Since the boom of templates in 2004 we have had a multitude of Template Monster affiliate websites across the Internet in many different languages offering web templates. My Template Storage, Template Monster’s affiliate program website, is one of the most popular template affiliate programs offering many great tools to setup your affiliate website. They not only offer codes to integrate their templates on your website and pre-made affiliate websites to download, they also offer a WebAPI allowing affiliates to download their template data and screenshots to create their own systems for selling their templates.

This setup was great for those specializing in affiliate marketing. They could setup their websites instantly and start selling within minutes of signing up. Because of its easy setup, hundreds of affiliates signed up to sell Template Monsters templates. Soon, there were lots of variations of their templates all over the Internet. Talks about putting a fee on the program or creating a specific guideline to resell Template Monster templates were in discussion with the current affiliates. It was said by Template Monster themselves, that they would not put any restrictions on their affiliate program. The market has since become very saturated with their website templates because of the ease of implementing them into any website.

Currently, in 2007, if you search for any web related template through Google, you will most likely arrive on the footsteps of a Template Monster affiliate website (see example: Little Star Webdesign) and probably more than once on the same results page. You can recognize them quite easily, especially if you’ve been looking at templates for a while. This poses a serious question for the affiliates and for Template Monster. Has this saturation created a better market for template buyers or has the saturation caused Template Monster templates to be avoided?

Regardless of whether you show up in the first 10 search results for a specific template keyword, a template buyer is going to see the exact same template 2-3 times during their search and compare phase because of Template Monsters saturation. This saturation actually leads to a much better market for the template buyers. Every template company, including affiliate marketers will have to customize their sales pitch offering more services to their buyers. Bonus offers with affiliated companies and free graphics, photos, and other web elements is defiantly a plus for the buyer.

While the market is much better for the template buyer, it is much harder for the affiliate. You can no longer just add Template Monsters code to your website and sell templates, you must actively watch the market, change your sales pitch, and come up with many new ways to bring in sales for your templates. Over the last 2 years, Template Monster themselves have created several webmaster resources to help bring in sales, in addition to creating new template products.

Template Monsters market may be saturated, but if you are serious about selling online web templates, find your niche market and cater to their needs. Offer related products and services that might interest template buyers and give them a reason to buy from your website instead of another affiliates website or going directly to Template Monster. The market may be saturated, but the templates product is still needed by many webmasters.

Example Affiliate: Little Star Webdesign

Affiliate Program: My Template Storage

Main Website: Template Monster

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