11

Lies Affiliates Tell

Wednesday, October 1st, 2008

Lies Affiliates Tell

Affiliate companies are not on the whole dishonest but there is a tendency to ‘over-hype’ some aspects of affiliate marketing.

The first lie that you may be told is that you can set up an affiliate business in a matter of minutes and then sit back and earn around $5000 or £2500 per day. Well it just doesn’t work that way; for any affiliate business to succeed there has to be some effort put in, an analysis of the market, some monitoring of the success of the campaign and so on. So if you spot websites that suggest you can set up a website and within minutes the money will be rolling in, you know this will not be the case. Any claim has to be treated with a certain amount of scepticism.

Beware of ‘online gurus’. Yes, these are the people who set themselves up as some kind of residual expert on the subject and they will tell you to do X, Y and Z or even to buy X, Y and Z from them to help your business, just like it helped theirs. Well that is fine, but make sure that before you part with any of your hard earned cash you have found out a little about this person. Ask in forums if anyone has heard of them or used the service they offer and so on. Many people are subject to scams on the internet, but often this is because they have taken claims and boasts at face value and failed to do a small amount of basic research. So beware of the gurus.

The next lie is controversial. Affiliates will often boast about the amount of money that they have made. However, often what they fail to tell you is not just how much work went into making this money, how long it took them and so on, but they also omit one tiny detail; how much it actually cost them! So you can earn a huge amount of money and this may be gross. Once you have paid off the fees for pay per click advertising, then the amount you are left with may actually be fairly small.

So the old saying ‘If it seems too good to be true, it probably is’ is one that is worth bearing in mind in the world of affiliate marketing. It is possible that you can make good money, but very few people have their lives radically transformed by affiliate marketing. For some it does provide the opportunity to work from home and the extra money it can generate can make substantial differences to people, but few become millionaires through this process. As such, affiliate marketing should be viewed realistically but not as something that is suddenly going to catapult you into the realms of the super wealthy: perhaps comfortably off is a more realistic aim, but only after a relatively hard slog and some serious effort put in on your part. Whatever you decide, make sure you do your research first.

Doug still tells the truth


11 Responses to “Lies Affiliates Tell”

  1. Chris Clarkson said on October 1st, 2008 at 9:37 am

    Here here!

    On the other hand, I have developed a foolproof way to earn $2000 a day with virtually no experience/work/knowledge required. Just sign up to my newsletter/blog/buy my e-book, all will be revealed. :P

  2. Doug said on October 1st, 2008 at 10:30 am

    Can I have it:)

    Doug

  3. maxd said on October 1st, 2008 at 12:26 pm

    We lied to you Doug but just because do not have time to do your sites. Plan to get going sometime in the next few months.

  4. Chris Clarkson said on October 1st, 2008 at 1:55 pm

    Just deposit $99 in my paypal account here - spammybastard@paypal.com

  5. Bob said on October 1st, 2008 at 3:00 pm

    Can I quote you on my forthcoming website how-not-to-get-ripped-off-by-online-gurus.com - send for my e-book only £5 ?

    To be closely followed by how-to-maintain-your-affiliate-income-in-the-credit-crunch.com

    thats enougth stupid domain names for now

  6. Geoff said on October 1st, 2008 at 3:50 pm

    Damn! Well there goes my plans for next week!

  7. Pete Dickenson said on October 1st, 2008 at 4:01 pm

    I don’t believe you!

  8. Daniel Goodchild said on October 2nd, 2008 at 8:26 am

    But…but… I just ordered the Lamborghini. Are you telling me the money isn’t going to be in my account now ?

  9. Chris said on October 2nd, 2008 at 11:43 am

    You’re such a cynic Doug!

    I bought one of those eBooks and now I own the Neptune, the Earth and the Moon. Luckily it was all because I read a book from by a Guru. Strange how he never followed his own advice, but instead decided to be an online book seller.

    Very thoughtful of him, sharing he secrets and stuff!

  10. Clarke said on October 3rd, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    Tell me about it; wish I never published that dam book before buying at least the Moon before Chris, oh well!

  11. Bob said on October 6th, 2008 at 9:51 am

    How much did Neptune go for - I thought I saw it on ebay a while back ?

Leave a Reply

How do I change my avatar?

Go to gravatar.com and upload your preferred avatar.