TopRanked.io Weekly Digest: What’s Hot in Affiliate Marketing [Week 23]

Quick Disclosure: We’re about to tell you how Prowly is a great affiliate program to promote to PR professionals. And we really mean it. Just know that if you click on a Prowly link, we may earn a small commission. Your choice.

If you think about it, marketing is like hunting.

Sometimes, you stalk your prey.

And other times, you bait it.

Essentially, what I’m trying to say, is this. Any time you go out marketing, you’re basically on the prowl.

So if marketing is like hunting meaning finding an audience is like prowling, then what’s the best tool to get the job done?

TopRanked.io Affiliate Program of the Week — Prowly

Question. Try and turn the verb “to prowl” into an adjective and what do you get?

That’s right, our affiliate program of the week — Prowly.

Here’s everything you need to know about Prowly.

What’s Prowly?

Prowly is a PR platform put together by the good people at another company you should all be familiar with — Semrush. Essentially, Prowly is like if you took the power of something like that and applied it to PR.

Concretely, that means Prowly is a comprehensive platform for doing PR. You get the Prowly media contact database, a media pitching tool, a PR-focussed CRM, media monitoring tools, and a bunch of other useful bits and pieces that Prowly has put together.

As for whether this is useful for you, that depends on how much PR you do. But as for whether Prowly is useful for someone who needs a PR platform — the answer is absolutely 100%. So you might as well be the one to stalk people who do need Prowly and sell it to them.

Why Bother Promoting Prowly?

So, why bother promoting Prowly?

Simple.

Get it in front of the right audience, and it will sell itself. And when it does, you get a $200 commission. Do you really need more of an incentive than that?

The only “downside” here is that Prowly is pretty tight with payments. Now, that’s not to say they don’t pay — they do (twice a month). But Prowly does impose a couple of conditions here:

1. Minimum payment is $400 for PayPal, or $500 for wire transfers.
2. You have to issue an invoice to prowly to get paid.

Now, as you only have to make two Prowly sales to hit $400, that first bit isn’t too hard. And, as for the second, if you’re not already set up as a business, then maybe it’s time you asked if you were serious about this affiliate marketing caper.

If you are and you’re still interested in Prowly, then here’s what else you need to know.

Getting On Board With Prowly

As for how well-supported/professional/etc. Prowly is, I’ll simply remind you that Prowly is a Semrush company. But just in case that says nothing, yes, affiliates are well-supported in the Prowly program.

Payments are prompt and on time. The tracking/backend is great (Post Affiliate Pro), and the marketing materials are all on point. If you need more on this, read our full Prowly affiliate program review.

So with all that said and done, the only thing left to do is sign up with Prowly, then go on the prowl for some PR professionals to sell it to. Fortunately, the first part of that is easy. Just fill out a simple form that you can find right here.

News Takeaways — Here’s How to Navigate AI as a Marketer

Let’s kick this off with the biggest social media story of the week — the Reddit blackouts. As for what this has to do with “navigating AI” and marketing, just stick with me. This is going to be a bit of a ride, but it’ll all make sense by the end.

Now, first things first. In case you camped under a rock this week, on June 12, about 70% of subreddits shut themselves down to public access. At the time of writing, blackouts are still in effect on almost 40% of subreddits. And quite a few claim their blackouts are now indefinite.

The reason is Reddit’s once-free API will now be subject to access fees. Just like Twitter.

As for what’s got users most upset, it isn’t that Reddit is now going to charge for API access. It’s that Reddit is going to charge “outrageous” amounts for it.

According to “generous estimates” by the developer of the popular Apollo App, Reddit stands to make 20x from API fees for a user on a third-party platform vs. what that same user would generate if accessing Reddit from its own app/website.

This is probably a fair estimate, too. Reddit’s user base is pretty much trash in terms of monetizability.

As for why Reddit has suddenly jacked up its prices from zero to over nine thousand, everyone’s pointing to a potential IPO. Theoretically, Reddit is desperate to make its unmonetizable user base look more attractive to investors.

But to stop there is kinda missing the point.

Let’s go on a bit of a journey.

Here’s the Biggest Story in AI

Let’s get one thing straight. The biggest story in AI from the last year isn’t ChatGPT, Bing, Bard, Midjourney, or any other AI project.

Nope.

The single biggest story is that AI compute costs are collapsing 50x faster than Moore’s Law would predict. And if you don’t know what Moore’s Law is, then here’s something that will help.

Theoretically, if we’re at 50x Moore’s Law, it’s only a matter of five or so years until it will only cost you a few bucks (literally) to do what costs hundreds of millions today.

Naturally, that’s got established AI companies running scared. But, of course, they can’t come out and publicly declare, “We’re afraid of losing our monopoly.”

So instead, they’re now all “afraid of AI.”

Is AI Really a Threat?

Let’s start with a favorite trope that Altman and Co. seem to love pulling out — “OMG danger danger AI fake news danger danger misinformation danger danger!”

Theoretically, this is a major reason they’re all ramping up the campaign for regulation right now.

Seems noble, right? Even if has come several years after the band of brothers would have first been aware of the “dangers of AI.”

But here’s the thing. As noble as it all might seem, it’s also pretty disingenuous.

Let’s start with some common sense. Fake news and disinformation aren’t really AI-specific threats.

If you don’t believe me, let’s use the landscape of recent times to prove a point.

Everything is violently either/or.

Anti- vs. pro-vaxer.

Anti- vs. pro-trans.

Etc., etc.

Pick your issue, and both sides are yelling and screaming, “OMG, you are literally killing people” at each other.

But what if we put our thinking caps on?

Clearly, both sides can’t be right. What logically follows, then, is that at least 50% of the population in any given debate has already been indoctrinated by “fake news.”

As for which side that is, I’ll leave that for you to decide. But first, let me first throw one theory out there — real life is rarely black and white, so there’s a pretty good chance both sides are already consuming plenty of disinformation.

In any case, disinformation is already a giant tentacled monster that’s plaguing news media from at least one side, if not both.

So that begs the question: What exactly does AI change?

The pundits like to point out that “the bad guys” will suddenly win thanks to an infinite stream of cheap, hyper-targeted AI content.

But there’s a big problem with this thinking.

That is, an infinite supply of content doesn’t solve the distribution problem that others have already solved.

PS: That also means PR tools like Prowly will remain as relevant as ever. Just saying…

It’s Like Elon Says…

While Elon might not have been talking about the cost of doing business with AI when he said it, his little “Freedom of speech, but not freedom of reach” more or less sums up the reality of AI.

Sure, the cost of AI might be going to zero. So, hey, there’s a win, right? Free AI-generated speech! Woot!

But now ask yourself this.

What’s the cost of dealing with regulations?

What’s the cost of the data needed to train/operate AI?

And what’s the cost of distributing your fake, AI-generated fake news to the masses?

As for the first two, these are just a foreshadowing of what’s to come. It’s the standard “move fast and break things… just don’t forget to pull up the ladder” playbook.

Right now is the moment that that ladder is starting to go up.

Astronomical data costs.

Check.

A push for regulations that are just hard enough to make it impossible for new entrants to come in but not so hard that incumbents get regulated out of existence.

Check.

As for that last one — the cost of “reach” — this is where plain old market dynamics that applied long before AI kick in.

To illustrate, take the typical news publication. Currently, humans eat up a massive portion of their budgets. So, theoretically, once AI comes along and makes it basically free to start generating news, anyone can become a trusted news source, right?

Well, yes. But no.

Take Rupert Murdoch, for example. Do you think he’s gonna sit back on his wrinkly behind and reflect on his heydays as a new generation of AI-backed citizen journalists flood the internet and rob him of his power and influence?

Hell no.

He’ll just take the money he saved on AI and use it to out-market, out-lawyer, out-data, out-acquire, and just basically out-compete on every front that still costs money.

In other words, reach will always be the real problem. And, nine times out of ten, the winner will still be the one who can outspend its competitors.

Let’s Put Some of This Together

Let’s say you want to make money with AI, and you know you’ll need to do more than just use it as-is. After all, if the barrier for entry is basically non-existent, you’ll have to differentiate somehow.

So let’s say you get creative and build a bot to scrape social media. Then you spin that data into fresh, trending content for thousands of micro niche blogs. Should be cheap, given the rock-bottom prices of AI, right?

Well, not so fast.

For starters, how long do you think that data will remain free? Are Reddit and Twitter just gonna sit idly by when they could charge you mega-dollars for their APIs?

And you think you can get around it with scraping via proxies?

So does everyone else. So let’s not forget about the old supply and demand thing.

Also, don’t be surprised if we start seeing data owners going the way the recorded music industry did. Eventually, more and more will just start suing anyone that “pirates” their data.

[PS: As a fun, ironic aside, the Reddit protests play directly into Reddit’s hand here. If people get used to Reddit no longer being accessible without an account, it only helps push Reddit data “behind closed doors.” That just so happens to be one of the basic legal tests data “owners” need to satisfy if they want to successfully sue data scrapers…]

But let’s imagine that you somehow extract your data for cheap and don’t get sued while doing so. Now what?

Well, now you face the same problem any wanna-be fake news purveyor faces. Just like buddy Murdoch (Fox) and brother Warner (CNN) like their power and influence, Buzzfeed also likes its quizzes and things that go buzz.

And now it’s using AI… well, that just means it can back up its infinite supply of things that go buzz with even more of the things that go ka-ching.

Now, don’t let me get you down here. Maybe you will become one of the one-in-ten that outsmarts rather than outspends their competitors. Congratulations, you just became the exception, not the rule.

But as for the rest of us, the only real future for AI is that monopoly strangleholds, barriers to entry, and competitive market forces mean AI doesn’t really do anything to shift the current dynamic.

So, Then, Where’s the Money At?

So, if AI isn’t going to make building a content empire any cheaper or easier, what’s an aspiring marketer to do?

Well, that’s a tricky question. But, if the past is any indication, anyone who makes real money from tech disruption doesn’t do it by copying everyone else. And when they do, they either do it better or with a unique twist.

So here are a few ideas.

Starting with content, realize you’re going to have to bring a twist to what you do. When it’s basically free to produce something, simply hoping to rank for a bunch of longtail keywords in a micro niche soon won’t cut it. That means you’re either going to have to bring something unique to what you do or find a better way to distribute it.

Probably both.

As for the unique twist, that’s up to you. To give one idea, though, sourcing data is one way. If everyone’s getting priced out of the big sources, which is probably what’s going to happen, then finding and combining multiple cheap/free sources is one way.

But let’s go beyond content for a moment. If we look a bit further, there are other areas where AI has big potential, but an absence of strong competition.

That brings us to the other big money-maker on the internet — influencers.

So far, the only ones who are really doing the whole virtual influencer thing any justice are a handful of K-pop projects. As for the rest… well, let’s just say that I’m sure you could do better. 

Even Grimes (@warnymph), who’s probably got more money and people to throw at a project than you and I combined, is doing a frankly amateur job. I mean, do you really think you’re going to have trouble competing with this?

Of course not. Sure, you’re going to have a harder time gathering up followers than she did. But I’m sure you could think of a couple of ways to generate some buzz.

And that leads me to the next point.

Right now, the push for AI regulations is most heavily focused on the hot-button topics that AI companies are okay with (e.g., fake news), or that politicians think they can win brownie points with, like privacy.

But there are a bunch of holes right now that aren’t getting anywhere near the attention they deserve. And that means you probably have a window of opportunity to take advantage of them.

For example, current laws around “personality” rights often seem to revolve around concepts like “passing off” and “implied endorsement.” On the other hand, creative reappropriations tend to get protected as “free speech.”

Now, surely as deep fakes and voice synthesis become more accessible, this is an area of law that’s due for a regulatory shake-up. But, until then, there’s probably nothing to stop you from doing all sorts of fun things.

For example, why not take the likeness of the otherwise sweet and charming Harry Styles? Now create a “Smutty Harry” character that reads dirty bedtime stories to lonely men and women.

Of course, I’m not a lawyer, so do your own research before taking this idea. But, if my hunch is right, there are a bunch of opportunities like this.

In any case, if even if we go down the virtual influencer route, then at some point, good ol’ PR will still be relevant. So, just because AI’s the hot topic of the day, doesn’t mean we should forget about tools like Prowly.

Closing Thought

Today, I crossed a post from a guy who likes to classify everything he does as 110s, 80/20s, and 50/50s.

Now, for those familiar with the Pareto principle, then you probably already know where 1/3rd of this is going. That is, the 80/20s are the things that seek to optimize the effort vs reward ration.

But what are the other 2/3?

Well, apparently 50/50s are the fun things you do. 110s, on the other hand, are the things you overinvest yourself in. It’s the tipping point, where 110% effort only brings 100% reward. The term “diminishing returns” crops up here.

Now, to cut a long story short, the post eventually comes to the conclusion that 110s are really a combination of work and play. It’s the space where words like “flow state” and “passion” enter the equation.

What’s interesting is what the post opened with — an anecdote about a young Leonardo da Vinci as an example of a 110.

As for why this is interesting, think about what we just spoke about — opportunities in AI.

What if you embarked on a 110 project to go and have fun with it? Maybe, just maybe, you might actually find a fun project that still makes money. Feel free to steal the “Smutty Harry” idea if want.

At the very worst, then at least you had some fun doing it. At the very best, you might just have a Da Vinci moment and create something truly special.

In any case, always remember, when you get back to your 80/20s, to make sure things stay 80/20. I hear tools like Prowly are good for that.

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(Featured image by SevenStorm JUHASZIMRUS via Pexels)

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