Is affiliate marketing legit? Lots of would-be affiliates ask that question. And while there are a lot of unethical affiliates out there looking to make a few bucks through affiliate marketing fraud, the truth is that when done right, affiliate marketing works—and it’s a great way to build a legitimate business for yourself.
We’re here to prove it. Read below, and we’ll debunk myths, show you some successful affiliate websites, and get you started with a few tips.
Understanding affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is made up of three crucial components: the merchants, the affiliates, and the consumers.
And here’s how it works: Merchants are the ones who have products that need to be put in front of consumers. With modern digital marketing techniques, there are many great ways to do that—and affiliate marketing is one of the best.
Merchants develop an affiliate marketing program, then sign up at affiliate networks where they can connect with bloggers, influencers, reviewers, email list managers, and all kinds of other affiliates who are looking to create a passive revenue stream through affiliate links.
Affiliates will apply to merchant programs, and once accepted, they’ll gain access to special links to products or services. From there, they can take those links and add them to blog posts, social media posts, the descriptions in YouTube videos, and elsewhere—anywhere that their target audience will find the link, click it, and possibly make a purchase.
Thus, the affiliates end up handling a lot of the marketing since they’re the ones developing content, publishing, and generating buzz to get their audience’s attention. In exchange for all that hard work, merchants pay affiliates a commission (on average between 5% and 30%) for each sale that comes from consumers clicking the links that the affiliates are publicizing with their content marketing campaigns.
Ultimately, everyone wins:
- Merchants reap the benefits of dramatically increased exposure among affiliate audiences (plus a few sales along the way, too). And all they have to do is pay out commissions on a few sales.
- Affiliates build a lucrative passive income stream while learning about and sampling various brand offerings.
- Consumers get the benefit of valuable content (like informative product reviews or videos that showcase the product in action) plus often discounts, too, since affiliate offers are often paired with perks like free shipping or buy-more-save-more savings.
But much like are advantages for everyone involved, there are also some drawbacks:
- Merchants will face some stiff competition to land affiliates who have broad reach among the right audiences for their products.
- Affiliates face a lot of competition among their peers—and while affiliate marketing can be lucrative, it can also take a long time and a lot of hard work to build reach and bring conversion rates up.
- Consumers may be suspicious of affiliate marketing, especially if it comes across as disingenuous or spammy.
In fact, building trust among consumers is a challenge that both merchants and affiliates will need to overcome to build successful campaigns.
Common affiliate marketing myths and misconceptions
It’s an unfortunate truth that there are some marketers out there who rely on spammy tactics to try and get clicks. Unfortunately, these few bad apples are responsible for the many myths and misconceptions that paint affiliate marketing in a bad light.
But affiliate marketing is legit. In the sections below, we’ll bust some of the biggest misconceptions out there.
Affiliate marketing is a pyramid scheme
Pyramid schemes are illegal investing “opportunities” in which scammers pitch fraudulent investments to ever-increasing numbers of investors.
It’s a scam structured so that the people at the top of the pyramid profit from the people at the bottom of the pyramid. Early investors actually get big profits. That attracts new waves of investors who get smaller and smaller amounts until eventually, there are no returns to be had, and the investment scheme falls apart.
Affiliate marketing is not a pyramid scheme. Merchants pay affiliates an agreed-upon rate for sales conversions in exchange for promoting the merchant’s products.
Affiliate marketing is a get-rich-quick scheme
You’ll hear lots of “gurus” (more on them below) who will claim to get you up and running, making a ton of money online in just a matter of weeks. While that would be nice, it’s also a myth.
Affiliate marketing is definitely not a get-rich-quick scheme. In fact, for most affiliates, it takes a major investment of time and hard work to build up enough reach and a large enough audience to be able to earn a living wage purely from affiliate sales.
Affiliate marketing is easy, passive income
Sort of… but not really. The idea behind affiliate marketing is easy to understand. You get paid when the merchants you promote get sales from your promotions. But in practice, it takes a lot of hard work plus knowledge of SEO, analytics, social media marketing, and more in order to make those sales happen.
Similarly, affiliate marketing can be passive, but only if you’re using links with long cookie durations, or if you periodically update old affiliate links with new ones. This mostly only applies to affiliates who are running things like review sites where, once the review has been posted, there isn’t much more for the affiliate to do aside from promoting the post on social media.
In reality, affiliate marketing is usually a very active source of income. You’ll need to work daily to create and share content, get new affiliate links, build partnerships with new merchants, and so on.
Affiliate marketing scams to be aware of
Affiliate marketing is big business where there is a lot of money to be made—and wherever there is money to be made, scams abound. Here are some of the most common affiliate marketing scams to watch out for.
Pay-to-join affiliate programs
Any time anyone asks you to pay to join an affiliate program, that should be a red flag. As an affiliate, you’re the one who gets paid for your marketing efforts—not the other way around. If a merchant or marketer asks for an upfront fee, there’s a good chance it’s a scam.
Fake gurus and courses
You’ve probably already seen buzzy videos or posts on social media about how this guru or that guru can have you earning hundreds or thousands of dollars through affiliate marketing in a ridiculously short timeframe. All you have to do to get started is sign up for their course, which happens to come with a hefty price tag.
The truth? Maybe some of these so-called gurus might offer some helpful information, but they’re not going to make you rich overnight (and they’re certainly not going to offer you anything you can’t find elsewhere on the internet for free).
That’s the beauty of affiliate marketing. There are loads of helpful online resources to help you learn. And if you don’t mind paying to learn in a more structured format, then skip the gurus and instead head for a platform that offers legitimate online courses, like Coursera. Sign up for SEO classes, courses in digital marketing, social media marketing classes, or classes in another area to fill in any knowledge gaps you may have.
Illegitimate products or services
Scammers sometimes create affiliate links for products and pages that don’t exist. The idea is to trick affiliates into promoting these fake links under the name of well-known brands so they can gain customer trust. Always check your links and research your merchants thoroughly to avoid this type of scammer.
Spoof traffic
One reason why commission-based affiliate marketing is more popular than pay-per-click programs is because of spoof traffic, which can be a huge problem for marketers. Spoof traffic relies on bots to activate pay-per-click links, which transmit false click and impression data. Analytics programs track all of these interactions—and scammers get paid based on bot activity.
Real-world examples of affiliate marketing
Want to learn by example? There are lots of real-world examples of legitimate affiliates who will show you that affiliate marketing is totally worth it. We’ll look at just a few examples below.
A quick note: These examples were found during our online research for this article.
1. Nerdwallet
Tim Chen and Jake Gibson started NerdWallet in 2009 with the goal of bringing as much clarity to personal finances as possible. Since then, the company has grown from a startup to an enterprise worth hundreds of millions—and a big part of what they do is affiliate marketing. NerdWallet specializes in finances, analyzing credit cards, banks, mortgages, loans, insurance, investments, and more so that consumers can make informed decisions.
Personal finance is a tricky niche, and NerdWallet helps make consumer finance decisions easier with their analyses. Along the way, they reap profits from the affiliate links included in those analyses.
2. Money Saving Expert
Money Saving Expert is similar to NerdWallet in that this affiliate site focuses on personal finance—but at MSE, the focus is broader. They provide genuinely helpful information that their audience craves, like advice on how to save on energy bills, ways to save money while vacationing, how to get the best credit cards, and more.
It’s that content that brings in the viewers, many of whom are happy to click affiliate links within the content when they find a deal worth taking.
3. Wirecutter
Wirecutter is a review site that was founded by Brian Lam in 2001. By 2016, it had grown popular enough that The New York Times Company bought it for $30 million.
As with the other sites listed here, Wirecutter writes reviews (and places affiliate links in those reviews). And, like other sites listed here, the Wirecutter focuses on a specialized niche—electronics. Wirecutter’s success comes from providing valuable, genuinely useful content that readers want, plus affiliate links in that content to provide the revenue the site needs to thrive and grow.
4. Making Sense of Cents
Michelle Schroeder-Gardner started this blog in 2011—and in that time, Making Sense of Cents has grown big enough that it has reached more than 20 million readers. Michelle started this blog to document her own financial freedom journey, and along the way, as her readership grew, she found ways to monetize, including affiliate marketing.
These days, you’ll find all kinds of helpful resources on Making Sense of Cents, most of them geared towards innovative ways to make money and save money.
5. The Points Guy
Brian Kelly founded The Points Guy in 2010 as a site that examines credit cards, loyalty programs, and travel. The idea behind it was to minimize spending while maximizing travel experiences.
Today, the company has become a broadly recognized lifestyle and travel platform—and a big part of what keeps them going is the affiliate links they include in the guides and credit card offers that they publish.
Tips for engaging in legitimate affiliate marketing
Ready to get started with affiliate marketing? Here are a few tips that will help.
Choose a niche that you love
The most effective affiliate marketing strategies focus on a particular category of products, like makeup, electronics, personal finance apps, or other targeted opportunities.
Find legitimate programs
If ecommerce is your thing, Amazon Associates could be a place to start. Check favorite retailers, and look into affiliate networks, too.
Come up with a plan to promote affiliate products
This could be social media, a review site, an email list, or another way to spread the word.
Always create high-quality content
Your brand’s content should always keep your potential customers in mind. Research the types of content your target audience loves, and then produce content you know they’ll want to see.
Use a link shortener like Bitly
With Bitly, your brand can do more than shorten links—you can create custom-branded affiliate links that attract viewers and build trust.
Keep a careful eye on analytics
If a particular social post or blog post is performing well, use analytics to learn why, and repeat that process to further improve your campaigns.
Always trust your gut
If it seems too good to be true, it probably is. Your instincts will help you avoid a lot of scams and pitfalls.
Include affiliate link disclosures in your content
When you’re upfront about your links, users are more likely to trust you and your content.
Look for programs with decent affiliate commissions
Between 5% and 30% is a good target range. This is especially important at the beginning when traffic is low.
Look for value-adding resources
It’s also a plus when affiliate programs offer some of their own content to help your marketing efforts. Product photos, logo packages, infographics, product spec sheets, and more will all be useful.
Find out how Bitly can help your affiliate marketing campaign today
With a bit of online marketing know-how and the mindset of an entrepreneur, you can build a successful affiliate marketing business. The next step is to find out how Bitly can help you elevate your marketing efforts. With branded links, QR Codes, and other tools, Bitly has a lot to offer affiliate marketers. Sign up here to discover the Bitly solution that’s right for your business.