If your friends have been inviting you to invest in an online website from which they have earned a considerable amount of money and you are clueless about its reality, don’t worry, we have your back. This, what we call the Affiliate Market, is a product of E-commerce and has been labeled as a hoax by several of its critics, primarily because of the risks it entails.
Affiliate Marketing inhibits an innovative distribution channel whereby a manufacturer is connected to their buyers via an agent. The agent in the chain who might be you gets to earn the commission for promoting the manufacturer’s product.
While affiliate programs can earn you an increased commission even when you are comfortably snoring in your room, they are not without risks. Below are a few mentioned prospects that you should consider when opting to be an advertiser in an affiliate market:
Commissions can be stopped
It is possible in affiliate markets that one morning you wake up to a blockage of your commissions while no change has been done on your part. This occurrence is not rare in affiliate markets, especially in those programs that don’t involve products such as IUP. The primary reason that makes affiliated marketing a risk is the probability of a blockage in earnings. If an individual opts for an Orthodox structured market to invest in, a possibility of his or her earnings being halted is present. This does not mean that you will lose all your previously earned commissions but a stop to any further commissions can be put in place.
Cooking stuffing
To provide affiliates with their commissions, some websites use cookie stuffing through the use of images, JavaScript, pop-ups, etc. While this in itself is not a risk, it could cause fraud. For instance, in 2008, eBay suspected four of its well-performing affiliates that they were using cookie stuffing in wire fraud; they were found guilty and were fined. Hence, a possibility of another affiliate indulging in wire fraud and stealing your commission is not rare.
Not getting paid
Since this market is online, there is a likelihood that it might not pay your due commission – even after you advertise its product for higher sales. This is a typical potential risk in e-commerce. One reason for this happening is simple: any affiliate program will have in its terms and conditions a clause which says that they can arbitrarily cut commissions because of any reason that they deem valid and still not not owe you anything. This is an event that needs to be factored in if you want to be a successful affiliate.
No return at all
If affiliates do not have a proper selling strategy, this might occur. Putting up banners on your website or Instagram stories, for example, might not prove as an effective strategy to earn a commission. Instead, there has to be a more extensive and efficacious strategy. This may include: creating content that your competition cannot compete with, building a brand that adds value to the user and even experimenting with unusual content formats for recommending products. Therefore, operating in an affiliate market without a proper strategy layout can be problematic.
Pernicious Browser extensions
Extensions that result in additional functionality to the browser might be used as affiliate frauds, without the user being aware of it. While analysing 48,000 browser extensions, in 2014, security researchers discovered some of them were being used in identity theft and other sorts of wire frauds. Hence, some affiliates with less experience in these markets might fall victim to this.
Conclusively, affiliate markets do have several dangers that could be slightly threatening to the affiliates or even its users. Henceforth, having proper research and knowledge of the risks is an important prerequisite for stepping into affiliate markets – so that no one falls prey to them.
