Are Blogs too Good for Affiliate Marketing?

This is my first “official” blog entry I figured that it would be fitting to write about my take on blogs and affiliate marketing. I read numerous online marketing related blogs each day as well as a good deal of others through communities such as Revenews and Bumpzee. I also read a handful of blogs on digital photography (my hobby).

I view blogs as the perfect medium to share and learn. When it comes to digital photography I utilize blogs for two reasons.

1. To learn new techniques and tricks
2. To obtain quality unbiased reviews of photography equipment.

As an Affiliate Manager I have been working with bloggers for the past year or so to help promote specific products that related to the content of their blogs. Most bloggers tend to convert very well and help to grow a program. The majority of the blogs that I work with are second tier blogs. They are not the top 10 blogs in their categories. However, by no means are they small mom and pop sites.

Recently I decided to reach out to the top blogs in the consumer electronics space for a program that I was managing. I would say that roughly half these sites told me that they do not utilize affiliate programs because they feel that it cheapens their sites.

After receiving the same response from a few sites I began offering tips on how to cloak URL’s. However, these tech savvy bloggers didn’t want to hear it.

The part of me that enjoys reading reviews of photography equipment totally understands their feelings. I would stop reading a blog if I knew that they were picking which products to review or basing their reviews on who paid them the most money. However, the Affiliate Manager side of me knew that if a blogger was willing to review a product in the past and give it A+ rating then their had to be way to help them monetize their reviews.

This experience has raised some questions that I ask myself:

1. Is Affiliate Marketing just not right for the upper echelon of blogs that review products?
2. Are these feelings unique to the consumer electronics space?
3. As blogging matures will more and more bloggers have this same feeling towards affiliate marketing?
4. Will there be a new technology or way of thinking that will change these bloggers opinions on affiliate marketing.

Any comments as to your feelings about this issue are welcome.  My internal conflict between the Affiliate Manager and consumer looking for the best information possible will continue to play out for me.

Comments

[Jim Kukral]

Good questions. My mantra has always been that as bloggers "grow up", they learn to become marketers. 99% of 63 million bloggers aren't, or don't care to be, marketers.

So the key for affiliate marketing to work with blogs is simplicity and education.