How to Avoid Affiliate Marketing Scams

Sad to say, but there are a number of affiliate marketing scams out there, and you need to be vigilant to avoid them. However, these scams usually have a few things in common.

First, they will not be the best-selling e-book on Clickbank. This is because these dubious e-books are produced by the originator studying a top seller, like Day Job Killer, and then coming up with a product that seems to be different but is really a copy. Of course, they change the names of the method and tactics, and come up with a very dramatic title and image.

Expect an extreme sales letter

The sales letter will be pretty extreme in hype. But essentially, if you look below the hot marketing sales letter, and analyse what this does, you will find it is pretty thin on information. There may well be some testimonials, but these could be fake or written by the friends of the writer of the e-book. Always take these testimonials with a pinch of salt, at the very least.

What about the Clickbank receipts showing that the writer has made a bucketload of cash? This is not so difficult to make look good as you might imagine. If you really want to show that you have made a lot of money on Clickbank, all you need to do is pour cash into Adwords. If you expect to sell 1,000 copies of your e-book for $79, you can afford to throw $10,000 into advertising, and maybe make $5,000 in commissions for a loss of $5,000.

That evidence of earnings is likely to convince a lot of gullible people who think that Clickbank earnings are net of advertising costs, and so will convince a lot of people to buy.

the fact is, though, that Clickbank show your commissions only, and costs are not included. Don't fall for that one. If the Clickbank pages show an income of $100,000 or more, and can be show to belong to the writer, then that is a different matter. And you need to be sure that this is the actual income of the writer.

I am not saying that all these marketers give gross incomes without including their advertising costs, but it can be done.

What is in the e-book?

The next thing to look at is what is supposed to be in the e-book. That may be big on what it does without giving anything away. Also, the sales letter will probably makes big thing about the 60-day guarantee, but this is actually the standard guarantee with Clickbank.

Finally, do a search for the name of the report on Google, and see if there are any reviews, but bear in mind that reviews of products are generally written to convince you to buy the product through the writer's link!

Only buy that e-book if you are still convinced after making notes of what it actually does, and ignoring all the hype.