Charles NGO says affiliate marketing is (almost) dead and not worth it in 2021

[Ron C]

Here's what he says:

Affiliate marketing isn’t dead yet, but it’s past its glory days. For the vast majority of people, it’s not worth entering the affiliate marketing industry in 2021.

A few things that he noticed:

• Affiliate networks have been quietly going out of business for the past several years.
  The joke used to be that there’s a new affiliate network popping up every week. Now it’s the opposite.
  
  
• There isn’t much conversation about affiliate marketing. Take the STM forum for example. STM’s always been a go-to place for talking about the industry. The level of activity there has dropped drastically over the past few years.
  (You could argue that it’s because there are more alternatives such as Facebook groups, Telegram, and Slack. But I believe the primary cause is the decline of the industry itself.)
  
  
• Not many people identify themselves as “super affiliates” anymore. I just looked through my Facebook friends list. Everyone’s in either eCommerce, cryptocurrency, investing, or running an agency. So many network owners and affiliate managers have moved on.
  
  
• There hasn’t been any innovation in years. There have always been new trends to hop on for affiliates. The industry went through phases with Nutra/skin trials, Facebook, mobile pops, adult dating, native ads, etc.

You can read the whole article here.

What do you guys think?

 

[tyoussef]

Hi Ron C.
I think affiliate will stay here, it's not going anywhere, but of course the old aggressive fake things will not work anymore.
But people are still making money in affiliate marketing.
as long as there is native traffic, and social traffic, and pop and domain redirect traffic you can still use that to promote anything.

yes eCommerce is stable, but CPA marketing is much stable that cryptocurrency

Don't worry don't panic, take advantage of the internet my friend, and CPA is still here as i can see.

 

[Graybeard]

This merchant has made a change to their default tracking gap.

Previous Tracking Gap Value: 60 Days
New Tracking Gap Value: 45 Days

These sort of things ... slippage (cloaked shaving) is just one problem.
I am trying to work with publicly traded gambling and sports betting.
Licensed and SEC records. Less cheating ...

Another problem is cookie tracking in general --too much slippage --the cookies are deleted or rejected as 3rd party

 

[T J Tutor]

Here's what he says:



A few things that he noticed:


You can read the whole article here.

What do you guys think?

I know Charles. We have not been in contact for a few years now, but we have had some conversations over the years, back in the "Hay Days". I understand where he is coming from. It has been a discussion he, I, and most in the "upper affiliate" indexes have had over the past 10 years. We saw declines before. This happened when Google started with algo's that were direct attacks on affiliates and such.

The affiliate industry is changing, absolutely. There have been huge discussions about declines here, as well as at STM where Matej "Matuloo" Cechvala hangs out and moderates, over at the WF with Moss Pauly, and loads of other affiliate gathering places.

One thing to keep in mind, affiliate marketing will always be here, especially for product and services markets. Where the biggest declines are, and for guys like Charles Gno, are in the "publishers" areas of marketing. For example, at the moment my primary earnings are from the private charter industries of air travel and more recently yachts. Both of these have seen growth for years and huge growth since COVID settled upon us. I hear similar stories from other affiliate marketers, but I hear the sad stories coming from those that were not really affiliates but rather publishers pushing the fads of the month like KETO, Stay Hard, etc., etc.

I think you can attribute the declines in those offers from publishers largely due to the social platforms and the Google responding to those markets in a fashion that prevents them from being marketed as effectively as they were once. The market is still there, if there were any effective means to get the offers in front of the public, the publishers would still be having huge successes and growth. Even the black hatters are having a tough time of it because they just keep getting shut down. I have a couple of die hard black hatter friends and when they manage to get past the guards for a few days at FB and Google they still bank BIG!

A true affiliate, not a publisher, will always have a place, and a solid means of marketing, when they are promoting products and services when having direct relationships with the products and services companies. IMHO!

 

[tyoussef]

I know Charles. We have not been in contact for a few years now, but we have had some conversations over the years, back in the "Hay Days". I understand where he is coming from. It has been a discussion he, I, and most in the "upper affiliate" indexes have had over the past 10 years. We saw declines before. This happened when Google started with algo's that were direct attacks on affiliates and such.

The affiliate industry is changing, absolutely. There have been huge discussions about declines here, as well as at STM where Matej "Matuloo" Cechvala hangs out and moderates, over at the WF with Moss Pauly, and loads of other affiliate gathering places.

One thing to keep in mind, affiliate marketing will always be here, especially for product and services markets. Where the biggest declines are, and for guys like Charles Gno, are in the "publishers" areas of marketing. For example, at the moment my primary earnings are from the private charter industries of air travel and more recently yachts. Both of these have seen growth for years and huge growth since COVID settled upon us. I hear similar stories from other affiliate marketers, but I hear the sad stories coming from those that were not really affiliates but rather publishers pushing the fads of the month like KETO, Stay Hard, etc., etc.

I think you can attribute the declines in those offers from publishers largely due to the social platforms and the Google responding to those markets in a fashion that prevents them from being marketed as effectively as they were once. The market is still there, if there were any effective means to get the offers in front of the public, the publishers would still be having huge successes and growth. Even the black hatters are having a tough time of it because they just keep getting shut down. I have a couple of die hard black hatter friends and when they manage to get past the guards for a few days at FB and Google they still bank BIG!

A true affiliate, not a publisher, will always have a place, and a solid means of marketing, when they are promoting products and services when having direct relationships with the products and services companies. IMHO!

that's a real talk.
affiliate is not going anywhere.

 

[chervenkov]

Don't forget new offers like IVR offers. They are really interesting for Tier 3 countries!

 

[azgold]

Well, Charles may have less competition having made that statement and steering people away from affiliate marketing.

This industry constantly changes and evolves, in my opinion. The trick is be informed and prepared to change and evolve with it.

It ain't dead, it's just growing up. It's almost at the end of its puberty stage.

 

[T J Tutor]

It's almost at the end of its puberty stage.

That's the fact of it! Well put!

 

[Graybeard]

largely due to the social platforms and the Google responding to those markets in a fashion that prevents them from being marketed as effectively as they were once

This just came in my email

We live in the passion-economy and trust is the new currency of successful marketers.

As social media becomes toxic and consumers become blind to fast-paced, meaningless content, marketers are looking for new ways to connect with their customers and rebuild trusted channels.

So, what does that mean for marketers? If social is no longer engaging, where are we connecting with our customers now? And how can marketing teams prepare for this change?

Seems to concur with you