Realities of Affiliate Marketing and PPC
Introduction.Marketing using affiliates and PPC has traps. If you are looking to get into either, here are some things to consider.An Affiliate marketing tactic.It seems 80% of the "affiliate programs", listed on web sites, are really just scams to get free traffic. This is due largely to the early days of the Dot Com boom. Companies (without mentioning names) found they didn't have to actually pay affiliates anything. Just make empty promises and people would join.For many companies, the "affiliate program" is just a structured mechanism for allowing people to display their logo on a web site. Repercussions.The sad truth is you have to give an affiliate merchant roughly a 1000 clicks, or 50,000 page views, just to see if it is legitimate. This method does not capture bait-and-switch operators. It is not unrealistic to take tens of thousands of clicks to uncover a bait-and-switch scam.The legitimate affiliate sponsor, with a good converting product, often gets saturated with affiliates. With the majority of affiliate programs just being clever ways to get free traffic, it is not surprising so many have had only bad experiences with them. Potential benefits.With its downside, affiliate marketing still has a lot to offer, in the long run. It establishes a direct relation between advertising dollar and revenue. Unfortunately, the only way to find good programs is to have direct connections with the firm.Diversionary tactics and dishonesty kill the mass affiliation industry. PPC tactics.PPC programs have the problem of companies soaking the system. They try to drive the value of the clicks to zero. They start with high rates, but have to lower the rates to the lowest common denominator of web sites, in the program. Google has to be aggressive in tossing such companies out.As an aside, some try to milk Adsense for all its worth. If you are doing this, remember to calculate the cost of wearing out your mouse and surgery for carpal tunnel syndrome. click, click, click, click (deep breath) click, click, click...(move to next computer in library)...click, click, click... Conclusion.Sometimes, it seems internet commerce is dominated by dishonest merchants battling dishonest webmasters. However, affiliate marketing and PPC do provide opportunities for generating income from a content-rich website.Last Updated: 06/07/05 21:07:00 EST free pics images | LCD vs Plasma | lamp projection TV | good credit score | Lawn Mower Parts Photo Recovery Mac | 32 inch LCD TV | Recover Data | Recover Deleted Files | best web hosting |