Since the introduction of the Internet, work from home opportunities have increased tremendously and affiliate programs have proliferated too.  Becoming an affiliate is a way for individuals to earn money by promoting products or services of an Internet business for which they act as affiliates and in turn they get commission according to their percentage of sales. Not all affiliate programs are legit as there are affiliate scams that do not pay their affiliates for their sales and escape without paying the affiliates.  These scams can be avoided if people are a little more careful while choosing their affiliate programs.

Some of the things that can symbolize a red flag with an affiliate program are:

1. No support contact information on affiliate program’s website

Many affiliate program - scams do not provide any contact information. You cannot contact the ‘merchant’ of the product to ask questions regarding the products affiliate program. First of all you should definitely e-mail the affiliate company asking some general queries. If they do not reply within a few days, it should be enough to raise your eyebrow. Also, the ones that do not have either email or contact number might be an affiliate scam.

2. Affiliate program charges you for becoming an affiliate

Genuine affiliate programs generally do not charge money from affiliates for promoting their products and services but if it does it may be a scam. Affiliate marketing is a win-win business for both product merchants and their affiliates, so merchants really want as much affiliates as possible, while affiliates want to make money selling merchant’s products.

3. There is no track record about a certain affiliate program

If there is any new affiliate program, the best way to check its legitimacy is after the period of six months. The genuine one with quality products will still exist whereas the fake one will collapse within this time. How you would check the performance of such affiliate programs? There are affiliate marketing networks like Click2Sell.EU that allows you to full track the record of such affiliate program with the - how frequently it pays, it ranks the merchants, etc. So you can always select only the best affiliate programs and be sure that you will be paid.

4. Try to Google for negative testimonials about your affiliate program

The testimonials about your affiliate program are good evidence that tell you about the legitimacy and pros and cons of the affiliate program but do not trust the testimonials that have been provided by the affiliate program itself at their websites. Online forums are a great place to find testimonials or you can always use a search engine to find some feedback about it.

5. There is no proper affiliate tracking system or network

These tracking systems are provided by almost all genuine affiliate company to its affiliates so as to check the commission that has been earned by them. If merchant doesn’t use a good affiliate network or doesn’t provide you with its own good affiliate tracking program, then you should not consider promoting a product at all.

6. Do not believe  “too good to be true claims” of affiliate programs

This is essential especially regarding payment of commission as it might be a scam. Too good to be true offers in most cases are ‘to good to be true’ and you might not get paid.

7. Stay suspicious about links getting hacked as other fellow affiliates They might change the affiliate id in the link and thereby transfer all your earned commission to their account. Use software like link cloakers to hide your affiliate ID to avoid such fraud.

 By joining a reputable affiliate marketing network you can easily find the most reputable affiliate programs out there and keep track all your performance. When you are choosing an affiliate program to promote make sure you use these tips to avoid affiliate program scams.