This isn't working, but polyamory isn't the problem
Why are we an affiliate site?
18 months ago I started this site with the idea that it would slowly grow into a passive income business.
Having been laid off from a media company a few months before starting this site, I knew that major media companies were increasingly relying on affiliate marketing as traditional advertising revenue went away.
I wasn't passionate about affiliate marketing, I just wanted to create revenue streams because housing and food are expensive.
Getting Started with Amazon
Before you have an audience you have to have products, but you can’t get product partnerships without an audience.
Except for Amazon.
It’s widely known that Amazon doesn’t pay very much in terms of affiliate commissions, but it’s a good place to start because they will let literally anyone become an affiliate and start sharing links.
Products picked by people who are actually poly
Back in November of 2023, my local poly social group was circulating a google doc of “Holiday gift ideas for your partners”.
I started JustPolyThings by listing Amazon links to the products they picked out. I wrote a handful of buying guides, and had to figure out all the legal stuff for cookies and affiliate tracking links and hook up analytics, and it was a lot of work, but…
It felt amazing.
JustPolyThings immediately had traction. It was exciting for me to see my local poly community get excited about it.
Promoting Other People's Content & Products
As an individual, I don’t want to tell people HOW to do polyamory or consensual non-monogamy.
There are plenty of poly relationship coaches, qualified authors, and a huge world of resources that already exists, so my idea was to make a hub for sharing.
This is not a blog site or personal platform for promoting my own brand of polyamory. I wanted something more inclusive than some of the existing non-monogamy focused sites/platforms which tend to lean in hard on their preferred “flavor” of CNM and why theirs is the “right” way to be polyamorous.
By making this site a hub of other people’s content, it could become a place for people curious about non-monogamy to learn about all of the different “flavors”.
I’ve tried to do that with posts like How To Grow Your Poly Vocabulary and Best JustPolyThings on Insta.
Content For You, By You
Originally I envisioned a feedback loop where CNM people would contribute posts directly and be able to tell others about our favorite sites, books, courses, adult toys, and events we were attending.
THIS is THEEE bullet vibe
I wanted to recreate the experience of being at a munch or a sex party and having someone be like… “no THIS one is THE BEST bullet vibe out there, it’s rechargeable and waterproof, and is by far the most powerful one I’ve tried yet, here let me send you the link.” (Yes, this exact convo happened irl)
The original idea was not me out here writing long form buying guides, but more like a public version of my own poly circle’s “gift ideas” google doc.
Side-gig style
I assumed that I could make partnerships with poly creators who were already creating products, like stickers and t-shirts, and that those affiliate commissions could support the cost of the site.
Rejection sucks
A major thing slowing the growth of this site has been getting rejected for partnerships.
There are a ton of Etsy shops selling every kind of polyamory merch under the sun, so I thought it would be easy and obvious to become an Etsy affiliate and then promote those stores.
Instead, you got a post called Is Polyamory an “illicit” topic? about how Esty rejected JustPolyThings as an affiliate, because they thought the site “is significantly inspired by illicit content”.
Illicit means illegal. Polyamory isn’t illegal.
Why aren’t you bringing in $10k a month yet?
According to the internet, affiliate marketing is the easiest form of passive income ever, and the only thing I need to do is pick a niche and I will be instantly making huge sums of money.
Lies. All lies.
Getting partnerships
Even the spammy “How To" guides say you won’t make money as an affiliate until you are able to go beyond Amazon and link directly to quality brands with higher percentage commissions. The more expensive the items and the longer the cookie durations, the better.
Last week I learned that that is also a lie.
It seems to be an open industry secret that even if you send quality traffic (that is likely converting to sales), many brands just don’t pay. I was told flat out by someone running profitable sites, "don’t waste your time sending anybody traffic for free."
“Don’t waste your time sending anybody traffic for free.”
I learned that every single site JustPolyThings links to should have paid me in advance for the privilege. Oops.
I’ve been doing this wrong
Last summer, JPT got its first "better" affiliate partnership with sex furniture manufacturer Liberator.
I was so excited to promote their products. In part because I actually like their stuff, but also because I (mistakenly) thought that JPT would finally be able to make back at least some of the hosting costs.
It took months to pull product images, write non-monogamously oriented product descriptions, and create product pages with affiliate links.
Unfortunately, after 6 months of sending traffic to Liberator's site, somehow, magically, none of it has managed to convert into sales (according to their reporting).
JustPolyThings tracks how many clicks we've directed to Liberator's storefront. For some reason, even with a 30 day cookie (Amazon's are only 24 hours), our Liberator product conversion rate remains at 0%.
So, an Amazon shop we remain
It was never my goal to be passionately supporting Amazon (personally I think they are a “problematic” company at best), but at least I (mostly) trust their reporting.
I can’t do this anymore
Running JustPolyThings as an affiliate site isn’t working out.
The site won’t be going away, this isn’t a de-escalation, but there are some things that are going to have to change:
- Break up with the unprofitable partners. If i have to take pages down that I spent a ton of effort on that’s okay, but sending big companies traffic for free is going to end.
- Open up an application process for poly creators and makers to be able to list their products. If you have an Esty shop or some other store selling poly stuff, I want you to be able to list your products and sell them on JustPolyThings too. Think of it as a “JustPolyEtsy” feature coming soon to the site.
- Connect more with the poly community. How can I get back to the vibe of that OG gdoc? To start I might just create more google docs and share them with my polycule. I feel like I’ve been struggling to write “sales-y” type content while at the same time feeling like NO ONE WANTS TO READ SALES-Y POSTS ABOUT FLESHLIGHT MOUNTS. I want to build us new ways for all of us to connect.
There are options
JPT has to change shape in the future. Does it become a newsletter? Do I make the whole site available as an app? Do you want a "JustPolyEsty" platform where JPT handles checkout and payments and takes a % commission of the sales? Or something else?
What ever it becomes, I’m NOT doing what I have been doing for 18 months, anymore. What do you want to see?
Here for it
JPT exists to normalize consensual non monogamy, and promote resources from its wonderful community of content creators.
Going forward, I want that to be the focus.
Tell me in the comments below... how would you like to see this site better serve our CNM community?
Product(s) Mentioned:
