Diorex

Not to get too nerdy, but when I used to play Dungeons & Dragons type games on the computer, I was always asked to determine my characters alignment, which indicated how I would generally react to a situation.

Paladins always had to be the good guys. Assassins were typically evil. You could also be a troublemaker and be chaotic or totally neutral etc. Essentially you could be good or evil and lawful or chaotic with neutral combinations of each. I usually chose Chaotic Good because even then I was an outside the box non-conformist who was basically good.

Anyway, as I am getting more into the affiliate management space, I am starting to realize that the same holds true for affiliates.

• There are the affiliates who only care about themselves, often using fraudulent or misleading methods to drive traffic, confuse consumers or outright scam advertisers - these would be the chaotic evil alignments - out for only themselves and noone else.
• There are the people who are pushing the limits (think Google takeover Scams, or someone using Splogs to game the SERPS) - I would categorize these guys as Chaotic Neutral. They are gaming Google, but in general are not misleading consumers nor advertisers.
• There are the guys who go out of there way to provide quality leads and make sure that the leads are quality for both the consumer and the advertiser. Often this is the way in which they protect themselves. This is the model Lawful Good paladin.
• There are of course combinations of all of the above. They guy who bids on trademarked terms in violation of an affiliate agreement who do not scam consumers but are intentionally breaking the advertisers rules. The company who has a valid unsubscribe in their Can-Spam compliant emails, but then just mails that consumer from a different domain or for a different product.

As an affiliate, I subscribed to the theory that the fastest way to higher payouts, stronger relationships and overall more predictable earnings was the Lawful Good affiliate character. I was always cognizant of the fact that if I provided bad leads or otherwise unprofitable business to my partners, then my long term viability could be compromised. It was certainly not the only way to achieve my goals, just the way I chose.

Now that I am running a large affiliate team, I am dealing with characters from all walks.  Some are focused on the highest possible payout - to heck with my profitability. Others are slimeballs who consistently mislead consumers and draw unwanted regulatory attention. Still others are very focused on long term relationships and although want a high payout, they also want to make sure their traffic quality is good and that my profits are stable - these are also often the guys who understand that payout is merely one side of the equation - and that conversion rate can be far more important.

I am not trying to condemn any of the affiliate types (well maybe the Chaotic Evil ones who intentionally screw us and our customers), but rather bringing to light that there are many shades of affiliate marketing other than the color of your hat.

Having been on both sides, I do not have a preference for one type over another - I just know that some types of alignments tend to wear a different color hat with higher frequency - Green, for the money they make and the envy they attract from others.

So what is your affiliate alignment? Is that part of the reason for your success? or is that what might be getting in your way from building a sustainable business? Have you ever stopped to think about the ultimate value of your traffic? or are you focused on how much money you can make? have you ever worked with a partner with a lower payout because they pay more reliably or convert better?

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 29th, 2008 at 8:08 pm and is filed under affiliate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.