Is Affilorama Worth It? Not Quite What You Think

Time is exciting for affiliate marketing as more people go to the internet to learn new things AND to make money online. Hence, it’s important to have someone with experience to guide you on the right track. By now, you would have probably heard of the training at Affilorama, but is Affilorama worth it? In this review, let’s find out what you are getting for your money.

What Is Inside Affilorama

Affilorama is a platform founded by Mark Ling in 2005 that offers training specifically for affiliate marketers. The courses comprised of detailed step-by-step that Mark personally used to grow his own online business along with other resources.

Each course is designed for different user levels, but Affilorama has rebranded them into more fancy names. Let’s have a look at what each has to offer.

• AffiloBlueprint (Beginner) $197 – Getting started with website and traffic through video training, course notes, WordPress hosting, and private forum access.
• AffiloJetpack (Intermediate to Advanced) $997 – Scaling traffic in a profitable niche using pre-designed content (newsletters, eBooks, cheat-sheets), WordPress hosting + everything in AffiloBlueprint.
• Premium Membership (Intermediate to Advanced) $67/month – Get access to advanced marketing tools through video training, webinars, multiple WordPress hosting, and private forum. 

At a glance, it seems like Affilorama has got everyone covered with structured courses, good learning tools, and professional guidance. However, given the costly fee that you have to pay, I am curious to know what is so unique about their courses.

My research leads me to some disappointing facts and I feel the need to share them before you commit to their training.

Not-So-Optimized WordPress Theme

Setting up an affiliate website from the very beginning is crucial and I like the fact that Affilorama has chosen to use WordPress. But the custom-made theme (aka AffiloTheme) that is being touted to give affiliate marketers a professional outlook comes with a few flaws;

1. There are only 6 types of WordPress themes to choose from.
2. The designs are just moderate looking and in my opinion, not eye-popping at all.
3. Most importantly, these themes ARE NOT mobile responsive. 

Do you need to be concerned about this? Yes

You see, Google updated its algorithm in April 2015 to boost rankings for mobile-friendly pages. Sites that are still using non-responsive themes (such as AffiloTheme) will go down in search ranking and that means lesser traffic to the site. If you are going to use their default WordPress, you are going to lose out on a lot of opportunities.

Popular Vs Passionate Niche – Which Is More Profitable

Affilorama focuses its market research within Clickbank which offers mainly digital products. This is justifiable because the commissions are generally higher (around 50-70%), making these types of affiliate programs more attractive. Furthermore, Mark has handpicked 18 popular niches that are bound to make a lot of money IF you follow through his steps.

Sounds like a good deal, right? Well, digital products aren’t always necessarily high converting and here are a few things that you need to consider.

1. There are a ton of eBooks and the like out there because they are so cheap and easy to create. If you are doing something similar, you are up against a lot of competition.  
2. You need to do some hard selling (at least from Affilorama’s perspective) in order to get people to buy digital products and you could very much end up becoming a ‘product pusher’ instead of an affiliate marketer.
3. Many online scams are associated with digital products because they can tell a bunch of lies without showing you the real stuff. Due to that, people are usually quite cautious with what they read and chances are, they might trust you less if you are pushing the product aggressively (see point #2).  
4. There are PLENTY of profitable niches out there that don’t involve digital products. Take Amazon Associates for example; you can promote any of their popular items and still build a successful affiliate business from scratch.
5. The most important question to ask is, are you interested in the so-called popular niches that Affilorama has selected OR would you much prefer to get involved in something that you are passionate and knowledgeable about? Something that you would enjoy doing long term for an online business. – Think about that for a second.

Shortcut to Content Creation – What You Need to Consider

Perhaps the biggest attraction that these courses offer is that you get (almost) ready-made content for every niche. From keyword lists to PLR articles, it seems that Affilorama did most of the research already.

All you have to do is make some changes and hit publish. No doubt, when content is pre-made or outsource, you can focus more on marketing and scaling for traffic. But, there’s a caveat to this.

1. Using Private Label Rights (aka PLR) articles can cause plagiarism, duplicate web content and affect the quality of your website for the long term. That’s because the same content can be easily bought and distributed by anyone. When the search engines pick up on this, your content is deemed a ‘copycat’ and hence, no ranking will be rewarded for your site.
2. If you are thinking about outsourcing, make sure you have the budget to hire professional writers who would do proper article research instead of using PLRs.
3. Ready-made stuff is great, but when you don’t do the market research yourself at the foundation level, you’ll never truly understand what your niche is all about, much less how to solve their problems through the use of digital products.
4. What is more concerning is that you are paying a high cost for shortcuts so that you can earn the money fast enough. If you intend to start affiliate marketing with this type of mentality, you are going to be very disappointed with the outcome. And the very reason you are not going to make it is that you are being spoon-fed, chasing after ‘shiny objects’ instead of learning the basics of online entrepreneurship.

So, Is Affilorama Worth It?

In summary, I find that Affilorama does have good quality training materials, but the way things are bundled into different packages clearly shows that they are up selling their products and confusing beginners who are usually inexperienced.

If you want to start with a niche that you like, using your own unique content on a good WordPress website, then I would recommend that you check out the training program at Wealthy Affiliate instead.

For only ONE membership fee, you’ll benefit from the following features; 

(And oh, in case you are wondering, there are no upsells involved in WA)

The training will equip you with the skills and knowledge to start an online business in whatever niche that you like without burning a hole in your pocket. If you need any help getting started, just leave me a comment below and I’ll guide you personally through the training program. Hope to see you there.