The TopRanked.io Weekly Affiliate Marketing Digest [+ EKSA Affiliate Program + Reddit]

Quick Disclosure: We’re about to tell you how the EKSA Affiliate Program is a great way to monetize gaming content (Especially on Reddit). And we really mean it. Just know that if you click on an EKSA Affiliate Program link, we may earn a small commission. Your choice.

Gamers are known for getting into all sorts of unusual wars.

But, luckily for us, their battles are usually against some not-too-distantly related enemy.

That means, us marketers have largely avoided their wrath.

Until now, that is.

But we’ll get to that in the news section.

First, you’ll need a way to monetize (because, as always, we’ll also show you how to make money from the situation).

TopRanked.io Partner Program of the Week — EKSA Affiliate Program

Later on, we will show you how to make money with gaming content (and AI). So obviously, this week’s affiliate program is none other than the brilliant EKSA affiliate program.

Here’s what you need to know.

EKSA Affiliate Program — Reddit Approved

Gamers can be a notoriously hostile bunch (as you’ll see later). So, if you’re gonna promote anything to them, you’d better make sure it’s up to par. And what better way to do that than by checking out Reddit?

Of course, before you do that, you’ll also need to know what you’ll be promoting in the EKSA affiliate program. So, before we get too far ahead of ourselves, let me cross the introducing the EKSA Affiliate Program task off my todos with this: EKSA Affiliate Program is all about promoting gaming accessories.

As for what kind of accessories you’ll be promoting in the EKSA Affiliate Program, the hero product here will be gaming headsets.

Here’s one review from Reddit:

Comment
by u/spraxers from discussion Eksa E900 Pro Vs Boat 1300 User review( review in comments)
in IndianGaming

Aside from their headset range, EKSA Affiliate Program also has a bunch of other doo dads, like keyboards, mice, cables, headphone stands, and other mis cllaneous stuff gamers might want.

Here’s another review for a keyboard you can promote in the EKSA Affiliate Program:

EKSA Glimmer EK3000
by u/dosukebe in MechanicalKeyboards

Kinda get the point now, right?

EKSA Affiliate Program Details

Let’s start with commissions. The basic commission rate in the EKSA affiliate program is a straight 15% commission on any sales you drive. If you perform well, this can go up to 24%.

Basically, if you promote EKSA Affiliate Program to the right audience, it’s going to be way more profitable per conversion than if you fall back to promoting similar products through something like Amazon Associates.

For comparison, Amazon Associates pays out 3% on headphones. As a reminder, the EKSA affiliate program pays out 15-24%. I’ll let you do the maths.

As for minimum payout, the EKSA Affiliate Program sets this at a very reasonable $5.

And, as for all the other stuff, the usual disclaimer applies. That is, we wouldn’t feature the EKSA Affiliate Program here if the affiliate support wasn’t there. So you can expect all the reports, tracking tools, and whatnot to be up to par.

EKSA Affiliate Program — Here’s How to Join

That should hopefully cover all the bases. But, in case you still need a few more of the finer details, take a moment to check out our full TopRanked.io EKSA Affiliate Program review.

If, on the other hand, you’re keen to get started, just head here to sign up.

News Takeaways — Glorbo Has Won the Battle, but Who Will Win Reddit War II?

Just as the Reddit blackouts calmed down, another Reddit war looks to be brewing. But this time, it’s got nothing to do with Reddit itself.

Instead, this time it’s all about Redditors vs The Robots.

So, to catch you up on the story, let’s rewind the clock back to yesterday. Here’s the story:

For those of you who are regulars over on the WoW (World of Warcraft) subreddit, this story’s old news by now. But, for those who aren’t, the “popular gaming site” WoW players were reacting to was… drum roll, please… Z League’s “The Portal.”

In case you missed it, that screenshot above is also from “The Portal”.

Here’s what happened.

At this point I can only assume…

This all kicked off yesterday when this post over on the WoW subreddit appeared a couple of hours ahead of the above news item:

At this point I can only assume sites like this are using AI to scrape this Sub for content
by u/C0RDE_ in wow

Pretty soon, that led to the creation of this post on the same subreddit:

I’m so excited they finally introduced Glorbo!!!
by u/kaefer_kriegerin in wow

Soon after, we then saw this breaking news appear over on “The Portal”:

Right about here, the astute reader should pick up on something important. The mysterious “Glorbo” just so happens to be the vanquisher in the battle alluded to in this new’s items heading.

Now, in case what’s going on here isn’t obvious yet, let me spell it out. Glorbo is a troll. A fake news piece created as bot bait to prove The Portal was spinning WoW subreddit content into AI articles. And it worked.

Since then, The Portal has unfortunately removed these articles and ceased all coverage of WoW-related content. Guess the small problem of Redditors bot baiting its AI was too much of a challenge. (For the curious, here’s another troll post that got picked up.)

But, not wanting to leave this part of the story on a sour note, there is a good news story worth reporting here — if articles like “Fortnite Players Share Opinions on a Player-Made House in UEFN” interest you, there’s still plenty of in-depth coverage going on for a bunch of other popular games…

Go on, you know you can’t resist.

So What’s Next?

In theory, it’s only a matter of time until other subreddits start reacting similarly. The crowd over on Reddit is known for its savagery towards nearly everything that smells even slightly commercial. And, unfortunately, if scraping Reddit content to spin it with an AI bot only to slap ads on it is your jam, that’s not gonna pass the Reddit sniff test.

However, pay attention to the opening words of the paragraph above — in theory.

Here’s the thing. Yes, Glorbo may have won the battle. But what happens when the next site comes along to pull the same trick?

And what happens when that site doesn’t give in to self-destructive spam posting about “Blizzard taking our keys,” “Glorbo,” and whatever else the subreddit spends the afternoon coming up with?

Will Redditors intentionally continue to self-destruct their beloved subreddits in perpetuity?

My gut says no.

Eventually, they’ll capitulate. The reality is, while self-spamming might be fine for a quick, cheap thrill, it’s hardly a long-term solution.

So, Does This Mean I Should Go Scrape Reddit?

With that said, that doesn’t make going out and scraping every half-active subreddit you can find a good idea. Chances are, any time a site gets on their radar, Redditors will just find other ways to take revenge.

How so?

Easy. By reporting “Spammy, deceptive, or low-quality web pages” to Google (this was suggested at one point.)

Of course, while reporting sites to Google isn’t as fun as trolling, it will probably be an effective tool in the Reddit army’s arsenal. Especially so if it’s on a subreddit of any decent size. After all, Google’s fairly likely to pay attention if an army of people with reputable Google accounts starts reporting a site.

But fear not. That doesn’t mean Google will automatically penalize your site just because a bunch of Redditors dobbed you in to daddy.

What it does mean is that, if you’re going to start playing with fire (Reddit scraping), you’re going to have to offer something a little more than lazy AI summarization (that is, unless your site is just a short-term earn-and-burn scheme…).

How to Avoid Google Penalties When Reddit Revolts

For those who haven’t kept up to date with Google’s helpful content guidelines, here’s the good news.

AI is now acceptable by Google’s standards.

However, that’s not to say that lazy AI content is.

While AI summarization of Reddit threads will probably fly under the radar of Google’s automatic detection (at least, it is for now), it’ll only take a human reviewer two seconds to spot it.

And, as a reminder, Google’s guidelines still contain bits and pieces about not “summarizing what others have to say without adding much value,” not “producing lots of content on many different topics in hopes that some of it might perform well,” etc., etc.

So basically, if you want to scrape Reddit and feed it into an AI, you’re going to have to do one of two things:

1. Not get caught by Redditors or;
2. Provide something of more value than simple summarization articles.

Now, that’s not to say that summarization is bad, per se.

For example, I see no reason why Google would have any problem with you producing a “Here’s what’s hot in [insert topic] on Reddit today” article that summarizes a bunch of the top posts. Especially if it can put them into some other context (e.g., hook your bot up to a news API and have your bot comment on how much press coverage something is getting outside of Reddit.)

Another simple idea would be to scrape other blogs/news sites, then search Reddit for related posts. Then have your bot incorporate the two into a straight news + sentiment + rumors story.

When you can bring multiple sources of information together, that’s called adding value to readers. And Google will probably like you for that.

Of course, this isn’t the only way to get away with Reddit-powered AI content. If you put your thinking cap on, you’ll find there are literally hundreds of ways to go about this. The only strict guideline here is don’t just default to lazy summarization if you care about the longevity of your site.

What’s not going to fly, however, is if Redditors report you and a human reviewer looks at your “Fortnite Players Share Opinions on a Player-Made House in UEFN” article. Especially if all you’re doing is gathering a bunch of comments and providing trite commentary on them.

Takeaway

Just in case you skimmed the above, the key takeaway here is not to say, “don’t scrape Reddit for AI-generated content.” If you missed it, just scroll up a few paragraphs for a basic way to get away with it.

The reality is Reddit can be an absolute goldmine for marketers. You just have to get it right. Deep down, Redditors aren’t actually hostile to commercial content, per se. What they are hostile to is lazy exploitation that doesn’t provide them with any value in return.

That means if you can create AI content that brings value (and you’re upfront and honest about it being AI), you may well walk away the winner.

The only question is, what are you going to promote??? If you’re gonna try and steal Z League’s thunder, then the EKSA Affiliate Program is probably a pretty good start.

Closing Thought

If it’s not becoming clear to you by now, AI content probably isn’t going to be the promised land we all dreamt it would be.

Sure, it might be right now. But don’t hold your breath over the long term.

Now, just to be clear, I’m not talking about the above story. Getting caught with your pants down by Reddit isn’t the real problem.

Rather, the real problem is that when you put the barrier to entry for something so low, things saturate fast.

But don’t despair. Not all hope is lost.

In the long run, the real winners are going to be those who manage to go beyond basic AI proompting to create something that no one else is doing. The only catch is, there are two downsides.

The first is that there’s going to need to be a barrier to entry to whatever you do. That barrier could be access to data, upfront development costs, or any other of the multitude of hurdles that stand between idea and production.

The second downside is that you’re probably also going to need to have a little creativity in whatever you do. There probably isn’t much hope for all but a small handful of people everyone just pumps out the exact same lazy blog posts.

Now, as for the first downside, there’s not much I can do to help. It’s up to you to tackle whatever stands between making your ideas a reality. But what I can help you with is creativity.

For that, I have some quotes.

Those are the first 16 out of 25 quotes you can find here. And, if you pay attention, you’ll notice they’re all about stealing.

That’s because they were collated by the author of “Steal Like an Artist: 10 Things Nobody Told You About Being Creative,” Austin Kleon.

Now, while the entire text of this book isn’t entirely relevant here (#4 is ‘use analog (non-digital) tools to inspire creativity in different ways.’), the opening premise is. That is, every artist gets influenced by other artists; nothing is completely original.

As for how this applies to AI, that’s simple. Don’t try and reinvent the wheel. Simply look around at what others are doing, and use that as a foundation for creating something new.

It could even be something as simple as taking the Axios news format (which, if you haven’t seen it before, is perfectly adapted to AI-generated output) and saying, “Hey, I wanna apply this to the gaming niche.”

Of course, simply applying the format to a single source isn’t going to cut it. So sorry, no “Fortnite Players Share Opinions on a Player-Made House in UEFN” articles allowed here.

But, if you can gather multiple sources and use your AI bot to help people make sense of big, fast-moving stories, then you might be on to something.

The best part here is, if you can execute this well, Redditors would probably love you. After all, if you can get them caught up on a giant pile of gaming news in a few minutes, what’s not value-adding about that?

Just don’t forget to leave out a little push for EKSA somewhere in your reports.

__

(Featured image by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS via Pexels)

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