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Is Affiliate Marketing A Scam?

Is affiliate marketing a scam? Affiliate marketing is definitely not a scam, no. It’s a legitimate business model in which third parties are rewarded for recommending other people’s products and services online.

When someone buys a product online through an affiliate link, the affiliate earns a commission for making the sale. The sale is tracked back to the affiliate marketer’s unique link. They receive a commission based on the value of the product they have sold.

Affiliate marketing is a performance based business model. This means that for a large percentage of new affiliates, making money from it is a considerable problem. As a new affiliate without any experience, it can take some time before you see any results in terms of sales. It is during the first few months of learning affiliate marketing where most people will quit, believing it to be a scam! But just because affiliate marketing is difficult, doesn’t make it illegitimate.

Is Affiliate Marketing A Scam – Why Affiliates Struggle

New affiliates struggle for a number of reasons. Often people will give up long before they should, having lost hope. But like any business, affiliate marketing takes time and effort in order to become successful. Most businesses will fail in their first 5 years and affiliate marketing is no different. A massive 95% of affiliate marketers will drop out. That leaves only 5% who carry on long enough to make it into an income. See also affiliate marketing failure rate.

Initially beginner affiliates will have a lot to learn before they can even make a start of their affiliate business. Websites, for example, can take months before they show up in the search results and get regular traffic. Even using a paid marketing strategy, which is faster, it can take several months before you gain traction. If in these few months you lose belief in what you’re doing, it’s far easier to quit than to carry on!

Affiliates have many barriers to overcome and the first of which is their own belief. If you believe affiliate marketing is a scam, and that there’s no hope for making money from it, this will affect your actions in a negative way. It’s impossible to make a success of something if you already don’t believe it’s possible. You won’t even try!

Overcoming Doubt

If your mind is full of doubt you’ll definitely struggle to make money from affiliate marketing. Doubt holds you back, and your actions flow from your beliefs and attitudes. To become successful as an affiliate marketer you need to promote and sell affiliate products. If you don’t believe in your products, or in the business of affiliate marketing, it’s already a barrier to your success.

To build a successful affiliate business takes time and effort; more than most people expect. Some courses and “gurus’ even profess that affiliate marketing is easy in order to sell their courses! This of course gives the beginner affiliate a false expectation of what affiliate marketing really entails. When reality doesn’t match up to this expectation, it can be easy to think that affiliate marketing is a scam.

By assuming this, you give yourself a way out! If you take responsibility for your lack of success, a different picture is painted. You need to keep working and enduring more challenges in order to break through and start making sales.

All of this starts in your mind, long before you either fail or succeed with affiliate marketing. So overcoming the seeds of fear in your mind is a useful first step in achieving something positive from affiliate marketing.

Affiliate Marketing Training & Expectation

Since the main aspect of affiliate marketing is the actual “marketing” skill, many affiliate training courses focus on helping new affiliates with this. Training can take the form of mindset, psychology, and the various actual marketing methods you need to implement as an affiliate such as:

Blogging
SEO – search engine optimisation
Video marketing
PPC – pay per click
Tracking
Optimisation
Etc

There’s various ways you can do affiliate marketing and everyone’s experience of it will differ according to their own personal approach. A course might not be right for everyone and you can still fail at affiliate marketing even after investing in your training and education. The key is to commit to the journey, get help and support and make it an ongoing priority to build an affiliate business over the longer term. Don’t expect to start earning from affiliate marketing without having put the work in first for several months or years.

Learn more about the different types of products you can promote as an affiliate with this free video series.

Is Affiliate Marketing Legit?

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.

Is SFM A Scam?

A common question I’ve had from my email subscribers is “is SFM a scam?”. As a Six Figure Mentors affiliate, of course you would expect me to say “no”.

Having taken many dubious courses over several years, I found SFM back in 1014 and had the same doubts. The first meet up I went on, I was highly dubious and so sceptical that I didn’t believe anyone would show up!

To my surprise I met several other affiliates who had joined the company. I was able to go to my first event organised by Stuart Ross and Jay Kubassek in 2014 too, in London. There were hundreds of people there, some of which had joined the company when it began in 2010 and made their full time living through SFM.

Is SFM A Scam?

Jay and Stuart regularly turn up for their members in person. This was something I never had experienced on the many other courses I took before finding them.

Pre-pandemic, they hosted events regularly throughout the year, all over the globe. Since 2020, they have had to alter their training curriculum to make the many events available digitally over zoom conference calls.

I’ve been with The SFM for over 6 years now and building an online business hasn’t been plain sailing. You can read more about my experience in my article Six Figure Mentors Affiliate.

But the SFM doesn’t claim to be a “magic bullet” or a “get rich quick scheme”. This is what sets them apart from some of the more shady courses which promise the moon! The SFM offers training and education for people who want to build digital businesses. It’s not a get rich quick scheme!

That being said, the SFM has turned out some very successful affiliates. But results are not typical and are never guaranteed.

If you think you can use SFM for quick riches, without putting in the work, you’re in the wrong place and it’s probably not for you.

IS SFM A Scam? – SFM Collaborations

Microsoft Lynda (Under the Linkedin umbrella of companies) recently partnered with SFM as a way to offer their own 6,500 training courses as part of the SFM curriculum.

DigitalMarketer (The world’s longest standing and most highly respected B2B and B2C marketing training company) also partnered with SFM and now offer their own training as part of the SFM curriculum.

Do you think these companies would partner with any organisation that wasn’t providing huge value and wasn’t 100% above board?

You can also access a wealth of training an information through the SFM Mentors All in package for only $100 and then $97 a month, (training worth well over $2000). Click on the image below for details.

Will You Be Successful Using SFM?

This is another question similar to the “is SFM a scam?” question. If SFM isn’t a scam, will you therefore be successful if you follow the training? The answer to this will depend on a number of factors. Many businesses fail in their first 3 years and an online business is no different.

In fact, 60% of new businesses will fail in their first 3 years. Here’s why. Those who persevere, decide never to quit and continue no matter what are the ones who succeed. No one can guarantee you will be successful.

A good analogy is the gym. If you join a gym how long will it take to get six pack abs? Some will never achieve it and some will do it in a matter of months. The SFM offers all the tools and training and even support for someone to build an online business from scratch. But ultimately it’s up to the individual to immerse themselves in the training and community, and put in the necessary work. Not everyone will be determined enough to do what is required, and many will quit before they see any results at all.

Earnings Through The SFM

My earnings varied dramatically through selling the SFM product range. As soon as I could, I upgraded my account so I could earn from the high ticket products. At a basic member level, you can still earn commissions based on the entire product range offered by The SFM. But your commissions are more limited, so you can’t earn as much from each sale. Once you purchase the higher level products, you can also earn larger commissions.

sfm earnings — SFM Basic Membership commission structure

I started making sales within a few months through the SFM and had even made a high ticket sale in my first year. But I struggled to use paid marketing because my earnings were so sporadic.

This was because I didn’t have a full time income source. So instead of focusing on paid marketing, I used content generation. This is notoriously slow! I’ve seen many members fly past me far quicker when they had a bigger reason (and a regular income). They used paid marketing to build their businesses quickly, and positioned at the top (invested heavily).

Investment and Potential

You can invest in the top level training and product range and this places you as a partner member. This means you can access personal 1 on 1 affiliate marketing coaching, and more personal and in-depth training and support. It also means you can access the higher level commissions and earn more.

This in turn lets you use the more expensive marketing platforms for your advertising. Without the higher level commissions and high ticket products in your sales funnel, it’s difficult to use paid marketing techniques.

DEA commission structure — DEA Partner commission structure

So according to your “buy-in” level, you may need to adjust your marketing strategy accordingly. Before I invested in the top tier products and commission levels, I used blogging for my marketing strategy. It’s a free strategy but it does take much longer and requires a commitment of months or years before you see any traction.

With paid marketing, you can can have a profitable business inside a year if you do well, although this is still a challenge. Of course you will spend money on advertising while learning what works. So it’s advisable not to risk capital you can’t afford to lose while doing this.

Is SFM A Scam? Summary

So, is SFM a scam? No, it’s an education and training program for people who want to become entrepreneurs. The SFM also offers their own digital business system which members can choose to promote if they wish. But you can also use SFM training resources to help in any entrepreneurial endeavour.

When I first started with the SFM back in 2014, I was able to use the training to help me build up a failing kung fu school in Bradford, UK. Later, I was able to make a 5 figure commission through the SFM using it’s own digital business system. Read more about my SFM journey in Six Figure Mentors Affiliate.

If you’re serious about earning an income online, The SFM can help you. But it’s not a “magic bullet” or “get rich quick scheme”! The SFM offers everything you need to transition to earning online through many strategies. But you need to be serious and committed to putting in the work if you want to succeed online. As with any business, there’s risk involved and it takes a huge commitment to build a profitable online business starting from scratch. It’s definitely not for everyone.

If you want to get started online you can access the SFM Mentors program here. There’s a 30 day month back guarantee so you can claim a full refund if it’s not for you.