Affiliates are working hard to make sales and earn commissions - they have overheads of varying degrees. Web hosting, advertising, etc etc. When you surf the web looking for information, some sources will be better than others. If you are looking for products or services, you are a potential customer, just as you are when you walk into a bricks and mortar store, or when you watch TV, read print media and so on. You ARE a consumer, like it or loathe it, it’s a fact. People are always trying to convince you to act on your impulses to converse, to browse, to contribute, to purchase, to provide information, to perform actions that result in a benefit for them. It’s part of our daily lives and it’s inescapable.

Very simple scenario. Let’s take a person who has decided that they want or need something to fulfill a particular "need". The first thing they do is start seeking out a solution, whatever that perceived need might be. Let’s say they want a book, a work of fiction, a good story. They probably know roughly what they want, the kind of story they like, the style of writing, their favorite authors based on past experience. They might walk straight into a bookstore - because that’s logical. They could go to a library - also very logical. They might be more inclined to look online, for a variety of reasons. They might want to gain some more information before they buy, they might want to narrow down their choices, they might want to find the lowest price. In short there are a whole lot of factors involved in our behavior and decision making processes. Eventually the decision to buy will be reached, they will abort the decision, or re-examine their options. Without wandering too far off the purpose of this post, I accept this is a very simplistic example. So let’s look at the decision to buy.

They find the book they want online, and they have found the best price they think they are going to get it for. Great. Maybe, they have found it through the efforts of an affiliate, and consequently they buy the book and the affiliate earns a commission. Does the consumer have anything to complain about? Surely the affiliate has played a big part in satisfying their needs? Whether the affiliate recommended that book because he knew it was a popular book or because he promoted it through a company that paid the highest commission is surely not that important. Does the fact that the affiliate has never read the book matter? No, because you, the end user, got what you wanted. The affiliate has simply served as a conduit along the way and got rewarded for it. Would you prefer to pay a higher price to another online or offline retailer purely out of a dislike of affiliate marketing? Would you refuse to buy something in a store because the salesperson worked on commissions? Probably not and you probably wouldn’t have any idea in any case. Would you buy that new TV for the highest possible price because you want to make absolutely sure that all your money goes to the "company" or store owner? Of course you wouldn’t because all these choices would be irrational and you couldn’t care less - you want the deal that is best for you. People earn commissions for a reason - they’ve done something to earn them, no matter what we are talking about.

For those who don’t know, a lot of companies doing business online operate affiliate programs. Affiliates can often offer deals not available through a company’s main website. Why? Because those companies appreciate the people spreading the word about their products and services - you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. The consumer gets good deals, the affiliate gets paid, the company sells more. If that upsets you as a consumer think about it.

I look at my own affiliate marketing activities and view it as a way of spreading information. I can’t possibly review every service or product I promote and don’t pretend that I can. When it comes to things like hosting I often provide links to deals and coupon codes. I’m not in the business of forcing anyone to buy anything but hope that my sites will provide some value to people who visit. It costs me money to do these things a lot of the time, but it’s my choice to act as an advertiser. If they buy a hosting package, great, I’m happy to earn the money. If they have a bad experience with that company further down the road it has to be resolved by the service provider - if I pretended otherwise or implied some sort of guarantees, surely I would be a liar. If I make a buying decision based on a TV advertisement and an unhappy with what I get for my money do I take my complaint to an advertising agency for making the ad or the TV company for running it? No, I take it up with the company itself. That’s not to say that as an affiliate I renounce any and all responsibility - if I see too much consistent bad feedback on a company I’ll stop working with them. By it’s nature there are no guarantees in the hosting industry. On the other hand I will happily provide details of my own experiences when they are available. I also provide plenty of interactivity so that consumers can leave their own experiences to benefit others in the future, although I have to say that it’s sorely underused.

Still on the subject of hosting - you will notice that people are extremely quick to bash hosting companies. Sometimes the criticism is fair, often it is unwarranted. In the past couple of days I have seen customers of one company praising them unreservedly and others bad mouthing them following an outside attack on some of their servers, causing sites to go offline. These things happen, they are annoying and can be costly, but if a company has hosted sites without much of a glitch for a long time, why call for a public hanging at the first instance of a problem? Easy targets, but I often wonder why Mr or Mrs Angry don’t at least calm down and think before publicly berating anyone. You have to remember that all these ventures are providing employment and livelihoods as well as hosting your blog or website and lashing out can be damaging to a lot of people. One thing if it’s deserved, another if it’s just an unfortunate and isolated incident.

Summing up, affiliate marketers are not the enemy. Some affiliate marketers are better/worse than others. If I want to buy something online myself, I am happy to do so through an affiliate link - I’ll even seek them out on occasion. If you are the kind of internet user who finds what you are looking for and then strips out an affiliate link before buying, what on earth is your motive? Is it that you truly can’t bear the thought of someone making a little money after guiding you towards a solution? If the price you pay remains the same, all you do is deprive someone of a small fee for helping you out. I personally think that says far more negative things about an individual than any criticism of affiliate marketers. What do you think?

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