Updated April 21, 2017
In the endless ocean of make-money-online promises, Affilorama stands out as one of the honest options. Is it a game changer though?
My Affilorama Review
I've written this review with the beginner in mind. If you're new to affiliate marketing and looking to get started, this review is for you.
If you're more experienced, some of the step-by-step instructions inside of Affilorama won't be as relevant. Whether or not Affilorama is a “complete” system may not matter to you as much.
So what can you expect in this action packed, plot driven, suspense novel you're about to read?
Well for starters we'll talk about some basic details of Affilorama. Oooh… Exciting!
Then, I'll follow that up by telling you whether or not it's legit. I know… you can barely contain yourself!
After that, we'll get right into the gritty twists and turns of the Affilorama story, where I'll discuss the different programs they offer, the community, the training, the platform and why maybe, just maybe, their premier system AffiloJetpack, might be for you.
Do I have your attention yet?
Well, at least I tried. 😀
Quick Overview
Product: Affilorama
Website: affilorama.com
Year Company Was Started: 2006
Income Generation Methods Taught: Primarily Digital Product Affiliate Marketing
Starter Membership: $0
Premium Membership: $67/month (AffiloBlueprint: $197 and AffiloJetpack: $997 )
Is Affilorama A Scam?
No, Affilorama is the real deal. At moments it may feel like a scam and that's because, from the moment you join, the upsells start coming at you like a freight train in a dark tunnel.
You're blinded by the locomotive's headlights, and there's no way around it… you're going to get hit. How much it's going to hurt will depend on how much you decide to spend.
All joking aside, Affilorama does have some solid things to offer (even if you opt-in for some of those upsells).
First of all, and one reason you can be confident that it's not a scam is that it's been around for 10 years. Affilorama was founded by Mark Ling, who is also co-founder of the e-commerce site, SaleHoo as well as the owner of the keyword tool Traffic Travis.
SaleHoo has been around since 2005 and specializes in wholesale and dropship selling between marketers and suppliers. Mark Ling is a successful, and legitimate entrepreneur. Not a fly-by-night con man. He does know a thing or two about running an online business.
Will Affilorama Help Me Reach My Goals?
Like most people who want to make money online… more freedom, more money and more time are usually top of the wish list. Affilorama can definitely help you achieve those goals, depending on the program tier you choose.
Starting with the basic membership, you'll get some good information but in no way will this provide you with all you'll need to get started. I'll get more into the details of what the basic membership offers in a moment.
The premium membership is where I thought the program would shine. At $67/month it's a reasonable price. A little higher than some other programs, but for a great service, I wouldn't hesitate to join.
And Affilorama's premium membership is not a bad service. It certainly offers much more than the basic membership (as it should).
One concern I have though is that even Affilorama says that their premium membership is NOT a step-by-step course. Instead, it “aims to to provide you with detailed training on advanced marketing and inspire you with new and interesting ideas”.
They say that premium provides detailed training on advanced marketing. That's great, but if you don't have step-by-step instructions on how to get a website up and running, how to build out your pages, set up your menus and so on, all the detailed instruction on advanced marketing won't matter.
If you're experienced and don't need a step-by-step program, great. But if you're not, you may have to step up to AffiloBlueprint.
So, to answer the question… can Affilorama help you reach your goals. If we're talking about the basic and premium memberships, which probably cover 80 or 90 percent of those looking into the program, I would have to say it depends on your current level of knowledge and what your goals are.
I can say, though, that there is some great stuff here, and as mentioned earlier… It comes from Mark Ling who is a celebrity among super affiliates. You're getting some top-level instruction here.
The more expensive options have even more potential.
So, if you have some experience already, maybe even your own website, or affiliate business… I definitely recommend you check out the basic membership. There is some really good information they offer. And then, take if from there if you want to go further.
Is Affilorama a Multi-Level-Marketing Scheme?
So we've determined that Affilorama is 100% legit. And, if you're familiar with affiliate marketing you know that it's not a multi-level-marketing scheme either, but whenever I do these reviews the question always comes up.
Not many people fully understand affiliate marketing, and it gets easily confused with network marketing. When people ask me what I do online to make money, and I say affiliate marketing… I watch their eyes glaze over as they immediately lose interest and try to change the topic before I convince them to join a pyramid scheme.
So we might as well get the question out of the way.
Affiliate marketing is NOT network marketing/multi-level-marketing.
It's a fair question, but to better understand why Affilorama is not an MLM, let's talk about what affiliate marketing is.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
I recently bought a new vehicle, and I was extremely impressed by the service they gave me. There were no high pressure tactics, no doing laps back and forth to the sales manager's office when negotiating price, and once the papers were signed, the sales woman I purchased the vehicle from didn't disappear onto her next “target”.
I've bought a lot of vehicles over the years, but this experience by far stands out as one of the best.
I told my friends about her and the dealership, and I went online to give them a great review. A few weeks later I received a gift card for $50 in the mail with a note that said, “thanks for the kind words and recommendation“.
Fifty Bucks! And all I did was write a paragraph about the great service I received, and recommend them to others.
What if you could scale that up?
Put simply, that's what affiliate marketing is.
Either through a website, a social media platform or an email list… you are recommending products that you have had a good experience with. When someone is looking for an honest opinion and reads your review, and they click a link (that you've provided) that takes them to product page (which could be Amazon as an example), they have an opportunity to purchase the product that you recommend. If they do, you get a small commission at no extra cost to the person buying.
The product creator is happy because they made a sale, you're happy because you earned a small commission and your reader is hopefully happy because they purchased something they wanted by making a well-informed decision… based on your review.
There may be no better way to start an online business than affiliate marketing. You don't need a product, and you don't need much money (if any depending on the program you choose) to get started. Some time and effort is the only barrier to getting started
Affilorama… The Good and The Bad
Of course, not all programs are created equal. Depending on your goals, your situation, level of experience and financial situation… one may be better suited to you than another. I'll do my best to sift through the features so you can decide if Affilorama is for you.
The Good
- Free Basic Membership option where you can learn a great deal about internet marketing.
- Some powerful higher end options for those who have little time.
- Owner Mark Ling is a well-respected, smart and successful internet marketer.
- Focuses on Digital Products which typically offer higher commissions.
- Affilotools.
The Bad
- Premium membership isn't a complete step-by-step program for beginners.
- Priced a few bucks higher when compared to some competitors.
- Range of options can be confusing, especially for those uncertain what they need to get started.
- Upsells, upsells and more upsells.
- No Live Chat for immediate help.
What Do I Get With Affilorama?
As mentioned above, there are multiple levels of Affilorama. I would have preferred that they only offered the basic with only one premium membership that unlocks everything like Wealthy Affiliate does.
But this is the model Affilorama uses and they have been around a long time, so I can't argue with their success. It must work for them.
I also wasn't blown away by one of the most important aspects of any training program. The community.
This is where my Affilorama review takes a slightly negative turn.
Affilorama has a members forum, and it's available to both Basic members and Premium members. But, there's not as much activity there as I had hoped. As I write this, when I look in the most visited area of the forum, Affiliate Hangout… there are 30 posts (plus some sticky announcements), and only 4 of those posts have recent activity this month.
Even on the latest posts page, by the time you get halfway down you're into last month.
Unless I'm no good at reading forums, they seem to be pretty quiet to me. Having said that, though, there are people talking and asking questions, and all the feedback and information is positive.
In all honesty, having a dedicated forum is more than some other programs offer, so I have to give them credit for that.
Moving on…
Here's a snapshot of the basic and premium memberships.
Let's talk about the basic membership.
There is a lot available in the free program. But, I couldn't find any standout material that I couldn't find for free elsewhere. Still… it's nice to have it all in one place.
Lessons are broken down into eight categories, each one with several videos on the topic.
- Introduction
- Market Research
- Content Creation
- Site Building
- Market Ideas
- SEO
- PPC
- Affiliate Outsourcing
Most (but not all) of this stuff is useful, but not necessarily for a beginner. If you already have your own website, blog or even affiliate marketing business, you might find some good stuff here. Particularly in the Market Research and SEO sections.
When you're just starting out, it all boils down to building your first website. Under the category ‘Site Building' there are 19 videos. Unfortunately, none are really helpful to beginners getting started.
In my opinion, I have to wonder if these tutorials were made painfully complicated on purpose to overwhelm someone just starting out… and drive them quickly into one of their “turn-key” premium plans.
The reason I say this is because the easiest and by far the most popular and versatile website you can build is done using WordPress. It's not mentioned here, and I can't understand why.
Among the tutorials you'll find a video about various software programs you can use to build your website. The list includes Artisteer, AdobeDreamweaver, Kompozer, Microsoft Expression Web, XsitePro, and finally… my favorite, doing it all yourself by Hand Coding HTML.
Now, if your goal is to become a professional web designer and do that for a living… check these programs out. Or, learn HTML and start coding.
But you're reading this because you're interested in learning how to make money online, so spending all your time in technical quicksand isn't the best option.
As mentioned above, the more versatile, much easier to use, and professional website builder that's also the most widely used (and free) open source platform out there, is WordPress.
The website you are on right now is built using WordPress.
Further, if you jump on over to the Affilorama Website Building forums… all the discussions revolve around WordPress.
Yet, nowhere in the basic membership tutorials of Affilorama do they even mention WordPress.
The people behind Affilorama know you're not going to bother learning code or a complex program like Adobe Dreamweaver. I have to assume therefore, that by design, they are presenting a complicated solution to a very easy problem, hoping you'll instead opt-in to one of their pay plans (which are good enough to sell themselves without having to use this tactic)
I might be entirely wrong here, but that's why I'm saying the basic membership is not going to help beginners start earning an income online.
So we've covered the Community, and the Training inside of the basic membership and while I may be giving Affilorama Basic a hard time here… it's free. You have nothing to lose by checking it out.
AffiloTools
Before we get into the premium plan, I should also mention AffiloTools.
AffiloTools is a research tool that helps you do things like find keywords, backlinks and track your ratings. You get a free trial with the Basic Membership. Once you begin your trial, you're prompted to enter your website URL.
That may be great for someone who already has a website, but I know what you're thinking… what if you don't?
If you're just starting out, you probably don't have a URL, let alone a full website… especially one that has you concerned about rankings and backlinks.
None of that means AffiloTools is bad. It's definitely a valuable addition that will help you take your business to the next level (and a big plus in favor of Affilorama). It's just a shame it's presented in this strange free trial fashion to people that most likely can't use it.
The Premium Membership
As discussed above, by their own admission, Affilorama says that their Premium Membership is NOT a step-by-step course. Instead, it “aims to to provide you with detailed training on advanced marketing and inspire you with new and interesting ideas”.
This is understandable. If it were a step-by-step course, it would compete with their next level program AffiloBlueprint.
That being said, the premium membership adds some more advanced training on building your own affiliate website as well product creation.
And, you also get website hosting for 15 websites.
If you're going to hand over your credit card for a premium membership you should be aware, that canceling your membership if you're not satisfied, is not a simple click-to-cancel option.
That doesn't mean it's difficult or you will be given a hard time when trying to cancel, but it's not a simple one-step process either.
AffiloJetPack and AffiloBlueprint
Affilorama, on the other hand, offers some things its competitors don't, like the higher priced options AffiloJetpack and AffiloBlueprint which might be an appropriate choice for some.
I did not purchase these but I have to be honest, I contemplated for a few days whether or not to sign up for AffiloJetpack. More on that in a moment…
First, let's look at the AffiloBlueprint and AffiloJetpack programs.
When it comes to the actual process of marketing and building an online business, Affilorama has some really great material, but the program you'll want to get started with is AffiloBlueprint.
Whether or not that fits into your budget or not is another story. It's not a terrible price considering there are programs out there with upsells that go as high as 10 and 20 thousand dollars.
AffiloBlueprint is still priced for the average household income which is one reason why it's on my list of top recommendations. (Another reason is that it's honest and doesn't claim to move mountains for you with only a few clicks)
As far as the private member's forum goes… it should be noted that you will likely have fewer people in the AffiloBlueprint and AffiloJetpack programs than you do in the Basic and Premium ones. If the Basic and Premium forums are lacking activity… then you can get a decent idea of what the AffiloBlueprint and AffiloJetpack forums are going to look like.
It sounds good. An exclusive club! But really… these two programs are for people who want simplicity and more automation. Or, for people who don't have the time to learn and do it on their own.
AffiloJetpack
AffiloJetpack is a done for you system that cost's $997 (currently on discount for $747)
Earlier I mentioned that I was thinking of joining AffiloJetpack myself. As you learn and build your business, it becomes obvious that you can't do it all by yourself. It's a business after all… and most businesses either have employees or hire contractors.
But, you probably wouldn't start a business by just hiring a bunch of people to “do stuff”.
You definitely wouldn't hire them if you had no idea what you were hiring them for.
So, in the beginning, you may want to learn most of this stuff yourself.
Unfortunately, it's not always that simple. Maybe you don't always have the time to learn it all.
In my case, I considered buying AffiloJetpack because it had the potential to add another 5 sites to my business with little effort and little time. I certainly wouldn't start my business this way, but it would give it an additional boost.
In the end, I decided against Affilojetpack because although it's primarily a done for you system, it would still take time away from my current projects and for me at least, be a distraction.
It's All About The Niche
AffiloJetpack has 18 niches you can choose from, and as a member, you can pick 5. Within these niches they provide the research, the e-book/report to build your subscriber list, the newsletters to send out to your subscribers, as well as pre-made websites.
It's not a terrible value, and you could certainly spend more setting this all up on your own. These are the niches available.
- Weight Loss
- Survival
- Dating Tips for Women
- Dating Tips for Men
- Hawaii Travel
- Internet Marketing
- Dog Training
- Golf
- Self-Help
- Relationship Advice
- Pregnancy and Fertility
- Learn to Sing
- Green Energy
- Natural Health
- Spirituality and Alternative Beliefs
- Muscle Building
- Diet and Nutrition
- Wholesale Sourcing
These niches are money makers for sure… but they are also competitive. If you have an established online presence or email subscriber list, promoting products in these industries can be profitable.
AffiloJetpack May Be Right For You
As I mentioned earlier, the niches offered with AffiloJetpack are highly profitable, so I wouldn't necessarily rule it out as an option. I've spent a $1000 on some pretty stupid things… so, if time is your challenge, and NOT money, this may be a decent place to start out.
If money is the issue though, I advise caution because I can't say with any certainty that you'll ever earn your money back.
That's not a criticism of AffilorJetpack. It's just that it takes time to learn online marketing and many people don't have the patience or ability to endure the early ups and downs.
If you're not afraid of a little hard work and prefer to keep that money in your pocket… you can read about my online strategy here.
It's often said that you can find anything on the internet. But that's not always true…
The one thing that people are really searching for online, but can't always find… is Honesty and Trust.
If you can provide that, then you can stand out.
Affilorama is an honest option if you want to make money online. Is it a game changer? I'd have to say NO… it's not. But it does rank among my top recommendations.
Please comment below and share your thoughts… especially if you're a member or have tried Affilorama. It would be great to hear your opinion.
If you found this review helpful, PLEASE SHARE it with others. Sharing is Caring 😀
Cheers,
Jay
Learn more about Affilorama, or check out my other top recommended training programs.
Jay, it is great that you took the time to explain the difference between affiliate marketing vs. network marketing as stated in your article. People incorrectly assume that Affilorama and for that matter Wealthy Affiliate are both MLM’s when, with the lack of education these people are wrong.
At Affilorama, (which I previously have conducted my own review of)and Wealthy Affiliate one does not make money in a business by building elaborate multi-level downlines beneath him/her. In fact as more than a few MLM’s do not have physical products associated with these companies and because of the multiple levels of recruits placed beneath a member in their business structures, they are nothing but illegal pyramid schemes.
Affilorama’s premium membership, although chock full of training and tools provided to a person is still somewhat high coming in at $67/month. The company does not offer as an alternative a yearly payment option for members who truly are involved with building up a reputable online business for themselves – unlike something that WA does have.
I detest the many upsells offered by Affilorama including one that I knew of where a member would essentially have a niche marketing business set up for him/her by one of the company’s gurus. Still, it would not guarantee that individual with the ability to earn lots of $$$$ in the particular business; especially if he/she truly does not have a lot of knowledge about the niche that had been set up for him/her.
Mark Ling does have an honest reputation online, especially with his being the founder of Salehoo. Still, the upsells that he employs at Affilorama leads me to believe he’s all about making money just like other founders of programs that are nowhere near as legit as this one.
Jeff
Wow, very informative review of Affilorama. Thank you for the great information. One thing I did not know is that it was created by the Co-founder of SaleHoo. That gives me some confidence in testing Afillorama out.
Personally, i’m always on the lookout for good content and training’s as an affiliate marketer, and your review was very helpful and informative. I’ll give them a try and see what new information I can take from it. Thanks!
Hi Jay, I enjoyed reading through this post which was packed full of information.
I had not heard of Affilorama before and I can’t say I would be over keen because I personally am immediately turned off by upsells one after the other as you mentioned early on.
You did however give them a very fair and balanced review and perhaps working as an affiliate for them would be a better option using Wealthy Affiliate to build the website. Thank you for some valuable insights.
Hi Judy, yes there are quite a few upsells here. I will say though… I’ve tested programs with more, but I guess that’s part of marketing. Someone has to push the boundaries to see where the limits are 🙂
I do use Wealthy Affiliate to build some of my websites, and I wish I could use them for all. The last couple days I’ve been hitting wall after wall with another hosting company trying to install and set up some websites for clients. What takes me a literally a minute at Wealthy Affiliate has taken me two days at this other company… and I’m still not finished.
Anyway, that’s a topic for something else… thank for stopping by and for your kind words.
Regards,
Jay