People become affiliate marketers because they don’t want to spend the time to research and develop a product, or handle delivery, customer service, refunds and such. And on top of that — products owners are supposed to provide a website that converts, and any and all promotional tools, articles, ebooks, videos, so all they have to do is send an email and split the money? Oh no, even that’s not good enough — they should get 75% or more? Only in IM…

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

People become affiliate marketers because they don’t want to spend the time to research and develop a product, or handle delivery, customer service, refunds and such. And on top of that — products owners are supposed to provide a website that converts, and any and all promotional tools, articles, ebooks, videos, so all they have to do is send an email and split the money? Oh no, even that’s not good enough — they should get 75% or more? Only in IM…

Does anyone else see a problem with this?

It’s easy to say “toughen up and offer a better bonus, it’s all part of the game” but that’s really just sweeping the problem under the rug. Eventually other product owners will change their ways and anyone who hasn’t will slowly start to lose partners.

and if all affiliates changed their model to just being product owners, selling their own products… we as product owners would lose all our affiliates. Sure we’re smart enough to drive our own traffic but I’d sure like to keep the leveraging power of having affiliates drive all my traffic.

Just my two cents…

Are your products really worth much if you give them away on every launch?

This is a terrible cycle because product owners have to charge more to get the affiliates to offer sweet bonuses. Don’t believe for a second that you aren’t somehow paying for that bonus.

I buy your product this lauch then next launch you give your product away as a bonus! Why did I even pay?

I agree with Trish, Stomper does it right “most of the time”

One of the biggest and most insidious problems is thier hurting (and targeting) mostly newbies

There is affiliate incest going on too (remember the big guru video explaining how to clear your cookies in great detail) why should I even bother trying to promote you with that kind of #$%& going on

Lastly but not leastly, (made that last word up), YOU DON“T NEED HALF THIS CRAP!

P.S. What ever happened to building “quality websites?”

Maybe a different bonus with every launch, which was never sold formerly, but never repeated again for free? Of course that’s a lot of work so the person would have to have a big following to make it worthwhile. But at least that would avoid some of the other potential problems which are mentioned in this post and comments.

Affiliates wouldn’t be promoting a paid product, only to have it be given away later as a bonus. And people wouldn’t avoid buying something “in case in becomes a bonus later” if it were offered free only once and after that it were for sale.

Just means people will have to come up with a lot of great ideas for products, which gets tricky when so many people are in info-overload as it is. Get’s interesting at least!

All success
Dr.Mani
Author: ‘Think, Write and Retire’
http://www.ThinkWriteRetire.com

A “rolling” launch with one new big affiliate per week and that strategy could be the best for all three parties. The affiliate, the product owner, and the customers.

The market decides!!! Why couldnt Pete make a bonus anyway?

The line between ‘joint ventures’ and ‘affiliates’ has been blurred in the Internet marketing niche for a long time now.

What many call ‘JV’ deals are often little more than affiliate joint promotions.

Which, in context of what you’ve just highlighted (and most product owners have known intuitively for many years now), makes me wonder: why not merge the two concepts into something more valuable, intimate and hands-on?

In other words, as a product owner, work with ONLY a close ‘inner circle’ of affiliates/JV partners.

Keep your product promos exclusive to this small group. Give them extra perks and special, customized promo tools to use, like interviews/webinars with them, co-authored special reports, virtual workshops done together. Maybe even ‘reciprocal promotions’ to your own database.

The bit that often gets overlooked by many product owners is that, in the headlong rush for ‘quick’ profits, they ignore the real goldmine of a satisfied, even delighted, loyal client base. With one of those, you don’t need too many ‘new’ clients to keep the profit pump primed.

Years ago, I scaled down on ‘external’ or ‘outbound’ marketing, and in the process, cut down on my own affiliate recruiting efforts BEFORE the ‘bonus war’ reality hit the marketplace. In this way, I have been insulated against the madness and mayhem, while my business chugs along — maybe not expanding massively, but definitely thriving.

Periodic inflows of new clients come from joint venture co-promotions — and with a good system of delivering value to clients, you don’t need too many of these deals to keep things going well.

But what’s a beginner to do?

Use this reality of ‘affiliate bonus wars’ to deliver a killer FRONT-END product — and forego all profits, over-deliver to affiliates, and build intimate relationships with the best performing partners.

All of this would be done with a view to developing and growing a client-base that will be delighted with the quality of your product or service to the point they’ll be repeat buyers… and at the same time nurturing relationships based on real benefits and value-delivery with your affiliates (who will later morph into that exclusive group of ‘JV partners’).

Done right, this strategy will simply bypass the need to ‘go back to the well’ too often, and lets you siphon off a segment from your broader marketplace to focus on, deliver value to, and mine for continuing value for years to come — maybe forever!

In a nutshell, for a product owner, a strategy build entirely on getting more affiliates to sell more products for you is one that condemns you to either working harder than ever, and/or accepting diminishing returns for this effort.

Build a team that works together. Create a client base that you can help by providing value. And use affiliates ethically to reach that point — by over-delivering to them, too.

Just my 2 cents!

All success
Dr.Mani