David Fiske Affiliate Marketing & Web Development

Jason wrote an excellent blog post back in May posing the question So What Happened To The UK Affiliate Bloggers?. In it he talks about the lack of fresh affiliate orientated content from some of the most prolific affiliate bloggers in the UK and beyond. My initial reaction was that affiliate bloggers have moved onto social media as an alternative. However, more recently I've been wondering where all affiliate marketers have gone, not just the bloggers.
 
Forums

My main tipple of choice is a glug of A4U every now and then. I use it substantially less now for a variety of reasons: lack of time; over-complex functionality; spam; lack of engaging discussions; etc. This isn't the fault of A4U but is simply a reflection of the changing times.

I'm busy here in Fiske towers and have been for some time. I wish I had an extra pair of hands to help but it's not viable at the moment so I make do. As such, time is precious and ebbs away very quickly indeed at the moment. We're half way through the year and a few days off the "6 months to Christmas" countdown so it doesn't look like it'll ease any time soon.

A4U has adapted over time to meet the need of the changing market. In trying to be more than a forum I believe the proposition has been slightly diluted from an affiliate perspective. I've rarely looked at News, The Pool, The Hub, Jobs and Events mainly as I get my fix of these through Twitter and RSS feeds.

Spam is a big problem in my opinion and is more a sign of success than weakness in my opinion. In relation to reading and commenting, I must spend a good 10% of my activity (at least) reporting spam. Other spam comes in the form of a string of identical posts from merchants promoting themselves in several threads. This has got better in recent times but the solution of having on thread a day for network launches, movements and closures means a lot of stuff I'm interested in is buried away. It's a fine line between duplicate content and usefulness and I reckon there's still scope. It would be much easier if merchants chose a single network to work with ;-)

In terms of the lack of engaging discussion, this is probably the most prominent area of concern. Whilst reading a thread yesterday cdr268 had suggested A4U was re-branded Merchants4U due to the ratio of merchants to affiliates on the board. I remember not so long ago a healthy buzz around the forum. Prominent affiliates offered help and advice and fresh blood and less successful affiliates were engaged in conversations. All was well.

Now it seems that most of the influential affiliates in the industry have either moved onto pastures new. Perhaps that's just the ecosystem at work. I joined the forum in December 2006 and joined the fresh blood of that year as well as the affiliate greats who had joined well before that. Fast forward 4.5 years and now many of the greats no longer comment but a new set of influential people exist on the forums, with a different style and attitude. Perhaps it's the circle of life at play.

Blogs

So if affiliate marketers have moved off forums, they've surely moved back towards blogs? Erm, no. As Jason elegantly portrays, there's pretty much nothing going on in the world of the usual suspects.

I personally feel the culling of the Blogger of the Year Award at the A4UAwards was probably a right move given the lack of posts in the arena but this could have contributed to such a lack. The chance to win industry recognition was enough for me to post some blog content. Whether it was well received is another point entirely but being nominated for the Award was a good day.

On the topic of awards, this years winners list sees very little in the affiliate publisher arena. There's a couple of major names but nothing for small aspiring affiliates. Cynics could say this backs up the Merchants4U comment above. It would be great to see the introduction of a selection of affiliate awards to balance the awards back out. The logistics of collating entries and determining winners would no doubt be wildly complex and perhaps ambiguous which may explain why the awards don't exist at present.

Social Media

So if affiliates have moved away from the forums and the blogs, surely they've moved to social media?

Well not entirely. I, for example, easily spend far more time on twitter than I do on the forum and my blog combined. The discussions are varied though, and generally is more concerned with daily life. The same seems to go for other affiliate marketers. There is a bit of gold out there but it is few and far between. The chat is interesting and varied usually but it's rarely about affiliate marketing.

The Economy

So as a group of affiliate marketers we've deserted chatting about what we do. As such, could it be argued that there are less active affiliate marketers in the market, or even that there has been a shift in economic priorities?

Before the credit crunch and subsequent recession, you couldn't move for "I make millions" articles written in a derogatory manner, usually in such a way that reads "I make loads of money and don't need to help you, but I am bored and want to share my wisdom". There were loads of them, all pretty much recycling the "get rich quick" mentality.

All that seems to have disappeared, at least for a while anyway. Perhaps their business models weren't as solid as they once thought or perhaps they've encouraged other affiliates to copy them and are no struggling themselves. Perhaps it's just the fact that no one is listening or maybe it's just a case that they are still making loads of money but have also moved away from the forums and blogs so we don't hear about it often.

It would be interesting to see whether the amount of active affiliates has reduced in the past couple of years. It would be more interesting to see whether the reverse is true as more people look to get involved in affiliate marketing.

So Where Have Affiliate Marketers Gone Then?

In a nutshell they've left the blogging arena, seem to have left the forum arena, don't really talk much about work on social media and some prominent affiliates I've noticed are moving further away from affiliate marketing entering related business fields or service fields.

Perhaps it's a sign of the times or they've all simply joined a more exclusive club I don't know about ;-)

It would be great to read more insightful articles from respected affiliate bloggers in the UK. It would be great if the forums started buzzing again.

Perhaps one day this will happen but I fear it's more of a slippery slope than a dry spell.