Affiliate marketing vs your own product.
Affiliate marketing is great!
You don’t have to own the product, create the sales page, fulfillment is done for you and digital products can pay up to 75% in commissions.
So is there any advantage over having your own product?
There is one significant advantage… leverage.
If you have your own product, you can have your own affiliate program.
This means that you can get an army of affiliate promoting your product, and gain massive leverage.
This is how we’ve been successful with our ebook (www.jumpmanual.com) and our software platform (www.myebookmaster.com).
The affiliates drive significant traffic and sales through our site.
And you make 100% commissions from your own product.
But there is the “downside” you have to create the product, sales page, affiliate promotion tools etc.
Is it worth it? Yes I think it is… but only if you have a product that adds value to the market place.
A good affiliate program makes life very easy.
And if you drive traffic and make sales on a product like WA, that has a great conversion and long term income often that’s all you need.
The good thing about WA is that the skills you learn to promote as an affiliate will also help you to run your own product if you should ever decide to go that route.
However, I’ve also enjoyed the leverage of having my own product and my own affiliates who are always promoting and driving sales.
What’s your take?
Recent Comments
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Hi - I have went down the product route many times in the past. Mainly as I'm a programmer, and it's easy to program something once, and sell it lots.
So affiliate marketing is new to me (since coming to WA late last year). Selling something on behalf of someone else, and getting paid for it is great - but there's a part of me that still wants to have actually created something, that adds value to someone else.
I'd like to think I can have a foot in both camps. I'll do the affiliate marketing and sales - and try and promote other products - but I'd also like to have my own products that people can benefit from, and that "affiliates" can help sell and gain financially from.
Cheers, Mark
Hi.
I'm considering a product we will make and ship - so I'm interested in knowing how you track affiliate referrals through to sales - particularly if your sales are based on a WP site. Is that something you can share?
Cheers, Mark
Hi Sean - thanks for that - I wasn't aware there was a plug-on for that!
All the best, Mark
clickbank is my favorite affiliate program, because they have a large affiliate network you can plug into.
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The challenge is that most marketers think about it as creating a product to sell. They don't think about it as building a business.
Because creating one product, unless evergreen and a big success, is not going to last. The product creation cycle must then start again, over and over.
Most successful product creators were affiliate marketers first. After creating their own products, they continue to be affiliate marketers. I have seen them on leader boards everywhere, helping each other promote their products.
Thank goodness we can have the best of both worlds, creating our own products and/or being an affiliate for those who have done so.
I agree there are advantages and disadvantages. I don't agree with the gurus who say that creating your own product is the only way to succeed online.
Some affiliate marketers make more money than product creators. It depends on the individual and what path they decide upon. ~ Jude
I ended up starting as a product creator by accident… and then stumbled my way to making sales hehe