Should You Build Your Affiliate Business on Lies?
I've noticed a common trend in the affiliate marketing business as a whole. They have a #1 recommendation that they believe is the best in a vertical, so they commit to promoting it at all costs.
As a result of focus on this #1 recommendation, they feel that it's necessary to lie or slander the competition. A lie is:
- Any time you know a product or service is better/worse than you've said it is
- Any time you rate a product unfairly to provoke a specific action from a reader--this is manipulation
- Any time you exaggerate or make false claims
Is it Necessary to Lie to Get Sales? No.
While it may be very tempting to lie to get buyers to take a focused action, it's unethical. If a competitor's product is good, you should say so, and if a competitor's product is bad, you should say so.
YOU CAN GET SALES WITHOUT LYING ABOUT PRODUCTS
I want to warn you that people will learn about the integrity of your business over time if you decide it's necessary for you to slander other people's products or you decide you want to exaggerate or omit the truth.
Be careful to build your business on the truth rather than slip into a shortcut by telling lies.
Recent Comments
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I agree. I've seen people try to hurt other's that have worked so hard to be as great as they are, for reasons of jealousy or just pure bordem.
I believe in complete honesty in your approach to yourself and of how you speak of others.
I've noticed all the wonderful support I've gotten since I've been here. I'm very excited and have a lot of knowledge towards my niche, but am so happy to have this community to help teach me how to put it out there to get the most positive effect. (As I would be lost without you)
Any tips or thoughts onto what I can do better or different please don't be shy.
THANKS SO MUCH
KEITH
Deep question! The first thought that comes to mind is "Focus on serving others 1st, be a good time manager and money manager." I haven't seen your specific business, so I can't evaluate you specifically, but those are some general tips to apply.
I definitely agree with you. I've noticed the same thing myself. And, I don't believe in degrading another company, just to make a sale...I believe some way or another it will come back on the person doing something like this.
I believe in giving everyone credit where credit is due. Thanks for sharing this post.
Glad we agree! I know you're also working to get to Vegas, right? We're probably seeing alot of similar ethics issues in this space.
I couldn't agree more with this. I used to have a review site that ranked video game rental companies and my number 1 review was the best in the market and paid the best commissions (conveniently.)
However the offer that paid the 2nd highest commission was ranked 3rd place. I still kept it as 3rd place and I'm sure I lost some sales as a result but it would have hurt the reputation of the website to change the rankings based on commission value.
I've had situations where I wanted to do reviews in a vertical, but I was declined by the company I think was #1. In that case, I had to ask myself, "do I distort the ratings because I want to make a commission?". I personally chose not to, but I know that's not the most profitable decision. Do you think people who make the honest decision over the profitable decision will make less money? Long term or short term?
Probably absolutely in the short term but as your sites brand develops and the honest nature of it shines through, I think it will only make your site more trustworthy and generate more followers which will in turn lead to more sales.
Hey Tiffany. Great post. Making money is not worth lying to your audience or any of us. We want to have a great reputation as honest business owners and by having an honest reputation our customers will refer their family and friends to our products. It may take a little while for these referrals to snowball but they will happen. It's always best to be honest.
Danny
I agree Barley! Thanks! Do you think conversion rates suffer by being unwilling to say other products are bad just so you can promote 1 product?
No. I think that most people are smart enough to know a product is garbage by themselves.
Danny
I think you can also read in a post when the person hasn't bought it and is trying to fake it, or when someone hasn't bought it and is just trying to slander others for a sale. I don't want that type of reputation.
I've tried the lying business before. And I can assure you from experience, it has never been sustainable for me.
Yet here I am wondering why the gurus whom I thought were liars are still thriving and doing business online. I used those gurus at one point to try and make a quick buck, but their biz model never seemed to resonate with me. They must be really good at the art :P
Wow! Thanks for sharing your experience. I wondered how the conversion rate for a lying post would be in comparison to an honest one. Thanks.
It will catch up with them in time. Sometimes it is frustrating to watch their success. In time.... I think about some of the huge business scandals in the US as proof.
The companies like Enron and Arthur Anderson, one of the world's largest & most respected accounting firms, got away with lying for a long time.
Yet, eventually they did get caught. Both firms are no longer in existence as result of the fraud.
By the way, I'm talking about those ugly gurus from W+, JVZoo, ClickBetter, and ClickBank (btw, I'm not pointing all of them, since there are a handful who's legit).
It would seem like they're offering a lot on the outside (thanks to plenty of vendor and affiliate bonuses). But RESULTS-wise, they all fail to deliver!
They'd be perfect recruits for the SWAT team coz' they've got the strongest smoke grenades :)
Very well said! It is a disturbing trend, no? And outside of the moral issues (I prefer to be ethical and look myself proudly in the mirror), it is not a sound business strategy. Even if unethical tactics work at first, this doesn't last, and you will get slapped, by Google or other search engines, your affiliate program, or even FB banned. Something! Or you could be the person sued, like a person did to a blogger who promoted a mattress they didn't even try. Unethical practices usually gets someone digitally slapped, somehow.
Lemme try to find the article again. It was last year I read it, don't remember when it happened, but apparently the mattress caused a person an injury or pain or something, they sued the blogger/influencer for misleading claims. Lemme check and see if i can't find it.
Okay, there are WAY too many bloggers getting sued for me to find it, although interesting fact, Caspian? Mattress sued mattress bloggers in a huge case. But here's one from a blogger who published what he learned about the time he almost was sued.
http://www.chris-moody.com/blog/marketing/sued-over-blog-post-learn/
There are tons of them that pop up I'm Google about bloggers sued over negative reviews, so definitely not something to make up, or you can be sued for slander or libel. Everything you write should be honest, don't want to defamation suits.
I just found my new blog post for WA :) thanks for the inspiration to make me search it.
Thanks for sharing this information! I didn't realize this was happening.
I'll be watching for you the blog post that she inspired you to write.
Wow! That's something we should definitely keep in mind. We're not just blogging for sales. We're influencing lives. That's horrible!
We're definitely influencing lives, so it can get dangerous, especially if you're recommending an herbal supplement for dogs, when it's off label use, and you don't research the side affects or whatever, someone tries it without talking to their vet first, and it turns out to be dangerous and just a new fad.
Or like trying to turn your cat vegan, which should NOT be done unless you want to kill your cat slowly and painfully, just because you personally believe it can be done, despite all the evidence to the contrary, and you fudge facts to suit your personal beliefs.
Those are just extreme examples, but we should take responsibility for what we write when we claim something to at least do research and be honest.
Very well said. In order to protect the integrity of the affiliate marketing industry; every single one of us is responsible for conducting our business with honesty and integrity.
If lying becomes the norm, the affiliate marketing industry will suffer. Even more.
Think about the following:
Has anyone ever taken the time to ask themselves, "Why do so many social media platforms hate the Make Money Online niche?" Could it be because all of the lies and get rich quick scams?
Why is Google continually changing their algorithms to improve the customer's search experience? Could it be because the black hat methods were deceptive?
What about the Google's medic update last fall? They obviously feel the need to take additional measures to attempt to provide accurate information for people that are searching for things dealing the user's health or financial well being. Could it be because so many people are lying when they are promoting products?
People that choose to lie or stretch the truth are hurting the people that trusted them. They are not building a sustainable business. Additionally, they are hurting the reputation of all affiliate marketers.
Sure, we can choose to sit on the sidelines and pretend that there is not a problem. Yet, we shouldn't complain when Google changes algorithms that might hurt our traffic as it attempts to better serve the end user. We shouldn't complain when we get banned or blocked from social media platforms simply because we have affiliate links. We shouldn't complain when we have to start including some new disclosure to our websites....
That is what happens when we tolerate lies.
My thoughts..... Thank you for allowing me to write a post within your post. lol
I completely agree but I don't know how Google would identify deceptive content especially when the person can say that's what they believe.
That is part of the reasoning behind the medic update.
They can't tell deceptive content. Yet, it appears they know the niches were the most deception is occurring. Niches were people stand the most to be hurt financially or health wise.
If you want to learn more; try researching Google's Search Quality Evaluator Guidelines from last summer (2018); Your Money, Your Life (YMYL) websites and/or EAT - experience, authority and trust; along with the medic update.
Thanks for sharing this. Lying is my biggest pet peeve! I recently read something about many of the reviews on a certain website being predominantly untrue... Personally, I have so far only reviewed items I use myself. I know that eventually, I will need to review some I haven't used, but hope I can find honesty about them when I do have to write a review.
Karin
Great post, Tiffany, and so true. We checked out a new (to us) product today and then looked out reviews on Google fully expecting it to have been panned. To our great surprise, over 90% of the reviews were positively glowing. There is no doubt in our minds that the product, while maybe not an outright scam, is next to useless.
Colette and Philip
People chase the money and don't know how to keep their ethics in check. It can be a hard decision to make, but we should do what's right even when it's not the most profitable in the moment--that's my opinion.
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I read another blog post via the Internet about fake reviews that caused one business man write up a rebuttal against WA. It all started by exactly what you mentioned in this blog post. I wouldn’t do it besides it’s not ethical it hurts other businesses. I feel should respect the intergity of other businesses right to exist and the reviews should be honest. Thanks for sharing.
I've heard people have the wrong outlook on WA for that reason also. I don't want to contribute in that way.