What is Mislead in Affiliate Marketing?

Hello, community! How often do you see advertising around you that deliberately misleads you? Did you know that this even has its own name? It’s called mislead. And to be able to avoid it in your work, you need to understand what mislead looks like. Let’s discuss this.

We remind you that we recently talked about what fraud is and how to fight it. The topics are very similar, so we recommend checking it out!

What is Mislead?

Mislead is a term that comes from marketing, unsurprisingly. In traditional advertising, a mislead is a creative that deceives the recipient by exaggerating the quality of the advertised product. This is achieved through the following:

1. Deliberately exaggerating technical characteristics. For example, the claimed energy savings from using a lamp are twice as low as the device actually consumes;
2. Attributing features to the product that it actually does not have: the advertisement states that the phone has the latest NFC module, but it is absent.

It is clear why this is done. By using such tactics, marketers attract attention and increase the CTR. In the case of genuinely effective deception, they might even get a conversion. Its subsequent fate is rather dubious, as the person might cancel the product or request a refund. However, this is unlikely in the case of such “sellers.”

Mislead in Affiliate Marketing

As for Affiliate Marketing, we have something quite similar to the traditional mislead: black-hat affiliates try to earn a click on the ad using blatantly trigger-happy creatives that deceive the traffic. Undoubtedly, this allows them to stand out among competitors and lure traffic away. This can be a very tempting prospect in the fiercely competitive market.

However, do not forget about the risks of being accused of fraud. Because mislead in Affiliate Marketing is, essentially, fraud.

Sometimes, affiliates themselves may not understand this because they spread creatives provided by the advertiser themselves. Of course, it’s virtually impossible to manually check every product, but if there’s an opportunity to do so, take it.

A prime example is mislead in iGaming. An advertiser or affiliate might promise a player a huge bonus on their first deposit. And even without a wager, to ensure the player is completely in shock. Is this possible? Well, if you’ve already had experience with gambling, you probably understand that the likelihood of such a generous offer is around 1%.

But Vasyl, who has never gambled before, sees such an offer. How could he refuse? And when he makes a deposit, it turns out that the bonus isn’t as large, and the play-through is x45. That means our hero must wager the bonus amount 45 times to be able to withdraw what remains by that time, which is most likely zero.

So in this case, Vasyl is a victim of mislead. And not because he lost, but because he was deceived from the start, promised a no-wager bonus (the terms wager and no-wager are synonymous).

Misleading occurs in other verticals too. In e-commerce, it’s items that don’t match the images (we’ve all seen those memes of items from AliExpress), in app installs, videos with non-existent gameplay, and so on. There are countless examples; you literally see them almost every day.

In nutra, they also tend to exaggerate the effect of a particular product. However, unlike gambling, where you can easily check if the creative is truthful, here it is much more complicated. So, it’s necessary to study both reviews and communicate with colleagues in the field, which you can find in our Telegram community, ahem-ahem.

Is Mislead = Fraud?

Now to the main point. Can misleading be considered fraud? Definitely, yes. Because it’s an attempt to get a conversion by deceiving a person, and they pay for a product that definitely won’t meet their expectations. After all, the creative is outright lying.

Also, carefully study the rules of affiliate programs. Most of them contain a clause that not only prohibits changing the positioning of the product but even slightly embellishing the information, claiming fictional features, etc.

In case you used creatives from the ad where the advertiser “beautified” information about their product, it’s worth contacting the affiliate program to ensure you are not accused of intentional fraud.

What’s the Bottom Line?

Mislead in Affiliate Marketing is no less a bad practice than fraud. However, not only the potential client can fall into this trap, but also the affiliate themselves. Also, do not ignore the fact that a mislead you are unaware of can put you into a significant deficit. Because you will spend money on the campaign, but due to constant returns of the product by the traffic, you won’t see any profit.

At least now you are aware that such manipulations exist both in advertising and in Affiliate Marketing. Hopefully, this will protect you from losses, and your check will only grow.

With respect, Your Geek!

What is Mislead in Affiliate Marketing FAQs