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Because affiliate marketing works so well
and seems to genuinely benefit both the website that is advertising as
well as the website that is hosting, people tend to look for problems
that just don’t exist. One of the “problems” that has
dogged affiliate marketing for years is the idea that is is a
multi-level marketing scheme.
What is multi-level marketing?
It’s much better known as a pyramid
scheme. In most traditional cases, pyramid schemes are illegal. They
work by constantly signing up new people to sell a product that
doesn’t actually exist. The people at the top of the pyramid make
money be collecting a commission off of all the sales that happen below
them in the pyramid structure.
In recent years, pyramid schemes have tried
to gain a bit of respectability by offering legitimate products like
phone cards that made the whole operation legal. But, in essence,
pyramid schemes are still tainted by the perception that they are
inherently dishonest and, unless you start a pyramid scheme and are at
the top of the pyramid, you’re earning money for someone else.
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Affiliate marketing is, in no conceivable way, multi-level marketing.
In
most cases, a site that wants to advertise pays another site to direct
traffic to them. There are multi-level affiliate marketing set ups that
have one site direct traffic to another site and then that site directs
people to the site that pays both previous sites, but even in this
case, the customer isn’t tricked or misled and there isn’t
any sort of financial transaction that takes place, either.
Multi-tiered affiliate marketing is simply another way for web pages to create traffic and revenue.
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The way earnings work for
multi-level affiliate marketing is different than a pyramid scheme, as
well. Is it true that in the end, the site that is being linked to
makes the most money? Sure, but that’s because they are the ones
offering the product or service. The other sites are simply steering
customers to them.
With multi level affiliate
marketing, everyone makes money and assuming a legitimate good or
service is being sold at the end of the path, the consumer ends up
happy, too.
It can be a little confusing
for those new to Multi level affiliate marketing to tell the difference
between it and a pyramid scheme. But rest assured the two have very
little in common, most importantly the fact that almost all pyramid
schemes are illegal while multi level affiliate marketing is quite
legal and a very effective tool in Internet advertising,
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