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You are correct! Not all affiliates abuse the system, there were a lot of nice kids I met trying. You are like a digital salesman for any manner of companies a

You are correct! Not all affiliates abuse the system, there were a lot of nice kids I met trying. You are like a digital salesman for any manner of companies and products. The cool thing about it is the scale that is possible. For example, in the one year I ran ads, my ads were displayed over 640 million times around the world. I got so many clicks in Columbia that 20% of the male users in Columbia on Facebook clicked one of my ads. OK. Got to get back to work now!

mjn 13y ago
There's a few niches where affiliates provide nontrivial value as well. For example, in travel there are both kinds. A number do take the minimal, often spammy, approach of trying to insert themselves into a sale that was already going to happen so they can capture it. One route is to create content-farm "travel" pages that don't really have much travel information, and exist solely to get an affiliate cookie onto the machine of someone obviously researching travel. But Hipmunk is another example of a site largely supported by travel-affiliate revenue, and they do it by actually providing a significant value-add service.
- willholloway 13y ago
  Exactly. I built streamjoy.tv as hipmunk for streaming movies. I've been so busy with consulting work though that I haven't finished it.
- kposehn 13y ago
  > There's a few niches where affiliates provide nontrivial value as well. Very true. I've been speaking at marketing conferences for several years, and one of my core messages to affiliates is "don't build a site or campaign, build a business". If no one would miss your site if it was gone, you're not building value.
- oostevo 13y ago
  Likewise, many -- if not the vast majority of -- airline mile optimization blogs are basically credit card affiliate machines now. (See pretty much all of boardingarea.com) They provide a useful service for some (here's how to use your frequent flier miles), but the affiliate links in nearly every post are rumored to be worth up to several hundred dollars per credit card signup.

mjn 13y ago

There's a few niches where affiliates provide nontrivial value as well. For example, in travel there are both kinds. A number do take the minimal, often spammy, approach of trying to insert themselves into a sale that was already going to happen so they can capture it. One route is to create content-farm "travel" pages that don't really have much travel information, and exist solely to get an affiliate cookie onto the machine of someone obviously researching travel. But Hipmunk is another example of a site largely supported by travel-affiliate revenue, and they do it by actually providing a significant value-add service.

willholloway 13y ago
Exactly. I built streamjoy.tv as hipmunk for streaming movies. I've been so busy with consulting work though that I haven't finished it.
kposehn 13y ago
> There's a few niches where affiliates provide nontrivial value as well. Very true. I've been speaking at marketing conferences for several years, and one of my core messages to affiliates is "don't build a site or campaign, build a business". If no one would miss your site if it was gone, you're not building value.
oostevo 13y ago
Likewise, many -- if not the vast majority of -- airline mile optimization blogs are basically credit card affiliate machines now. (See pretty much all of boardingarea.com) They provide a useful service for some (here's how to use your frequent flier miles), but the affiliate links in nearly every post are rumored to be worth up to several hundred dollars per credit card signup.