Intro.
It’s occurred to me that as time has gone on, we are seeing lesser numbers of affiliate marketers with honest intentions. It begs the question, why is there no integrity in affiliates anymore, like there once was?
I hope to provide some answers here, and show you what you should be doing as an affiliate marketer.
Everyone Wants a Piece Of The Pie
I believe part of the problem here is that everyone wants to be an affiliate marketer these days. It’s also spruiked that affiliate marketing is easy, and you only need to be selling a few products and the money will flow into your bank account.
It’s an easy sell too, just provide an explanation of the affiliate marketing process and many will believe they can do it standing on their head. It does sound simple right, sign up to a few affiliate programs, place products on your website or on YouTube, and away you go. In come the commissions right!
As any successful affiliate marketer will know though, it’s not as simple as that. But hundreds of thousands are willing to give it a go, even though their chances of failure is quite high due to lack of education.
Tired of seeing Scams or endless fraud sites?
Promotions To Beginners​
Many that are educated in affiliate marketing, are offering products that they know will not make beginners successful. There’s loads of affiliate marketers that I see who are signed up with affiliate networks such as WarriorPlus+, JVZoo or ClickBank that don’t have the best interests of their audiences in mind. They seem to lose integrity by not giving real valued information to their target audience.That’s my opinion anyway.
I’ve noticed a huge spike in marketers who rush to be the first with a video product review on YouTube, hoping for that number 1 position. Get in the top 3 positions, and you’ll get loads of views.
Once these guys get their video ranked highly, they have an attracted audience of people searching for the product review search term. They’ll include their description with affiliate links to the products, and the attraction that just keeps getting bigger. Bonuses!
Do Bonuses Matter
Yes, bonuses do matter when promoting affiliate products, because they do get more sales. But there’s no need to go as far as the marketers I’ve been talking about above. They tend to offer 10+ bonuses, most of which nobody will ever read, or watch.
Their main target is beginner affiliate marketers, and the products they promote are designed to give minor help to intermediate marketers or people with some extensive knowledge of when to use the products.
So when they know that a product only does a fraction of the work, or claims it will make you so much money within such- and-such a time-frame, the affiliate marketer knows this is not true. The hardest thing in this business is gaining website traffic, so often the bonuses will include various training on…. website traffic.
This can include social media aspects, paid advertising or solo ads. As this is included as a bonus, the products are not all that in-depth. They are generally PLR products that have been bandied together to create bonus product bundle.
How Valuable Are The Bonuses
I don’t have a problem with these bonus bundles as such, because they can provide some decent information. But it’s become a competition of who can provide the most bonuses. This is just another failing of integrity in my opinion, because they are not providing the best for their target market.
Sure, there will be some value in each bonus, but only to a point. I’ve found that they often provide information on why you should be doing something, how it should be done, but mostly without showing how it is to be implemented. There’s nearly always the fine detail left out.
This is for good reason too, because ‘knowledge is power’ as they say. So they don’t give away all the good stuff, this is reserved for payment products.
Who Should You Listen To?
Well, although I’m no expert or guru, I hope you’d listen to me. I’m not a million dollar affiliate with a Ferrari and a mansion, but I will talk honestly.
If you want to learn affiliate marketing from people with integrity and respect, you could do a lot worse than track the people I’m about to mention. These are people that I follow intensely, and partner with in their affiliate activities.
Dave Sharpe (Legendary Marketer) – Although I’ve known about Dave for several years now, I’ve only recently become aware about his status as a marketer. Dave prides himself and his company as being the most trusted and honest affiliate resource, and I tend to agree. Take his 15 Day Challenge and you’ll be astounded at what you’ll learn for just a few bucks.
Kyle and Carson (Wealthy Affiliate) – These 2 guys started WA in 2005, and have built the best full featured platform on the internet. They offer a free 1 week trial of their platform, which includes a website, hosting, keyword tool, multiple affiliate training courses, live training, huge community of affiliate marketers (including myself), and the best instant website support around. I cannot speak highly enough of Kyle and Carson, they know how to treat their members.
Spencer Mecham (Affiliate Secrets) – I found Spencer on YouTube one day and was immediately impressed. A simple guy who has excelled at his craft. Spencer has been one of the top performing affiliates for Clickfunnels, I’m sure you’ve heard of them. His own Affiliate Secrets course is astounding, and he’s well worth subscribing to on YouTube.
I could name many others, but these are the top affiliate marketers that I like to model myself on. Let me tell you why.
What Makes These Guys The Best
Because they teach the correct attributes for becoming a credible affiliate marketer. They are truthful and have integrity by providing honest advice. Not just to get a sale, because they know this will come anyway.
They attempt to instill in you, the same mantra that they live by. Offer more than enough value and the customer will follow. Those that go over and above on providing great advice, will be followed and shared on social media. They provide the correct tools and training and use integrity to promote it.
What I really like is that they don’t teach methods for short term gains. All those mentioned above want you alongside them for the long term, so they teach you how to go about this yourself.
Final Thoughts
I’d encourage you to look behind the facade of marketers that just want to offer you loads of bonuses, in order to sell you a second rate product. There’s many ways to become a successful affiliate marketer, but you’d be advised to follow those that do it best themselves.
Like many people, I struggled in my early attempts to make money online. It's really frustrating when you try product after product, searching for that elusive opportunity that is really genuine.
Eventually though, I learned how to achieve success in the online world with my own website. This website was created to show others how to do it. I direct people away from the poor opportunities and advise the good ones.
But the simplest and least complicated is [Learn more...]
Disclosure: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links will not cost you any more. More info at my disclaimer page
The opinions in this article are solely mine, are are not intended to offend or discriminate. All information in this review has been researched on the public domain of the internet.
