Without a long preface, an interview with Servando Silva about work, results, interesting cases, insights of 2021, as well as thoughts about what awaits affiliate marketing in the upcoming 2022!
Servando Silva – affiliate marketer, blogger, leader of affLIFT forum community, speaker. In affiliate marketing since 2012 and over 8 years of experience. Servando started out with SEO and organic traffic on FB and then switched to paid advertising. Works with various traffic resources and trends.
In your opinion, how was 2021 for the affiliate marketing market?
In my opinion it was a decent year. Probably nothing to brag about for a ton of affiliates, but not as bad as it could have been or as 2020 when the pandemic hit and everything was unstable.
Are you satisfied with your results for the year?
Yes, this year was pretty solid in terms of numbers for me and while there were no huge months, steady wins the race.
I hope this was the same case for a lot of affiliates or if you’re new in the industry, I hope you learned as much as possible so you can kill it next year.
Is the glass half empty or half full? In your opinion, affiliate marketing is still alive or outdated?
Still alive, but as usual, it’s always evolving. The same methods don’t bring the same results and some traffic sources are getting harder to tame. But also I noticed a few new opportunities and being an affiliate who knows marketing is a skill that can be applied to many other areas, such as eCommerce, lead generation, etc. and that works for many companies no matter which industry you’re in.
I guess the moment where you just rely on aggressive affiliate offers is getting harder and needs to be updated. Luckily, there are a few networks that are already doing it and they’re going to seize a bigger piece of the cake eventually.
Discovery of the year? The vertical, the offer, the ad format, whatever you think influenced the market.
I’m not sure I could say there was a vertical or new ad format which turned out to be a huge trend this year. The only one I can remember right now are iOS calendar notifications, but I wouldn’t say they were disruptive or anything like that.
Just a new format to test and expand your current campaigns, with its own pros and cons.
Disappointment of the year?
Hmmm, I think I’m going to go with the FB iOS 14 Update. This update was supposed to roll out last year but it kept being delayed until around Q2 this year and we definitely noticed the lack of information in terms of tracking and conversions since then.
There are a ton of trackers or tools that are able to help with it but even if they pass back information to FB it won’t matter if the user opted out for privacy reasons, so overall, FB has been quite the ride this year and I know a ton of affiliates, agencies and media buyers struggling with it.
Oh, and they also announced a similar feature that went live with iOS 15 for emails, so here they come again for email marketers. Not that this is completely related to FB, as Apple seems to be the culprit here, but the platform surely has changed in the last 3-4 years.
Where do you get the strength and inspiration to work in AM?
Reading blogs, groups, Twitter, etc. as well as chatting with friends occasionally in forums, Skype, Telegram, etc.
What are your predictions for 2022?
I don’t know, really. It feels to me like it’s going to be another steady year for those who are in this industry.
Also, there was a huge attention shift to the crypto markets with the bull run this year, and it seems like it could extend itself to 2022 a bit more.
Wherever there’s money, affiliates are going to be, but what happens after that cycle ends… who knows...
What would you like to wish your colleagues for in the new year?
I wish you tons of traffic, tons of sales and conversions and a happy new year!
