Avoiding Affiliate Marketing Scams

Internet marketing is a great way to earn a living – in what other industry can you choose your hours or workload quite as much?

Well, OK, freelance journalism would be the ultimate, but to be honest I can’t think of any freelance journalist making quite the millions from his writing that an affiliate marketer has the potential to….. moving on…..

Affiliate Marketing may be a great way to earn an income online but be warned – it does have a bit of a bad reputation thanks largely to the amount of affiliate marketing scams that are around.

Protect Yourself While Learning From A Reputable Team – Click Here To Find Out More

Unfortunately the very nature of the internet means that there are also a few characters around who may not be quite as ethical as you or I, so here are a few tips to avoid those affiliate marketing scams and stay out of trouble online.

Tip #1 – Avoid Those ‘Get-Rich-Quick’ Promises;

Affiliate marketing is a business. It is challenging. It does take hard work and it does take time. Anyone that tells you otherwise is flat out lying to you.

Tip #2 – Research Your Merchant and Product;

Do a Google search on the name of the program and the person whose name appears on the sales page. It will soon become clear what others think of them and their product.

Two other ways be double sure;

1. add the word ‘scam’ at the end of your search phrase and
2. find a forum in the niche that you are looking at, like the Warrior Forum for affiliate marketing and type in the name of the product or the person. Again, these tend to be no holds barred reviews of the product, so be prepared for an insight into the product.

Tip #3 – Don’t Spend Anything!

One of the dead giveaways with affiliate marketing scams is that they ask you to pay a fee to join their program. Don’t.

With genuine affiliate programs you don’t have to buy the product or opt in to anything. Only give as much personal information as is required.

For Free Lessons, Advice and Support Click Here

Tip #4 – Check the Sales Page;

Your product should have a professional, fully functional website that is free from glaringly obvious spelling and grammatical errors. It should have an affiliates area and full contact information for the merchant if the affiliate needs support.

Tip #5 – Don’t Get Caught Up In the Hype;

Make sure that you understand how a product is going to work and what you are going to get before you buy or promote it. Now the standard affiliate marketing scam is the one that ends up costing you money right?

Be careful though, there are also affiliate marketing scams that will give you the wrong information, which you will blindly follow and end up getting your account banned from sites for spamming or breaking the Terms of Service. This is serious.

Unfortunately it is amazing how many people thought that they were following the instructions of a legitimate internet marketing program only to suddenly find that they were spamming a site or deliberately breaking the TOS to gain traffic.

Which leads us to…

Tip #6 – USE YOUR GUT;

Question what you are doing – would you like your Twitter account hammered 100 times a day with links to a site?

No?

Betcha no-body else does either.

If anything seems off kilter, too good to be true, slightly dubious or ethically questionable? Run a mile.

Tip #7 – Join A Support Network;

One of the real drawbacks of working at home is that you don’t have the same human contact that you would in an office situation so make sure that you get involved in a reputable online forum – like Affilorama.com. Most affiliate marketing scams are discovered and discussed in these.

Have you had a run in with and affiliate marketing scam? Leave a comment and tell us about it.