How to See Through Affiliate Marketing Cons

By Roy Sen­cio

Affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing scams have emerged as a reg­u­lar phe­nom­e­non on the web with the advent of thou­sands of fake affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing schemes. Basi­cally mak­ing money through affil­i­ate scams and dup­ing an aver­age user into think­ing that he has pounced upon a “once in a life time deal” is now a career for some. There are scores and scores of affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing scams which the aver­age online surfer fails to see through. How­ever, with the help of the tips listed here you would be able to under­stand these inter­net scams and learn to pick between gen­uine affil­i­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties and fake deals.

One of the vital fac­tors to keep in mind is that the nature and com­plex­ity of affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing scams trans­form with tech­nol­ogy. There is a school of indi­vid­u­als with a higher-than-average IQ work­ing on these scams on a daily basis. There­fore, it is next to impos­si­ble to cre­ate the updated com­pre­hen­sive list of scams but here are some com­mon ones that you should be aware of.

Do a thor­ough research about the Affil­i­ate Pro­gram: You must always do some research to know what oth­ers are say­ing about the affil­i­ate pro­gram. Find out if there any accred­i­ta­tions asso­ci­ated with the mar­ket­ing pro­gram, who are the peo­ple review­ing these pro­grams, and other related ques­tions. It is never advis­able to rely on the tes­ti­mo­ni­als that the com­pany pro­vides on their web­site. What you need to look for are inde­pen­dent sites, which carry tes­ti­mo­ni­als of such pro­grams and pro­vide some kind of a rat­ing sys­tem to rank such affil­i­ate programs.

No evi­dent track record: A gen­uine affil­i­ate pro­gram would not hes­i­tate to show a track record that would pro­vide its his­tory and details of pre­vi­ous deals. The evi­dent fact that a com­pany which is not affil­i­ated to other orga­ni­za­tions or com­pa­nies implies its lack of accred­i­ta­tion. It is best to avoid such pro­grams because more than often they would turn out to be affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing scam, which would only result in loss of time and money for you.

Affil­i­ates mar­ket­ing with no sup­port con­tact: If you are being approached by an affil­i­ate pro­gram that pro­vides a toll-free tele­phone num­ber, with­out any email or a con­tact form, then you are most cer­tainly look­ing at an affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing scam. Not receiv­ing a response within a few days of con­tact also implies some­thing very fishy related to it.

Affil­i­ates with­out web­sites: There are many affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing pro­grams that approach you with­out any web­site address. A web­site pro­vides for easy acces­si­bil­ity and trace­abil­ity fea­tures that can lead back to the cre­ator. Even though it can­not be a guar­an­tee about the wor­thi­ness of a pro­gram, it cer­tainly can help you to be cautious.

Affil­i­ates that don’t mar­ket any prod­uct or ser­vice: The first ques­tion you should ask the affil­i­ate is about the prod­uct or ser­vice that is being mar­keted. A gen­uine pro­gram lists out the prod­ucts it endorses or pro­motes with a clear descrip­tion of the ser­vices it pro­vides. With­out the sale of any prod­uct there would only be peo­ple join­ing the com­pany, but no rev­enue would be gen­er­ated. These include some of the pyra­mid schemes that are ille­gal in the United States and many other parts of the world.

Free Sites for Affil­i­ates: If the mer­chant pro­vides a free site and ask you to be in charge of post­ing adver­tis­ing con­tent and ads, etc for mar­ket­ing their prod­uct, then you bet­ter beware. With such sites, you won’t be able to know who vis­ited and how many sales happened.

These point­ers will surely help you avoid affil­i­ate mar­ket­ing scams.

Roy Sen­cio is an Online Mar­ket­ing Con­sul­tant based in San Jose, Cal­i­for­nia. Learn more about Affil­i­ate Mar­ket­ing on his blog, http://www.roysencio.com

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