Marketing Sherpa Special Report: Affiliate Marketing 2005

[5starAffiliatePrograms]

Special Report: Affiliate Marketing 2005 -- Do Merchants & Affiliates Have Unrealistic Expectations?

"MarketingSherpa's December affiliate marketing survey results are in -- and the results are stunningly different from our expectations.

2004 has been a particularly tough year with merchants' fears of cookie stuffing and dishonest adware/spyware, CAN-SPAM legalities, and paid search arbitrage.

Many experts, including us, worried these factors would drive the estimated $1.5 billion affiliate marketing industry into a decline.

Guess what? According to our survey results, affiliate marketing is alive and well. Overall 91% of surveyed merchants and 82% of affiliates expect revenue growth in 2005. "

Read the rest then come back to discuss it:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/sample.cfm?contentID=2878

Linda

[kidmercury]

i dont think aff mkting is going anywhere but up any time soon, but i do think some changes are needed. successful affiliates will be more about developing sales partnerships and less about technical and publishing creativity (i.e. seo, ppc, free content, etc.). affiliates capable of creating mutually beneficial partnerships will be able to get traffic no matter what the search engines do. affiliates will also need to start adding value instead of simply reselling.

to put it simply: aff mkting will become more like developing a more well-rounded business and less about simply acting as a reseller.

threadwatch also has a discussion on this -- check it out (http://www.threadwatch.org/node/754)

[MrMackin]

That is not news.
That is a press release.
The references at the bottom.....
imho

[Marcia]

Interesting re: PPC in view of the Google / Geico (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/showthread.php?t=3334) decision handed down today.