Pay per click affiliate marketing is a hugely competitive field. The super low barrier to entry and possible large profit ensures there will always be new competitors in every niche. But I got to thinking recently, with all everyone trying the same thing what can you use as a competitive edge? People cautiously guard their keywords and landing pages, but is that their edge? Not really. Let’s break it down.
- Keywords: public knowledge. Using various free and paid tools, anyone can find out your keywords and duplicate them so no advantage there.
- Landing pages: public knowledge. Anyone can see and copy your landing pages simply by clicking your ads. No advantage here.
- Ad copy: public knowledge. Anyone can see and copy your ads by just searching on your keywords. Again, no advantage.
So really what edge do you have over your competitors that they can’t see and copy? I’d say 3 main things: your account structure, your relationships, and your creativity.
I’m a huge proponent of good campaign structure. It can make or break a campaign and take a marginally profitable offer to the next level. No one can see your account structure, and that can be a huge competitive edge. I believe my fanatical approach to campaign account structure gives me an edge.
Your relationships with account managers at the PPC networks can allow you to run things that others may not or get favorable manual reviews. Your relationship with your affiliate account manager can be leveraged for higher payouts, private offers and better terms. These are definite competitive edges.
Creativity is the X factor of affiliate marketing. Sure you can make some money copying people, but the people really making money are the ones setting off and trying new things. Being creative puts you on the leading edge of the curve and ahead of the pack. By the time they catch up, the creative marketer is on to the next thing. This factor may be the biggest edge of all.
Good, Point! People often forget affiliate marketing is a business. I would say one of my competitive advantages is my educational background which gives me quite a bit of knowledge in the field of marketing. Their are many other things that can give affiliates advantages, I would love to here more!
[...] Networks made an interesting post about competitive advantages. This is interesting to me as I’m heading off to an exam this afternoon in my strategic [...]
I definitely agree.
Also,
1) Your Team – How good is your team at setting up campaigns?
2) Your Tools – How good are your tools?
3) Your Motivation – How Much Effort do you put into your business strategy?
4) Your Foresight – How many steps ahead are you from the 10000’s of other affiliates?
Interesting, and once pointed out very obvious.
What do you mean exactly by “campaign structure”?
The way you organize your campaigns like number of keywords per adgroup, adgroups per campaign, ads per adgroup, etc…
I couldn’t agree more. The majority of successful affiliate work we have done has been a result of getting creative and exploring (testing) even the seemingly stupidest things out.
Also, relationships with the merchants themselves can be more beneficial than all your points put together.
[...] Original post by Chad [...]
Hey Neil, can i have some marketing tutorials from you please?
Personally, I think your best edge is “Think for Yourself”. If you do that, you are pretty much guaranteed to have something that’s unique and creative. You need to set yourself apart in your ad copy, offers promoted, creatives…
[...] to improve a quality score/quality index. I pity the fool that copied that crap. As Chad from CDF Networks pointed out, you can’t see a lot of what’s going on behind the scenes. You don’t [...]