Is Affiliate List Building More Profitable Than Normal Affiliate Marketing?

Most people understand that affiliate marketing can be a truly powerful thing.
Not everybody understands just how versatile it can be though.
For most people, affiliate marketing is just a way to get people to send direct and targeted traffic to your sales page.
Most people don't understand that you can also use affiliate marketing to build up your email list.
While individual sales are great, and while no one is going to turn away the chance to make individual sales, when it comes down to it you're probably going to make a lot more money from your list than you will from traffic sent directly to your sales page.
You are probably going to make more money by using affiliate marketing to build up your email list than you will by using affiliate marketing to get generate individual sales alone.
Affiliate marketing can be a truly incredible thing.
In many instances it can be the best way to sell as much of your product as possible.
Similarly, in many instances using affiliates can be the absolute best way to build up your list.
Affiliate marketing is so powerful for one main reason- you don't actually do any of the work that goes in to making sales or building your list.
True, you need to put in some work to manage your affiliate program, but overall you aren't going to be doing the grunt work to marketing and sell your program or product.
Lots of other people, most of whom will remain forever anonymous to you, will be out there doing all that for you.
It takes a little work to get up and running, but once you've got it going these 'employees' will take the wheel.
You don't need to pour any of your own money or resources into selling your product or building your list, and this is huge.
Even if you continue to do a lot of your own work to market your product and list, you still will have recruited a lot of other hands and brains to help shoulder the load.
They get a great and generous commission for each sale they produce, and you get more sales than you ever could on your own.
As long as you have your site converting well and your sales process locked down, it's a real win-win relationship for everyone involved.
Traditionally affiliate links send visitors right to your sales page, but it's even better to have affiliate links send visitors to your squeeze page.
If you have a process set up that sends opt-ins to your sales page, then your affiliates will still be making plenty of sales from their efforts.
In fact, I don't really think that you lose any sales this way.
Those people who will buy your product will probably also sign up for your newsletter, so you are just weeding out the people who wouldn't buy anyway with your squeeze page.
This system is even better for you though, because you get value from your visitors regardless of whether they make a purchase the first time they are sent to your page.