{"id":3221,"date":"2010-04-13T08:00:44","date_gmt":"2010-04-13T15:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/?p=3221"},"modified":"2010-04-13T08:00:44","modified_gmt":"2010-04-13T15:00:44","slug":"why-i-dont-do-affiliates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/why-i-dont-do-affiliates\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Don’t Do Affiliates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Much to some peoples’ annoyance<\/em>… I don’t do affiliates.<\/p>\n

And lately, people have been asking me why.<\/p>\n

Is it because I’m crazy? Do I like losing out on more of the green stuff? Don’t I know everyone<\/em> online who makes lots of money uses affiliates?<\/p>\n

So I thought it high time to set the record straight.<\/p>\n

Here are some reasons I don’t do affiliates:<\/p>\n

1. Physical products <\/strong><\/p>\n

My products are all (with one exception) physical. And, after dabbling with affiliates a while back, I realized what a headache it’d be if there were returns from their customers, etc.<\/p>\n

2. FTC<\/strong><\/p>\n

Due to recent FTC rules (and by all means, correct me if I’m wrong), I would have to watch what my affiliates say when selling my products… or I could be held liable for any false claims. <\/p>\n

Not very appealing.<\/p>\n

3. Crappy manager<\/strong><\/p>\n

I hate managing money owed to others. It throws off my accounting mojo, and gives me a headache just thinking about it. Not to mention the freaky trend of anti-capitalism state sales tax laws emerging (i.e. “Amazon Tax”) that could soon make it extremely burdensome<\/em> for any publishers using affiliates.<\/p>\n

4. I preach to the choir<\/em>, not the uninitiated<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the most important<\/em> reason:<\/p>\n

The sales letters for my products are intended for people who are “pre-sold” on me, and are on my list already. They’re not intended (or written “to”) cold or even luke warm prospects — which makes them unsuitable for most affiliates or JV deals.<\/p>\n

Now, this COULD<\/strong> all change someday.<\/p>\n

I never say “never.”<\/p>\n

But this is how it is for now.<\/p>\n

Fact is, there are many pros and cons to having affiliates, and I would not tell anyone they should or should not use them. (Contrary to popular opinion, there are many high income earning marketers who do NOT use affiliates.)<\/p>\n

For some it makes perfect sense.<\/p>\n

For others… not so much.<\/p>\n

There’s no “one size fits all.”<\/p>\n

But that, my friend, is a subject for another time.<\/p>\n

Ben Settle<\/p>\n

P.S.<\/strong> Despite the above, I actually think affiliate marketing is pretty cool, and even sell a product (using affiliates — via clickbank) on the subject.<\/p>\n

It’s called The Affiliate Trump Card<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

If you’re interested, you can read about it at:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

www.AffiliateTrumpCard.com<\/a><\/div>\n

<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Much to some peoples’ annoyance… I don’t do affiliates. And lately, people have been asking me why. Is it because I’m crazy? Do I like losing out on more of the green stuff? Don’t I know everyone online who makes lots of money uses affiliates? So I thought it high time to set the record […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-copywriting-and-sales-letters","category-sales-marketing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bensettle.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}