The grass is always greener, or so it would seem. This is especially true in affiliate marketing where people are always looking for the next best thing. Where do so called ‘guru’s fit into the picture though? Are they the ones raking in all the money while affiliates are slaving away at campaigns? A common [...]
The grass is always greener, or so it would seem. This is especially true in affiliate marketing where people are always looking for the next best thing. Where do so called ‘guru’s fit into the picture though? Are they the ones raking in all the money while affiliates are slaving away at campaigns? A common analogy I often hear is something to the effect that there is more money in selling supplies to the gold miners than there is mining for gold yourself. I actually think this is a useless analogy in affiliate marketing.
So who is really cashing in? Affiliates or guru’s?
Let’s look at some advantages and disadvantages of each.
Guru’s have the advantage of:
- Not babysitting campaigns all day long
Yep, when you have your own product there is less worrying about when a campaign or traffic source will dry up.
- Having a large pool of people who want to learn
There is and will always be a large number of people wanting to learn how to make money online.
- Not having to deal with annoying affiliate managers, networks that don’t pay, cash flow, offers getting pulled, campaign slaps, etc, etc.
Basically, a lot of the stuff CPA affiliates deal with all the time.
Sounds great right?
Here are some disadvantages:
- Getting bombarded with people who have a very unrealistic expectation
Ironically, this situation is actually in large part created by the guru’s who promote how ‘easy’ it is to make money through affiliate marketing. Now, a lot of guru’s do not answer personal email (which I think is a big mistake) but the ones that do, have to deal with a lot of people who really don’t have realistic expectations. Often it is much harder to get students to change their views on making money online than it is to actually teach them marketing.
- Having to hear about some unfortunate circumstances
Getting lot’s of email about children who are sick, relatives who are homeless, jobs that have been lost, savings that is down to their last $200 and wanting to know if you can help them make a small profit. Often these aren’t dumb people by any means, nor are they trying to get a free handout. They really want to work, they just aren’t in a good situation to do so. If you are down to your last $200, paid traffic is NOT something you should be looking into IMHO. If your kids are sick, you need to get the first paying job you can find and work on affiliate marketing when you have money coming in. Now as I said, most of these emails are ignored by guru’s but I try to answer every one I get (usually my response is steering them away from internet marketing).
- Dealing with refunds
IM products have a pretty large refund %. There is not much you can do about it, it’s just the nature of the business.
- Having products that flop
A lot of guru’s are not as successful as they portray. I know, shocking right? Most of us know that but there are actually several well known people who you would be surprised to hear don’t make all that much money. You can fail just as easy, if not easier as a guru than an affiliate.
So what are some advantage of being an affiliate?
- Getting to interact as little as you want
As an affiliate, you can keep to yourself quite easily which is great for some people.
- Having a variety of ways to make money
As an affiliate you can do SO many things…PPC, PPV, SEO, offline, blogs, etc, etc, etc. The smart affiliates diversify their income between traffic sources.
- Having a large pool of traffic
You have a lot of way’s to reach your audience as an affiliate. As a guru, you have those traffic sources available but more often than not, they are unsuitable for your product. Remember the IM niche is pretty small in comparison to what we can market as an affiliate.
Ok so who really banks harder? To be honest, based on what I have seen the advantage goes to the affiliate marketer. In both circles, there is a small number of people who are really ‘at the top’. The reason that affiliates win, is because of how they can diversify. Guru’s (for our discussion purposes) promote one thing – making money online. When I say affiliates most people think of people promoting CPA offers, but there is so much more being an affiliate can mean.
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on the subject.
6 Responses
Man, I have my own products too and you hit the nail on the HEAD dude, seriously. It’s great having your own products that you can just “print money” from. But the affiliate marketing biz is still my favorite as it’s way easier to deal with (no customer support) and you don’t have limited ways to promote it (before your competitor who has a way bigger list does it FIRST).
I was laughing about the stories section because I have heard all of the stories in that paragraph and MORE. Great post man, great blog.
nice share … i fully agrees with you affiliates wins over guru since you can have larger audience with non IM niche and conversion is great
Nice Post! It can be beneficial with both things. To me it boils down to if you want to be seen or not. As an affiliate you can go un-noticed, as a guru not so much.
Great comparison, something I’m debating myself on right now. I think the main benefit of the guru model is stability. with aff it’s constantly chasing the ‘buzz’, plus unless you are passionate about traffic, it’s not going to be the same kind of passion as creating and launching your own products.
you can do both my friend, just like yourself
You also don’t need to be a guru only in the IM niche. In fact, there is a lot more money to be made outside of the IM niche. IM is just a fraction in size compared to the real mass market offers like work from home and weight loss.