3 Big Lessons from Affiliate Marketing’s New Reality

As you can see from my picture, I’m not young. When I first heard of online marketing as a journalist covering the computer industry, I had hair. The business model of affiliate marketing (AM) was young, too. Affiliate marketers promoted third-party products online, receiving a commission when someone bought a product via the affiliate’s custom link, often sold through a new company called Amazon.

The basic business model hasn’t changed, but many other things have beside my hairline. I can see retirement looming on the horizon. Amazon now defines Big Tech. And, in the U.S., affiliate marketing has become a $14.3 billion industry, with projected year-on-year growth of 10% (www.statisa.com). So, I thought this would be a good time to learn more about affiliate marketing. Not just by reading how other people are making money from it but by actually getting involved myself.

However, the more involved I get, the more a mixed-bag affiliate marketing seems to be.

The first thing I learned is, I’m late to the party.

The industry may indeed be growing strongly, but the days of easy money as an affiliate marketer are gone. Well-established affiliate marketers promise it’s still possible to earn a six-figure income from the $1.4 billion in new spending predicted for 2024. This, despite the reality of over 11,000 affiliate programs in the U.S. today, with the biggest ones boasting hundreds of thousands of affiliate members. For a piece of the pie, all you have to do is buy the right AM business training software tools, templates, and methodology. Well, OK, I’ve done that. I hope.

Now I’m learning my second lesson.

Unless I market my affiliated products profitably, my business will die on the vine. Because the cost-per-click when trying to sell affiliate products is no longer pennies on the dollar; it’s now dollars-per-click — and rising.

I can’t just throw money at paying for ads on Google, Facebook, and other high-traffic platforms and expect to make enough commission revenue to do better than break even. I need a proven sales system that works in the new reality of affiliate marketing. I need one that provides lots of automation and software tools for arcane things like email list management, direct-response web page design, AI-driven content creation, and A/B testing. I believe I’ve found such a system.

Which brings me to the third and most important lesson I’ve yet to learn.

Fishing. I’m talking about the old proverb, “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” I can see now that fishing — in this case the art of online direct-response ad campaign creation and management — is going to take the time, practice, and patience exhibited by the best anglers.

As fishermen like to toast, “Here’s to tight lines.”