Should You Feel Guilty Pushing Slightly Shady Affiliate Offers?

One of the many decisions you will have to make as an affiliate is what type of offers you will run to make money. The good thing is you literally have a limitless supply of offers to choose from. Offers range from anything as simple as entering a sweepstakes, completing a free trial offer or even earning a commission on a purchase. On the flip side, you also have offers which bring little value to the user, but are still good money makers.

Below is a breakdown of ad campaigns which some may consider shady or offer a bad user experience. Don’t feel too bad about pushing these offers, because if you aren’t, someone else will.

ZIP / EMAIL Submits – These campaigns have been around forever and have always been very successful. You, the affiliate, will earn a commission around $1 every time someone submits their zip code or email. In all honesty, the great majority of people who sign up for this offer will never get the freebie or special offer as it’s a very long process and actually will cost the user a few hundred bucks and a lot of time and tracking of offers that have to complete. Back in 2007 I completed one of these email submit offer in whole, I did get the TV, had to cancel all of my free trials, then also had to pay tax on the “free” $800 TV I later received. Was it worth it in the end… In my opinion, NO! Since 2007 the terms and conditions for these types of offers have gotten much harder and stricter to accomplish.

Free Trial Offers – One of the biggest makers for affiliates in a long time, and still is, are the free trial offers. In short, you can make anywhere from $35-$70 for every new customer you send to a site that pays a low trial or shipping fee to “try” an offer, which is usually a weight loss or enhancement product. Since the FTC started cracking down on these offer, and many affiliate networks got burned, they are now a bit more legitimate and there is less shady companies behind these programs as it’s been much harder on companies to handle the CC process and complaints. Not as shady as they used to be… but still slightly misleading.

Free Game Downloads – Everyone loves playing games, but no one likes the pop ups or installs that come with them. In most cases, why would an advertiser pay you a buck or two for someone to play a free game. A great deal of free gaming downloads include some type of nasty install that the end user really doesn’t want. The ad company then makes money off serving ads, such as popups, on the users computer in exchange for offering a free game download to play.

Personally, I don’t care what type of offers you decide to push and I’ve run campaigns for all of these types of offers in the past. Business is business, and if you aren’t advertising a specific product, someone else will. My question to you is, are you aware of the services and offers you are pushing to internet users, or are you just looking at the bottom line?