Here's what's wrong with Affiliate Marketing for the small guy

Over the years I've seen, signed up for or worked quite a few affiliate marketing programs with varying results.

Amazon, Ebay, Diet Pills, Health Products, Music, Travel and so on and so on.



Affiliate marketing on the surface for the average publisher is flawed in so many ways that it's almost like it's a front for free banner advertising.

Most affiliate programs are not set up for small publishers to actually make any money, and here's how you can tell:

1. The Tools Suck
   
   Most affiliate programs pretty much consist of banners and that's it. A new affiliate will never make any money with these tools and the programs have to know this. In all my years of doing this it is amazing that anyone who is serious about having affiliates direct sales to them hasn't created better tools for them to do so. It's as if they don't really want you to succeed.


2. The Rules Suck
   
   Most programs frown on you creating your own tools without special permission. However a new publisher will never get special permission. Larger/Super affiliates get all the best tools, and permissions. The people who run programs know they are treating smaller publishers this way, but they don't care.


3. Communication is almost non existent.
   
   I've had a few affiliate managers reach out to me, but for the most part communications to affiliate managers go unanswered. Even though they send you the latest promotions frequently, good luck getting a question answered about promoting it. Most times as an affiliate you are on your own to read the rules and implement your own creativity on promotion as long as you don't break the rules on keyword bidding, spamming, trademark violations and so on. Trust me, they'll start talking to you when you start driving sales.


4. The payouts are horrible.
   
   It goes without saying that affiliate payouts aren't what they used to be. You have to read the fine print to truly understand what you get paid on and how much. While some are straight forward, others fluctuate payouts and many times special promotions aren't included in payouts at all. It's just free advertising for them if you put those banners on your site.

So why do I ( and others) keep doing it? Because if you know your way around the rules, and have a good marketing plan in place you can still make money at it. Once you've proven yourself as a sales driver, you can renegotiate a better deal..and THAT should be the goal of every affiliate marketer. Not the deal that everyone gets, your own deal based on what you deliver. But you have to take the crap payments for a while before you can get there.