2009 is over. Gone. Done. Kaput. Hello 2010 – dare I say, the year of affiliate marketing? It seems as though when January rolls around, everyone becomes a visionary, predicting their internet marketing trends for the upcoming year. Everyone’s got a list, and they’ll be the first to tell how “x” marketing is completely done for, and how “y” marketing is the wave of the future (and we should all be riding it). Well if everyone jumped off a bridge, I’d probably consider it, so here’s my take on 2010.

2010 is the year of affiliate marketing. Am I biased? Yes. Will 2011 be the year of affiliate marketing too? You betcha. Sure, everyone’s speculating about twitter and facebook, and their business models, but weren’t they clamoring about that last year as well? (And the year before?) It’s easy to get stuck on panache of social media or the mystique of mobile marketing and forget about the ease and relatively straightforward concept of performance based marketing.

At the end of the day, advertisers can spend their money across whatever medium they choose. Affiliate Marketing gives them a fairly straightforward equation for what they’re in store for. It’s a simple concept at the heart of it all: you get what you pay for. If you spend “x” dollars, you will receive “y” leads. At the end of the day, advertisers know what they paid for, they have actual evidence of their advertising dollars at work. Publishers (both individuals and networks) are happy because of the ease of entry into affiliate marketing, and the relative straightforward nature of it. They know what they’ll get paid, given a course of action by a consumer.

Is affiliate marketing the end-all-be-all I’m probably making it out to be? Well, no, but it’s certainly a highly effective piece of any online marketing pie. Go ahead gurus (I said I was biased from the beginning), make your predictions, tell us what we should focus on in 2010. I’ll be here, sticking to what works.

Dear Mr/Ms. Affiliate,

I find it puzzling that once you have been approved to be a part of our network, you all of a sudden mysteriously become unreachable. My emails go unanswered and my calls are almost guaranteed to go straight to voicemail. I understand that for the most part networks are self-service and that you don’t really need anyone to tell you how to pick up offers for the umpteenth time. But believe it or not, I am not calling you to tell you something you already know.

The reason I call is because I want to work with you in figuring out how I can make it easy for you to generate substantial revenue with our network. I can tell you details about an offer that’s not written in the campaign description – like how one offer performs when promoted via search versus email or which creative is performing the best. I can tell you the brand newest offers on the network before they even go out on the affiliate newsletter, where everyone will see them and will want to pick them up.

Heck, I’ll even go so far as to cater our calls so that if you tell me you only want to hear about diet offers, you won’t hear anything but diet offers. Every now and then though, I will be brazen and tip you off that an education or financial offer or some other vertical is performing extremely well and worth looking into. Rest assured, I only do this with your best interest in mind.

I wish I could say that one phone call translates into dollars, but sometimes it takes several phone calls and even more phone calls and a few emails back and forth to get you paired with the right offer. This is why I call you more than once – not to annoy you, but to figure out which offer you can work your skills on (within compliance guidelines, of course!)  to take you into super affiliate status.

So the next time you see my number pop up on your caller ID, give me a chance and pick up the phone. It could be the 5 minute conversation that changes where the commas fall on your affiliate check when affiliate pay day rolls around.

Sincerely,
Your Affiliate Manager

Blue Phoenix Media