Hello, I am totally new to the world of affiliate marketing. I was wondering if you need to go through the legalities of setting up an actual business in order to start affiliate marketing? I noticed when signing up for an affiliate program that it asked for my business name. I am also curious, because I know it would be another revenue stream. What do advertisers working with affiliate programs typically do on this subject? Thanks for your help!
Well, well, well... Our experience is in OnLine Payments Platform based on Telecom Solutions and we were asking for such details on our products' website. We always got such question you are asking and the answer was a lot of links, laws, webpages...lot of stuff nobody reads. The real meaning was "do not ask" but we were operating from some European Countries. In USA it seems pretty serious that subject but in Europe only very very few customers were doing all the paperwork. The ones who did it were invoicing a dummy customer called "End User" every month with all the commissions they were getting. The most of them were receiving the money and the invoice we were generating on their behalf since we had the technology to do it and they don't but then they were supposed to declare the funds to their governments etc and we could not check if they were actually doing that or not so it is a Catch 22 and then it is the same with everything. The plumber fixes your sink and you pay the invoice. Do you know if he declares such invoice or if he use the same number to generate 100 invoices? Our opinion is that this world is still Far West and that is the beauty of it somehow. I think you will find people who will tell you that you have to do everything and people who will advocate the contrary so do nothing. The decision is always up to you.
Most of our affiliates just declare their income as self earned. If they have business setup it is usually for tax benefits.
It is not mandatory to register a business. An individual can sign up for affiliate as individual and if they are asking for tax information, you can give your personal tax information. Hardly very few networks / programs force affiliates to provide company name or company tax information. Thanks
If you're starting to make any kind of serious profit it would be best to do so. It's not all that hard either.
Nope not at all, you can straight away become an affiliate partner just by Registering yourself with an Affiliate Program. All you need to do is search a product of your niche and the affiliate program that gives you the best deal in that particular niche! Thanks for your help!