My thought on this – the world of affiliate marketing is going to change in a hurry as the FTC catches on, and big traditional ad money wants to get a piece of the pie.  Standards that already exist in magazines, tv, and news print are going to have to be upheld on the wild wild web, or else.  The problem?  Countries outside the US – couldn’t you just move your company to someplace outside the FTC’s jurisdiction?

For those of us who can’t pick up our company and move to – say Mexico or Costa Rica, the options are limited.  Paste a big red disclaimer on the bottom and hope it’s enough, change business models, or hope you don’t get caught.

1. Wise Rep – now, this may not totally be a scam, but it’s advertising that you too can list your wholesale products along side things like lucky brand jeans and buyers are going to come and find them.  When “buyers” click on the lucky brand link, guess what? it’s an affiliate like.  For you, the normal wholesaler selling some invention or product that you’d love to get into walmart, you have to pay $30 a month to list there.

2. Numerous bridal registry sites –  Same model. If you, small company with a website, want to be listed, you’re going to pay a fee. They show you big box stores like crate and barrel, and then use affiliate links to avoid false advertising.  While this isn’t truely a scam, it isn’t exactly honest either.

These models aren’t exactly what affiliate advertisers have in mind. Imagine how the consumer feels when they register or sign up and discover  that their registry isn’t integrated as they thought when they go into the crate and barrel store, or what the person thinks when they’ve paid $30 for a year to find out that they haven’t sold a single wholesale item (because people don’t actually go to the site to place wholesale orders).

Want to know more? Or think you’re ready to stock up on a whole boatload of PLR for your own websites?  Check out this website that’s giving away free PLR software and more.

Btw – for those of you who know how much I like Russell’s stuff – I shelled out the cash to take  one of his “famous” $10,000 seminars.

On a more serious note, I’m taking a series of  coaching sessions with Russell’s Dotcomsecrets staff, and it’s one of the coolest experiences ever.  Want to take a sneak peak? Look here. 

For those of you who are curious, let me go into Multi-level marketing in another post.  This article will mostly talk about pros and cons of the two. 

Affiliate marketing Pros

• no fees
• no inventory to buy or carry
• earns money as long as the website works

MLM pros

• get commissions for sales of people who sign up “below” you
• commissions continue to pay as long as you are in the program
• does not require a website, can be promoted via a website
• most commissions are 35-50%

Looking for a specific company? Start by googling “company X affiliate”.  If they don’t have an affiliate program, give them a call, pay them a visit, or send them an email.