The CPA debate vs. Affiliate Programs

From: Pesach Lattin <info_at_adspyre.com>
Date: Fri 08 Feb 2002 09:29:48 -0500

[Note from Moderator: Pesach submitted this post and
I really didn't like it for a number of reasons... not
the least of which is that it seems rather elitist.
Nonetheless, this forum is here to express a multitude
of viewpoints, not just mine... so I'm passing it
through to the list, with some of my comments
interspersed in []'s, as a starting point for debate.
--Cliff]

    I think part of the problem with the CPA debate
is not so much that people disagree, but that it's a
confusion of what is a CPA vs. an "affiliate program."
Below is an unpublished rant of mine, that when fully
edited will appear in my newsletter in the near future.
It was something I wrote in the middle of the night
while considering this topic. Remember, when a lot of
marketers are talking about CPA, they aren't talking
about "affiliate programs."

[So what you are saying here Pesach is that your good
stuff will go in your pub, but you send your unedited and
non-spell checked "rants," composed in the middle of
the night, out to the 11,000+ readers of Online Ads?
Very thoughtful of you. As a courtesy to our readers,
I ran your post through a spell checker and corrected
the typos.]

--
     I found something on the net the other day from a
certain affiliate program site, and I thought I'd respond
briefly. It blows my mind the people who are dropping my
name nowadays _ even if they are attacking me.

     "While I was reading Marlon's book last night I kept
thinking of an angry man...Pesach Lattin. Pesach reckons
"no one" is making any serious money from affiliate
programs. Better informed people have jumped in to defend
affiliate marketing and talk about the money it generates,
but Pesach has his head stuck in the sand and won't listen.
I kept thinking last night, "Someone ought to send him
Marlon's new book. Then he'd understand how successful
affiliates earn their money."

    Then he goes on and offers to sell his book to the
people reading, at a "new lower cost." It amazes me the
people out there who continue to attempt to sell get-rich
schemes based on affiliate programs on the Internet. This
isn't the CPA vs CPM debate, but it's about opportunists
who attempt to convince site owners that it is in their
best interest to sign up for these revenue share programs
at commissionjunction.com and other similar programs. Let's
make it clear: affiliate programs are not for professional
marketers, or serious websites. No real "expert" in the
industry markets CPA programs. As Anne Holland, of
MarketingSherpa told me about affiliate programs, she
doesn't even address it because her audience is composed of
professionals and "vice-presidents" of major marketing
companies.

   Unfortunately for serious marketers and advertisers, we
are forced to continue hear about the "affiliate marketing"
craze from people who make ridiculous claims such as "one
person made $500,000 from amazon.com." I sincerely believe
that **none** of these stories are true, and this is just
another type "get rich fast" and "work from home" scheme
like those we find in the back of all the Tabloid magazines.
I have NEVER seen anyone reputable promote these programs,
or even discuss them positively except those who are trying
to sell a product, book or service. Ever single post that I
have read in the last few years that talk about "affiliate
programs" are written by the "gurus" who have a book to sell,
making claims that they have made "hundreds of thousands" of
dollars on affiliate programs _ yet they don't have enough
money to usually make a decent website. If they know so much
about making money from affiliate programs, why are they
trying to hawk their $29.95 self-published book, instead of
sitting back living the life of luxury.

[There is some truth in what Pesach says here, but me thinks
he protests too much. Is someone going to get rich by running
an affiliate program on their Web site? Not bloody likely.
Can they earn some decent supplemental income through an
affiliate program? Absolutely. During 1998 and 1999, our
Amazon.com affiliate store on year2000.com brought in
better than $100 a week in commissions, with about a 5%
conversion rate of visitors to the book store section of the
site into purchasers. Now $5000+ a year sure won't make
anyone or any company rich. As compared to other revenue
sources on that site it was a minor component. But, on the
other hand, don't you think that the employee maintaining the
site would have been pleased as punch to have received even
1/2 of that "extra" $5K as part of their year end bonus?
They would not have sneezed at it...

And additionally, there were good reasons to
run the affiliate program even if it had not yielded us
a cent. It provided a resource of great value to our
readers along with continually new content on our site.
When new books were added, we advised the 100,000+ readers
of our newsletter that they were available, and it was
yet another motivation for people to visit our content.

Then, of course, Pesach's viewpoint completely ignores
the merits of the value of offering an affiliate program
from the offer's point of view... surely Amazon, not to
mention others, makes a sound profit, measured in $$$ that
actually are significant to their business, by offering
their affiliate programs. [Amazon received the Tenagra
Award for Internet Marketing Excellence some years back
for this business model, and it still has merit.] Get a
lot of little guys to sell your stuff for you, and pay them
just enough to feel appreciated, and you can make serious
money by adding up the dollars from thousands of
affiliates. Learning how to go about doing that is
important to our readers... now back to Pesach's rant...]

   As anyone in the industry knows, if you want to run CPA
offers on your site, you work with the companies that you
feel are the best match to develop a profitable CPA-marketing
program. You don't sign up for a general marketing program
that is made for the geocities owner and then hope it converts.
No serious marketer does this, but we continue to have people
promoting in this industry that "affiliate programs" work in
order to ensnare people to buy their affiliate marketing
products. CPA programs are a "partnership," not an "affiliate
relationship."

[I agree with Pesach 100% on the above...]

I urge everyone to take a stand against this
growing trend of psuedo-experts who are reaping the benefits
by preying on desperate publishers who believe that their
books contain valuable information. These are the new-age
pyramid scheme experts, who hide behind real marketers and
advertising experts and have no business using this forum, or
any other professional advertising forum to hawk their wares.
I urge the forum moderator to prevent these people from ever
posting on this board again, because they are promoting
something that has NOTHING to do with online advertising, nor
has anything to do with marketing -- except to market their
own books, and promote their get-rich schemes. These people
need to remain the back of supermarket tabloids with the other
tricksters.

[The moderator will respectfully decline Pesach's urges...
while at the same time filtering out posts regarding MLM or
pyramid schemes that he views as off topic for this forum.]

Pesach Lattin
http://www.adbumb.com
#1 advertising newsletter for EXPERTS.
bumb_at_adbumb.com

--





Received on Fri Feb 08 2002 - 08:29:48 CST