When I saw the headline How the Affiliate Marketing Industry Killed Itself over at Lee McCoy’s blog and read that he agreed with the author, I had to follow the link and read the full story. I assumed it would be another doom and gloom “affiliate marketing is dead” article. In fact my 1st thought was “Molander is at it again!” ;-) HOWEVER this time I largely agree with the author’s views.

EDITED TO ADD 8/26. I did not mean to imply I agree that affiliate marketing is DEAD. FAR FROM IT! I changed his subject line to “IS KILLING” (instead of already KILLED) to imply a warning that we need to be ever vigilant about cleaning our industry up. I agree with a couple of David’s points as stated below.

Kieron has some other great points about this and I made a long reply over there to his comment “What also saddened me was people like Lee and Linda agree with him, surely you don’t guys?” So head over and see the discussion: David Hawk is wrong – the Affiliate Marketing Industry is alive and kicking. My response to Kieron also posted at bottom of original post below.

David Hawk is writing from the SEO side of the fence, so don’t hold that against him. He’s also largely pointing to the rogue and black hat affiliates, barely acknowledging that there is a “large majority of totally legit and valuable affiliates out there.”

I agree with that fact that the state of affiliate marketing today is primarily due to the rogues, black hatters and fraud affiliates that have given our industry a black eye. More importantly, the bad guys have made the business so much harder for the honest, value-add affiliates to succeed.

I also agree that had our industry been self-policing or somehow held to best marketing practices, we would not be suffering from the stigma and set-backs he describes. He makes a strong point when he says “Sadly, the weakest link in the chain brings down everyone else.”

It’s not too late to try to clean things up. When any of you “good guys” out there get the urge to try out a “gray tactic” or an outright “black hat trick” STOP and think about the big picture!

Like I always say “Market with Integrity and Everybody Wins!

The 3 main factors David says killed Affiliate Marketing are:
1. Marketers Wised Up to Affiliate Tricks
2. Search Engines Shunned Affiliates
3. Pay-Per-Performance Went Mainstream

“Affiliate marketers – most ecommerce businesses either love ‘em or hate ‘em…Regardless of the camp you are currently in, my sense is that affiliate marketing as an industry is in decline. As I see it, there are three main factors that are driving this demise, and each of these factors are directly the result of affiliates being too aggressive, underhanded, or a combination of both. Sadly, the weakest link in the chain brings down everyone else.”

It’s a long article, but well worth your time. Read the rest here:
How the Affiliate Marketing Industry Killed Itself

What do YOU think? Discuss it here!

EDITED TO ADD 8/26: My response to Kieron’s response:

Hi Kieron, sorry if it wasn’t clear but I don’t agree AT ALL that affiliate marketing is dying.

And I do agree with every one or your points Kieron too. We can agree on all that, being on the inside of the industry, knowing what WE know. But many people in the corporate world, some merchants and many traditional and SEO marketers think spammer, scammer, arbitrage, fraud – when they hear the word affiliate.

If we weren’t IN the biz and the only exposure we had to affiliate marketing is all the porn and RX spam and SEO and PPC black hat stuff we may not think so highly of our industry either. David’s views accurately reflect what many “outsiders” think of our industry. Hence his point “Sadly, the weakest link in the chain brings down everyone else.” is very true.

I’m the ever eternal optimist when it comes to our industry – so I will say again NO WAY do I think our industry is dying and didn’t mean for it to sound like I did.

What I was trying to say is I agreed with some of his points and tried to take them and turn them into a positive lesson or a warning that we need to stay vigilant about cleaning our industry up.