Shoemoney asked for responses via Twitter to the question “What is a Super Affiliate?” yesterday, and after bouncing the idea around in the office a little this morning we found, unsurprisingly, a thorough response wouldn’t fit in a Tweet. We concluded there is one important characteristic all super affiliates share, but before we talk about that let’s run down the three types of super affiliates we think are out there:

Authority portals
Large sites with a wealth of great editorial content on a single broad topic (or variety of closely related topics), which is used to push a range of Affiliate offers in the same space. Each and every page is probably optimised to give the affiliate several bites of the cherry in terms of monetizing their traffic, and as Dave pointed out the ultimate goal with this approach is to get web users to “visit your site first rather than the brand site”.

UK site www.moneysupermarket.com is a great example of this: it’s a comparison site but with a much narrower focus than the likes of Kelkoo, concentrating on financial products and the bills most people can’t avoid paying such as utilities and motor insurance. Well written and researched editorial, combined with a thriving user community offering each other advice, has made MoneySupermarket a big name in this space and impartiality (or at least the impression of it) has made it a very trusted brand.

Spammers and jammers
The guys who’ll use any means necessary to turn a buck. Characteristics of players in this arena are technical savvy, a willingness – some might say a drive – to experiment, and a certain disregard for playing by the rules. “Jammers” (to give them the less pejorative of the two titles) will use white, grey or black hat techniques as appropriate and they’re all about whatever works at the time. They’ll show little loyalty to any one network or merchant, or even to their own methods or site networks…it’s all about extracting the most possible money out of whatever is working at the time.

In the old days a huge amount of affiliate revenue was being paid to people on this side of the tracks. Today…well, a huge amount of money is still being paid to people on this side of the tracks. The only difference is the field has narrowed down some as search engines and affiliate networks have become more sophisticated at sniffing out those they see as bad apples. Gone are the days when you could launch a network of scraper sites and watch the money roll in. But if you’re constantly exploring possibilities and staying one step ahead there’s still gold in them thar hills.

High quality niche sites/networks
Similar to authority portals in that their site(s) are built on high quality unique content, but these affiliates have a much narrower focus that allows them to build closer relationships with their networks, merchants, and others in their space. Niche players will tend to have a better understanding of their audience, which in turn allows them to find and serve that audience better, be it through PPC, SEO or other forms of promotion.

Niche operators will usually have excellent relationships with the firms that are paying them because they send high quality, high converting traffic. They also tend to draw good quality natural links and word-of-mouth due to being seen as a leader in their area. They’ll also open up lots of opportunities to promote their site(s) in ways which just wouldn’t be possible for others, such as attending conferences and expos or appearing as an industry expert in the news media.

Niche players may operate a site or sites in a single space, or operate many distinct networks addressing different topics. It’s a hard way to make ten million a year but, done right, a good way to make a million and feel good about it.

The one thing all super affiliates have in common
The single thing that all of the above share? A willingness to work hard. Whether it’s crafting high quality content, networking like hell or fine-tuning their latest black hat technique the three types all work their bloody socks off. They’re constantly on the look out for new ways to extend their operations, and without fail they’ll enjoy what they do. Money is a way of keeping score, certainly, and I’m not going to say people in the above categories would do it for free, but they tend to generate wealth because they love what they do, not just because they love cash. Though come to think of it that’s a quality most super affiliates share too.