December 6, 2023 • 25 mins
Sometimes, there are different definitions for different types of marketing. If that is the case, what is the deal with Affiliate Marketing? And, what does it mean for digital marketing?
Chapters
- 00:00 Intro
- 01:39 Affiliate Marketing in the Boom
- 02:44 Kristi Hines has a List of Affiliate Programs (200+)
- 03:22 Concerns about Affiliate Marketing
- 21:11 Commission Stealing w/Plugins
- 23:21 TipTalk & BizSugar Mastermind Info
- 24:39 Closing
Episode Resources
- Miss Ileane Smith - Affiliate Marketer Extraordinaire
- Gail Gardner (Guest) - GrowMap.com
- Martin Lindeskog (Guest) - @LyceumPeripatos
- Tom Reid (Guest) - Sustained Leadership WBS
Visit us at SocialCafeChat.com to find out how you can participate!
Contact Deborah directly via DM on Twitter @SocialWebCafe
© 2012-2024 Social Web Cafe (Seaside Records, part of Michael T. Anderson dba Anderson Creations)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Michael Anderson (00:02):
Welcome to Social Web Cafe's Social Cafe Interactive.
Deborah E (00:07):
This week we are talking about affiliate marketing.
We're on season 12 and episode 49.
Michael Anderson (00:16):
The immersive event that was born from the geeky
entertainment mind of Deborah E.
And it bloomed into a web show, apodcast, also propelling her to be
recognized as a global influencer invideo podcasting and all this continuing
to be the number one jazz singer in LA.
(00:38):
So
Deborah E (00:42):
welcome Gail, welcome Martin and Affiliate Marketing.
That's kind of an old topic andyet it could be a new topic,
depending on how you look at it.
Hey, I have a question for you guys.
One that I don't think I put in the chat.
What is your projection for 2024?
Do you think this is stillgoing to be a popular thing?
(01:03):
Do you think affiliate marketing willkind of die out or do you think it'll
just keep going like it always has?
Gail Gardner (01:13):
Well, it's lasted this long.
I don't think it's going away.
Google sometimes makes it harderand people quit, but then they
find some other way to get traffic.
And
Deborah E (01:24):
so you think if it kind of goes up and down and, and it's got its
ebbs and flows, it's just not, it's,I was going to say, for some reason, I
was going to say it's like toilet paper.
It's still, I don't know whythat came to mind, but it's
like, there's always a need.
Gail Gardner (01:37):
So before, before we met.
Right.
Affiliate marketing was big.
I knew people that were making sixfigures because Google gave their content
traffic and then one day Google kind oftook all the traffic away and so their
sales tanked and some of them had totake on other jobs or work and, but,
(02:01):
but there are still people that makebig money with affiliate marketing.
Most of the people I know, they just have.
You know, they'll, they'll have alink for something they actually use,
or they'll have a page on their siteabout these are the things I use.
And here's my links.
And then if I mean, no pressure, likethey're not actually affiliate marketers,
(02:21):
they're people who do something who happento have a few affiliate links or maybe
a lot of affiliate links, but their,their primary focus isn't affiliate.
Deborah E (02:31):
It's kind of complimentary to whatever they're doing.
Like, Hey, this is what I do, but.
This is something else that I sellthat also goes with what I'm doing.
This is a definition of complimentary.
I just
Gail Gardner (02:43):
Right.
So Kristi Hines has a really goodpage of like 200 great affiliate
programs for bloggers to look at.
And so if you go to, Ithink it's at kristihines.
com, just put in affiliateprograms and she has a page and
it's got all the programs on it.
Deborah E (03:01):
So you do like, affiliate programs, in quotes,
site, colon, kristihines.
com, in your Googlesearch, and there you go.
Gail Gardner (03:10):
Yeah, I don't think you have to get that fancy with it.
Deborah E (03:12):
I'm a geek, what can I say?
I
Gail Gardner (03:16):
mean, if it's hard to find, that would be one way, but I
don't think it's hard to find there.
Deborah E (03:21):
Welcome, Tom.
Welcome.
And I want to come back.
I love the stuff that you weresaying in the Twitter chat, the
controversial aspect of affiliatemarketing, but pop over to Martin.
Martin was putting his thumbs up onthe, you think affiliate marketing
will be going strong in 2024?
Martin Lindeskog (03:40):
Yes.
If it's provided any value, it will.
So if you could save money on goodstuff and you could earn money.
And live a good life, use good products.
Gail Gardner (03:57):
I think it's more valuable for S A A S because like
some, some products are so complicatedthat even people that use them
don't know how to use everything.
And so I think there's a lot ofroom for like an SEO type person
could, could have post after post onfeatures in SEM rush, for example.
(04:20):
On how to use it, because I don'tthink most people that have a SEMrush
subscription have a clue what it does.
They, they have a couple ofthings they do, and they don't
know all the other stuff.
And so I think that there's a lot ofvalue if you actually use something
and you can actually provide, like,step by step instructions, how to
(04:41):
do something or, or an overviewof this is why I have this tool.
And this is what it does for me.
You know, some actualapplications of the tool.
I think that that's valuable.
And if I'm looking for something and I'mreading your post and you give me the most
information about it, I, why should I mindif you get a small, small commission after
(05:02):
you did all that stuff that helped you.
Deborah E (05:04):
So like Ann Smarty should be recommending, you know, SEM Rush.
Gail Gardner (05:10):
Right.
Yeah.
So anything that, that youwant to, anything you actually
use, the, the problem withaffiliate marketing is all these.
Top three, whatever's posts online,where they just picked the two, the three
that pay the best and ranked them by howmuch they get paid commission, right?
(05:32):
There is no value to that,except to the person who did it.
It is like hostingcompanies is a common one.
You don't have any ideawhether those are good or bad.
All you know, is.
That, you know, that, that guyrecommended those three, but there
are some real affiliate program sitesfor hosting where they actually test
(05:54):
the hosts and they have a graph and itsays uptime, outages, speed, you know,
and, and they rank them by, do theyhave their, their servers overloaded?
And is that slowing down your site?
Right?
So there is, there are valuable, you know,Um, like a hosting related website where
they actually tested a bunch of hosts.
Deborah E (06:16):
It's like having KPIs.
Gail Gardner (06:19):
Yeah, right.
But those sites where it says top three,whatever, I don't trust those because I
don't believe those are the top three.
I think those are the topthree that pay the best.
Deborah E (06:31):
What about the sites that I've seen somewhere, for instance, and I
know I'm not picking on Riverside, it'sjust easy to say Riverside because we're
actually recording this on Riverside.
No, I'm not.
I, okay.
I'm an affiliate of Riverside, butI can't remember what my link is.
Um, but for instance, Riversidewould put out an article.
I think they do have an article likethis where they'll say, The best places
(06:53):
to, host your, your, you know, likewhat we're doing, your live stream and
they'll actually list themselves andthey won't put themselves at the top.
They'll actually putthemselves at the bottom.
I've seen several different companiesdo this and they'll, they'll list
other companies and they will actuallyevaluate the different features.
They'll come up with kind of like KPIsand they'll, it'll be a thoughtful.
(07:18):
I've seen several different articleslike that where the, the company
that is hosting the article willput themselves at the bottom.
Um, or, or even if they put them at thetop, it's, it's actually well thought out.
It's not like they put abias towards themselves.
What do you think of those, Gail?
And then Martin, yeah, I wantedto hear, obviously, Martin
(07:40):
and Tom, your thoughts too.
I'm just sitting with Gail, brought up.
Gail Gardner (07:43):
No, go ahead and let, let Martin say something.
Julie was messaging meand I was answering.
Martin Lindeskog (07:48):
Uh, and I seen that and I think that's pretty okay, but
I, many of them are pretty same thing.
So I, I said, as Gail is sayingthat you're doing it in a
personal way, I'm using this.
That's a good, good thing, but Ithink that's good and it's good for
SEO and it's good for having a list.
You could find some otherand getting curious.
(08:11):
What's that service?
I have, I have found thatthanks to a blog post like that.
Deborah E (08:18):
Do you think it's a, it's a buyer beware kind of thing where you
look at, Hey, are they really evaluatingthe KPIs or the, the met, you know,
Martin Lindeskog (08:26):
And the same thing with KPI and others.
I mean, at least in Sweden, lotsof regular hosting companies, they
have all these kinds of lists.
Gail Gardner (08:35):
Right.
So, so yes, it's going to beworse now because of AI, right?
So now anybody who knows nothingabout anything can regurgitate.
Basically kind of copies of 10 compiled,whatevers that AI is doing, right.
And publish, but generallyspeaking, hopefully people get wise.
(08:58):
They can, they can recognize AI,AI tends to be repetitive, right?
So if you see content that sayssuch and such, blah, blah, blah,
such and such, blah, blah, blah,such and such, blah, blah, blah.
If you see that, you know, thatan AI generated that and you have
to like interact with the person.
Like, you have to know it's a real person.
(09:20):
If you see someone that you know,and they have published something,
hopefully, even if the AI generated it,they at least made sure it was right.
But if you see some random site,and you don't know who that
person is, I would not believe.
AI apparently makes stuff up.
AI is not an accurateway to generate content.
(09:43):
At least not now.
And so it is always buyer bewareand people are always a little,
are always a little biased.
There's no way to be not biased, right?
If you had a hosting company and youhad a bad experience, you may be down on
them, you know, but sometimes things fail.
And then.
(10:04):
You know, you may have a hostingcompany, you would never personally had
a bad experience, so you think they'reokay, but there's a zillion negative
reviews of people that had reallybad experiences with that company.
And so, you know, you always have to read.
It's like when I, when I evaluateproducts, I go to Amazon, I read
(10:25):
all the negative reviews first.
Then I read the positive reviews and ifsomebody's just blasting something, I'll
go read their other reviews because a lotof times people that just like to bash,
all the reviews are pretty much bashand you know that person you can ignore.
Right, right, right.
So it's like if you're evaluatingsomething, even if anything
(10:47):
affiliate, right, go to G2.
Used to be G2Crowd.
Go to g2.com.
Read the reviews there.
You'll learn a lot of stuff, likeyou'll find a limitation that you didn't
come across anywhere else in, in acomment or review on G2 or on Capterra.
There's one other one, right?
There's Capterra, there's G2,there's, there's a third one.
(11:11):
I can't think of name.
Deborah E (11:12):
It eludes me.
I'd have to go back in time.
Gail Gardner (11:13):
Yeah, but there's three places and they have extensive reviews.
They have video reviews and they haveall kinds of comments and rankings.
And so, yeah, but I think affiliatemarketing done well is, is legitimate
and it's good for everybody involved.
And you know, and then the other kindjust, you know, if you see a site
(11:37):
and it says top three, anythings.
Probably assume that's probablyone of those template, pick the
top three and don't go there.
Deborah E (11:45):
There you go.
And Tom, you brought up.
Some concerns on the Twitter Chat?
Tom Reid (11:52):
Well, it depends on whether we're talking about specifics of
a particular affiliate arrangementor affiliate marketing in general.
Um, there are some good matches.
There are some overlaps in, in the,and let's just use the email list.
That's not the only way, but theemail list that, that people might
(12:12):
share and say, Hey, my good friend,so and so has got this great product.
I've seen it.
It works.
If, if they are onsimilar paths in terms of.
A high potential for overlap ofinterest between two separate
mailing lists that can work.
And I've seen numbers andpeople have promoted that.
I've dabbled in a little bit myself.
(12:33):
I've got, um, I have a subscriptionwith, um, an author network and they
have all kinds of resources that I'veused extensively from little animations
that, that have my book cover and,and all kinds of stock photos that
I can put my, my book in it, youknow, just good, good resources.
(12:54):
And I got in early and it's,you know, it's a good deal.
And they've, they approached meand said, Hey, would you like to
join the affiliate marketing forour, our next big package sale?
And, and I tried it a bit, but the truthis, while I may have some, some authors
that, that follow me or I follow themin the, the Twitter world, excuse me,
my email list is focused on governmentcontracting and leadership and not
(13:20):
leadership writing so much as leadership.
Developing leaders.
And so I had no success.
I literally none came out of that.
So that made me think it through a littlemore thoroughly and say, well, who would
I know that would have a list I could use?
Ironically, in my market.
Having been around as long asI've been around, nobody compares.
(13:44):
My list is probablythe best one out there.
And when I've chatted with othersabout that, just exploring and
say, Hey, you know, I, have youever done any affiliate marketing?
I get this, I've heard of that, but Ireally don't know anything about it.
You know, I wouldn't want to do anything.
It's like, well, you know, that's notgoing to be a productive arrangement.
So what I've also experiencedis on the reception end of it.
(14:07):
I may be on six different people'slists because I think each one
offers something different.
And then something comes up andI get this, Hey, don't you think
you would benefit from this?
My friend, Joe does this.
And within an hour, I get anothermessage from one of the other six.
It says, Hey, my friend,Joe is just put out.
And I ended up withfive different messages.
(14:29):
over the same dang thing, which by theway, I have no interest in to begin with.
And so what's happened is in a coupleof those cases, like, okay, these are
clearly redundant, delete, delete, delete.
And I, I get off the list.
So I think there is some long termdamage that can be done to your brand
if you aren't really careful about it.
I think the bulk of the peopledoing it are not careful about it.
(14:52):
And so while I can agree that the conceptmakes sense and it is good marketing
approach, if executed properly, myexperience on both sides of that says
this really isn't something I'm goingto dig into, I could make, I can do
better marketing myself in ways otherthan affiliate marketing, because who
else has a list that has a concentrationof the people that I market to?
Deborah E (15:16):
That makes sense.
Gail Gardner (15:18):
That, that seems odd that that would happen though,
because if I were wanting tosend something to someone's list.
I wouldn't send it to a bunch of rel, youknow, related lists all at the same time.
Deborah E (15:34):
I see that a lot.
Gail Gardner (15:35):
I mean, I think
Deborah E (15:36):
I do, I'll get like six different people send the same
thing all in a row in my email.
Yeah.
Gail Gardner (15:42):
Well, yeah.
If they're, okay, so if it's somekind of big push for Black Friday or
something, maybe, but what, but ingeneral, though, it would make more sense
for, like, one to send it on in Januaryand another one to send it in March and
another one to send it in May, right?
Because, because you'regonna have that overlap.
Tom Reid (16:05):
Well, and Gail, I agree with you completely.
Gail Gardner (16:06):
Then they should realize the overlap.
Deborah E (16:10):
I think they don't realize it because it's like one
person, like for instance, in thePLR market, everybody seems to know
everybody seems to know everybody.
So one person will say, Hey, I'm going tohave this little thing about puppy dogs.
I'm going to let you know thatnext week we're going to have this
little PLR all about puppy dogs.
Oh, great.
We're going to do it about puppy dogs.
And all of these 10 people, . Sendit out to all of their lists
(16:30):
about the puppy dog PLR.
And it just so happens that I knowall of those 10 people because they
normally sell things about kitty cats.
So all on their lists about kittycats, I get the email that says,
Oh, this week, we're going tohave this PLR from this wonderful
person over here about puppy dogs.
And so I get 10 emails.
that's normally about kitty cats,different kitty cats, because there are
(16:50):
10 different kitty cats, but now we havethis thing about the 10 same puppy dogs.
It's like, all right, I got it.
I got it.
I also heard about the puppy dogsbecause I also know the gal that
knows the puppy dogs and that's how itends up always being the same email.
Gail Gardner (17:06):
Yeah, that would be a problem.
We should, we shouldstrive not to do that.
Tom Reid (17:10):
Conceptually, I agree with what you're saying.
I just feel that as it's executed,that's really poorly done.
And it's, it's rare to findthe one that seems successful.
And of course, that's the one you hearabout, you know, one time, two people
got together and really did a good jobof it and had a success and they go, you
know, we made 10, 000 sales because great.
(17:31):
I'm happy for you.
It's not my thing.
Gail Gardner (17:36):
Yeah, but to do it all at once in the same niche,
you're going to dilute your results.
Tom Reid (17:40):
Exactly.
And that's how I see it.
Gail Gardner (17:42):
That's why you shouldn't do it that way.
Tom Reid (17:44):
Agreed.
It's bad execution.
Deborah E (17:45):
And some don't.
Like, for instance, I was, I wasthinking about a, um, this came
up Black Friday, unrelated, butI was thinking about a coupon.
I looked at it on a dashboard thingI had and the coupon was Ileane,
Miss Ileane, as in Miss Ileane Smith.
And the coupon was that, and I thoughtthat was a program that was set
up just for her, only her, becausenot everybody's name is Ileane.
(18:07):
And that, that would be an example,Gail, you know, where obviously only that
one went out for Miss Ileane and maybe,you know, more affiliate marketers.
...where not affiliate marketers, butthe, the parent company should be doing
that where it's like, Hey, we're goingto have this, but we're only going to
have it for this particular affiliatemarketer who happens to have 10, 000
(18:29):
people on their list or whatever.
This is a special coupon at thistime for this puppy dog this week,
and we'll do something over for thisperson, this puppy dog in two weeks,
you know, with this special deal.
Is that feasible?
Gail Gardner (18:46):
Yeah, I mean, they have, they control the timing.
When that happens, that is the personthat's making the deal to send it
to a list that made that error.
Because the guy who owns each list maynot have any idea that he's doing that.
Deborah E (19:06):
Maybe that's something someone at the parent
company is not thinking about.
That they're flooding the market andthen they're not getting Apparently.
Because they could have, youknow, if they do that, they might
get multiple puppy dogs sold.
If they actually spread it out.
Tom Reid (19:22):
Well, let me, let me pose it from a little different angle, too.
We still make jokes about the Nigerianprince, and the reason we make the jokes
is because people, people are stilltaken in by it, and, and the point is
that no matter how often we joke aboutit or talk about it or warn people about
it, somebody's going to give into it.
And that's the reason why theNigerian Prince emails keep
(19:45):
showing up because they work.
And so to some degree, affiliatemarketing, and maybe I'm making
a bad comparison to the NigerianPrince in this process, but, but
I think you understand my analogyhere in that the reason affiliate
marketing can work and will continueis because it can be well executed.
I just don't think it is.
I think too many of them areNigerian-Prince-like more than credible
(20:10):
affiliate marketing arrangements.
Gail Gardner (20:12):
Well, affiliate marketing has a serious problem that if you're
on the buyer's end, you have no clue.
And that is that there are a whole lotof ways to steal people's commissions.
And so.
If you were a serious affiliate marketer,you could have a serious problem because
(20:33):
there are sites that overwrite the code.
Like let's say I give one of you mycode and you go to buy something and you
click on my link, but you have somethinginstalled like a free toolbar or a free
tool of some kind, or some hacker typeperson put something in your browser.
(20:55):
And even though you clicked onmy link, I don't get the credit.
It goes, the credit goes to someone else.
And so there's that problem.
It's the same thing.
Like if you're an ecommerce store,you have an advertising problem.
If you have listings on a shopping site.
Like Google shopping and you have,you're paying per click on Google
(21:16):
ads and you're on comparison sites.
The same buyer could click on your ad andthen go check the prices on some other
site on Google shopping and then go checkthe reviews on some comparison site.
And you're actually paying forthat same customer four times.
(21:37):
And when that happens, youbetter be selling them something
expensive or you just lost money.
Deborah E (21:44):
Wow.
Gail Gardner (21:50):
Yeah.
And we've got a lot of thosethings now where I'm all the time.
Something's trying to get me to installsome toolbar, CitiBank or some, some bank.
Deborah E (22:00):
Capital capital
Gail Gardner (22:01):
Capital One.
Deborah E (22:02):
Yeah.
Gail Gardner (22:04):
Right.
So those kinds of things, I have afeeling steal the affiliate commissions.
I don't know that that one does, butI know that there are some that do.
Deborah E (22:17):
Yeah.
That one's always trying tocheck to see if like Amazon's
the lowest or eBay or yeah.
It's always checkingthe prices everywhere.
Gail Gardner (22:25):
Right, so if you install that in your browser, it could do lots
of stuff and you wouldn't know it.
Mm hmm.
You don't, you, unless you're aprogrammer, you don't know what
anything you have installed is doing.
Deborah E (22:36):
And we're not all honest as far as, if I hear about something and I
know someone's an affiliate and even ifI'm an affiliate, if they told me about it
first, I want them to get the commission.
So I'll contact them and say,could you please check and make
sure you got the commission?
Cause I went and purchased this andyou should get the commission because
you told me about it first, but Idoubt that, that everybody does that.
Gail Gardner (22:57):
Definitely not.
Yeah.
Like everything else, it gets complicated.
But, but if you're going to be agood marketer, you need to have wise
strategies and blasting it to a bunchof related lists with this, with a
similar overlap is not a good idea.
That's a good point.
Tom's right about that.
Deborah E (23:18):
Well, Hey, you know what, we've come up on the hour and this
time I'm actually remembering toask you Gail to mention what we're
talking about tomorrow on Tip Talk.
Gail Gardner (23:28):
You know, I don't know because we changed directions
again and now we are, we are tryingto associate the TipTalks with
what happened at Small Biz Fluence.
So actually this challenge this monthis overcoming your fear of failure.
(23:48):
All right.
Well, I still want to invitepeople that aren't already
members to join us at bizsugar.
com forward slash mastermind.
Doesn't cost anything.
You can come ask any question.
You can share your experiences.
And if I don't know the answer,I know somebody that does.
So I would really like us to inviteall the small business people and
(24:10):
freelancers and agencies to come andbe active there because it really
can be a very valuable resource.
Deborah E (24:17):
There's a lot of people there.
I've known for what, 10years now, 11, 12 years.
Gail Gardner (24:22):
Uh, 12, 13, 14.
The years are flying by.
Deborah E (24:26):
So yeah, a lot of, a lot of good people there.
Even, even they pop in or gonefor three weeks, come back.
There's just a, it'sgreat community there.
So, so yes, I second that.
And with that, thank you for tuning in.
Those of you watching us on YouTube and,um, we'll be streaming in other places.
Uh, we're adding things, butI won't bore you right now.
(24:47):
You can catch us next week,same place, same time.
And we'll see you in other places.
Weeks go on.
Thank you.
Martin Lindeskog (24:54):
Thank you.
Gail Gardner (24:55):
Bye.
Michael Anderson (24:55):
Don't forget to subscribe and join
us at 5:30 PM Pacific Time.
Deborah E (25:00):
If you'd like to participate live.
Visit us at socialcafechat.comfor more information.
Welcome to Social Web Cafe's Social Cafe Interactive.
Deborah E (00:07):
This week we are talking about affiliate marketing.
We're on season 12 and episode 49.
Michael Anderson (00:16):
The immersive event that was born from the geeky
entertainment mind of Deborah E.
And it bloomed into a web show, apodcast, also propelling her to be
recognized as a global influencer invideo podcasting and all this continuing
to be the number one jazz singer in LA.
(00:38):
So
Deborah E (00:42):
welcome Gail, welcome Martin and Affiliate Marketing.
That's kind of an old topic andyet it could be a new topic,
depending on how you look at it.
Hey, I have a question for you guys.
One that I don't think I put in the chat.
What is your projection for 2024?
Do you think this is stillgoing to be a popular thing?
(01:03):
Do you think affiliate marketing willkind of die out or do you think it'll
just keep going like it always has?
Gail Gardner (01:13):
Well, it's lasted this long.
I don't think it's going away.
Google sometimes makes it harderand people quit, but then they
find some other way to get traffic.
And
Deborah E (01:24):
so you think if it kind of goes up and down and, and it's got its
ebbs and flows, it's just not, it's,I was going to say, for some reason, I
was going to say it's like toilet paper.
It's still, I don't know whythat came to mind, but it's
like, there's always a need.
Gail Gardner (01:37):
So before, before we met.
Right.
Affiliate marketing was big.
I knew people that were making sixfigures because Google gave their content
traffic and then one day Google kind oftook all the traffic away and so their
sales tanked and some of them had totake on other jobs or work and, but,
(02:01):
but there are still people that makebig money with affiliate marketing.
Most of the people I know, they just have.
You know, they'll, they'll have alink for something they actually use,
or they'll have a page on their siteabout these are the things I use.
And here's my links.
And then if I mean, no pressure, likethey're not actually affiliate marketers,
(02:21):
they're people who do something who happento have a few affiliate links or maybe
a lot of affiliate links, but their,their primary focus isn't affiliate.
Deborah E (02:31):
It's kind of complimentary to whatever they're doing.
Like, Hey, this is what I do, but.
This is something else that I sellthat also goes with what I'm doing.
This is a definition of complimentary.
I just
Gail Gardner (02:43):
Right.
So Kristi Hines has a really goodpage of like 200 great affiliate
programs for bloggers to look at.
And so if you go to, Ithink it's at kristihines.
com, just put in affiliateprograms and she has a page and
it's got all the programs on it.
Deborah E (03:01):
So you do like, affiliate programs, in quotes,
site, colon, kristihines.
com, in your Googlesearch, and there you go.
Gail Gardner (03:10):
Yeah, I don't think you have to get that fancy with it.
Deborah E (03:12):
I'm a geek, what can I say?
I
Gail Gardner (03:16):
mean, if it's hard to find, that would be one way, but I
don't think it's hard to find there.
Deborah E (03:21):
Welcome, Tom.
Welcome.
And I want to come back.
I love the stuff that you weresaying in the Twitter chat, the
controversial aspect of affiliatemarketing, but pop over to Martin.
Martin was putting his thumbs up onthe, you think affiliate marketing
will be going strong in 2024?
Martin Lindeskog (03:40):
Yes.
If it's provided any value, it will.
So if you could save money on goodstuff and you could earn money.
And live a good life, use good products.
Gail Gardner (03:57):
I think it's more valuable for S A A S because like
some, some products are so complicatedthat even people that use them
don't know how to use everything.
And so I think there's a lot ofroom for like an SEO type person
could, could have post after post onfeatures in SEM rush, for example.
(04:20):
On how to use it, because I don'tthink most people that have a SEMrush
subscription have a clue what it does.
They, they have a couple ofthings they do, and they don't
know all the other stuff.
And so I think that there's a lot ofvalue if you actually use something
and you can actually provide, like,step by step instructions, how to
(04:41):
do something or, or an overviewof this is why I have this tool.
And this is what it does for me.
You know, some actualapplications of the tool.
I think that that's valuable.
And if I'm looking for something and I'mreading your post and you give me the most
information about it, I, why should I mindif you get a small, small commission after
(05:02):
you did all that stuff that helped you.
Deborah E (05:04):
So like Ann Smarty should be recommending, you know, SEM Rush.
Gail Gardner (05:10):
Right.
Yeah.
So anything that, that youwant to, anything you actually
use, the, the problem withaffiliate marketing is all these.
Top three, whatever's posts online,where they just picked the two, the three
that pay the best and ranked them by howmuch they get paid commission, right?
(05:32):
There is no value to that,except to the person who did it.
It is like hostingcompanies is a common one.
You don't have any ideawhether those are good or bad.
All you know, is.
That, you know, that, that guyrecommended those three, but there
are some real affiliate program sitesfor hosting where they actually test
(05:54):
the hosts and they have a graph and itsays uptime, outages, speed, you know,
and, and they rank them by, do theyhave their, their servers overloaded?
And is that slowing down your site?
Right?
So there is, there are valuable, you know,Um, like a hosting related website where
they actually tested a bunch of hosts.
Deborah E (06:16):
It's like having KPIs.
Gail Gardner (06:19):
Yeah, right.
But those sites where it says top three,whatever, I don't trust those because I
don't believe those are the top three.
I think those are the topthree that pay the best.
Deborah E (06:31):
What about the sites that I've seen somewhere, for instance, and I
know I'm not picking on Riverside, it'sjust easy to say Riverside because we're
actually recording this on Riverside.
No, I'm not.
I, okay.
I'm an affiliate of Riverside, butI can't remember what my link is.
Um, but for instance, Riversidewould put out an article.
I think they do have an article likethis where they'll say, The best places
(06:53):
to, host your, your, you know, likewhat we're doing, your live stream and
they'll actually list themselves andthey won't put themselves at the top.
They'll actually putthemselves at the bottom.
I've seen several different companiesdo this and they'll, they'll list
other companies and they will actuallyevaluate the different features.
They'll come up with kind of like KPIsand they'll, it'll be a thoughtful.
(07:18):
I've seen several different articleslike that where the, the company
that is hosting the article willput themselves at the bottom.
Um, or, or even if they put them at thetop, it's, it's actually well thought out.
It's not like they put abias towards themselves.
What do you think of those, Gail?
And then Martin, yeah, I wantedto hear, obviously, Martin
(07:40):
and Tom, your thoughts too.
I'm just sitting with Gail, brought up.
Gail Gardner (07:43):
No, go ahead and let, let Martin say something.
Julie was messaging meand I was answering.
Martin Lindeskog (07:48):
Uh, and I seen that and I think that's pretty okay, but
I, many of them are pretty same thing.
So I, I said, as Gail is sayingthat you're doing it in a
personal way, I'm using this.
That's a good, good thing, but Ithink that's good and it's good for
SEO and it's good for having a list.
You could find some otherand getting curious.
(08:11):
What's that service?
I have, I have found thatthanks to a blog post like that.
Deborah E (08:18):
Do you think it's a, it's a buyer beware kind of thing where you
look at, Hey, are they really evaluatingthe KPIs or the, the met, you know,
Martin Lindeskog (08:26):
And the same thing with KPI and others.
I mean, at least in Sweden, lotsof regular hosting companies, they
have all these kinds of lists.
Gail Gardner (08:35):
Right.
So, so yes, it's going to beworse now because of AI, right?
So now anybody who knows nothingabout anything can regurgitate.
Basically kind of copies of 10 compiled,whatevers that AI is doing, right.
And publish, but generallyspeaking, hopefully people get wise.
(08:58):
They can, they can recognize AI,AI tends to be repetitive, right?
So if you see content that sayssuch and such, blah, blah, blah,
such and such, blah, blah, blah,such and such, blah, blah, blah.
If you see that, you know, thatan AI generated that and you have
to like interact with the person.
Like, you have to know it's a real person.
(09:20):
If you see someone that you know,and they have published something,
hopefully, even if the AI generated it,they at least made sure it was right.
But if you see some random site,and you don't know who that
person is, I would not believe.
AI apparently makes stuff up.
AI is not an accurateway to generate content.
(09:43):
At least not now.
And so it is always buyer bewareand people are always a little,
are always a little biased.
There's no way to be not biased, right?
If you had a hosting company and youhad a bad experience, you may be down on
them, you know, but sometimes things fail.
And then.
(10:04):
You know, you may have a hostingcompany, you would never personally had
a bad experience, so you think they'reokay, but there's a zillion negative
reviews of people that had reallybad experiences with that company.
And so, you know, you always have to read.
It's like when I, when I evaluateproducts, I go to Amazon, I read
(10:25):
all the negative reviews first.
Then I read the positive reviews and ifsomebody's just blasting something, I'll
go read their other reviews because a lotof times people that just like to bash,
all the reviews are pretty much bashand you know that person you can ignore.
Right, right, right.
So it's like if you're evaluatingsomething, even if anything
(10:47):
affiliate, right, go to G2.
Used to be G2Crowd.
Go to g2.com.
Read the reviews there.
You'll learn a lot of stuff, likeyou'll find a limitation that you didn't
come across anywhere else in, in acomment or review on G2 or on Capterra.
There's one other one, right?
There's Capterra, there's G2,there's, there's a third one.
(11:11):
I can't think of name.
Deborah E (11:12):
It eludes me.
I'd have to go back in time.
Gail Gardner (11:13):
Yeah, but there's three places and they have extensive reviews.
They have video reviews and they haveall kinds of comments and rankings.
And so, yeah, but I think affiliatemarketing done well is, is legitimate
and it's good for everybody involved.
And you know, and then the other kindjust, you know, if you see a site
(11:37):
and it says top three, anythings.
Probably assume that's probablyone of those template, pick the
top three and don't go there.
Deborah E (11:45):
There you go.
And Tom, you brought up.
Some concerns on the Twitter Chat?
Tom Reid (11:52):
Well, it depends on whether we're talking about specifics of
a particular affiliate arrangementor affiliate marketing in general.
Um, there are some good matches.
There are some overlaps in, in the,and let's just use the email list.
That's not the only way, but theemail list that, that people might
(12:12):
share and say, Hey, my good friend,so and so has got this great product.
I've seen it.
It works.
If, if they are onsimilar paths in terms of.
A high potential for overlap ofinterest between two separate
mailing lists that can work.
And I've seen numbers andpeople have promoted that.
I've dabbled in a little bit myself.
(12:33):
I've got, um, I have a subscriptionwith, um, an author network and they
have all kinds of resources that I'veused extensively from little animations
that, that have my book cover and,and all kinds of stock photos that
I can put my, my book in it, youknow, just good, good resources.
(12:54):
And I got in early and it's,you know, it's a good deal.
And they've, they approached meand said, Hey, would you like to
join the affiliate marketing forour, our next big package sale?
And, and I tried it a bit, but the truthis, while I may have some, some authors
that, that follow me or I follow themin the, the Twitter world, excuse me,
my email list is focused on governmentcontracting and leadership and not
(13:20):
leadership writing so much as leadership.
Developing leaders.
And so I had no success.
I literally none came out of that.
So that made me think it through a littlemore thoroughly and say, well, who would
I know that would have a list I could use?
Ironically, in my market.
Having been around as long asI've been around, nobody compares.
(13:44):
My list is probablythe best one out there.
And when I've chatted with othersabout that, just exploring and
say, Hey, you know, I, have youever done any affiliate marketing?
I get this, I've heard of that, but Ireally don't know anything about it.
You know, I wouldn't want to do anything.
It's like, well, you know, that's notgoing to be a productive arrangement.
So what I've also experiencedis on the reception end of it.
(14:07):
I may be on six different people'slists because I think each one
offers something different.
And then something comes up andI get this, Hey, don't you think
you would benefit from this?
My friend, Joe does this.
And within an hour, I get anothermessage from one of the other six.
It says, Hey, my friend,Joe is just put out.
And I ended up withfive different messages.
(14:29):
over the same dang thing, which by theway, I have no interest in to begin with.
And so what's happened is in a coupleof those cases, like, okay, these are
clearly redundant, delete, delete, delete.
And I, I get off the list.
So I think there is some long termdamage that can be done to your brand
if you aren't really careful about it.
I think the bulk of the peopledoing it are not careful about it.
(14:52):
And so while I can agree that the conceptmakes sense and it is good marketing
approach, if executed properly, myexperience on both sides of that says
this really isn't something I'm goingto dig into, I could make, I can do
better marketing myself in ways otherthan affiliate marketing, because who
else has a list that has a concentrationof the people that I market to?
Deborah E (15:16):
That makes sense.
Gail Gardner (15:18):
That, that seems odd that that would happen though,
because if I were wanting tosend something to someone's list.
I wouldn't send it to a bunch of rel, youknow, related lists all at the same time.
Deborah E (15:34):
I see that a lot.
Gail Gardner (15:35):
I mean, I think
Deborah E (15:36):
I do, I'll get like six different people send the same
thing all in a row in my email.
Yeah.
Gail Gardner (15:42):
Well, yeah.
If they're, okay, so if it's somekind of big push for Black Friday or
something, maybe, but what, but ingeneral, though, it would make more sense
for, like, one to send it on in Januaryand another one to send it in March and
another one to send it in May, right?
Because, because you'regonna have that overlap.
Tom Reid (16:05):
Well, and Gail, I agree with you completely.
Gail Gardner (16:06):
Then they should realize the overlap.
Deborah E (16:10):
I think they don't realize it because it's like one
person, like for instance, in thePLR market, everybody seems to know
everybody seems to know everybody.
So one person will say, Hey, I'm going tohave this little thing about puppy dogs.
I'm going to let you know thatnext week we're going to have this
little PLR all about puppy dogs.
Oh, great.
We're going to do it about puppy dogs.
And all of these 10 people, . Sendit out to all of their lists
(16:30):
about the puppy dog PLR.
And it just so happens that I knowall of those 10 people because they
normally sell things about kitty cats.
So all on their lists about kittycats, I get the email that says,
Oh, this week, we're going tohave this PLR from this wonderful
person over here about puppy dogs.
And so I get 10 emails.
that's normally about kitty cats,different kitty cats, because there are
(16:50):
10 different kitty cats, but now we havethis thing about the 10 same puppy dogs.
It's like, all right, I got it.
I got it.
I also heard about the puppy dogsbecause I also know the gal that
knows the puppy dogs and that's how itends up always being the same email.
Gail Gardner (17:06):
Yeah, that would be a problem.
We should, we shouldstrive not to do that.
Tom Reid (17:10):
Conceptually, I agree with what you're saying.
I just feel that as it's executed,that's really poorly done.
And it's, it's rare to findthe one that seems successful.
And of course, that's the one you hearabout, you know, one time, two people
got together and really did a good jobof it and had a success and they go, you
know, we made 10, 000 sales because great.
(17:31):
I'm happy for you.
It's not my thing.
Gail Gardner (17:36):
Yeah, but to do it all at once in the same niche,
you're going to dilute your results.
Tom Reid (17:40):
Exactly.
And that's how I see it.
Gail Gardner (17:42):
That's why you shouldn't do it that way.
Tom Reid (17:44):
Agreed.
It's bad execution.
Deborah E (17:45):
And some don't.
Like, for instance, I was, I wasthinking about a, um, this came
up Black Friday, unrelated, butI was thinking about a coupon.
I looked at it on a dashboard thingI had and the coupon was Ileane,
Miss Ileane, as in Miss Ileane Smith.
And the coupon was that, and I thoughtthat was a program that was set
up just for her, only her, becausenot everybody's name is Ileane.
(18:07):
And that, that would be an example,Gail, you know, where obviously only that
one went out for Miss Ileane and maybe,you know, more affiliate marketers.
...where not affiliate marketers, butthe, the parent company should be doing
that where it's like, Hey, we're goingto have this, but we're only going to
have it for this particular affiliatemarketer who happens to have 10, 000
(18:29):
people on their list or whatever.
This is a special coupon at thistime for this puppy dog this week,
and we'll do something over for thisperson, this puppy dog in two weeks,
you know, with this special deal.
Is that feasible?
Gail Gardner (18:46):
Yeah, I mean, they have, they control the timing.
When that happens, that is the personthat's making the deal to send it
to a list that made that error.
Because the guy who owns each list maynot have any idea that he's doing that.
Deborah E (19:06):
Maybe that's something someone at the parent
company is not thinking about.
That they're flooding the market andthen they're not getting Apparently.
Because they could have, youknow, if they do that, they might
get multiple puppy dogs sold.
If they actually spread it out.
Tom Reid (19:22):
Well, let me, let me pose it from a little different angle, too.
We still make jokes about the Nigerianprince, and the reason we make the jokes
is because people, people are stilltaken in by it, and, and the point is
that no matter how often we joke aboutit or talk about it or warn people about
it, somebody's going to give into it.
And that's the reason why theNigerian Prince emails keep
(19:45):
showing up because they work.
And so to some degree, affiliatemarketing, and maybe I'm making
a bad comparison to the NigerianPrince in this process, but, but
I think you understand my analogyhere in that the reason affiliate
marketing can work and will continueis because it can be well executed.
I just don't think it is.
I think too many of them areNigerian-Prince-like more than credible
(20:10):
affiliate marketing arrangements.
Gail Gardner (20:12):
Well, affiliate marketing has a serious problem that if you're
on the buyer's end, you have no clue.
And that is that there are a whole lotof ways to steal people's commissions.
And so.
If you were a serious affiliate marketer,you could have a serious problem because
(20:33):
there are sites that overwrite the code.
Like let's say I give one of you mycode and you go to buy something and you
click on my link, but you have somethinginstalled like a free toolbar or a free
tool of some kind, or some hacker typeperson put something in your browser.
(20:55):
And even though you clicked onmy link, I don't get the credit.
It goes, the credit goes to someone else.
And so there's that problem.
It's the same thing.
Like if you're an ecommerce store,you have an advertising problem.
If you have listings on a shopping site.
Like Google shopping and you have,you're paying per click on Google
(21:16):
ads and you're on comparison sites.
The same buyer could click on your ad andthen go check the prices on some other
site on Google shopping and then go checkthe reviews on some comparison site.
And you're actually paying forthat same customer four times.
(21:37):
And when that happens, youbetter be selling them something
expensive or you just lost money.
Deborah E (21:44):
Wow.
Gail Gardner (21:50):
Yeah.
And we've got a lot of thosethings now where I'm all the time.
Something's trying to get me to installsome toolbar, CitiBank or some, some bank.
Deborah E (22:00):
Capital capital
Gail Gardner (22:01):
Capital One.
Deborah E (22:02):
Yeah.
Gail Gardner (22:04):
Right.
So those kinds of things, I have afeeling steal the affiliate commissions.
I don't know that that one does, butI know that there are some that do.
Deborah E (22:17):
Yeah.
That one's always trying tocheck to see if like Amazon's
the lowest or eBay or yeah.
It's always checkingthe prices everywhere.
Gail Gardner (22:25):
Right, so if you install that in your browser, it could do lots
of stuff and you wouldn't know it.
Mm hmm.
You don't, you, unless you're aprogrammer, you don't know what
anything you have installed is doing.
Deborah E (22:36):
And we're not all honest as far as, if I hear about something and I
know someone's an affiliate and even ifI'm an affiliate, if they told me about it
first, I want them to get the commission.
So I'll contact them and say,could you please check and make
sure you got the commission?
Cause I went and purchased this andyou should get the commission because
you told me about it first, but Idoubt that, that everybody does that.
Gail Gardner (22:57):
Definitely not.
Yeah.
Like everything else, it gets complicated.
But, but if you're going to be agood marketer, you need to have wise
strategies and blasting it to a bunchof related lists with this, with a
similar overlap is not a good idea.
That's a good point.
Tom's right about that.
Deborah E (23:18):
Well, Hey, you know what, we've come up on the hour and this
time I'm actually remembering toask you Gail to mention what we're
talking about tomorrow on Tip Talk.
Gail Gardner (23:28):
You know, I don't know because we changed directions
again and now we are, we are tryingto associate the TipTalks with
what happened at Small Biz Fluence.
So actually this challenge this monthis overcoming your fear of failure.
(23:48):
All right.
Well, I still want to invitepeople that aren't already
members to join us at bizsugar.
com forward slash mastermind.
Doesn't cost anything.
You can come ask any question.
You can share your experiences.
And if I don't know the answer,I know somebody that does.
So I would really like us to inviteall the small business people and
(24:10):
freelancers and agencies to come andbe active there because it really
can be a very valuable resource.
Deborah E (24:17):
There's a lot of people there.
I've known for what, 10years now, 11, 12 years.
Gail Gardner (24:22):
Uh, 12, 13, 14.
The years are flying by.
Deborah E (24:26):
So yeah, a lot of, a lot of good people there.
Even, even they pop in or gonefor three weeks, come back.
There's just a, it'sgreat community there.
So, so yes, I second that.
And with that, thank you for tuning in.
Those of you watching us on YouTube and,um, we'll be streaming in other places.
Uh, we're adding things, butI won't bore you right now.
(24:47):
You can catch us next week,same place, same time.
And we'll see you in other places.
Weeks go on.
Thank you.
Martin Lindeskog (24:54):
Thank you.
Gail Gardner (24:55):
Bye.
Michael Anderson (24:55):
Don't forget to subscribe and join
us at 5:30 PM Pacific Time.
Deborah E (25:00):
If you'd like to participate live.
Visit us at socialcafechat.comfor more information.
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