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Because affiliate marketing works so
well and seems to genuinely benefit both the affiliate and the
advertiser, 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 affiliate marketing is
anything like 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 programs 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 referring 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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