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It's surprising to me the degree to which Teespring has become part of the affiliate marketing community. The same group of people that normally spend all their

It's surprising to me the degree to which Teespring has become part of the affiliate marketing community. The same group of people that normally spend all their time pushing "get rich quick" schemes, MLM programs, dating site ads on social networks and fake news articles about diet pills have really embraced t-shirts for some reason. There's a whole ecosystem of products around Teespring marketing businesses -- landing page builders, ebooks, video courses, mentorship and coaching, case studies, mastermind groups, etc. There's a hundred variations of "How I made $6,123 with Teespring and Facebook ads" posts out there, usually in connection with some other product. I wonder how they made inroads with that community, and whether those marketers ever create trouble for Teespring.

dsugarman 12y ago
a lot of the get rich quick and work from home schemes are illegal in one way or another, pyramid schemes, black market underground parcel shipping networks, etc. seems to me like teespring has a much better business model which can help people make money making something people want.
wooyi 12y ago
You become popular enough, you will attract all kinds of people to your platform/service. Including ones you may not want to be associated with. But this is great news for Teespring. Congrats to the team.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
  - markovbling 12y ago
    It's simplicity - CafePress's website is complete chaos whereas TeeSpring is dead simple. Rudimentary comparison: there are 422 <a> tags on CafePress's home page and only 47 on TeeSpring's Further, once you're on a TeeSpring product's page, it's the only product there (focused call to action to buy that one product being marketed) compared to CafePress where the product page has a bunch of other "similar" and "recommended" products diluting focus. May be counter-intuitive but adding more options seems to be to CafePress' detriment.
fabiandesimone 12y ago
I'm an affiliate marketeer. Couple of points: 1) Not sure why all the hate towards us. We can take a company from zero to millions overnight. I get that there are some shady stuff floating around but that's not 100% of the industry. 2) Facebook + Teespring is almost a perfect combination. 3) Aff. Marketeers have created some issues in FB using Custom Audiences (T-shirts that said stuff like "This was made specifically for Joe"). Those sold like hot-cakes but FB went down hard on them. 4) Everyone wants a piece of the action, that's why you see so much tutorials and stuff around it. It's also a great way to learn Aff. Marketing if you are into that.
- shostack 12y ago
  As someone well versed in the affiliate space, I can say that a lot of the hate comes from the highly-visible low-quality affiliates out there. People associate it with the most intrusive forms of online advertising including spam, toolbars, pop-ups/unders, misleading ads, annoying banners, and much scummier stuff. It also doesn't help that is a strong association and overlap with the "get rich quick" folks. There are definitely affiliates out there that add value, and affiliate programs in general can be a very profitable channel when managed properly. But there are MANY bad actors out there, and just as many eager newbies ready to take what they say as gospel based on promises of quick cash.
- nikhilalmeida 12y ago
  Mind sharing any resources to affiliate marketing the right way? (non spamy)
- dsugarman 12y ago
  we work with <leading_affiliate_marketplace> and it is really hard for us to find quality affiliates. it feels like they do whatever they can to get us trapped into browser software and coupon websites, our profits are just completely cannibalized. can you please email me at dsugarman @ zentail, we would love to work with you!
  - fabiandesimone 12y ago
    Great, I'll shoot you guys an email :)
nana_gb 12y ago
As someone with over 14 years of experience in the industry, as an affiliate marketer and then the maintainer of the most widely used open source tracking and analytics software for affiliates, it's surprising to me how many startups choose to not leverage the affiliate marketing community as a powerful traction and growth channel. I don't post much, but based on what I see here, many startups would be 10x more likely to succeed if they knew how to correctly leverage the affiliate channel for traction and growth. One of many things Teespring did right was to build features into the platform that enabled affiliates/marketers to profitably test, optimize and scale their tee shirt campaigns. For example, the ability for marketers to easily place their Facebook conversion/retargeting pixels on the Teespring site, meant that affiliates now had the visibility needed to profitably spend their own money promoting Teespring campaigns via paid acquisition channels (mainly Facebook ads). I'll agree partly with you and say that there's a segment of the affiliate community that you want to stay away from, and I'm sure Teespring has their share of trouble affiliates. Unfortunately, the rotten apples are usually the most visible and make the whole community look bad. Here's what I see is needed to help solve some of these problems: 1. More transparency into the affiliate marketing channel. Startups need to feel comfortable knowing that they are not working with affiliates that use unauthorized marketing methods and messaging. 2. Affiliates need to be more comfortable knowing that they are not going to be cut out once a business sees the successful methods being used by affiliates to drive sales, leads, growth etc. Teespring's model actually does a lot to protect affiliates and the designers that use their platform because the interests of both parties are closely aligned. 3. Startups need more education about the affiliate marketing community and the best ways to leverage affiliates as a traction channel. It's unfortunate, but the comment from @dsugarman is a perfect example of what can go wrong while Teespring shows what can go right. They basically turned every single person who designs a shirt on their platform into an affiliate, and gave them all the tools and support they needed to succeed.
- afro88 12y ago
  > For example, the ability for marketers to easily place their Facebook conversion/retargeting pixels on the Teespring site, meant that affiliates now had the visibility needed to profitably spend their own money promoting Teespring campaigns via paid acquisition channels (mainly Facebook ads). Out of pure curiosity, can someone decode this into non-marketer speak for me? Not trying to be rude, I just genuinely have no clue what it means (I'm a developer who knows nothing about marketing).
unclebucknasty 12y ago
>It's surprising to me the degree to which Teespring has become part of the affiliate marketing community. Actually, with Teespring, the "designers" are affiliates. Surprised that no one seems to have noticed this.

dsugarman 12y ago

a lot of the get rich quick and work from home schemes are illegal in one way or another, pyramid schemes, black market underground parcel shipping networks, etc. seems to me like teespring has a much better business model which can help people make money making something people want.

wooyi 12y ago

You become popular enough, you will attract all kinds of people to your platform/service. Including ones you may not want to be associated with. But this is great news for Teespring. Congrats to the team.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
- markovbling 12y ago
  It's simplicity - CafePress's website is complete chaos whereas TeeSpring is dead simple. Rudimentary comparison: there are 422 <a> tags on CafePress's home page and only 47 on TeeSpring's Further, once you're on a TeeSpring product's page, it's the only product there (focused call to action to buy that one product being marketed) compared to CafePress where the product page has a bunch of other "similar" and "recommended" products diluting focus. May be counter-intuitive but adding more options seems to be to CafePress' detriment.

fabiandesimone 12y ago

I'm an affiliate marketeer. Couple of points: 1) Not sure why all the hate towards us. We can take a company from zero to millions overnight. I get that there are some shady stuff floating around but that's not 100% of the industry. 2) Facebook + Teespring is almost a perfect combination. 3) Aff. Marketeers have created some issues in FB using Custom Audiences (T-shirts that said stuff like "This was made specifically for Joe"). Those sold like hot-cakes but FB went down hard on them. 4) Everyone wants a piece of the action, that's why you see so much tutorials and stuff around it. It's also a great way to learn Aff. Marketing if you are into that.

shostack 12y ago
As someone well versed in the affiliate space, I can say that a lot of the hate comes from the highly-visible low-quality affiliates out there. People associate it with the most intrusive forms of online advertising including spam, toolbars, pop-ups/unders, misleading ads, annoying banners, and much scummier stuff. It also doesn't help that is a strong association and overlap with the "get rich quick" folks. There are definitely affiliates out there that add value, and affiliate programs in general can be a very profitable channel when managed properly. But there are MANY bad actors out there, and just as many eager newbies ready to take what they say as gospel based on promises of quick cash.
nikhilalmeida 12y ago
Mind sharing any resources to affiliate marketing the right way? (non spamy)
dsugarman 12y ago
we work with <leading_affiliate_marketplace> and it is really hard for us to find quality affiliates. it feels like they do whatever they can to get us trapped into browser software and coupon websites, our profits are just completely cannibalized. can you please email me at dsugarman @ zentail, we would love to work with you!
- fabiandesimone 12y ago
  Great, I'll shoot you guys an email :)

nana_gb 12y ago

As someone with over 14 years of experience in the industry, as an affiliate marketer and then the maintainer of the most widely used open source tracking and analytics software for affiliates, it's surprising to me how many startups choose to not leverage the affiliate marketing community as a powerful traction and growth channel. I don't post much, but based on what I see here, many startups would be 10x more likely to succeed if they knew how to correctly leverage the affiliate channel for traction and growth. One of many things Teespring did right was to build features into the platform that enabled affiliates/marketers to profitably test, optimize and scale their tee shirt campaigns. For example, the ability for marketers to easily place their Facebook conversion/retargeting pixels on the Teespring site, meant that affiliates now had the visibility needed to profitably spend their own money promoting Teespring campaigns via paid acquisition channels (mainly Facebook ads). I'll agree partly with you and say that there's a segment of the affiliate community that you want to stay away from, and I'm sure Teespring has their share of trouble affiliates. Unfortunately, the rotten apples are usually the most visible and make the whole community look bad. Here's what I see is needed to help solve some of these problems: 1. More transparency into the affiliate marketing channel. Startups need to feel comfortable knowing that they are not working with affiliates that use unauthorized marketing methods and messaging. 2. Affiliates need to be more comfortable knowing that they are not going to be cut out once a business sees the successful methods being used by affiliates to drive sales, leads, growth etc. Teespring's model actually does a lot to protect affiliates and the designers that use their platform because the interests of both parties are closely aligned. 3. Startups need more education about the affiliate marketing community and the best ways to leverage affiliates as a traction channel. It's unfortunate, but the comment from @dsugarman is a perfect example of what can go wrong while Teespring shows what can go right. They basically turned every single person who designs a shirt on their platform into an affiliate, and gave them all the tools and support they needed to succeed.

afro88 12y ago
> For example, the ability for marketers to easily place their Facebook conversion/retargeting pixels on the Teespring site, meant that affiliates now had the visibility needed to profitably spend their own money promoting Teespring campaigns via paid acquisition channels (mainly Facebook ads). Out of pure curiosity, can someone decode this into non-marketer speak for me? Not trying to be rude, I just genuinely have no clue what it means (I'm a developer who knows nothing about marketing).

unclebucknasty 12y ago

>It's surprising to me the degree to which Teespring has become part of the affiliate marketing community. Actually, with Teespring, the "designers" are affiliates. Surprised that no one seems to have noticed this.