it’s just about that time of year. We’re about to roll the digits and it will be a new year soon.

I’ve never been much of a “New Year, New Me” kind of person, but if you are – that’s fine, nothing against it.

Instead I think I’m going to focus on what went right, wrong and weird in 2018 and look at what to continue, stop or start doing in 2019.

2018

First off, 2018 wasn’t a great year for me. On a personal level, it was a tough year, not nearly as tough as the previous but that’s a whole different story.

Online wise, it was a challenge. Many things changed and I didn’t do a good job at keeping up an adapting in some cases. Taking a look at affiliate marketing and where it has been and where it is going, it looks like we are in new uncharted territories now. Affiliate marketing is far from dead as I keep preaching, it is in constant change. However, the change that I’ve seen and think we will see more of are large changes instead of just small ones.

It seems like the days of simple landing pages are mostly over, many (if not most) affiliates look to be moving away from these “quick cash” types of sites and working on longer term and more sustainable campaigns/sites. This is likely a good change, it just means it will likely take more to test and optimize campaigns. I’ve seen a lot more of the people I’ve talked to disappear, unfortunately this is part of the game as well.

Most importantly, I’ve seen a shift in mentality. Most of the people I know are now focusing on building assets and focusing on long term strategies such as authority sites, ecommerce and sites that offer a service. I’m sure this has and will continue to have a downline effect on others in the industry such as affiliate networks like Maxbounty and Peerfly. Just like affiliates, everyone in the game needs to learn how to “adapt or die”.

2019

So, what’s coming in 2019? I think we will continue to see more people push for the long term strategies. Personally, this will be a big push of mine. I’ve started, but still have a long way to go.

Another big thing that I think everyone is starting to realize (some knew this a long time ago) is data is king. Facebook and Google have made a killing off of data and many other big companies are starting to realize this and jump into it. How many loyalty cards do you have? That’s data right there! I guess this also stresses the importance of having a good tracker to track everything so you can go back and optimize more. Ironically 10 years ago there was very little choices in tracking, now a days there are many, it’s good to see.

I think mobile will keep going strong. Push seems to be picking up and will likely be an even bigger thing soon. Here’s a good article on why you need to start on Push ASAP before you get left behind. I don’t know about you, but many of the people I know are using an actual computer less and less and their phones more and more. I think it’s just a sign of the times.

Quality and privacy will be even bigger topics as time goes by, going back to the data being king is the privacy discussion around it. When Mark Zuckerberg had to give a testimony to congress earlier this year, it was a turning point where tech companies can’t just do whatever they want with your data anymore. You now have some say and this will likely continue and evolve.

 

Anyways. Wrapping this up now. I hope 2018 was a good year for you. I really hope that 2019 is an even better year.