Affiliate Marketing Now Less Effective?

Interesting article on Marketing Vox about the effectiveness of affiliate marketing. I have suspected for a long time that managed affiliate marketing programs work for 10% of merchants and are a waste of money for the rest. According to this article, I was correct. Last year, 15% of etailers had 10,000 or more affiliates; that number has dropped to 9% for this year. The firms that do run affiliate marketing programs are getting more out of a limited pool of affiliates. They are also seeing significant conversions into sales from traffic generated by these choice affiliates; some as high as 5%.

So the lessons learned from all this? Do not put a whole lot of money into large managed affiliate programs. Rather, focus your energy on a small number of highly qualified traffic sources. If you nurture these sources and generate loyalty, you could see some pretty good conversions down the line. Don’t expect it to happen overnight though. Affiliate marketing programs take at least six months to develop. If you want quick results, you should turn to blog marketing.