Just tossing in my
and my experience from back when before affiliate programs were so common.
A: Affiliate programs are nothing except a form of advertising.
B: Its not the program that does not make it, its the site. The program is only a form of advertising for the site.
C: Affiliate programs are not a mark of a good or successful site.
- many successful sites know how to market their sites without large affiliate programs. Doing so helps the webmaster keep more of his/her money.
D: Sites dont make it because they do not know how to market their site, if they cannot market their site, then they will not be able to market their affiliate program.
E: You have to be honest with affiliates / advertisers. If you are not honest and shave, lie, do not payout, promise payouts more then you can afford, then the site will not make it.
- new sites who think they can offer big money forget they have to be able to pay their affiliates, usually more then half what they make and still be able to pay for their webhosting, content and what ever else bills their site has.
- once you pay the affiliate half or all of the price of the membership and pay the website bills, there is not much left for yourself.
Any site can make it with out an affiliate program, if you have a good product and even half way know how to market it, amateur sites do better because they have exclusive content, personality and a certain appeal that "canned" sites do not have. Canned sites have a harder time and probably need an affiliate program even more so then amateur ones do but can still get their site off the ground and build a bank account prior to starting an affiliate program.
Just my
from 8 years of running a paysite with both an affiliate program and no affiliate program and watching allot of "players" shut down and only to move on to other jobs, working for other sites, still trying to act like "players".