The term "affiliate" has and continues to come under much debate. Should what we do be called "Affiliate Marketing"? Are we affiliates, publishers, or advertisers? As a paid search affiliate, all I really do is advertising. Who is the advertiser, us, our merchant partners, or both of us? We both buy advertising to promote the partner’s products and services.
One of my super affiliate cohorts, IM’ed me about wiseaff, and said, "Why AFF, isn’t that a bit restrictive?". It made me stop and think. Why does the term "affiliate" leave a bad impression? Should it?
Like it or not, we are in the affiliate marketing business. We can try and call it performance marketing, CPA marketing, acquisition marketing, pay for performance marketing, post-paid marketing, or cost of goods sold marketing, all we want, but that is not how the industry has defined us.
Should we embrace the affiliate term and work on educating greater corporate America on the many benefits of using this large network of high performers to market their products and services and only get paid for the results they generate?
Personally, I don’t care what we end up calling ourselves, so long as our partners and the executives at their companies understand the value we are brining to the table and are willing to sit down with us, as partners, to determine what a win-win relationship looks like.
Embrace your inner AFF folks! If you are getting paid commissions for your marketing efforts, you’re an AFF!
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