Do you guys think the average joe knows what affiliate links are?

[Jaded Affiliate]

Before I got into affiliate marketing I had a vague notion that people were making money online but I didn't know how. I then started to take notice that many sites I visited were shamelessly linking to Amazon. After some digging I discovered what an affiliate link was.

Do you think the average internet consumer/browser is aware what is going when they are shopping and clicking product links?

Nowadays I am more skeptical of product reviews because I have a new perspective as an affiliate marketer. I take for granted that everybody knows the game but do they really?

 

[sitagabriel]

I'm interested in the answers from others. But my opinion is: no, they don't know.

 

[trackingdesk]

They have no clue about what we do, what's going on on their browser, what's going through their PC and how they are passively contributing to the digital economy.

 

[konstantin]

My opinion is that the percentage of people who are aware of this varies largely from country to country. I believe that the majority of users online have no idea what affiliate links are, but at least in countries like U.S, U.K, Germany people are getting more and more aware of this, and this is obvious of how the online marketeers raise vertically.

In countries tho like mine, Cyprus people are still very ignorant about the online world, they just know how to surf the internet and such. I am sure there are more and more countries like mine.

 

[Daria_WapEmpire]

I don't agree that people in UK, US or Germany etc know more than in other countries. Affiliate business can be difficult to understand even for the newbie players. An everage person not involved in it would meet difficulties even trying to understand how it works. At the same time there're not many people really interested in getting new information. That's how we get to the point that AM is a bit shady to the internet surfers, FB, Twitter and adult websites fans, and that's why, I believe, it will stay on tops for at least 5-7 more years

 

[rmkl666]

Hey dude nah I don’t think they do I have 2 sisters that online shop a lot. I have seen them shop online and through affiliate links/websites all the time and they are both really educated girls. It wasnt until I told them they understood but they still keep shopping the same way. = )

 

[konstantin]

Hey dude nah I don’t think they do I have 2 sisters that online shop a lot. I have seen them shop online and through affiliate links/websites all the time and they are both really educated girls. It wasnt until I told them they understood but they still keep shopping the same way. = )

LoL , why change the way they shop ? If i have found a product i want and like from a website that it's affiliate with the business selling that product then why not support the good job that Affiliate did and buy the product using his affiliate link ?

After all sometimes you find something you like just because some affiliates out there put a lot of effort to make those products visible to you and sometimes in a way that's more user friendly than the actual business selling the product.

Support the affiliates, if you find something you like via an affiliate site, use their links, you still get the same product, and you help a fellow human make a living his own way.

 

[Tim King]

I agree with others, there's no real knowledge of how this works. Even from being in IT for 18 years and knowing plenty of people in marketing too, this world is still a step away from everyone's knowledge.

Some people will spot if someone posts a link to a site with a unique ending url and deduce that it's linked to that person posting it, but that's about it.

 

[rmkl666]

LoL , why change the way they shop ? If i have found a product i want and like from a website that it's affiliate with the business selling that product then why not support the good job that Affiliate did and buy the product using his affiliate link ?

After all sometimes you find something you like just because some affiliates out there put a lot of effort to make those products visible to you and sometimes in a way that's more user friendly than the actual business selling the product.

Support the affiliates, if you find something you like via an affiliate site, use their links, you still get the same product, and you help a fellow human make a living his own way.

I think you misunderstood I support them shopping through affiliates sorry for the confusion. =) what I was trying to say was it doesn’t really stop the customer buying from affiliate links/websites even if they know .

 

[konstantin]

I think you misunderstood I support them shopping through affiliates sorry for the confusion. =) what I was trying to say was it doesn’t really stop the customer buying from affiliate links/websites even if they know .

Gotcha !!!

 

[robaxe]

Well, I don´t think they fully understand how it works but when they see a link that has "domain.com/track..." then I think they understand that there is some commission in the picture. Most affiliates today hide the real link. Other than that, don´t really think they understand. Well probably anyone between 12-17 years old understands it better than your average Joe.

 

[Samrath Gupta]

The average guy has no idea what links he clicked and what is affiliate link,etc.. They only know that it is some kind of link which will take them to their destination. PERIOD

 

[Dmitry.bzns]

I bet they have no idea. I didn't know till I started to learn all these mess haha.
But I think when the link looks like a long sentence of weird words rather than a website URL, regular person would think this website is not the actual he needs and will retype the website,removing the aff link IMOO.

 

[Margo]

I recently wrote a short article about link cloaking and I actually asked many people (friends and relatives) if they understand how affiliate marketing works and how the affiliate links look like. They don't. More over the average person doesn't care. In my opinion people hesitate more when website owners use url shorteners because they are afraid that it will redirect them to the websites with viruses etc.