The TopRanked.io Weekly Digest: What’s Hot in Affiliate Marketing [Week 12]

Every empire has its weak spots. Just ask Darth Vader.

And if a Star Wars meme isn’t enough proof, how about we pull something from real life.

That’s right. In the battle between the world’s two greatest empires, the US has scrambled the X-Wings to go after the TikTok Death Star’s (alleged) CCP weak spot. But more on that in the news section.

But not all empires fall because of catastrophic failure points. Sometimes the downfall is something as simple as the leader losing motivation to keep going.

Now, this isn’t always a bad sign for the empire itself. Sometimes it could be something as simple as the leader taking on too many projects at once. No one is immune to this.

The upside to this is that sometimes people realize when it’s time to cut back and focus before the empire suffers.

The only problem is, when cutting back means offloading an empire or two, where do you turn?

TopRanked.io Affiliate Program of the Week — Empire Flippers

We’ve featured Empire Flippers here before. But, to remind you of who Empire Flippers are, the basic gist is that it’s a buy-and-sell marketplace for online businesses.

Now, as for why we’re featuring Empire Flippers again, you’ll have to read through to the closing thought for that. (You’ll like what’s in store.)

However, last time we focussed on their affiliate program. This time, we want to focus on the actual marketplace side of things.

The Empire Flippers Affiliate Program Is Still Great

Before we get to the marketplace side, let’s just rehash a couple of highlights from the affiliate program. This is an affiliate marketing newsletter, after all.

The first highlight is, of course, the massive commissions on offer.

The second highlight (because high ticket sales do take time) is the 2-year cookies.

That’s right. If you refer someone to Empire Flippers, anything they buy in the next two years will be attributed to you.

As for the other Empire Flippers Affiliate Program highlights, check out our full Empire Flippers Affiliate Program review here.

Let’s Talk Empire Flipping With Empire Flippers

The first time we covered Empire Flippers, we kinda skipped over what makes it a great marketplace to buy and sell online businesses.

This week, we’re going to cover it.

Now, the obvious point that’s most relevant here is simple. Empire Flippers is one of the few places you can easily buy or sell affiliate businesses. So, if you’re interested in starting out in affiliate marketing and want a head start, head over to Empire Flippers and just buy someone out.

The same applies if you’re spread thin and need to offload one of your affiliate properties. Empire Flippers has you covered.

But, beyond affiliate businesses, Empire Flippers also covers just about anything you can do online. SaaS, subscription boxes, Amazon FBA, you name it. It’s all there.

Now For the Important Bit… Trust

There are three major factors that make or break a marketplace like Empire Flippers. The first is buyers. The second is sellers. And the third is trust.

Now, trust is important to any marketplace. After all, you trust that you’re gonna get your dinner when you order from Uber Eats, don’t you?

Yes, you do. Otherwise, you wouldn’t use it.

But while missed dinner deliveries are a bummer, an even bigger bummer is buying a business only to find out it’s a flop. Fortunately, Empire Flippers does everything in its power to avoid this happening to you.

In fact, in a TopRanked survey of online business marketplaces, Empire Flippers was the only one that came up trumps in terms of actually providing a trustworthy vetted business marketplace. We’re talking full verification of traffic sources, financials, and all manner of things that other platforms leave up to the buyer.

Of course, the downside to this is if you’re trying to sell a substandard business. Chances are, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. Empire Flippers won’t list it.

Sorry if we got your hope up.

Is Empire Flippers for You?

So, is Empire Flippers for you? Here’s a recap.

Affiliates:

• If you want to promote an online business marketplace, Empire Flippers is for you.
• If you want to sell an affiliate business, Empire Flippers is for you.
• If you want to buy an affiliate business, Empire Flippers is for you.

Everyone Else:

• If you want to buy an online business, Empire Flippers is for you.

Basically, if you read this newsletter, Empire Flippers is probably of interest to you. But if you’re still not sure, then check out this Empire Flippers Referral Program review.

Head here to get started.

Affiliate News Takeaways

The Most Bipartisan House Committee Ever

Yesterday, the House Energy Committee chewed out Chew (Shou Chew, TikTok CEO) for close to five hours. And, surprise, surprise, what a productive time it was.

The issue at hand? The TikTok threat to US national security due to Chinese Communist Party influence. At least, that’s what Cathy (committee chair) said it was about in her opening statement.

As for the issues actually discussed?

Let’s leave that to the honorable Buddy Carter to explain: “We sure as heck care about our children. We sure do. And that’s why you’re here.”

Right. It’s always about the children.

Buddy then went on a rant about “deadly” TikTok challenges. Apparently, it’s the CCP’s fault that American kids do stupid stuff.

Now, sure. Maybe he has a point. I mean, back in the good ol’ days, kids didn’t mess around with Nyquil chickens, did they?

Nope. They didn’t waste time with the chicken. They just went straight for the Nyquil… I mean, Robo.

Cue the 20-year-old meme.

Buddy then continued with something about the “biometric matrix” before coming to the topic of age verification, asking Chew how TikTok verifies a user’s age.

Chew began his answer. “We look at their public profile to go through the videos that they post…”

Buddy cut him off. “That’s creepy. Tell me more about that.”

Errr… “If you post a video, you choose for that video to go public. That’s how you get people to see your video.”

But hey, who cares if we fail to interrogate the actual issue at hand? All that matters, as Buddy said, was that this was “the most bipartisan committee ever.”

Of course, just how bipartisan it was is questionable. Yes, there was plenty of bipartisan muttering of CCP mind-control conspiracy theories under their bipartisan breaths. (All without actually pursuing any relevant lines of questioning.)

But, apart from that, there was nothing bipartisan about it at all.

Case in point — on the one hand, we had Randy Weber accusing TikTok of “promoting divisive woke propaganda.” On the other hand, Yvette Clarke also accused it of censoring the very woke voices Weber said TikTok was supposedly promoting…

Meanwhile, no one bothered to ask how TikTok was simultaneously promoting and censoring something at the same time.

Takeaway

Tl;dr — the whole TikTok ban committee hearing was just another political grandstanding shitshow where representatives indulged in long-winded diatribes about whatever hot topic was on their minds. Abortion, eating disorders, drugs, CSAM, advertising…

But no one really bothered to establish an actual national security threat.

Long story short, with no new elements brought to the table, Biden’s chances of a TikTok ban aren’t looking any better than Trump’s. #LongLiveTikTok

Trolling Politicians for Fun and Profit

This last week has seen plenty of political trolling on social media.

Fake Followers à la Française

First up, we have Elisabeth Borne, the French Prime Minister, who mysteriously had 27k fake followers added to her Instagram account this week.

Si ce tweet atteint 50likes, j’envoie 27k faux abonnés a Borne pour qu’elle ai exactement 49.3k abonnés..

🏴‍☠️ pic.twitter.com/CJvkavlUXC

— mlz13 🇲🇽 (@EstChauve) March 19, 2023

Translation: “If this tweet hits 50 likes, I’ll send 27k fake followers to Borne so that she has exactly 49.3k followers.”

To explain this mysterious Tweet, the French government recently used Article 49 paragraph 3 (49.3… get it?) from the country’s constitution to force its retirement reform legislation through parliament.

Naturally, plenty of frogs are even more pissed than they already were about the whole retirement thing. Apparently, people don’t like having legislation forced through parliament in a democracy.

So, as the French do with many of their desserts, they’re now serving politicians all manner of brûlés and flambés as just deserts.

But then there are those with a little more creativity, like the thoughtful Tweeter, who followed through with their promise.

Trumping Trump

Back in the USA, people have been taking an interest in Trump’s potential arrest.

We crashed Truth Social with one TikTok.
Here’s how

Yesterday I was at breakfast with my friends @adamfaze and Peter Mcindoe

We downloaded Truth Social to see what Trump was saying about his arrest

We realized the top trending topics only had 100 people talking about them!
1/5 pic.twitter.com/XnvMJ9NJfi

— Ari Cagan (@AriCagan) March 21, 2023

Naturally, when this little group of FaZe Clanners realized it only took 100 people to crack Truth Social’s trending topics, they leaped at the opportunity.

Before long, #DeSantis2024 was outpacing #Trump2024 by a long shot.

This afternoon it became the top trending hashtag on Truth Social.

Truth Social was reportedly down for 30 minutes and they aren’t letting people make new accounts.
5/5 pic.twitter.com/VLus6NAAVU

— Ari Cagan (@AriCagan) March 21, 2023

Takeaway

There are plenty of ways to chase virality on social media. And while there really shouldn’t be any surprise that a group of kids with FaZe Clan-sized followings could go viral, the French story is kinda interesting.

You see, @EstChauve was once a relative nobody on Twitter. Before the 49.3 tweet, the account was characterized by sporadic tweets and next-to-zero engagement. Then, all of a sudden, the kid gets thousands of likes and retweets. And that momentum has carried through to their subsequent tweets.

The Truth Social troll is also kinda interesting. If it only takes a few 100 people to crack the top trends, then I’m sure an enterprising individual like you could have some fun with this, right?

In any case, well-timed political trolling might just be a viable strategy for getting attention. Especially if you’re promoting social media panels. 😉

Bing, Bing, Bard

It’s been a massive week in AI with too much announced/launched/promised. So to keep this short and just stick to Bing vs. Bard, which started inviting users this week.

@brandnat

Google’s answer = BARD and this just LEAKED – Peek into Microsoft New Bing (which users said disappeared moments later). A.I. wars have begun. Can Google save itself with BARD? let me know in comments #Google #BARD #ai #aitools #chatgpt #microsoftbing #openai #lamda #brandnat #nataliechoprasert

♬ original sound – Nat | A.I. + No Code Tools

Bing vs Bard — Which One’s Better?

As for the all-important “is it better than Bing” question, opinions are mixed. The majority of voices out there seem to be screaming, “Bing is better,”

But there are also plenty who defend Bard admirably. Notably, Bard doesn’t attempt to argue with the user when it gets its facts wrong. Instead, it trusts the user and takes their feedback on board in subsequent responses.

As for those in the “Bing is better” crowd, many like to focus on Bard’s lack of citations. For example, in a Mashable comparison, they “automatically disqualified [Bard]… because it didn’t cite any of its sources.”

Mumble, mumble… “it fuels misinformation.”

Yeah, right. We all know that users aren’t lazy and vigorously check all sources whenever they read something.

Bing vs Bard — Users

Since Microsoft told the world Bing had crossed 100 million users two weeks ago, it’s been silent. That’s despite opening up Bing to general access (no waitlist) since then.

Now, presumably, the general release should have caused a massive influx of users. After all, AI is hype, right? However, with radio silence on the active user front, it seems that, apart from the early-adopter AI-nerd crowd, people just aren’t that excited about AI search.

Takeaway

The interesting thing here isn’t which chatbot is better. Given time, I’m sure they’ll eventually converge on being painfully similar.

What is interesting, though, is Bard does not include sources unless it’s directly quoting something.

Why’s this interesting? Yep, you guessed it. It’s the old “SEO is dead” thing.

Now, presumably, the lack of links in Bard is meant to encourage users to do a regular Google search if they want to dig deeper or check some facts. For SEO, this is a good thing — Google’s seemingly trying to throw a lifeline to regular search (no surprises).

Of course, this doesn’t eliminate the threat that more advanced chatbots might eventually pose. Especially if they get more traction than Microsoft’s radio silence would seem to indicate.

In any case, at least for now, SEO is probably far from dead.

Closing Thought

This week, we published a little something about affiliates turning to Amazon FBA. To catch you up, the long story short goes like this:

• Affiliate has success promoting a product.
• Affiliate says, “hey, I could make more if I sold that product myself.”
• Affiliate turns to Amazon FBA and sees profit margins that are many multiples of their original commission.

Naturally, we later suggest that affiliates pursuing such a strategy should turn to a platform like Empire Flippers if they want to spin up a store without actually having to do it all themselves. And we still stand by this — an already-profitable business that you can skyrocket with your marketing experience is about as close to a guaranteed winner as you can get.

But what if you really want to amp up the profits even more? Well, let me introduce the TopRanked Kitchen Blog to you.

Now, full disclosure, we’re all terrible cooks, so don’t come looking to us for recipes and kitchen tips.

But just for fun, let’s pretend that we were actually good at this cooking caper. How would we monetize? Promoting kitchen goods on Amazon Associates, right?

Of course, like many smart affiliates, we’d probably eventually realize we could make more if we sold our own line of kitchen products. Cue the Amazon FBA store.

But what next?

Well, how about getting people to pay even more for the same products?

Now, why people will pay more for one product over another similar product is a complex topic that covers everything from trust to aspiration and everything in between.

But, for the sake of playing out this game and to keep this simple, let’s just say that brand image is a common theme. So why not leverage our brand to launch a line of TopRanked Kitchen Gadgets?

Fortunately, thanks to the plethora of cheap imports we can grab on Alibaba, we don’t actually have to manufacture any of this ourselves. Instead, all we have to do is “curate” an “exclusive” collection of gadgets that we “use in our own kitchen,” and hey presto, we can charge twice as much for the same thing.

But still, even if Alibaba curation cuts out that headache, there’s still a lot of work. I mean, we’re not only talking about keeping your affiliate business alive. We’re also talking about starting up an Amazon FBA store and developing a brand.

That’s a big ask.

But not to worry. As we said, Empire Flippers can sort you out with a store, so that part’s easy. Just use it as a base and make some slight adjustments to the range.

As for the whole developing your brand thing… Well, as we said, that’s a big topic. But I’m sure you’ll find a way if it means making more money.

In any case, let’s get to the bigger point. That is, while affiliate marketing is great, once you get good at it, there are plenty of other ways to make even more money.

And just to complicate things even more, don’t forget that sometimes affiliate marketing is as good as it gets.
Read our full report on Amazon FBA stores here, and you’ll see what we mean.

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(Featured image by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS via Pexels)

DISCLAIMER: This article was written by a third party contributor and does not reflect the opinion of Born2Invest, its management, staff or its associates. Please review our disclaimer for more information.

This article may include forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements generally are identified by the words “believe,” “project,” “estimate,” “become,” “plan,” “will,” and similar expressions, including with regards to potential earnings in the Empire Flippers affiliate program. These forward-looking statements involve known and unknown risks as well as uncertainties, including those discussed in the following cautionary statements and elsewhere in this article and on this site. Although the Company may believe that its expectations are based on reasonable assumptions, the actual results that the Company may achieve may differ materially from any forward-looking statements, which reflect the opinions of the management of the Company only as of the date hereof. Additionally, please make sure to read these important disclosures.