The Useful Idiots of Affiliate Marketing

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Vladimir Lenin once said that a useful idiot is worth a hundred trained agents. The useful idiots in this case were well intentioned folks that perpetuated Communist Russian propaganda in the United States.

In reading a recent blog posting from Connie Berg (The Affiliate List Under Fire), it seems that there are plenty of useful idiots spreading fallacies and conspiracy theories about an affiliate marketing report called The Affiliate List.

According to the site for this report from Jeff Molander, “The Affiliate List provides marketers with rapid access to over 200 of the most productive retail-focused affiliates. Each has been scrutinized and hand selected for the ability to consistently produce sales transactions and/or leads for large and small marketers alike.”

What an offensive concept… direct marketing. If only it were that simple.

However, the attack on this report was initiated by a message board administrator who has an axe to grind with Mr. Molander.

Sadly, some folks in the affiliate marketing space aren’t aware that there is an agenda at play.

I’m in the unique position of having actually reviewed the contents of the Affiliate List, and it’s basically the sort of list a merchant can get from their respective network, but on steroids.

It’s supplemented with all sorts of publicly available data that is very useful to affiliate managers when researching which affiliates might be a good match for their program.

So the conspiracy theorists can relax. They might find that their time is better spent reading a history book. Spoiler: Lenin the megalomaniac, his minions, and their evil empire eventually collapsed.