Earlier this week, my friend Bryan Eisenberg Tweeted a link to a ClickZ article he authored a year ago, the gist of which may be boiled down to this quote:
If you just set it and forget it you can also kiss your money goodbye.
He started talking about paid search advertising, moving on (to discuss the need for marketers’ agility) to online marketing overall [see the full article here].
The kiss-your-money-goodbye thought/conclusion resonated powerfully with me. I’ve been talking about about this repeatedly in my speeches and articles, and mainly as it applies to affiliate marketing programs and affiliate marketers. Here are just a few reasons why neither advertisers (or those who manage their affiliate programs), nor affiliates can afford to stay passive:
Merchants & Affiliate Managers
When launching an affiliate program you are putting your most valuable asset on the frontline — your brand. To avoid brand damage you must know precisely how your brand is being represented by affiliates. Additionally, to avoid cannibalization of your own marketing efforts by affiliates, you must know how exactly you’re being promoted by your affiliates. Finally, to avoid the “rotten apples” (which, as we all know, can “spoil the whole barrel”), you want to proactively monitor affiliates’ activity as well, weeding out those that don’t belong.
Affiliate Marketers
A couple of years ago in an article entitled The Top 4 Reasons Why ‘Passive Income’ Is A Dangerous Fantasy Michael Ellsberg listed this as the #1 reason: “you can’t stay ahead of competition passively.”
Per Merriam-Webster’s disctionary the very word “proactive” means “acting in anticipation of future problems, needs, or changes.” Due to the dynamic and constantly evolving nature of Internet marketing it is not possible to build a 100% secure passive income stream. To succeed (staying ahead of your competition) you have to put time (and effort) into it.
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Hi Geno,
I suspect agility is good advice in any business these days. But great advice none-the-less. Thanks so much for sharing these observations with the BizSugar community.
I think these days there are many lazy affiliate managers who are not willing to cooperate with their affiliates! I saw last time some merchants on shareasale who didn’t update their expired banners & adds since 2010!!! They even do not respond to emails if you ask them to help you,or if you want to discuss with them a new promotion way!!!
I think this kind of non paying attention on how is your brand being promoted,and that much of careless will definitely lead to reduce that brand’s chances to stay ahead of it’s competitors.
Thanks
Hussam
Good (and unfortunately, very true) points, Hussam.
I agree Hussam. Just like there is a focus on ISPs bearing responsibility for copy right material, I think perhaps maybe credible affiliate networks like clickbank and commission junction should be responsible for managing affiliate offers as well. It’ll stop poor affiliate offers being dumped on the internet.