Is There Any Truth Behind The Free IPhone Offers?

The latest craze for those clever minded ‘internauts’ is free electronic goodies in the form of Christmas candy items such as iPhones, iPods, HDTV’s, Playstation 3, Xbox 360s, digital cameras, Tomtoms etc. The type of goods listed reflects in no small part the target audience; young people who want the latest gizmos and gadgets and are web mobile. When affiliate marketing starts to catch on in the middle aged community and the silver surfers, expect the type of gifts offered to change substantially.

So what is affiliate marketing?

Affiliate marketing is a means of incentivising referrals to websites, a way to get people to get other people to sign up to trials. It might be an ad (like google adwords), or a promotional link banner through your website. It’s a bit like a sales commission for doing work on their behalf. If you put a link to another website on your website and someone clicks through it and then signs up to that product or service, you will get paid a commission for bringing in customers. Normally, this is a fairly small amount, but in some cases the stakes are much higher

How do they afford giving away gifts such as iPhones iPods and Playstation 3′s?

Simple. if they persuade you to sign up to their site, and take out a promotional offer, and then persuade a number of people to do the same, then you are generating business for them. Sites like freebiejeebies and kudosnetwork (aimed at the UK, USA and Canada see below) structure their incentives this way. You sign up to the site, take out a promotional offer which is often free, and persuade a number of people to do the same. Once these have all been validated, you get your gift. But you only get credited when the people you have referred take out a promotion themselves. If you need 18 referrals and each of those 18 people need 18 referrals to get what they want, then the site has gained 324 customers. The next 18 from each of those 18 gives 5832 people, yet the site has only given away 19 iPhones. The numbers stack up very quickly, and as you can see, it makes perfect financial sense for them.

Advertising is not cheap, and when the consumer is paid instead of the advertising company, it adds up to quite a lot of nice free ‘stuff’. Of course they say ‘free’, but there is time involved although little or not money leaves the hands of the savvy. Hence the appeals to youngsters (who tend to have lots of the former and rather less of the latter).

What’s in it for the site owner?

Considerable amounts of money, of course. He needs you, however, to make the wheels turn – the reason he comes up with salivating prizes to get you off your bum selling on his behalf. You are charged with the job of working out which of your friends would be interested in such a scheme, and more importantly which of your friends wouldn’t, and you keep pushing to reach your goal like a salesman after his bonus (iPhone). Meanwhile Mr. Site Owner sits there taking a commission for every sale her gets, and passes on a residual to you in the form of your gift. His marketing is clever, and as you can see, he is doing very well out of it.

But if everyone completed their referrals, wouldn’t the site lose money?

Theoretically if they gave away iPhones to everyone, then they might make a loss, but as is always the case, not everyone makes it to the number they need to get their free gift; only achieving a couple of referrals or none at all. They have contributed to the list of people signed up, yet have received nothing in return. It all balances out in the end. If it doesn’t, the number of referrals required per item goes up to reflect how savvy the customers are being, or how much revenue the site is receiving. In short they are not likely to lose out as long as the advertisers are happy, and as far as we can tell, they are.

And don’t the advertisers lose out when people cancel their free trial offers?

Again, they probably would lose customers (and money) if all people cancelled, but this is never the case. There are always people who forget, or who don’t know how to cancel. More importantly, the company gets one very important thing; your attention. They get a chance to make a good impression. Think of it as a ‘loss-leader’, a sales call. If they can convince you that what they are selling you is good, then you will buy it and they will have a happy customer and a revenue stream. The reality is that some will stay, some will go, and some will forget to cancel their direct debit (and so remain ‘gym’ members by default)

So, is affiliate marketing worth getting involved in?

Yes, absolutely, categorically, and for all parties involved. Is it free? Not completely, but if you are wily, it won’t cost you a penny, just some time and some clever thinking. Find a list of people want a new iPhone themselves, and get them signed up ASAP.

You Game? Check out the following sites for more info: kudosnetwork & freebiejeebies. Click on the links below to visit the sites. Have fun!

go to kudosnetwork AND freebiejeebies for additional information about how to start claiming your free iPhone. Also go to thebestthings.co.uk for further information and to make your affiliate selling additional successful. Don’t reprint this exact article. Instead, reprint a free unique content version of this same article.

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