Affiliate marketing is dead in 2024 for many people because Google’s 2024 search algorithm updates have substantially diminished organic visibility for many affiliate sites. AI summaries from technologies like Google SGE and ChatGPT are taking search traffic. Also, AI content creation is saturating the market for affiliate content. Paid ads are harder to target. Digital marketers are losing access to good consumer data. Also, advertising costs are rising. It's harder to profit from paid traffic to affiliate offers.
Affiliate marketers favor blogging for traffic. Authority Hacker found that 79.1% of affiliates use it as their main traffic source. In 2024, many affiliate sites lost traffic. Google now favors major sites like Forbes Advisor and forums like Reddit and Quora. This change hurt affiliate sites that used to rank well on Google.
Blogging affiliates are also starting to lose traffic to artificial intelligence. Before blogging, affiliates used info queries to drive traffic to their offers or capture emails. Now, potential customers can get a quick answer to those queries in seconds. They no longer have to click into and browse through an article.
AI tools like Jasper.ai and Surfer SEO are hurting affiliate blogs. They're making content creation much cheaper for everyone. As such, content is flooding the market at a higher pace than ever before, making it more difficult for a blog post to rank in the organic search results.
It's not just blogging affiliates feeling the impact of industry changes. Media buyer affiliates are also facing headwinds as access to third-party consumer data is going away. It started in 2021 with the Apple IOS 14 update, when Apple made it harder for apps to collect consumer data. Google will end third-party cookie data collection by 2024. This will leave advertisers with less data for targeting with Google Ads. Also, paid advertising costs are rising. More companies are using paid ads in their marketing. This makes it harder for media buying affiliates to run profitable campaigns.
In 2024, many are choosing local lead generation over affiliate marketing. It's a popular new online business model. Local lead generation means building websites to attract customers for local service businesses. Then, we sell those leads to real local service businesses for $500 to $3,000 a month. The local lead generation model avoids many pitfalls of affiliate marketing. It uses local SEO to target customers effectively. Local SEO is easier for high search visibility. You only compete with a few small businesses in a specific location. It's better than competing for global visibility with everyone on the internet.
Over the last seven years, I've been involved in various forms of digital marketing, including affiliate marketing. I generated $3,000 per month by launching several affiliate marketing sites. This article discusses whether affiliate marketing is dead. We will compare its current pros and cons. This will help you decide if it's worth pursuing in 2024.
1. A Lack of Control Over the Customer Experience
There is a lack of control over the customer experience in affiliate marketing because your only job is to drive online traffic to offers. You don't have brand loyalty because the customer belongs to the affiliate marketing program. Also, you need to get more clicks to make money. And you don't get many chances to generate a recurring income. But that means you're always looking for a new offer. Or a new audience and a different angle to drive people to your links. And it's this lack of control that has a direct impact on your affiliate income.
2. Driving Online Traffic to Your Offers Is Hard
Driving online traffic to your offers is hard because everybody is vying for the same consumer base. Also, it is harder to harness organic traffic. Old SEO tactics don't work anymore.
In fact, a poll by Matt Diggity reveals that 63% of 945 affiliate marketers were affected by Google algorithm changes. This competition drives affiliates to use unsavory sales tactics. They create unrealistic offers and make outlandish claims to sell their products. Some even create fake accounts on social media platforms.
3. Affiliate Marketing has Fierce Competition
Affiliate marketing is super competitive. It's a global market where you are going head to head against sites from all over the world. And old methods like throwing up banner ads or running a low CPC ad campaign don't cut it anymore.
Now you're competing against national brands. They have a full staff writing articles and ranking for the top keywords. And these businesses have a ton of money. Plus, they've spent years cultivating their brand. Some of these affiliates have followed affiliate marketing best practices since the 1990s.
Is Affiliate Marketing Dead or Alive?: 2 Sides of the Spectrum Regarding Why Affiliate Marketing Is Dead
Affiliate Marketing is Dead
Market Saturation. There is market saturation in affiliate marketing and you'll be facing more competitors because of its low barrier to entry. Also, affiliate marketing will boost their 2024 spending, per Influencer Marketing Hub's 2024 Benchmark Report. The report says that affiliate marketing companies have raised 15.38%, or $1.5 billion, more in funding for 2024 than in 2022. This could attract more affiliate marketers to the industry.
Increasing Ad Blocker Usage. Blockthrough's 2022 PageFair Adblock Report noted a rise in ad blocker use, with desktop ad blocking returning to its 2018 high. Blockthrough measured over 10 billion pageviews from 9,453 websites and found that the average AdBlock rate is 21%. AdBlocks can affect publishers’ revenue. About 80% of AdBlock users also find AdBlock walls annoying, affecting the conversion rate.
Shift Towards Influencer Marketing. The rise of affiliate-based influencer marketing could worsen competition in affiliate marketing. It may let celebrities, experts, or micro-influencers dominate. Statista reports that the global influencer marketing market will hit $24 billion in 2024. This could make it harder for newcomers in affiliate marketing to break through the market. Tim Pike, a Global Program Strategist at Acceleration Partners, agrees. He says influencers are vital in affiliate marketing. Clients rely on social content to guide their decisions.
Challenges in Niche Selection. Challenges in niche selection include identifying niche markets and their naturally limited size. Selecting niches is important to establish a loyal customer base and narrow down the competition. Niches have a limited size. Alex Jovy, Head of Business Development for UK-based Davies & Associates, said niches have a small customer base. This could make it tough for affiliate marketers to grow and compete.
Affiliate Marketing is Alive
Continuous Growth of E-commerce. Affiliate marketing has many competitors. But, global e-commerce is growing. It offers new opportunities for affiliates. Astute Analytica's 2023-2031 forecast says the affiliate marketing platform's market size will hit $36,902.1 million in 2030, up from $19,217.4 million in 2021. Meanwhile, Statista's latest data shows US affiliate market spending was $8.2 billion in 2022, up 10% from 2021.
Diversification of Marketing Channels. The App Growth Summit published an article. It listed ways for publishers to diversify their marketing channels. Natalie Portier, the Regional VP Americas at Adjust, wrote the article. She said marketers should consider secondary platforms like Quora, Reddit, or Pinterest.
Emergence of Micro-Influencers. Micro-influencers prove you don't need to be very popular to succeed in online business, especially in affiliate marketing. Micro-influencers are those with 10,000 to 100,000 followers. Spiralytics cited a Linqia survey. It found 90% of marketers prefer micro-influencers. Some reasons for this preference include affordability, manageable communication, authenticity, and engagement.
Expansion of Affiliate Program Offerings. With over 80% of brands using affiliate marketing, it will soon expand. Affiliate marketing in the US is projected to grow, so more affiliate programs will be offered.
Growing Demand for Niche Expertise. There is a growing demand for niche expertise. A recent article by TheStar quoted APU Associate Professor, Dr. Tan Chin Ike. He said, "In tech, highly sought after are niche, full-stack, or DevOps experts." WeCanTrack's data shows that 72% of successful bloggers credit their success to choosing a niche.
Is Affiliate Marketing Dead Per Quora?
No, affiliate marketing is not dead per Quora, but changes are happening in consumer preferences. These changes could affect affiliate marketers. A top answer to a related question of “Is affiliate marketing dying in 2023?” and “Will affiliate marketing die in 2024?” explains that blogging will be a far less attractive way to do affiliate marketing. The post from Rob Gall, last December 16, 2023, shares that one change is that more people will use AI to get answers. Rob says that by going directly to ChatGPT or Bard, websites will completely lose traffic. But he adds that people could still write and promote a blog using other channels.
Is Affiliate Marketing Dead Per Reddit?
No, affiliate marketing is not dead per Reddit, and there is still a great opportunity in it. A Redditor shares that there are different forms of affiliate marketing, and they all can be profitable and can be a lot of work.
Another Redditor says there are great opportunities in affiliate marketing. However, you must join a proven system to succeed. It will make it easier. The Reddit user adds that an affiliate system and community can help you stay focused and motivated.
Is Affiliate Marketing Too Saturated?
Affiliate marketing is not too saturated, but it's pretty crowded. For example, Amazon Associates has over 900,000 affiliates. And ShareASale has more than 700,000. That's 1.6 million affiliate marketers from only two affiliate networks.
To succeed in this competitive arena, you must market yourself and become an authority in your niche. You need to add value to the content you publish. (Learn skills and not markets). Then, pick a style and become an expert in things like:
- Copywriting
- Video Marketing
- Video Editing
- Content Creation
- Email Marketing
You can crush the competition. But only if you have the skills to get in front of your target audience. So you need to know how to drive traffic to your offers. Plus, you only make money as an affiliate if people click your links. So you need to build trust and invest the time to cultivate a valuable digital real estate asset. As long as the market grows and new trends emerge, businesses will find untapped opportunities to monetize.
Why Affiliate Marketers Fail?
Affiliate marketers fail because they don’t treat it as a business, and they expect it to be easy money. Jacob Mitchell, who founded Earnings Click, is an affiliate marketer. He says most people who start affiliate marketing don't make any money. Jacob believes that those who succeed treat affiliate marketing like a business.
Stephen Mecham of Buildapreneur says people fail at affiliate marketing. They either get stuck in the learning phase or dive in without learning. To succeed in affiliate marketing, Stephen says you must learn and apply it quickly.
3 Common Reasons Why Affiliate Marketers Fail and How to Succeed
How Long Does It Take To Be A Successful Affiliate Marketer?
It takes 12 months to 5 years to be a successful affiliate marketer. For those who see success as just making money online, Ahrefs notes it takes 6 to 12 months to start earning as an affiliate marketer. The traditional ways of doing affiliate marketing are not viable today. Google has learned more about black hat tactics and spammy affiliate sites. Now, the market is flooded with people hoping to get rich through affiliate marketing.
Be realistic. Be aware of trends from online ads and affiliate networks. Companies are using micro-influencers. You might want to check on that. Know the long-tail keyword strategy. Apply it to your SEO plan. You can also look up contextual advertising and referral marketing dynamics to see how you can maximize these concepts.
What Is the Future of Affiliate Marketing?
The future of affiliate marketing is the increasing use of AI and machine learning. A survey by Authority Hacker of 2,270 affiliate marketers found that 79.3% use AI for content creation. For instance, Chad Bartlett released a video. It showed AI software could speed up video creation for affiliate marketers.
Forbes reports that global big data will hit $229.4 billion by 2025. So there is an opportunity to monetize in emerging markets for affiliate marketing like:
- Influencer Marketing & The GenZ Generation
- Crypto & AI Advancements
Conclusion: Why Lead Generation Is More Alive and Profitable Than Affiliate Marketing in 2024?
Lead generation is more alive and profitable than affiliate marketing in 2024 because you get more control over the business. Also, with lead gen, the focus is on a local market, so it's less competitive. Like affiliate marketing, you don't need a physical product in local lead generation. Instead, you build and rank generic websites at the top of Google. Then, when your sites bring in leads, you sell them for a cut of the profits. Plus, you don't need a ton of cash to get started with lead generation.
Affiliate marketing is attractive to many people because you don't need to own physical products. Plus, you don't need to invest a ton of upfront capital. However, it's far from passive. Consider that you always need to publish new content or chase the next hot link. Plus, you're going up against national brands and global business owners.
I built a site in 2015 for a total cost of $500. But this site has been making me $2000/month for the last seven years. Now it's at the top of the SERPs. So it doesn't need much maintenance. I don't need to rely on paid ads or create an irresistible offer because I have the skills to leverage Google.
Plus, this website offers a service. One that people are actively searching for online. So I'm filling a market need and getting paid for my service. And now, I have a proven concept, so I rinse and repeat to achieve a passive income.
Affiliate marketing is a way to make money online. The business model isn't dead. But it's not easy either. You need to be prepared to invest the time and energy to build an audience. If you want a business where you get more control and a stable source of passive income, the local lead gen model is your best option.
