Is affiliate marketing MLM?
Affiliate marketing is not MLM, (multi-level
marketing, also called network marketing.) Because
affiliate marketing works so well and genuinely benefits 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. The are some very
famous MLM business out there, many of which have
made a lot of people a lot of money. We have all
hard of Amway, Herbalife, Pre-Paid Legal Services,
Primerica, (formerly A.L. Williams, and Shaklee
Corporation.
These companies and many more like them had
thousands of people that made huge sums of money.
While a lot of folks made a lot of money, most made
little or nothing. The marketing concept makes it
imposable for the system to sustain itself. If you
got in early and worked hare, and were lucky, you
could make a fortune. However the vast majority did
not get in early enough and were left to compete in
a tremendously over saturated market. The marketing
concept bares a resemblance to a
pyramid scheme.
What is multi-level
marketing?
Multi-level marketing systems can be legal, while, pyramid schemes are illegal.
Pyramid schemes systems 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.
MLM systems 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 MLM/pyramid
scheme and are at the top of the pyramid, you’re
earning money for someone else.
Often MLM systems call their participates
associates or affiliates. This choice of title in no way
changes the fact that affiliate marketing websites
are in not was MLM or pyramid schemes.
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. |
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,
If you would like to farther
research MLM or pyramid schemes we have a more
in-depth analysis of each at these urls:
 
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