The Dangers Of Affiliate Marketing

If you plan to add an affiliate program on your website or on your online business, find out first the common problems that can influence program’s profitability and effectiveness. You first need to know certain aspects of the affiliate marketing industry.

Here are the kinds of affiliates you should watch out for:

• Affiliates who leech from others.

  Your marketing partners include the review sites, video bloggers, organizations, and many more. They could be helpful in promoting a brand’s products and services. Most of the affiliates are respected and bring in sales, but others do not.
  The problem happens when a website presumes that all the affiliates in their program are getting new client when in truth, they are the ones who are truly gaining from the hard work of other channels or affiliates.
  An example would be, some affiliates, known as “last-in-affiliates” design their business models to attempt and get customers who are in the buying process or is in the shopping cart.
  These last-in affiliates frequently gets the credit for transactions they did with just a little or no effort. In the end, companies still pay these affiliates a hefty sum.
  To prevent this, it is vital to find out your affiliates’ tactics and know how that are really promoting your brand.

• Unprofessional Affiliates.

  Most affiliates are moral partners, there are still those who aren’t. These unethical marketers are not good for business as they do misleading marketing activities just to get their commissions.
  For example, they could use a website’s likeliness to promote and sell products or services without the permission of the rightful owner. It could really put one’s website in jeopardy that the integrity will be at risk. It is important that you do something to let the public know about this.
  To be on the safe side, you need to screen each of your affiliates or partners very carefully, have a clear insight in what and how they are doing to represent and promote your brand.

• Dissimilar incentives.

  You have no way to do checks and balances; therefore, the incentives will not be aligned. These incentives can lead to fraud, serious issues, cookie stuffing, and trademark bidding.
  Sadly, although the industry has already matured and evolved, some of those misaligned incentives do exist as they are beneficial to many of the players in the value chain. Taking out these behaviors may mean lesser profit.
  Luckily, there are still companies who are discriminating as to who they partner with. They have started rejecting partners who does not represent their brand with great integrity and those who accept bribes. This is such a great attitude that will help the affiliate model reach the level when everyone has a chance to be good and work together productively.

Nuances is prevalent and it happens in every industry.

Some could be danger to one’s brand.  You have to screen incoming and outgoing affiliates and make sure they are transparent on how they promote your website. To be fair to you, they should be able to justify the money they are earning by showing honest results.