Knowledge of product when promoting as an affiliate

[Bounderby]

I posted this mid-way through another thread and nobody picked up on it to comment. I'm not sure why...

I've read up and am happy with the principles of adsense, but still have reservations about clickbank etc.

When promoting an affiliate product, how many people have actually seen the product they are pushing??

E.g. if you are promoting a 200 page pet-care e-book, have you actually bought and read it? If not, ethically how can you say how great it is? "This is fabulous! Buy now by clicking my affiliate link here!" Surely this is misleading and immoral, and frankly a bit of a con to the buyer.

[cncbuss]

Does a real book store owner know the ins and outs of every book he sells? As for Hyping it to be "Fabulous" and making the product look appealing is part of the business we're in. That is the marketing and sale of information.

[venomous2000]

I don't but I use google to get some reviews on it. This way I can get a basic view of how good or bad this product is and with that info I can tell people how good or bad it is.

[michellegreen]

I personally like to have reviewed the product before I promote it. Mainly because I promote using blogs and having a knowledge of the product gives me some great ideas for content!

But like someone said, if I were to promote several products on the one site, then I doubt I'd purchase them all.

[Droopy Dawg]

Go to EZA... do a search for " 'product' review". I'm sure you'll find enough articles on the product that you can get a real good handle on it before you promote.

Sorry if this has been posted... I jumped straight to the reply box

[Chris Kent]

To pre-sell in a review, you need only know the benefits, not how they are exactly achieved. You can glean most of these from other reviews or the sales page itself.

If you do this properly, the refund rate will be low because you have not mis-sold the prospect's expectations. Yes, they can always get a refund so I don't believe this is unethical.

Of course, getting a real look at a copy is the best thing. Just ask the product owner for a review copy.

Don't email and say "give me a review copy". You'll not get a reply.
Email the owner and give him a thorough email about how you intend to promote it. Show that you are serious.

[kenj]

I do not agree with the business of promoting stuff you have not bought.

I believe that at best it is underhand and worst it is .....never mind.

Here is what I do.

If a product is one I want to promote then I buy it. Yes I do. When I buy it I read it and use it.

If it is XXXP I do not promote it.

If it does what it says on the tin (Sales Page) then I promote it. Because I have bought the product I can presell properly from a buyers perspective.
I can even tell my readers when I bought my copy and what I really think.

If I can't make my money back in the first 2 sales then I would be an idiot and no good at IM. Fortunately for me I now know what I am doing.

BUY THE PRODUCT

[jasonl70]

I think it really depends on your method of promotion.. there are other ways to promote something without saying "i personaly have used it and it's great".

One of my autoresponder messages makes sales quite often. It's a page of content, then at the bottom it basicly says "here's a very popular product people use for this. Go check it out". As a matter of fact, not a single promotion I send to that list has ever been a personal testimonial. Yes - it's a list, but those emails could just as easily be blog posts, etc.

So, there are other methods of promotion besides BS fake reviews.

I just started doing review pages/sites via ppc (which is deep with BS reviews), and I have purchased every product I review. This let's me screen capture the actual download page, etc, as well as make actual informed comments about various parts of the product. Yes - I use my own affiliate link to do this.

[Bounderby]

Thanks for the responses. I guess my own opinions are most closely aligned with those of kenj, though I appreciate what others have said.
Once again this forum has contributed my development, as it consistently has since I found it.

[Robert Puddy]

Originally Posted by kenj

I do not agree with the business of promoting stuff you have not bought.

I believe that at best it is underhand and worst it is .....never mind.

Here is what I do.

If a product is one I want to promote then I buy it. Yes I do. When I buy it I read it and use it.

If it is XXXP I do not promote it.

If it does what it says on the tin (Sales Page) then I promote it. Because I have bought the product I can presell properly from a buyers perspective.
I can even tell my readers when I bought my copy and what I really think.

If I can't make my money back in the first 2 sales then I would be an idiot and no good at IM. Fortunately for me I now know what I am doing.

BUY THE PRODUCT

This is such bull **** no business tests and reviews its product line, I for one dont have time to review every product I promote.

And worst of all your opinion of the product is absolutly useless to anyone but you personally, things I would find useful maybe to advanced for the majority of my subscribers. I may promote a newbie course that only 20% of my list would be interested, but because i found it to be basic material doesnt mean it wont be useful to others.

You have absolutly no idea how any product will effect or help anyone but your self. This is insulting to your subscribers to make a decision for them, present the product and let them make thier own decisions.

Just because you didn't like it doesnt mean its not exactly what someone else was looking for

Robert