A Very Cynical Opinion of Affiliate Marketing

A disclaimer here: you're about to read a bit of a rant. I'm sure that somewhere, out there in the world, there's a company exclusively using affiliate marketing that isn't taking advantage of people…but in 40+ years and 100,000+ ads written, I haven't found it yet.

The Pitch Sounds Too Good

If I told you that there was an opportunity to sell a product with $5+ EPCs, an AOV of $210, and default commissions of 75%…and there was NO RISK…would you be open to hearing about it?

That's right, there's no need to develop a product, get it through regulatory approval/testing, produce it at scale, and run an entire company around it…all YOU have to do is run some simple ads to a custom landing page and BOOM, you're in the money!

UGH, I feel dirty just writing all of that. But it's what many companies promise people. You create traffic for our proven product and you'll be in charge of your own financial destiny!

I've had this exact pitch land in my inbox more times than I can count over the decades — same structure every time, just a new supplement, a new skincare miracle, a new "financial freedom" app wearing a fresh coat of paint. The EPCs and AOV numbers change, the commission percentage stays suspiciously generous, and the red flags are always identical.

Ask the Obvious Question

Sounds amazing, but here's a question: if your product is SO GOOD, and your margin is SO GOOD…why are you giving away your profits?

Here's the dirty little secret that scammy companies like these don't want you to think about: they can't advertise these products themselves. They'll get their ad accounts shut down. These types of products are all "miracle elixirs" that have completely unsubstantiated claims and are advertised using mysterious "true stories" about people who don't exist. I've reviewed enough of these landing pages to spot the pattern in under thirty seconds: fake countdown timers, a stock photo "doctor," and a testimonial from "Karen R., verified customer" with no last name and no way to verify a thing.

Post enough ads like these to landing pages full of garbage content and you'll get your ad account shut down. Meta and Google didn't build enforcement teams around unsubstantiated health and finance claims for no reason — this is one of the most common ways good advertisers lose accounts they spent years building. If you want to know what actually keeps an account healthy long-term, it starts with the same discipline it takes to write a headline that earns the read instead of one that's built to bait a platform's enforcement algorithm.

What They Really Want: Your Clean Ad Account

That's why these companies are so "generous." They need what you have: a clean record. A pristine ad account.

And they don't care if you get shut down. They don't care how much you poured into ad spend before you got flagged for repeated TOS violations. They give zero F's. They're on to the next product (New name, same powder? Possibly!) and luring in a new network of optimistic self-starters with unsubstantiated claims of financial largesse.

You know the old adage: If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is? For me, that's the affiliate marketing game in a nutshell. It's the same instinct I tell every client to apply before they ever sign an agency, too — if someone's promising you results with none of the risk, ask who's actually holding the risk instead. It's rarely you they're protecting.

TL;DR — Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk… please be skeptical of miracle cures and miracle earning opportunities.

P.S. - There are completely legitimate companies that include affiliate programs as part of a well-rounded client acquisition strategy. In case it isn't contextually already clear, this rant does not apply to them. The difference usually comes down to the same thing that separates a real agency from a vendor for hire: an actual process built on trust, not a race to burn through someone else's ad account before the next sucker shows up.