Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?

Something I’ve written about (more than once) is how every year there’s a spate of blogs all published “Is SEO dead in [insert year here]?”

Digital marketing copywriters all publish these blogs at (or near) the beginning of the year to take advantage of the spike in traffic regarding that query that inevitably floods ye olde Google every New Year. 

And every year, the answer is the same. No, SEO is not dead. Nor will it ever be as long as people are using search engines. It just changes. 

Now, this blog will answer a separate but related question that has a lot more substance behind it. 

Is affiliate marketing dead? Like, officially? 

Well, not quite, but there’s a bit more nuance here than there is with SEO, specifically because of some recent Google updates. So let’s unpack it all. 

Let’s Walk Before We Run: What Is Affiliate Marketing?

In a nutshell, affiliate marketing is a performance-based marketing strategy wherein a third-party promotes a product or service in exchange for a commission. 

So, let’s say I was a blogger and on my website I promoted 1Digital^Ⓡ Agency’s SEO services. If any leads signed up for those SEO services through my website, and I earned a cut of the revenue, that would be considered affiliate marketing. 

Most often, affiliate marketing consists of a website or an influencer promoting products and services through affiliate links. These links have a special tracking code, and when a user converts through them, the publisher of the links earns a small commission. 

There are other forms of affiliate marketing, but at its most basic, that right there is what it is. 

Now, something changed with Google’s algorithm recently that has dropped the hammer on this bread-and-butter of affiliate marketing which has some digital marketing savants panicking. 

So, Is Affiliate Marketing Dead?

Well, first let’s look at some stats. Global affiliate marketing spend has more than doubled since 2014. Interest in affiliate marketing has more than doubled since 2020.

To cap that, more than 80% of brands in the world have, in some form or other, affiliate marketing programs running.

Why then, is there such a trending search for “is affiliate marketing dead?”

The reason has to do with recent Google algorithm updates. 

You see, over the past year, many affiliate marketing websites have seen their traffic tank by 50% or more as a result of updates that prioritize the quality of content over the initiative to sell products through affiliate marketing. 

As a result, websites that exist solely for the purpose of affiliate marketing have been falling by the wayside. Herein lies the problem, not affiliate marketing itself.

The unfortunate truth is that websites that exist solely to sell affiliate links so they can serve as a revenue funnel are invariably not going to produce a quality user experience. 

If you didn’t notice, Google has been increasingly, and unapologetically, prioritizing the quality of content that shows up in the search results. This is why in the past year there have been serious consequences for those that use AI, generative content, and of course those who produce content solely for the purpose of affiliate marketing. 

Take this blog for instance. My only purpose here is to educate you, dear reader, on affiliate marketing and whether or not it is still viable (albeit in a very cursory fashion). I am not trying to sell link space or earn a commission from anything. 

I consider my job well done if you leave this page with a better understanding of why the quality of the user experience is more important (from Google’s perspective), and not if you buy anything. 

Therein lies the difference between this content and the content that exists on a website whose sole purpose is affiliate marketing.

The concept of websites that exist solely for affiliate marketing (and they do exist) is patently disingenuous. If they can produce a high-quality UX, that’s good. If not, that’s just as well. What matters to them is that you buy whatever it is that they’re promoting. 

Now, when you go onto an eCommerce website, you know what the deal is. There’s no smoke and mirrors there. They exist by selling online and that’s why they’re there. But when you’re on a blog or a forum, you’re there to learn, not necessarily to make a purchase, and that’s where the crackdown comes in. 

But there is a caveat, because this is not a blanket eschewal of affiliate marketing. As I stated, both interest and investment in affiliate marketing have only grown over the last ten years. 

So it’s alive and well. You just need to be smart about it. 

How It’s Changing 

It’s like this. If you want to run an affiliate marketing website, and be the one earning commission, you need to put the quality of content first and the links second. 

That is, you can’t just promote a product because a seller is offering you a big cut. You need to promote only quality products that you can personally vouch for. Put another way, if you wouldn’t buy it, don’t become an affiliate for it. 

Don’t even go about it with the mindset that you want to do affiliate marketing. Make useful information your product, and the product a secondary product, if that makes any sense. There will be more than enough opportunities to review and recommend products organically, and those represent the best opportunities for affiliate marketing. 

So if you run a blog or a website, make sure that the quality of your recommendations is more important than whatever the recommendations are themselves. 

On the other side of the coin, if you’re an eCommerce merchant considering soliciting an affiliate or launching your own affiliate marketing program, be picky about who you choose to do your marketing. Low-quality affiliate sites will end up costing you more than you make. 

Other things also help the success of affiliate marketing programs. For instance, if you are a subject matter expert, have a lot of experience in a specific vertical, or are very passionate about a specific group of products (or a niche) then you make a good candidate for an affiliate. 

Just be aware of a few things. No matter what, affiliate marketing done right takes a lot of time, and on top of that, there is a lot of competition for affiliate marketers. 

If you can commit to the time it takes to get started and generate results, and all of the work involved in soliciting affiliates and publishing all that content, then affiliate marketing is not only not dead, but it might be a fit for your skillset. 

Pursue Other Digital Marketing Channels 

For some eCommerce ventures (and marketers) affiliate marketing (though it is not dead) is not really a good fit. 

For others, more conventional marketing channels, like PPC, eCommerce SEO, and paid and organic social media management will offer a more reliable return, with less risk. Other potential channels include content marketing (one of the best, and one that can be leveraged in some instances as an affiliate channel) as well as email marketing, along with influencer marketing (which can also be leveraged as affiliate marketing in some instances). 

Either way, there are many options and most are open to the majority of eCommerce merchants. You just need to determine which ones will work for you and be smart about it. So what if affiliate marketing doesn’t? There are plenty that do.