The Death of CPA Marketing
One tired refrain heard among some marketers is that because they’re late to the game, all the “good” niches have already been taken. If you believe everything you hear, there’s “little” money left in CPA/Affiliate marketing because the boat has left for ringtones, dating, Acai, payday loans, etc.
Added to that, with Google AdWords Quality Score, the search network is a much harder game to play, compared to before.
While some of these “facts” have some truth to them, your success as an affiliate marketer mirror that of a brick-and-mortar entrepreneur. If every possible restaurant concept has already been created, why bother starting another?
If anything, this question is pretty self-reflective. If life is so hard, why bother getting out of bed every morning? There’s opportunity to be found. But only if you look hard enough.
If you’ve been studying the trends in CPA offers, you’ll notice that while ringtones might not be as hot as they used to be, the new class of IQ quizzes and mobile downloads for cell phones has expanded the range of offers available.
Ditto for weight loss, where Resveratrol (lots of typo traffic potential there) is coming onto the market (although still not quite near the red-hot demand for Acai).
With dating, the field has expanded beyond plain vanilla dating to include several sub-segments, eg: Asian dating, black dating, divorcee dating, etc.
Added to the fact is that using tools like Google Trends, Google Insights and keyword tools will show you a number of popular queries for which there isn’t a solution or offer available now. Which means you can either:
- Wait for someone to develop and offer and hope to be one of the early marketers to jump in on the trend
- You can join the moaners to complain about not being one of the “big boys” (a phrase recently used by a “guru” to indulge in self-victimization)
- You can spring the capital to develop the offer yourself and list it on one of the CPA networks
- Failing to have the cash yourself, you can find a partner who will fund the project, while you contribute the “sweat equity”
A friend once said “If you sit at the table of life, expecting success to be handed to you on a silver platter, you will be waiting a very long time”.
Now, get back to work.
Josh Todd
August 26, 2009 at 12:09 am (15 years ago)Good post. The ship has definitely NOT sailed, but it takes some work. An affiliate of mine asked me what to do to take his earnings to the next level, so I laid out a method for him to promote a simple website through SEO. His response? “That sounds like work.” He still isn’t making any money.
Finch
August 26, 2009 at 1:53 am (15 years ago)There’s always opportunity around the next corner in terms of offers to promote and niches to break in to. I think most affiliates could happily point to five or six offers that they’d like to run if they could find the time, will, or whatever to actually put the work in.
If there’s anything that’s ushering forward the death of CPA marketing, it’s affiliates wrecklessly exploiting the system. Deceitful content, a disregard for compliance and a lot of bad press – these are what will hurt us the most. The industry is expanding so fast with such a low entry level that Google, Yahoo, MSN, Facebook…and just about any other traffic source…they’re all going to need to tighten their rulebooks to stamp out reckless affiliates.
I don’t think we should be worried about niches running out – rather the viable traffic sources to promote them.
brandon clark
August 26, 2009 at 6:29 am (15 years ago)I totally agree. I’m new to this business. I’m two weeks in and I see a mountain of money to be made. For someone to say its “shriveled up” just means there used to doing no work for massive profit margin’s.
All I’ve gotta say is:
Work is work. Nose to the grindstone til 5.. Swag on til dawn. Rinse and repeat.
if ya want some then get some
Bob Henderson
August 27, 2009 at 2:09 am (15 years ago)One of the most troubling things about marketing on the internet is these programs and ebooks promise people the world without having to do any work. And it’s just not so.
Maybe you can catch lightning in a bottle but the real trick is catching it again and again.
CPA marketing is one of many, many aspects you can attempt to use to drive traffic. I’ve failed at it only to learn what I’ve done wrong so that I was better as it the next time.
And it’s that way with anything. Making mistakes isn’t bad. It’s almost necessary to improve.
Anyone who is successful has made mistakes only to refine their skill, product, or service. In the sports world, it’s called practice. And that’s all mistakes are, practice.
Whether you’re using CPA marketing, article marketing, or anything else you decide you want to use, know that it will take some time to get it right.
Bob Henderson is The Internet Marketing Detective who sorts through the “haystack to find you the needle.”
Abdul Rahman
August 27, 2009 at 8:48 pm (15 years ago)Interesting. It seems that you’re talking to me cuz I’m doing bunch of the useless things in the past and doing it again right now (as of writing this comment, I’m watching/listening to Tim Schmidt’s Tribal Formula video). Maybe I don’t really have to read anymore.
What I have to do right now is to attack with full force all those niches that I’ve found so far, and already attacked, but doing it halfheartedly.
Thorleifur
August 28, 2009 at 10:35 pm (15 years ago)I totaly agree. You haveto put in the work to pull out the profits. But I have found that helping other geting started and providing people with usefull informations can not only benefit them but allso comes back to you.
J Jones
August 30, 2009 at 2:53 pm (15 years ago)I have been in the off-line retail business for over 30 years, I have seen the downtown department stores all but disappear. I have personally seen and experienced the decline of the shopping malls.
People just don’t have time like before we need it now we need it FAST.’
I believe that we are in the model T. ( model T. Ford car) stage of development of Internet marketing, what will tomorrow brain?
Tie it in with virtual reality mmmmmm Think about It !
Dawid Ryba
September 7, 2009 at 5:18 pm (15 years ago)You are correct the CPA is most popular online marketing methods but is extremely difficult for the
beginners I recommend to read some Free eBook about it, or to ask someone that have Success in hes
CPA campaigns, the last alternative is becoming member ‘CPA Success’ like my self but the cost is
big $77 I recommend it, only if you are looking for fast money making system and can spend $77
Andrew Wee
September 7, 2009 at 7:06 pm (15 years ago)I noticed that your comment is geared towards trying to sell zero friction marketing and you’re directing readers to your 1-page thin affiliate site.
Have you thought about providing some useful content instead?
I’d suggest marketers go try it out for themselves vs spending $77 or even $47 right off the bat.