Can one make money in Affiliate Marketing ethically ? (18)
Hi Guys
I'm new here and Just started learning Affiliate Marketing.
I got to know from @zeropark that these are the niches that work well in this industry.
✔︎ Surveys & Sweepstakes
✔︎ Gambling (also Casino and Sports Betting)
✔︎ Gaming
✔︎ Dating (mainstream and adult)
✔︎ Finance (including Trading, Binary, and Crypto)
✔︎ Health & Beauty
✔︎ Nutra & Weight Loss✔︎ E-commerce
Can someone ethically and morally make money in these Niche ?
When I see Native Ads, I mostly see some shady or fake offers being run.
I need an honest answer, what are some white hat niches that work well in Affiliate Marketing ?
First thing, affiliate marketing is NOT only running CPA offers.
You can go to a traditional affiliate network like Commission Junction or Share-A-Sale and promote 100% clean and popular brands there - that´s also affiliate marketing.
Running CPA offers is a bit different.
Although they are not illegal they mostly don´t bring that much value for the user.
They are mostly there to get the user to perform a specific action (thus Cost Per Action = CPA), let it be a sign up, a sale, a FTD (First Time Deposit) or just something to bill his phone.
Ok, now let´s talk about the difference of running them ethically running them whitehat.
Whitehat has mostly not much to do with how ethically you promote offers.
When we talk about whitehat it mostly means that it´s allowed on trafficsources, that you don´t break the terms of the trafficsources when you run it that way.
But that doesn´t tell much about the ethical or moral aspect.
For example you can run Crypto offers 100% whitehat on some sources but the vertical itself is not that ethical.
I would say running CPA offers 100% whitehat is no problem when you run them on sources that are more lenient with what they allow.
Speaking about moral and ethic it depends on your own standard, what you consider as 100% morally and ethical.
Truth is that CPA offers are not made to generate much value for the users - CPA offers are made to get the users to perform an action that makes money for the affiliates, for the CPA networks and for the offer owners.
In the end it´s up to you to decide how you run campaigns and what is considered "ok" for you.
But the more ethical doubts you have the harder it will be for you.
When you don´t feel good to promote CPA offers you still can run traditional affiliate programs that can be run 100% whitehate and 100% ethical.
I hope I could help you a bit, feel free to post any additional questions here 
I guess it depends on your understanding of moral and ethics.
Many people on this planet like gambling and lottery. For them it is quite exciting to have a chance to win something even if the chance is very low. Let's say it is an adrenaline rush that they need to feel alive. And frankly speaking who doesn't like to place some bets here and there...? To some extent it is a kind of entertainment.
--> So why not give people what they like to have?
It is up to you how aggressive you want to do that. Stating "you have the chance to win something" does not necessarily cause a moral conflict but can be good enough to make you some dollars.
As for the "shady ads"... they are probably the ones that catch your eye the most. But... there are many other ads out there that are beautifully made and not shady at all. Sometimes you just see what you want to see. So you could try to focus on what you feel ok with and try that.
I had a similar conversation with @plutus on this subject in his follow-along:
Feelin' Lucky? Just Keep Spinning! - Plutus Pops Follow Along
https://stmforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=408493
It's all about choosing products AND deciding HOW you promote them. There are 100% legit products/offers that can benefit end users' lives, that you can promote the benefits of, like a good marketer - instead of promoting scamming products/offers using scammy angles.
Trying to do so on pop/push would be harder. But FB, google, youtube and native would make for fun playgrounds.
Amy
Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums
The affiliate marketing world, is, at this point, as broad as the general economy, so yes, there's tons of ethical niches within it.
Because there is no interest-targeting with them, push and native tend to be a reflection of our societies as a whole (warts and all), and this makes some people uncomfortable. We've all seen articles by highfalutin magazines bemoaning the uncouthness of native advertising.
I'm not bothered by the uncouthness at all. People have wanted to look better, make more money, and attract a better-looking mate for thousands of years. Those are normal parts of being human.
As a result we see tons of products that revolve around weight-loss, skincare, dating, sex, making money quickly/easily, etc. Some of those offers are effective, some aren't, some are marketed in an 'honest' fashion, some use deception in their marketing. But I don't think they are by definition unethical.
And, there's tons of very ethical offers that work on push/native in other, more 'whitehat' niches too: life insurance lead gen, mortgage lead gen, car insurance lead gen, DIY solar info products, survival/prepping products, free Desktop Games like Vikings, various App Installs, clothes, Stretching vsl's, Battery Reconditioning vsl's, useful gadgets like FIXD or PhotoStick or KeySmart, etc.
Frankly the other thing you have to keep in mind is that a lot of the people who buy these products have high incomes. Some older folks with 6 figure incomes LIKE watching long vsl's and then buying the info product at the end. It's fun for them and it's the equivalent of most of us spending 2$ on something out of curiosity.
So just because something is 'silly' doesn't make it unethical.
With that said, there are certainly unethical ways to make money online too, and each person needs to decide what is what. Personally I would never run something like Ashley Madison where human suffering/dishonesty is baked into the product. Similarly, my elderly father was the victim of a "your computer has a virus, call this number now!"/Spyware-installation thing, which was utterly horrible for him (and me, in helping him in the aftermath), and I would never run something like that in a million years.
Most things won't be black/white to you though, but will be somewhere in the middle. Like most things in life, it's complicated and there's a lot of contradictions and shades of grey.
But yes, it is absolutely possible to succeed in affiliate marketing, including push and native, running ethical offers.
If those are your worries BEFORE even starting I strongly discourge you to dive into popups/push and focus on higher quality traffic types.
Everything comes with a price - in case of your mature decision of running ethical advertisements the price is your time.
FB means quality, and to achive quality you should aim for the top-notch copywriting and offers that bring value.
Copy is possible learn but require dozen of books and solid few-hours-a-day sitting on your desks and WRITING.
On the other side. pops are nobrainer. You actually can know shit about copy and still find success there as it's just rip'n'run game all the way.
Jack already covered it nicely, I agree that it's up to you to decide what are the ethical boundries you want to confess.
Some excellent comments here.
As a marketer or advertiser, your goal should be connecting people to offers/products. That’s it.
The CEO of Tesco/Walmart/Amazon/BestBuy/MediaMarkt/etc doesn’t give a rat’s ass that there are products in his store that are scammy, new age, scientific, or flat earth in the same way that a Walgreens/CVS/etc pharmacy doesn’t give a shit that they have complete bullshit like homeopathy cures and weighted blankets. It’s kind of up to the consumer who wants to buy them.
As far as lead gen... I just bought a box of cereal for my kids from the grocery store. On the back is a huge advertisement to ‘have a chance to win a PlayStation 5!*’ on the back. Just as legit as the pop ups and push ads you’ll see. My kid will never get a PS5 this way, and he knows it. But he will still try by signing up to some bullshit website and submitting some personal details and get put on a mailing list for households with kids interested in games for a chance to win the lottery.
Back when I was a kid, we had to sign up for this shit through postal mail and physically cut the box tops off of the cereal boxes. Kids there days can sign up for marketing scams with a simple QR code. Lucky bastards.
You want pics of that cereal box now, don’t you?
Originally Posted by jaybot
One man's scam is another man's $49 best practices sleep accessory!
Originally Posted by jack_l
One man's scam is another man's $49 best practices sleep accessory!
Which further illustrates @twinaxe's point that:
Amy
Originally Posted by vortex
@makingbig
The thing is that everyone has it´s own opinion about what is ethical and morally and what´s not.
For some people it´s ok to run even the dirtiest offers, others don´t feel good with even the slightest chance to be dishonest to the users.
And that´s only the part about offer verticals but same goes for running WH vs BH.
Some people are ok to promote offers (no matter if clean or shady) in a very aggressive way, other people want to promote offers as clean as possible.
Ask yourself what is ok for you and what not and then try to find a niche that´s working good for you.
Originally Posted by makingbig
A lot of what I would say on the topic has already been covered, but one thing people are leaving out is that there are two major factors that unfortunately favor the unethical and lowest common denominator and make it harder for someone to succeed ethically.
1. The less ethical angles, offers, and niches tend to be easier, especially when you're starting out. These offers have their entire business models built around affiliate marketing, and have everything ready made with perfect tracking, top payouts, and high converting funnels. Things that are more legitimate often mean settling for taking large company's listed payouts with subpar setups, or doing intensive business development. All completely doable, and this is a hurdle that most people who want to evolve beyond chasing quick cash eventually need to do anyways, so I would not consider it a problem if you're willing to put in the work, especially early on. The second issue however, can be bigger...
2. You will compete against the unethical. This is a HUGE problem, that constantly tests even the most ethical of affiliates and product owners to sacrifice their morals, not to get rich, but simply to survive. Your clean offer/angle on most traffic sources is going to need to compete directly against the guy with the lies, fake endorsements, undisclosed rebills etc, and that means they can outbid you. The only solution to it is to flock to traffic sources and niches that are heavily regulated. The same things many people complain about here with account bans, overly strict rules etc are the exact things you should rush towards if you want to be ethical while still making money. On the greyer traffic sources you'll find yourself sucked into a race to the bottom in order to survive.
Overall, you can succeed in affiliate marketing being ethical. It's definitely harder, especially at the start, but when you succeed you'll find more stability for your hard work.
Originally Posted by bc_red
One thing I want to point out based on experience: The best way to compete against the unethical with ethical, would be to 1)choose a solid product/offer that has sellable benefits, and then 2)do good marketing.
This also means: Promote on traffic types that 1)have quality traffic that 2)allows audience targeting.
e.g. It's especially hard to do this on pop as it's "interruption marketing", where often the only way to catch people's attention is by begin scammy.
Amy
Originally Posted by vortex
You both fell for my marketing trap perfectly
Bwahahahahah!Don’t worry jack and Amy, I still love you both
Thank you both for illustrating my point
Oh, and for posterity:
Cinnamon Toast Crunch:
Cinnamon Toast Crunch:
I really want a PS5
2. You will compete against the unethical.
To add to the quote above:
The more concerns you have the less possibilities you have how to run your campaigns.
The less concerns you have the more possibilities you have how to run your campaigns.
Originally Posted by twinaxe
GUTSCHEINCODE: A9X4****
Check your push notifications and click the link!
Originally Posted by jaybot
GUTSCHEINCODE: A9X4****
Check your push notifications and click the link!
Can one make money in Affiliate Marketing ethically ?
Originally Posted by jaybot
Bwahahahahah!Don’t worry jack and Amy, I still love you both
Thank you both for illustrating my point
Your little experiment DOES illustrate the point perfectly!
For the record though: No offence was taken even when I was interpreting what you said literally. And right back at you on the love!!
(Why would I even assume your comment to be literal, knowing you...should have guessed you were pulling another "jaybot"!)
Amy
Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums
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