Affiliate Marketing in Malaysia: A Pro-Blogger's View

Well, I thought really long hard before I actually decided to write an article giving my views on the current scenario of affiliate marketing in Malaysia. Then I spent another few hours contemplating on what exactly should I write about when it comes to the 'still' controversial scenario of affiliate marketing in Malaysia. So here goes nothing. Another dumb article sharing my views.

The idea of e-commerce and internet marketing spawned at such a late time for us Malaysians. Yes, as you no doubt would have guessed, I am a Malaysian. I'm a Malay actually. Anyways, to be perfectly honest with you, I first noticed affiliate marketing programs in Malaysia when I saw the 'OKB Hebat MisiJutawan' (New Rich Person's Mission: Millionaire or something) sales page back in 2007. At the time, it was he (whoever this OKB character was) who gave me the idea of getting involved in affiliate marketing. Although his RM 50 ebook didn't deliver much, thanks to him, I eventually stumbled across The Day Job Killer by Chris McNeeny and Steven Lee Jones. Then again, that's ClickBank stuff, back to Malaysia.

After that a multitude of products popped up which I've come to notice like 'OnlyInMalaysiaMah' and 'AdSense Taiko'. Gosh are they CRAP! I swear. I actually bought AdSense Taiko and it turned out to be a RM 40 report to another ClickBank product that allows you to generates hundreds of blogs in a day! That's content spamming for crying out loud! Thank God after reading a fellow pro-blogger's review on OnlyInMalaysiaMah, I decided not to buy it. The methods are cheap which you can get for free on the internet, not to mention the idea of getting rich quick and easy barely lifting a finger. Thanks LiewCF, if it wasn't for you, that was probably another RM 50 or so from my student allowance back then.

Then again that was years ago. Now it's 2010! Yes! Two years until 2012...hehe. Ehem. Now has the situation really changed? Unfortunately no. The search engines, AdWords, chat streams and forums are still flooded with 'easy money' programs like 'KlikJutawan' (Click-to-be-Millionaire), 'RahsiaLepakRumah', and a shitload of other products. Most of these are plain MLM programs that sell nothing but concepts and membership slots. In other words, they are neatly disguised pyramid schemes! What's worse is that a program like 'KlikJutawan' where the clicks are automatic, clicking on Ads on AdSense, etc., isn't that unethical?

Affiliate programs about making money online should purely be based on the idea of affiliate marketing itself, where you promote tangible digital info-products and training e-books without having to risk a growing pyramid sinking into a saturated pool of 'wanna-be marketers'. Instead, it seems that 'easy money' and 'get rich quick' programs still sell very well in Malaysia.

I guess the real Malaysian affiliate training ebook is the 'Rahsia Clickbank' (ClickBank Secrets). Written by the man Gobala Krishnan and Zamri Nanyan, it sold very well and helped a lot of newbie affiliate marketers in Malaysia. Unfortunately, during my last visit to the website, I couldn't make a purchase. I hope them guys check it out. Anyways, the only real set of people I've come to respect are those like Gobala Krishnan, Zamri Nanyan,Ammar Zahar, Saiful and Sham, and maybe a few others I can't seem to remember at the moment.

But the fact remains is this, there's not enough good affiliate training ebooks to go around.  Even if they are, I just can't seem to find it on Google! Of course most publishers (if not all) would prefer not to have too much of competition, then again, the market deserves a good competition. With a good set of products to select from, like affiliate blogging guides for Malaysians or internet marketing courses for Malaysians and such, the best product would have to be the most reputable. With the constant competition going about, publishers (and newbie publishers) would constantly improve the quality of their affiliate training programs or ebooks. This would only help in driving the affiliate marketing industry in Malaysia forward.

My verdict is this, affiliate marketing in Malaysia still has a long way to go. Especially when it comes to rock solid affiliate guides or training ebooks teaching you how to make money online and such. The problematic mindset among Malaysians is that they are very much engrossed in the idea of getting rich quick without lifting a finger. It's either that or selling membership slots and imaginary concepts via  internet-based MLM programs and downright stupid pyramid schemes. Not that I'm NOT being Malaysian about it, I'm just being critical and straightforward.