I had to think long and hard about this decision. I’ve had a personal web site of some sort on and off for about 25 years now. And I have had ads on those sites for a good deal of that time. My reason for doing so was to make enough money to offset the cost of the web site. And in some years I succeeded. And in some years, I didn’t.
In years past you just slapped some ads on a site and, hopefully, the sales would follow. But it’s gotten more complicated lately. With the advent of social media one could slap some ads on their posts. But most people wouldn’t click on them. So this evolved into people talking about various things that would influence you to buy something. They call them influencers. Some of them are very good. Some of them make a lot of money. But what they don’t tell you is that it’s a lot of work.
Maybe you’ve been hearing about the substantial number of social media influencers that have died over the last few years. Do a Google search and ask this question. The results are surprising. Some commit suicide. Some die from heart attacks. Some die from doing crazy, dangerous things in order to get views. There’s a lot of pressure to keep doing videos, reviews, posts, etc to keep your visibility up and keep the money flowing in as well as your advertisers happy.
This has been a factor for me the last few years. When I got a web site in 2017 after a seven year absence, I originally wanted to just have a “sandbox” to play in, create some neat stuff and keep my brain active. But, not long after, I decided to place ads on the site to make money. It was a lot of work. Advertisers come and go, they change their ads, they want you to do this and that. And with social media being the dominant platform for advertisers, they want you to do product reviews and talk about their products and services as well as advertise them on your site.
What I discovered over the last few years was that I was spending the majority of my time finding new advertisers, changing ad copy for existing advertisers, removing ad copy when an advertiser dropped me or I dropped that advertiser and creating product evaluations via my blog or YouTube.
Basically, I enjoyed doing this from a technical standpoint. It was fun. But two factors led me to make this decision:
- I wasn’t making the amount of money that I felt justified the effort that I put into this endeavor.
- I wasn’t able to spend as much time as I wanted outdoors hiking, camping, fishing, backpacking and RV’ing.
I admit that I got a lot of free stuff from advertisers. I liked that. But the way that commission structures are based in most affiliate programs, getting paid involves a lot of hurdles. The chance of the code not working, the possibility that the advertiser is no longer active, some advertisers wouldn’t allow me to personally purchase things through their affiliate program, the fact that certain affiliate networks either had thresholds for you to meet before they paid you or would penalize you if you didn’t meet certain commission thresholds by taking away what litte commission that you made as a “service fee”. There are a number of factors working against you in affiliate marketing.
So the ads will go by January 1, 2025. I plan to return this site to what it was originally: a sandbox for me to play in and post my outdoor activities. Since I will not have any advertisers I will be more active with political blog posts since I am not happy with the results of the 11/05/2024 elections. I will continue my policy of not attacking individuals personally but only questioning their decisions and/or philosophies. I will keep it clean. But I will plant some “Easter Eggs” in my posts for you to find to see how I really feel. There may even be one on this page.
In closing, I am thankful for the opportunities that were available in affiliate marketing. But I think that it is time to move on.
Mike C
12/17/2024-
Things have changed slightly. I have eliminated all banner ads and product reviews on all areas of this site except the store. I was going to sunset the store after Christmas. However, I got a nice check from one of my advertisers, which cheered me up immensely. So, I will keep the store open and there will be products and services presented as well as banner ads only within the store. I am going to pair the store down from 200 listings to 150 and I will try to get out of doing product evaluations in order for me to free up more time to do outdoor stuff. So, again I must ask the reader to “Please patronize our advertisers.”
< Previous Blog Post | << Blogs V2 | Next Blog Post >
