The question “is affiliate marketing legit” comes from a lack of understanding. Of course affiliate marketing is legit! The idea that affiliate marketing is a scam is a myth. Affiliate marketing is a business model which allows affiliates to benefit financially from promoting other people’s goods and services online. While vendors (product owners) benefit from affiliate’s efforts in selling their products.

The idea that affiliate marketing isn’t legit often comes from shady tactics and “snake oil” salesmen who promote their own courses, promising riches through affiliate marketing for little work. In reality it takes consistent effort in order to make a living through being an affiliate marketer, (and the right knowledge).

Affiliate marketing has had a bad rap because of those who sold the idea that it’s a get rich quick scheme; or that it’s easy. It’s not! But it is a legitimate strategy to make money online through product referrals. Not everyone who attempts affiliate marketing succeeds at it. But that does not mean it isn’t legit!

Is Affiliate Marketing Legit?

Affiliate marketing is a performance based advertising method. This means that the more products an affiliate marketer sells, the more they get paid. If they don’t sell any products, they get nothing! Affiliate marketing isn’t a job, where you work for an employer and get paid for your time. You only get paid for sales you refer.

Many people try affiliate marketing and then quit. These are often the people who may be asking “is affiliate marketing is legit?”. But the fact that someone fails at a certain business model isn’t a reflection of its legitimacy. More likely it’s a reflection of someone’s ability to make sales themselves and understand how to do so.

Making sales online can be done in a number of ways. Some affiliate marketers use blogging as their means of marketing. This article, for example, is a marketing strategy. If someone comes to my website and purchases something, I earn a commission based on the sale. Some affiliate marketers use videos, other use blogs or paid marketing and many build email lists of subscribers to promote products to.

Is Affiliate Marketing Legit? Why Not?

Affiliate marketing is like a sales job really where you only earn commissions on things you sell. There’s no regular pay, just for turning up – just a commission bonus. For this reason, many struggle to make money through using affiliate marketing, especially if they are from an employee background. The low barrier to entry for affiliates also makes it appealing to a lot of people.

To become an affiliate marketer, all you need do is join a partner program and promote your own unique affiliate link. See where to promote affiliate links. You can do affiliate marketing from a laptop with an internet connection. This means most people around the world can “have a go”! But it also means that many will drop out and give up too!

Affiliate marketing originally began in 1989 with a man named William J. Tobin. As the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts, Tobin conceptualised the idea of affiliate marketing and launched his program on the Prodigy Network.

Although Amazon is widely credited with offering the first affiliate program, Tobin was the first! In 1996 Amazon launched their affiliate program and their huge product range meant they became the go-to company for affiliates globally. See more affiliate marketing history.

Amazon’s Partner Program

Amazon’s partner program allows pretty much anyone to link directly to their products and make sales. When an affiliate makes a sale through their affiliate link, they earn a commission.

Amazon’s affiliates can earn from 3% to 11% commission on a sale they refer. Not every affiliate product pays the same in terms of commission and some products and companies pay far more. But Amazon’s appeal is still strong because of the range of products they offer. See affiliate marketing commission rates for more on this topic.

Amazon has also build a huge customer base and has good consumer confidence. Less well known brands can have a harder time building trust with customers online.

Online Recommendations & Earnings Exaggerations

A good analogy about affiliate marketing is that it’s like recommending a restaurant to a friend. Only, when your friend visits the restaurant and buys a meal, you earn a commission based on your recommendation. Of course not every affiliate has good intentions. Affiliates can recommend things they haven’t purchased themselves. If an affiliate’s only incentive is their commission, this can be problematic.

Affiliates who push their own products can also exaggerate their usefulness. Many affiliate programs I took over 10+ years of learning affiliate marketing, offered themselves up as “get rich quick schemes”. They were often sold on the basis of being able to make me rich, rather than to help me legitimately earn an income online. These kinds of sales tactics have given affiliate marketing a bad name unfortunately and spoiled things for the legitimate businesses.

You can read about the various courses I took in my article digital product course review. I did learn something from many of the courses I took, and continue to learn about affiliate marketing. But I can see why people would think of these courses as scams; especially if they didn’t fulfil on exaggerated promises. Any legitimate training or education course is required to have a full earnings disclaimer now.

Become An Affiliate Marketer?

Despite the shady parts of affiliate marketing, this doesn’t change the fact that affiliate marketing is a legitimate business model. Anyone can learn affiliate marketing strategies and benefit from making sales over the internet.

However, it’s not an easy thing to learn and so it’s worth taking some time looking at what’s available in terms of training. Around 6 years ago I found an online mentorship program and started learning from scratch again, despite having already done affiliate marketing before.

Learn more and get started by clicking on the image below.