More recently, after having sustained a popular site and developing relationships with others in my niche, I began to promote a few affiliate links again with great success:

My current criteria:

*It must be a product or service that I have personally used and swear by; would happily recommend to others for free.
*It must be a product or service that represents something I would/could potentially create and offer myself — meaning, the context is seamlessly in alignment with what my audience wants.
*It must be a product or service that is not likely to be saturated within my niche (as in a “canned” affiliate product offered to anyone with a web page).
*I must have some authentic personal relationship with author.
*I put it place and forget about it, with no expectations; focusing instead on assisting the worthy author in promoting something I truly admire. Any accumulative commission is icing on the cake of that relationship.

Generally, I feel that the highest possible degree of integrity and authenticity in your decision to promote a product — coming from the best possible place for all involved — creates some powerful affiliate karma.

Slade

Thanks for a thought-provoking article. It’s timely for me, as I’m just looking into adding affiliate links to our website. Seems to be one of those areas where you need to tread carefully and research thoroughly beforehand.

(And thanks for the link to Promotions.co.uk On a different tangent, that could be exactly what I’m looking for, for some domain names I’ve recently purchased and haven’t been sure how to use!)

Cheers, Jon

Anyway, I’m planning on giving it a go in the new year as we already review books on the blog, so an Amazon widget would certainly be appropriate. Hopefully I’m not leaving it too late.

I wrote a post on my blog that discusses mistakes I feel Internet Marketers are making with Affiliate promotions (specific to Twitter).

Certainly there is nothing wrong with affiliation promotions, they pretty much help to “make the ‘net go round”.

Is all about the process I feel.

Just jamming an affiliate link in front of your visitor without giving value is wrong in my opinion.

People are pretty clued up these days (well many are) and can see threw thinly veiled affiliate promotions that are just about making money, and not actually helping people.

As that old saying goes, you can have anything you want, if you help enough people get what they want.

Cheers

Tim

At the end of the day affiliate links are just advertising, just like Adsemse, just like banners ads and just like other forms of advertising. Those unethical marketers will abuse all these forms of advertising in any way they can – it is not something that is reserved to the affiliate marketing industry. Yet if a blogger has Adsense or banners on their site nothing is said, but they will often come under scrutiny if they place affiliate links, often for the conflict of interest.

I just don’t get this. Put a Adsense ad on your site and whatever you write effects the ads (and can effect the CTR on ads) so there is a conflict of interest as it can influence the topics, words and nature of an article by a blogger if they put money first. If they discuss a product the product will then be advertised on their site through Adsense. Yet this conflict of interest is ignored and Adsense is accepted as a legitimate form of advertising and associations with those Adsense spammers is ignored.

Yet when it comes to affiliate marketing people are much more keen to point out the conflict of interest in how affiliate commissions can affect a bloggers writing. Yet the conflict of interest is very similar to that conflict of interest in Adsense. The only difference is that affiliate links can be more thoroughly editorially controlled so perfectly match the topic being discussed, are less intrusive and give a better user experience as they are more helpful than most other forms of advertising.

After understanding how to use affiliate links in a useful way that benefits readers and converts well my affiliate income has sky rocketed and I’ve been able to reduce other forms of advertising. I’m able to offer more targeted advertising than ever making my sites much more user-friendly.

At the end of the day it is down to the individual blogger’s ethics and site’s policies that will determine whether a site works in an ethical way to provide value, or puts ethics aside to make more money.

Low quality, bullshit articles and spam are not reserved for affiliate marketers. Similarly high quality and useful articles are not reserved for those using more accepted forms of advertising.

Affiliate partnerships is not a big part of my business plan, at this point – and that has to do timing.

That being said, I really appreciate when you wrote: “The problem is not so much with affiliate marketing as a whole, but with some of the people involved in it.” Couldn’t one who judges others based on their ads be called an “Affiliate-ist”?

As Michael implies, It all comes down to the person behind the keyboard.

John

If anyone wants to know if they should trust an affiliate program or a person who runs one, I would suggest you look to who that person is associated with. For example, if you trust Chris and think he’s one of the “good guys” (and I believe he is), then look at the programs he endorses and the people who create them, such as Brian Clark and Chris Pearson. Scratch the surface, and you will find that quality associates with quality, and that ethical people associate with each other.

Making a commission by selling someone else’s product is one of the oldest forms of revenue in existence. As a method, it’s neither ethical nor unethical. That is determined by the person doing it.

Review sites are a good type of setup, as well as blogs that offer stuff related to the main topics of their blog. When I see unrelated banners on a site, I know it’s just for the commission.

good topic.

There are definitely certain things that I won’t promote.

One of the problems I see is getting ads that I can support, like Thesis, rather than some flash-laden sleaze that I have no control over.

There’s a lot to learn in this minefield!

IMO, the key to successful affiliate marketing is context – and establishing a trust and relationship with your visitors…most of the time, the graphic banners/ads DON’T produce like product links do.

Now, as a blogger with several niches, I use affiliate programs to provide my readers the exact products/services they are coming to my blogs to read about. My main site is photo related, I will only post relevant affiliates to that site. I believe too many bloggers are trying to hard to offer everything to everyone-which in turn becomes less credible! I am selective about the companies I promote and have to believe in their products-after all it is my reputation on the line!

This was a great read! Thank you for sharing this important topic!

I’ve always focused on its less than ethical reputation, but as you say, that comes from the minority. But a minority it is and one that shouldn’t be there.

The classic example is of all the bloggers who promote BlueHost. I won’t name any names, but there are hundreds of bloggers who promote BlueHost with affiliate links, despite the fact that the blogger doesn’t use and has never used BlueHost services. They just happen to hand out a very high commission, so bloggers promote them regardless of ethics.

I have had plenty of offers from dating sites and whatnot but when you go and look at the site in question they are clearly just out to make a profit and they look like they’ve just been thrown together.

I guess it boils down to protecting your blog’s brand. I’m careful what external sites I link to and I will be just as careful when selecting affiliate links.