.: The most popular sport in the country is football.
With some text linking companies, highlighting the links will bring up an overlaid box which details the site the link will go to.
Article Index
1. How Can You Take Advantage of Affiliate Marketing?
2. Affiliate Marketing - Advantages and Disadvantages
3. How to Get Started - Making Money With Affiliate Marketing
4. Promoting Your Business With Affiliate Marketing
5. Promoting With Affiliate Marketing - Advantages and Disadvantages
6. How to Get Started - Promoting With Affiliate Marketing
