The following is what Gerry Graham of 4 Adjustable Beds, 4 Lift Chairs, and 4 Wheelchair Lifts & Ramps had to say in response the the question, What is the Future of Affiliate Marketing?
We are a small Internet sales and marketing company. Current revenues are $2.4 million. We sell mobility products to the handicapped over six specialized websites.
Approximately 80% of our business comes through our 800 call center. The other 20% is from online orders.
We are in the process of initiating our own affiliate program because it appears to us to be the only viable way of creating “traffic” to our sites with any degree of control.
Standard search enging rankings are lucrative when you have them. However, as has been recently the case, the “Google dance” or the Yahoo shuffle can play havoc with traffic and therefore earnings.
Our strategy is to develop an affiliate program with high quality business related partners who will send us traffic. In turn, we will compensate them amply.
We hope the result will be excellent partnerships and happy customers with less dependence on the fickleness of standard SE rankings.