The Problem with Revenue Per Sale (RPS) Affiliate Advertising

Let me start by explaining how affiliate advertising works.

The company, lets say it is Cute Fuzzy Widget Inc., sells a variety of cute fuzzy widgets - and they are having difficulties advertising and selling their product because nobody knows what a widget is, nobody cares and the product doesn't really sell itself.

So they start an affiliate program and let gullible people advertise their widgets for them, essentially for free.

The people who do the advertising are paid a commission for each widget sale they make.

Supposedly.

Maybe.

Rarely.

Often never.

The reason why is because affiliate programs which use a Revenue Per Sale (RPS) model often don't pay out. They get the free advertising, but often gyp the people doing the advertising / never actually pay out.

Basically, for the person doing all the work, affiliate programs are a complete waste of time. Especially for products that are difficult to sell.

It would be another matter if the product was actually something that was easy to sell - but this is not the case with the companies that use affiliate programs. The products, frankly, are horrible and often have really bad product reviews.

Finding a company with good product reviews that dabbles in affiliate programs is extremely rare. Why? Because their products sell themselves, sometimes via word-of-mouth. They don't even need to advertise. They keep making sales with barely trying.

Here are four commonly used advertising techniques used by affiliate programs.

#1. Spam. How annoying is that?

#2. Commission ONLY / Revenue Per Sale (RPS). Meaning you don't get paid unless they actually sell something.

#3. Faulty recording of sales. Even if you did sell their product, they might not tell you about it.

#4. Trashy products that are difficult to sell.

#5. Scams - meaning they are trying to trick people into buying something that they will never receive, or possibly even pretending to be a company they are not so they can trick people into giving their bank or credit card information.

#6. Unethical Advertising - Not just spam, but also fake landing pages, fake blogs, fake celebrity endorsements, etc.

#7. Pyramid Scheme Affiliates - Basically the idea wherein you recruit 3 people, they recruit 3 people, etc and for every person under you then you make more money. It just costs $699 to sign up...


The end result is that Revenue Per Sale (RPS) Affiliate Advertising is a COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME.

So just don't bother.

Stick to cash in advance for every advertisement you do, Pay Per Click (PPC) and advertising that is guaranteed to pay out.