When I first started out in Affiliate marketing I was always searching for the ultimate Online Marketing "Guru", who would show me the way to making millions online. The problem was that everybody claimed to be a "Guru", and before I knew it I couldn't tell the difference between a marketing specialist (i.e "Guru") and a good sales person.
Therefore these days I prefer to place marketers into the following categories :
1. Online Marketing specialists (General)
2. Specific Search Engine Marketing specialists
3. Search Engine Optimisation specialists
4. List Building Marketing specialists
5. Experienced Online Marketers (over 5 years experience)
6. Young Marketing Specialists (under the age of 25)
7. Affiliate Marketers (know how to sell online products)
8. "Fake" Marketers (tell you they have made $1m when in fact they have made a profit of just over $1,000 in the last month).
In my mind there is no such thing as a "Guru", but there are online marketers with more experience than others and who have proven records of success. These people would include Derek Gehl, The Wealthy Affiliate Boys (Kyle & Carson) and Rosalind Gardner. These online marketers have proven success behind them, and continue to show other online affiliate marketers that making money online is a reality.
There are too many so called marketing "gurus" these days who are simply selling you manuals that you can download from Google, or E-Books that have been re-written from 3 years ago. The real marketing "gurus" are teaching you how to build a profitable online business. They are the ones telling you that there are no shortcuts to success (e.g Google Adwords - test, test and test again). When I hear these words I am confident that I'm learning from a real marketing specialist, because I know that not every bright idea I have is going to work straight away.
There are always going to be efficient ways of making money online. The simple fact is that too many people expect to make money through developing one squeeze page for one affiliate product. When no one visits the site they become disillusioned, and more likely than not they will simple give up.
When figures suggest that only 5% of all online marketers will actually make a living being online, then I say that the other 95% of marketers don't have the time to succeed. learn from the best and the profits will be the reward of all the hard times. Simply learn to understand what your customers want, and you will see that success can be a reality.