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Will You Be the Next Affiliate Marketing Millionaire? Or Casualty?

by MJ DeMarco · 19 comments

Amazon terminates 25,000 California affiliates immediately.

“Panda update” eliminates 1,000′s of sites from the Google index; Adsense revenues disappear overnight.

These are what I call “affiliate marketing” casualties and they happen when you don’t control your primary revenue source.

Yes, affiliate marketers can make boatloads of cash — but they also violate the Commandment of Control putting their business at perilous risk.



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  • http://www.thefastlaneforum.com/fastlane-articles/32590-will-u-next-affiliate-marketing-millionaire-casualty.html#post167604 Will U Be the Next Affiliate Marketing Millionaire? Or Casualty?

    [...] [...]

  • http://www.bronsonlaureiro.com Bronson Laureiro

    Brilliant insights, as always, M.J. and I completely agree.  

    I would add, a successful affiliate marketer can increase control by building a legitimate resource/authority site or audience which would allow them to plug in another affiliate program(s) should the terms change.  Instead of focusing on pimping out someone else’s fastlane business, they focus on building genuine audience(s) they can market multiple affiliate offers to.   

    Your thoughts?

  • Adiakritos

    fucks sake. I love these and hates these videos. When you pour your life into something to learn that it’s got a great amount of risk attached to it… kinda makes you want to delude yourself into continuing it instead of stopping dead in your tracks to start a new with a model that gives me all the power. 

  • http://www.themillionairefastlane.com MJ DeMarco

    Absolutely — I call that the “Affiliate Buffet” — when the tomatoes go rotten, the rest of the buffet isn’t ruined.  A lot of successful bloggers operate an “affiliate buffet” – Pat Flynn over at SPI immediately comes to mind, who BTW, was affected by the Amazon termination, however, because he is diversified in a buffet, his “dinner table” is still well stocked and the impact, minimal.  He also has built a great brand and an audience – one that wasn’t  built over night.  He controls his audience and his brand!

  • http://twitter.com/HolisticBiz Alex Rinehart

    Hi MJ, as soon as the news came out about the removal of affiliates in California, I immediately thought of you. Like my other prosperity guru Randy Gage says: “the only free cheese is in the mousetrap”. 

    If your business decision comes out of a 5-minute whim, and a 2 minute website, and your only plan to drive traffic and revenue is using a bunch of free resources…you’re going to be in trouble unless of course, you have a lot of virtual assistants overseas and you enjoy hiring, firing, & managing them!

    I’ve spent 1.5 years of my professional life running on the hamster wheel of “average”.

    Not sure what else to say other than I appreciate the work you do.

  • http://www.themillionairefastlane.com MJ DeMarco

    Or, you’ll get hit by “the Panda Update!” OMG!  I hear so many people complaining about getting hit by Panda.  My forum wasn’t impacted by “panda” … perhaps because it is real content and not manufactured for arbitrage.

  • Jeremy

    You must frequent higher class buffets that I do….if the tomatoes are rotten at a buffet, I’m not eating anything else there! LOL

  • http://www.themillionairefastlane.com MJ DeMarco

    A “high-class buffet” is an oxymoron — even in Vegas!

  • http://ryanlucht.com Ryan

    Yeah- seems that any type of complaining about a 3rd party source killing your income stream is an instant indicator of SLOWLANE, if not sidewalk. I’ve seen too many “open letter to Amazon” posts by California affiliates that are just them complaining about how their income streams are now heavily impacted. I mean, how many times have you heard something like “AdSense shut down my account, so now I’m screwed.” or “YouTube banned me, so all my income is gone”. Things like that. 

  • http://twitter.com/read2learn_blog Read2Learn Lounge

    That’s funny you mention The Panda update. Some of my blog post actually moved up to the first page of Google and my website has only been up for 2.5 months. A lot of the information on the first page of Google was severally outdated.

    And in regards to affiliate marketing, I think its good for trial and error, but goal should be to sell your own products and hire affiliates like you did. The the only way to go.

    Plus most the affiliate products I’ve seen are old and outdated anyways. Most of them can easily be revamped and made better.

  • http://twitter.com/read2learn_blog Read2Learn Lounge

    I know, I hear that a lot too. I realized that these are the type of people that just want to make extra money working from home…they are money chasers.

    They have no intentions of actually growing a business or brand.

  • http://customizedfatlossreviews.net Customized Fat Loss

    I have a huge admiration and respect for online marketers who have made it big. I think that your post is a true inspiration for those who are thinking about joining this industry! Great job MJ!

  • http://customizedfatlossreviews.net Customized Fat Loss

    I have a huge admiration and respect for online marketers who have made it big. I think that your post is a true inspiration for those who are thinking about joining this industry! Great job MJ!

  • http://customizedfatlossreviews.net Customized Fat Loss

    I have a huge admiration and respect for online marketers who have made it big. I think that your post is a true inspiration for those who are thinking about joining this industry! Great job MJ!

  • http://customizedfatlossreviews.net Customized Fat Loss

    I have a huge admiration and respect for online marketers who have made it big. I think that your post is a true inspiration for those who are thinking about joining this industry! Great job MJ!

  • Ruben Esquivel

    Great post! To be honest I was thinking about creating websites to sell affiliate products and once I see those products are selling then I will create my own products… Instead of taking the risk of spending months to create your own eBook / Product for no one to buy it…

    That’s my plan for now… Feel free to give me any constructive criticism

  • Ruben Esquivel

    By the way I love this blog / Videos / advice and I will definitely buy the book with my next check!!! For now Im reading every post!

  • http://customizedfatlossreview.net Jack’s Customized Fat Loss

    I just had to add: this post teaches one how to be successful as an online marketer. What the Do’s and Don’ts are. Great tips as always MJ!

    - Jack Leak

  • http://money.yourguidetoincome.com/will-you-be-the-next-affiliate-marketing-millionaire-or-casualty.html Will You Be The Next Affiliate Marketing Millionaire? Or Casualty? | Internet Income

    [...] violates the Commandment of Control which introduces big risks into your entrepreneurial equation. http://www.theMillionaireFastlane.com Amazon terminates 25000 affiliates in California. Affiliate marketin…" allowfullscreen="true"> http://www.theMillionaireFastlane.com Amazon terminates 25000 affiliates in [...]

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