An old friend used to tell me “It’s not that it takes all kinds, it’s that we have all kinds and have to put up with the stupid ones”… And looking at my portfolio of programs right now it’s the stupid ones that have entered the Affiliate Program Abandonment Cycle.
You have an idea for a site in a particular niche… The trend is on a long term rise pattern. The long tail keywords are cheap and wide open for you. There isn’t a significant amount of crowding and it’s a niche you know something about. Perfect… You find several offers that are great for the niche and you jump all over it. And you do well. And so do the merchants whose programs your promoting.
Then you see the merchant expanding their line of offerings. And you think “Cool!”. The merchant is branching out, they’ve paid well, treated you fairly, and your going to grow with them. So when they expand their offers you go with it. Nothing breeds success like success.
And then it happens…. They abandon their original niche.
Suddenly their AM is no more. They change their terms. When you complain about losing a profitable niche that they were on the cutting edge of they either ignore you, or start talking about “more profitable areas” or that the niche “wasn’t profitable”.
This is when you should run like the wind. Run away from the merchant as fast as you can. And I mean run like Bambi away from the hunter run. Because an Affiliate Program Abandonment Cycle is getting ready to run over you like a tornado in a trailer park.
You see, people are stupid. Well, not exactly… stupid people are stupid. A merchant that abandons the very market that made them in the first place just doesn’t get it. They’re acting stupid. And since stupid is as stupid does most of them remain stupid. They abandon the people that made them. Their employees, their partners, their affiliates. Instead of building and executing for the long term they are in a “take the money and run” mentality. Or, “the grass is always greener” mentality. Or, they’re just acting stupid. The merchant that abandons the niche that built them simply doesn’t have the vision to see what’s going to happen to them.
Which is that their customer base will begin to abandon them because the very reason they became a customer isn’t there anymore. That their affiliates will begin to abandon them because they’re going to provide their built-up customer base offers in the niches they’re interested in. Their employees will abandon them because more than likely they came to love the business… But the merchant abandoned the niche. And the dedicated employees who cared about the niche will look elsewhere.
If your an affiliate and a merchant drops the niche that built them… Find another merchant that does support that niche and fast. It won’t be long before that merchant abandons affiliate marketing too.
Have a merchant that is vexing you? A niche you want to explore? Just click on the “Discussion” link to the right and we’ll let the members of the AffSpot Affiliate Forum crowdsource it…
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