When I first read that some guy called Jason Calacanis was having a go at thin affiliates I did wonder what myself and other less chubby members of the affiliate community had done to upset him. However, before settling down and starting to munch a few dozen pies to get in shape, the good news is that thin affiliate doesn’t refer to one’s own bulkiness or lack of! In fact it applies to site quality.. and the fatter the better.

Kieron provides quite a good overview of the controversial keynote speech given by Calcanis and there are many other blogs too.

However, what doesn’t seem to be addressed is why affiliates go ‘thin’!

Calacanis apparently mocked guys who hold up nice big cheques on their blogs for all to see. Well, I kind of agree with that sentiment, personally I find it a bit distasteful but can understand why it’s done and that there’s a counter argument in that it encourages others. However, if you ask an affiliate if they’ll take a $600k cheque for ‘thin’ work or a lot less for slogging their guts out to provide a ‘fat’ quality service, my guess most will be grabbing the cash and heading for the sun!

The simple fact is content (or ‘fat’) work is bloody hard work, often without the accompanying financial rewards being ‘thinner’ can yield. Being ‘fat’ is a long term development and perhaps there may be a big pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it can be very frustrating, time consuming and requires constant development.

If you’re up for that challenge and willing to gorge on the joys of affiliate marketing, you’ll soon find you’re battling content being copied, loss of commission to cashback sites who are earning money off the back of your promotions, newer bigger VC backed super affiliate brands coming into the affiliate space, choppy changey merchants who don’t know what commission to offer or network to use from one week to the next, as well as your own brand protection (e.g. google bidding, social forum comments etc) and other trials and tribulations of being a business.

So the temptation to make the easy pound or buck is there – the fact that it can also be made is an incentive too!

Make a million at haste, repent at leisure…

Until those days change, and changing they are as Google takes out weaker sites, the ‘thin’ affiliates will get fat on the cash they make, leaving the ‘fat’ guys wondering if they’re on the wrong diet!

For me… well, I’ve been on a duck diet for the last 10 years and I guess I’m one of the thinnest (in size) ‘fat’ affiliates… the diet is simple: content is important, brand is vital, but users are king. There aren’t big cheques to flash about but you do find you put on a few pounds!

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