Get rich quick schemes have existed for years – and generated a series of truisms from skeptical observers:
“If it’s so easy, why aren’t they doing it for themselves?”
“If everybody does this, it won’t work anymore.”
“If it seems to good to be true, it probably is.”
“The easiest way to get rich quick is to write a how to get rich quick book.”
The internet has taken this particular marketing scheme to a whole ‘nother level – witness the explosion of affiliate marketing schemes and the closely related “get paid to fill out surveys” web sites. The affiliates are paid if they steer an on-line consumer to a given website, and that consumer buys a product or service. The payoff? 50% of the total that hits the consumer’s credit card is common, 75% is not unknown (especially for those “get paid to fill out surveys” websites). If you want to take a look, go to www.clickbank.com and check out the marketplace link. This is one of the biggest sources of products and services for affiliates to promote.
For the company trying to sell something (an e-book or service), this is very attractive. Why? Because others are taking the financial risk – they pay for the Google and Yahoo advertising, they come up with promotional ideas (if you order from this link, you will receive an additional $297 worth of software!), and if it doesn’t work, the company doesn’t have any advertising costs. If it works, then the company gets a bunch of sales and pays out some of the proceeds. Plus, if one or two affiliates are successful with a given product, the others jump in and create incredible momentum. These companies have little or no incremental costs for each additional product produced and sold – the costs are in creating the content or setting up the website and service.
The early affiliates surely made money – in some cases, a lot of money. However, now the very technology that makes it easy to promote products and services also makes it easy for anyone with an internet connection to do the same thing. The competition is brutal, and everyone is using the same tools and techniques. Not only that, but many of these products and services are questionable at best – some are outright scams. I don’t know about anyone else, but I would have a lot of trouble sleeping at night if I was making a living promoting some of these products and services.
There are some signs that the days of easy money as an affiliate are coming to an end – the increased competition, leading to higher advertising costs and duplicate advertising of the same product in the same places, plus the idea that the biggest demand is the how to guides written by “expert affiliates”. Once again, the easiest way to get rich quick is to write the how to guide. Some things don’t change.
Jonathan Buckley is a Fee-Only Financial Planner based in San Ramon, CA. His firm caters to ordinary, middle-income clients from the San Francisco Bay Area - people who usually would not have access to affordable, professional, objective financial advice. Some of these clients have started looking into these affiliate programs as a way to earn some extra money, prompting the research that led to this article. Jonathan's website is at Buckley Financial Planning
