> This is smart monetization and gives more bucks than this affiliate hack.
Do you have any numbers on that matter?
Do you have any numbers on that matter?
Just look around, usually advertisers pair themselves with publishers with a similar brand awareness and quality. Eg Nike or BMW won't advertise on Reddit or Facebbok because there would be a too strong asymmetry between advertisers' and publishers' brands. Nike and BMW would rather place and position themselves to eg the next James Bond movie from Sony (=> similar brand perception).
Reddit is the typical publisher that is avoided by a lot of major advertisers. The brand and the audience is maybe too heterogenous and inconsistent. While a sub like Photshopbattles might be positive and funny many other subs like Gonewild (which is huge btw) give Reddit a mixed perception. However, doing a deal with Viglink shows that they must have tried everything before (to get deals with major brands) but finally resigned and go now the affiliate path.
There is one good thing about affiliate marketing though: ad blockers do not harm your business.
They can if you use something like Viglink. That's another reason to roll your own solution. Really don't understand why they decided to go through them just to avoid a bit of regex.
If it's a good fit they can always roll their own later. Hell, they may be rolling their own right now but wanted to start capturing the additional revenue at a lower margin immediately.
>just to avoid a bit of regex
I've never heard of Viglink and am too lazy to google, but I'd wager the real value provided by the company isn't adding affiliate codes, but rather strong analytics features allowing you to optimize revenue across different affiliates etc.
If there's enough money in it then maybe it would be justifiable to put engineering effort into it themselves. In the mean time "free money" for minimal effort.
because it's more fun
Seriously? You think that's a good criteria to judge it on?