Why affiliate marketing has a bad reputation?
Affiliate marketing is often compared to a multi-level marketing or a pyramid scheme.
A lot of negative comments cast doubt on this way of making money on the Internet, due to unsuccessful personal experience or ignorance. And there is no smoke without fire!
Beginners who are just starting their journey in affiliate marketing may be worried – is this type of income a scam?
Let’s take a look at why affiliate marketing has such a bad rap and if everything that is written on the Internet is true.
01
Easy fast money
There are many opportunity seekers around who want to quickly and easily make money on affiliate marketing, although they themselves just googled what affiliate marketing is.
Without understanding, the newcomer launches a campaign for the first available offer. Without tests, in pursuit of a quick profit, most likely drains the budget, the money is spent, but there is no expected result.
Frustrated and angry, they write everywhere that affiliate marketing is a scam. In our society as a whole, it is more common to talk about negative experiences than to go and write laudatory comments. Therefore, it seems that people only lose their initial capital in affiliate marketing.
The essence of the matter is simple - in order to make money on affiliate marketing, you will have to read a lot, learn a lot and do more.
There is no single algorithm that works for everyone. Register and become a millionaire in three minutes, without confirmation email and SMS. Haha, if that were the case, then everyone would already be rich.
02
Pyramid
For some, affiliate marketing revenue can resemble a pyramid, when a cash flow does not come from sales of a product or advertiser, but from beginners that enter the industry.
As in any business, there are unscrupulous partners. But affiliate programs with a Name that value their reputation and clients are definitely not a pyramid that pay out “experienced” affiliates at the expense of the minimum deposits made by beginners.
03
Uncertainty
There are those who say that the industry is dead or the competition is too high, so working in affiliate marketing is unpromising and that you will lose money.
Again, competition is everywhere, except perhaps in the innovative industry.
If the industry were dead, no one would continue to launch campaigns, traffic and organize huge conferences in Dubai, Bangkok, Barcelona, Moscow.
Income uncertainty is another reason not to trust affiliate marketing. There is no guarantee of constant and stable income, with a specific date of transfer of salary to the card and to the Pension Fund.
04
Courses
There are plenty of marketing fraudsters in any field, affiliate marketing is no exception. The internet is full of advertisements like: “Learn how to earn $1,000 in just one week!” or
“Has anyone heard about affiliate marketing here? It was EPIC! I made 20 thousand dollars in the last two months, I want to teach you too"
Most of these courses (of course, not all) are simply scams, most often the main profit of the seller is formed precisely from the sale of courses, and not at all from advertising campaigns launched by them.
05
Lack of control
The affiliate has no power over commissions, pricing or payouts.
Surely there will be those who worked with an unverified affiliate program and their payment was delayed or not paid at all. Such cases do not inspire confidence in the industry.
Therefore, you need to work only with reliable partners who are trusted in the market, and not with those who opened yesterday, offering mountains of gold and minimal commissions.
06
Questionable methods
We are all bombarded with a ton of advertisements for various goods and services every time we pick up the phone or turn on the computer.
Some of the ads are outright lies, and it's infuriating, you download an epic battle game, but instead you get a scanword. This is because some affiliates use questionable advertising methods. We expanded on Why Misleading is bad here.
In general, things can be done “correctly” and within the framework of general agreements, or not quite honestly, as means of trying to make money faster. This is how you get the myth that affiliate marketing is just another scam.
07
Conclusion
At the beginning of the journey, you will encounter a ton of negative information about affiliate marketing.
Affiliate Marketing is not a scam if you begin to understand what's what.
This business model is working. The problem is different - the people who are looking for a quick and easy way.
Therefore, to start in affiliate marketing, choose reliable partners. And don't give up at the first setback. It took time and training to learn how to walk and keep a pencil. Isn't that the case?
Have you encountered negative comments about affiliate marketing and affiliates?
