pros and cons of no affilate program
 

what are the pros and cons of having no affiliate program for a paysite?

i have 6 affiliates so far, 5 are doing ratios i'd be happy with myself, one new one is doing incredibly poorly but sending alot of hits.

debating if i should just forget about the affiliate program and perhaps just hiring or finding one person to promote my site.

It'll cost more.

Is it costing you money to have the affiliate program, other than the payouts?

I would not rely solely on affiliates, but no reason the take it down if it is already there.

pros: Affiliates kinda dilute the value of your paysite, the more affiliates you have the smaller pie there is left for yourself
pros: can focus on generating your own traffic instead of dealing with affiliates

cons: missing on free income
cons: possibly first point is actually the opposite, the more affiliates you have the more you develop your brand, and the more your site actually becomes popular

Do you have FHGs?

Pros - More Income, Free Marketing, Occasional Relationship Creation, when you scoop up a whale every now and then it can be very enjoyable.

Cons - Dealing with affiliates in itself can be time consuming, If you pay for bandwidth and have multiple affiliates sending you alot of free traffic it can add up quick.

Sounds like you're taking affiliates for granted. Be grateful that anyone is willing to send you traffic at all. Be happy to take a 50% cut of their hard work.

True that. :thumbsup

Not to sound harsh, but if you think you can simply hire someone as an employee that would work as hard as an affiliate does to generate sales for you... you are sadly mistaken.

It costs you virtually nothing to have affiliates... why would you not?

very interesting, just a bump since I do own a small paysite myself and do have the same problem.
for me it is hard to find affiliates that are to be trusted but yes they will bring in extra sign-ups (well they should) but they are really time consuming and yes they are branding the paysite as well.
For now I settled for affiliates by invite only.

the amount of affiliates is important as well I think, the more people trying to sell it the less they make per person.
if this sounds stupid, sorry.

i added an affiliate program because of all the advantages, my worry is that fhg's that i pay for that don't bring any money in, i don't want to be an asshole and tell this affiliate he can't use them, while another person can.

i'm asking for opinions because i'm wondering if there was no public affiliate program, and hired or offered promotion to one or limited people, the competition for them would be less. i may be wrong and if i was it certainly wouldn't be the first time.

lastly, i don't and wouldn't take an affiliates work for granted, but i do generate 90% of my sites income on my own. looking at it like this, you give out promo at your own expense to help an affilate make sales, if they send nothing but worthless traffic to your fhg's, then really what is the point. would it not be better to only work with people that are interested in mutual gain

An affiliate program is cheap advertising.

The only downfall is you have to run an affiliate program. backend, support, promotional stuff, payouts, etc...

You can hire a marketing person to setup advertising deals on websites but it'll cost you to pay him/her and for the banner spots/etc..

But if you have an affiliate program you get those banner spots and you only have to pay when you want :P

The internet is a big place and most sites dont get traffic from the same source if ya know what i mean.

Tony 404 needs to comment on this one. I think Tony has some strong opinions on this subject :)