If you’re new to affiliate marketing & thinking about getting started, you might be worried about the risks.
But is affiliate marketing really risky? And if it is, what are the risks involved?
That’s exactly what we’ll be going over in this blog posts as we uncover the risks associated with affiliate marketing & reveal if the reward is worth the risk.
So let’s dive right in & we’ll start with the meat & bones.
Is Affiliate Marketing Risky?
The short answer to this is no, affiliate marketing is not risky at all.
Legitimate affiliate programs are free to join & all you need to do is share your link in order to earn commissions.
If you use free methods to share your link (such as sharing it on Facebook or via email) then there is zero risk, other than potentially the small amount of time it took you to create the Facebook post or write the email.
Hint: we teach the free methods of affiliate marketing in our free affiliate marketing training course.
Alongside the free means of promoting though, there are also paid methods. For example, you could spend money & pay to advertise your affiliate links.
If you introduce money to the equation through the form of advertising then, of course, this introduces some level of risk.
You may spend money on advertising but not see the conversion rate you were expecting on your affiliate links & as a result, end up losing money.
That’s why we always recommend starting with free means of generating traffic first. Then, once you master that, you can consider paid advertising.
This way it becomes less risky overall, even with paid advertising introduced into the equation.
However, there is one exception to that rule & that is in the case of building a website.
Building & launching a website costs money. You will typically pay a monthly or yearly fee to a web hosting company (such as Wix) to host a website.
However, in the case of building a website & creating content, even though it involves money, there is generally very little risk involved.
This is because creating content is a sure-fire way to get visitors to your affiliate links & to generate sales. In the instance of websites, it’s not a case of “if”, it’s simply a case of when.
So with a website, you may initially find yourself at a small loss, but over time, with cosistent content creation, your affiliate revenue will pick up & you will earn back the money you invested.
That is, providing you follow a proven strategy like the one we teach in our training.
So, in short, with legitimate affiliate programs:
- Using free promotion methods: 0 risk but difficult to achieve success with
- Using paid advertising methods: Some risk but high potential reward
- Launching a website & creating content: Small initial outlay but almost-guaranteed earnings
Why Does Affiliate Marketing Have A Bad Name?
It may come a surprise to you to discover that affiliate marketing has no risk & that risk is only introduced with paid promotion methods.
After all, you may have seen people advising against affiliate marketing or warning you that it’s a scam.
So, why is that? Why does affiliate marketing have a bad name?
Well, first and foremost, let’s get one thing clear. Affiliate marketing is not a scam. It’s a legitimate business model & many of the worlds largest online companies have affiliate programs through which you can earn money, including Amazon.
The problem, however, is that scammers often try to take advantage of this & lure people into what they claim are affiliate programs, only for the people to later discover that they’ve been sucked into a scam.
So, what do those people do? They tell all of their friends & family that they fell victim to an affiliate marketing scam. Only, they didn’t.
The scam that they fell victim to was instead what’s known as a multi-level-marketing scam.
You know the type – those schemes through which people claim to be making lots of money by selling products but the real way they’re making money is buy getting other people to buy into their business opportunity to “be their own boss”.
Then, people buy in & realize it’s not as easy as they we’re told it is & in a desperate measure to get their money back they start pushing the products they bought to their family & friends on social media.
I’m sure you’ll have been pestered by one of them at some point. If you haven’t, you’ve been lucky.
And alongside that, there are also many scammers who claim to have the secrets to making big money from affiliate marketing with the push of a button.
Only, to get access to their secrets you have to hand over big money first… And then, well, I’m pretty sure you can guess what happens after that.
That’s one of the main reasons we launched our free affiliate marketing course. To cut through the BS & give people access to real affiliate marketing training that actually works, with no upfront cost.
Why Do Most People Fail At Affiliate Marketing?
You may have heard high failure rates associated with affiliate marketing being reported but the reality is, these failure rates, although true, are very misleading.
The high failure rates don’t mean that affiliate marketing is risky, they simply mean that it’s very easily accessible to get started with.
For example, with a traditional business, you would have to spend 10’s of thousands of dollars (or more) to get it all set up & to get launched.
So, after spending such a large amount, you’d certainly make sure you put in the effort to make it work.
But as mentioned earlier in this post, you can get started with affiliate marketing for free… Meaning many people start, the do nothing.
They quit.
So these people never “failed”, they just didn’t really give it a good chance. Those that give it a good shot & follow a good training course do succeed at a much higher rate.
And many of them even go on to become millionaires.
There aren’t many no-risk business models that could see you go on to become a millionaire.
Can You Lose Money With Affiliate Marketing?
If you only use free methods to promote your affiliate links then no, you can’t lose money with affiliate marketing because legitimate affiliate programs are free to join.
The only thing you stand to lose is the little bit of time you spent creating your promotions (for example, Instagram or Facebook posts).
However, finding success with affiliate marketing using only free methods is admittedly, pretty difficult.
The ideal thing to do is pay for web-hosting & create content on a website. That way, you’ll be able to attract visitors from search engines (like Google) & you’ll stand a much better chance of making money.
But, it takes a little bit of time before you start earning & so if you give up too early, you could potentially find yourself losing money.
The simple solution though is to keep going. Web hosting is relatively cheap & providing you keep publishing content you WILL start generating commissions.
As mentioned previously in this post, it’s not a case of if, it’s simple a matter of when.
Paid advertising, on the other hand, is a little bit different. This is a more advanced method for promoting affiliate links & if done badly, it could see you losing a lot of money.
The solution? Build a website first & learn the ropes with that before investing in paid advertising.
Can You Trust Affiliate Marketing?
Yes, absolutely. If you follow a legitimate affiliate marketing course like the one here at Commission Academy then you can absolutely trust affiliate marketing.
It’s a fantastic way to make money online & it’s personally changed not only my life or Simon’s life (the othe trainer here at Commission Academy), but also the lives of may of our students.
So if you’re on the fence about it, we recommend that you sign up for our free training to learn more about how it works & the process of generating commissions.
Once you better understand it we’re confident that you’ll love it.
And we also hope that this blog post helped put your mind at ease & answer any questions that you may have had about the risks of affiliate marketing.
If you happen to have any additional comments, feel free to leave them below.
