The Difference Between Cash Referral Schemes and Affiliate Marketing

[kellymccausey]

There's been a lot of 'paid referral schemes' posted here since the Affiliate Marketing forum opened and I want to clarify the difference.

Programs that have been created just to generate 'referrals for cash' may resemble an affiliate program, but they're not one. For example, a website is created for the sole purpose of recruiting new participants. You pay to sign up and then you get other people to do the same and you earn from their referral. This is not a legitimate affiliate program, it's a pyramid scheme that eventually collapses.

Please do not post any 'referrals for cash' program promotions here in the Affiliate Marketing forum.

There are some good affiliate programs that offer a Pay Per Lead option. For example, a company that sells car warranties will pay you a few dollars if you refer someone to them interested in a car warranty. That's a legitimate pay per lead affiliate program.

We DO want you to recommend good affiliate programs that you're doing well with.

If you want to recommend something and you're not sure if it fits, please PM me and I'll help clarify it for you.

In any event - don't post affiliate links here. That's against our ad rules.

[wisegirl]

Hi Kelly,

Thanx for telling the difference. People often get confused with affiliate marketing. Can you post some good companies here which are good for AM?


Thanx.

[homegrandmom]

Thanks, I am rather new to AM and need all the information I can get

[RevenueGal]

I also wanted to add that there are some good affiliate programs with 2 Tiers. You don't actually get paid for referring new members, but rather, you get paid a very small percentage in commission from what your referrers earn in sales. If they do nothing to promote and earn commission, then of course, you won't earn one red cent from them. On the other hand, if you happen to sign up someone who is serious about promoting, you may earn a little extra bonus from them.

I've heard many marketers for this reason say that they won't waste a lot of time promoting the sub-affiliate program...but concentrate on earning commissions from promoting the products or services themselves because there is more profit doing so.

[sparkyjeff69]

So the general rule is, dont pay to advertise someone elses product. Im new to affiliate marketing and im trying to tell the difference between the real deal and the scams. This was great advice and im so glad I came here. I write articles and it doesnt cost me anything to plug in an affiliate link. That seems to me to be one way of entering into AM.

[weblogixs02]

Affiliate Marketing is an Internet-based marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's marketing efforts. It is an application of crowdsourcing.

Cash referrel schemes means referring others in a money making sites

[bondage]

Hi there.

I have been in online trading for a while now.
I have a website that have an offline affiliate program.

2 things:
1.where should I post a new post seeing if any one is interested?
2. I will like to make something clear with affiliate program, they are not fully restricted to websites referrals/email referrals.

[Lacie8]

[QUOTE=sparkyjeff69;2481962]So the general rule is, dont pay to advertise someone elses product. Im new to affiliate marketing and im trying to tell the difference between the real deal and the scams. This was great advice and im so glad I came here. I write articles and it doesnt cost me anything to plug in an affiliate link. That seems to me to be one way of entering into AM.

i wouldn't say the general rule is to not pay to promote other peoples products at all.

i make the majority of my money by paying to promote other peoples products.

that's what affiliate marketing is promoting other peoples products now there are certainly free methods to doing it like article marketing forum posting video marketing etc.

but there are a ton of very profitable ways to pay to promote other peoples products you just have to be careful and know what you are doing

[Donnag49]

I too am new to AM, any and all advice is helpful. I am so glad I found this site and forum. Most people I know laugh at me and do not take AM seriously. I am glad to see there are others like me out there who do. Again, Thanks!

[mommakesmoney]

Affiliate Marketing is truly a great way to make money online. I have been doing it for a couple of years now, starting from scratch knowing nothing about it.

If you only get the basics down, you can start making money within weeks, of course this is different for everybody. What you do is you put up "campaigns" where you promote a product through an affiliate link.

To drive traffic to your campaign you can use paid or free methods, payed methods would be PPC pay per click for example, the ads you see to the right in google or other search engines. I only use free methods mostly article writing.

This is what the customers way could look like from search to purchase:
The customer search for certain keywords in google for example, "gps for my child" I make an article to target those specific keywords "gps for my child", the customer read my article click through to my site wich could be a free site where I explain more about the product. Hopefully the customer click through my affiliate link to the merchant site and if they buy anything I get a commission. Anywhere from 3 -75% depending on the product.

The high commissions are usually downloadable products like e-books and softwares.

If you want to know more about affiliate marketing, I put together a free affiliate marketing guide at Link removed by mod, please read and follow forum rules

I would be happy to help you get started,
Vicky