This is Mike from Monkey Digital – Spam Scam or Legitimate Partnership?

What is the reality of these messages do you think? Do Monkey Digital really pay out 30k per month in affiliate fees? Well if you are naive enough to put a link to their site on yoru own (they only target spamming sites that get traffic so they get a link from a site with a strong DR domain rating) so in actuality they do not understand how to do SEO, they just use your sites to prop them up and then take money from people for doing SEO that probably isn’t that good, or they wouldn’t spam in the first place.

Let’s break down that email from Monkey Digital and our thoughts on it.

Our skepticism is well-placed, make no mistake. Several elements in Mike’s email raise red flags that suggest it might not be as legitimate or beneficial as it appears:

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Unsolicited Outreach

Legitimate companies rarely cold-email with such a generic, templated approach for significant partnership opportunities. This often indicates a bulk outreach strategy rather than a targeted, well-researched proposal. They do not bother with a phone call meaning that this is just a numbers game. That is a very typical scammer outlook. No quality, just playing the naive.

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Vague “Mutual Business Deal”

The email starts very broadly without specifying how they found your website or why they believe it’s a good fit. This lack of personalization is a common tactic in mass spam. It makes the green feel as if they are the ones about to share in a lucrative deal, when in fact the only reason they are targeting you is to make money from all of the hard work you have put into your website and the chances of anyone ever clicking their link and paying money for their SEO is almost nothing. The claim that they send out all this money per month is unlikely looking at their tactics.

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Focus on Recurring Profit Share

While recurring commissions exist, the emphasis on a “recurring 35% profit share, month after month” is a common hook in affiliate schemes, especially those that might be less transparent. It’s designed to sound highly lucrative and enticing. If they were really a good way of monetizing a website, then they would be competition for services like AdSense and would definitely not have to spam people this way.

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Unsubstantiated Payout Claims

The claim of distributing “$27,280 in payouts to our affiliates” last month is easy to state and difficult to verify. Without independent auditing or reputable testimonials, this number should be treated with extreme caution. Many less scrupulous operations use impressive-sounding figures to create an illusion of success.

What would be the expected likelihood of anyone clicking an SEO ad on a website with no SEO affiliation other than a link in the corner and going on to buy a substantialy SEO package?

We need to pose a simple question that questions effective advertising and user behavior. The likelihood of someone clicking a small, non-contextual SEO ad on a non-SEO website and then going on to buy a substantial SEO package is extremely low.

Here’s why, breaking it down into several factors:

1. Ad Placement and Visibility

• “Link in the corner”: Ads placed in corners or sidebars typically have very low click-through rates (CTRs). Users often develop “banner blindness” to such placements. They’re not the primary focus of the page and are easily ignored.
• Lack of integration: If the ad isn’t integrated naturally into the content or user experience, it stands out as an interruption rather than a helpful resource.

2. Lack of Intent and Context

• No SEO affiliation: If your website has no inherent connection or content related to SEO, a visitor landing there is highly unlikely to be in the market for SEO services. They are on your site for a different purpose.
• Interruption vs. Problem-Solving: People looking for SEO solutions typically search for them actively (e.g., “best SEO company,” “how to improve website ranking”). They are in a problem-solving mode. A random corner ad isn’t addressing an immediate, felt need, but rather trying to create one.
• Cold audience: The traffic arriving at your site is “cold” in relation to SEO services. They haven’t expressed any intent or interest in that specific service before seeing the ad. Converting a cold audience requires a much more robust and trust-building sales funnel.

3. Nature of SEO Services

• High-ticket item: Substantial SEO packages are not impulse purchases. They involve significant financial investment and usually require a deep understanding of the client’s business, goals, and existing online presence.
• Trust and Expertise: Companies or individuals seeking SEO services want to work with trusted experts. A random ad on an unrelated website does nothing to build that trust. They’d typically look for case studies, testimonials, detailed service descriptions, and evidence of expertise.
• Consultative Sales Cycle: SEO services often have a longer, more consultative sales cycle. It’s not a simple e-commerce transaction. It usually involves initial consultations, proposals, and a clear demonstration of value. An ad, even if clicked, is just the very first step.

4. Conversion Rates in General

• Average Affiliate Conversion Rates: Typical affiliate conversion rates across various industries often range from 0.5% to 3%. For a high-value, complex service like SEO, you’d expect it to be on the lower end of that spectrum, or even below it, especially for cold traffic.
• SEO-Specific Conversion Rates: Even for traffic that is interested in SEO, the conversion rates vary. For example, some reports show average SEO conversion rates from organic search around 2-3%, but this is for highly targeted, relevant traffic already seeking SEO solutions.

Reality of the Revenue..

Given these factors, the expected likelihood of anyone clicking a non-contextual SEO ad in a corner of an unrelated website and then proceeding to buy a substantial SEO package would be negligible, likely approaching 0.01% or even lower.

It’s a “spray and pray” approach that relies on sheer volume rather than targeted marketing. While a company like Monkey Digital might get a tiny fraction of clicks and even fewer conversions this way, it’s highly inefficient and unlikely to generate significant income for you as an affiliate, especially for high-value services. Their strategy seems to be centered on acquiring backlinks and casting a very wide net, rather than genuine, high-quality lead generation.

So just to be clear, if you had 1,000,000 affiliates (and in which case you would not be spamming people) you would expect an absolute maximum of one in ten-thousand to make a sale in any month. That would mean 100, so that way you are paying $270.28 per month to 100 affiliates. Now that is possible, but you have to bear in mind that it is the other 990,000 sites giving them the boost to appear that they understand SEO.

1. Massive Affiliates vs. Spamming: You’re absolutely right. A legitimate company with 1,000,000 active and quality affiliates wouldn’t need to resort to spamming unsolicited emails. Their reputation and the value of their product/service would attract affiliates organically, or through highly targeted outreach. The spamming itself is a strong indicator that their affiliate pool isn’t as robust or effective as they claim.
2. Conversion Rate Reality Check:
   • Your Calculation: 1 in 10,000 (0.01%) conversion rate is extremely low, even for cold traffic or a general affiliate link. For high-value services like SEO, which require significant trust and a consultative sales process, this is a plausible, or even optimistic, conversion rate for random, non-contextual clicks. As discussed, typical affiliate conversion rates are usually 0.5% to 3% for relevant traffic, so 0.01% for irrelevant traffic is very realistic.
   • Payouts: If $27,280 was distributed to 100 affiliates, that’s indeed $272.80 per affiliate. While this is possible for a successful affiliate, it’s highly unlikely that 100 affiliates would consistently hit a decent commission given the extremely low conversion rate from “corner links on unrelated sites.” This suggests:
     • The $27,280 figure is either inflated or represents a payout to a very small number of top-performing affiliates who might have genuinely relevant sites or strong marketing skills (and likely wouldn’t be found via spam).
     • The vast majority of the “thousands of affiliates” receive little to no payout.
3. The True Value Proposition for Monkey Digital: This is the most crucial part of your assessment. Their primary gain from this “affiliate program” isn’t necessarily direct sales from your casual visitors, but rather:
   • Backlinks for SEO: By getting “thousands of affiliates” (even if most are inactive or low-performing) to place a link on their website, Monkey Digital is building a massive backlink profile. The Domain Rating (DR) of these sites might be variable, but even a large number of lower DR links can collectively signal to search engines that their site is “important” or “referenced” by many others. This is a classic (and often black-hat or grey-hat) SEO tactic.
   • Perceived Authority: Having many sites linking to them, regardless of relevance or quality, creates an illusion of widespread acceptance and authority.
   • Traffic Generation (even if low quality): Even tiny trickles of traffic from thousands of sites can add up, providing some raw visitor numbers, which they might then attempt to convert (albeit likely with very low success rates).
   • Data Collection: They might also be collecting data on the types of websites that respond to their spam, allowing them to refine their spamming lists.

Ethical and SEO Implications:

• Google Penalties: Google’s algorithms (like Penguin and recent spam updates) are constantly getting better at detecting and devaluing unnatural link patterns, including those from widespread, irrelevant affiliate links used solely for SEO manipulation. If Google identifies your site as part of such a “link scheme,” it could lead to penalties, including a drop in your own search rankings or even de-indexing.
• Brand Reputation: As mentioned before, associating your site with a company that engages in these tactics can harm your brand’s credibility with both users and search engines.
• Waste of Time: For you, placing such a link would likely yield minimal (if any) sales, making it a waste of your valuable website real estate and effort, while potentially exposing you to risk.

So now that we’ve accurately diagnosed the likely core strategy behind such unsolicited affiliate offers, and realised that it is much less about genuine partnership, and more about leveraging other websites’ SEO juice and perceived legitimacy, We can say that this is not a partnership worth entering

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Low Barrier to Entry/Immediate Call to Action

Providing a WhatsApp link and a direct “join today” link without any prior conversation or vetting process is unusual for a genuinely valuable partnership. It suggests they’re looking for a high volume of sign-ups rather than quality affiliates.

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Our Assessment of Their SEO Practices

Your point about them potentially using your site to “prop them up” and not understanding good SEO practices if they’re resorting to spamming is a very insightful one. Companies that truly excel at SEO usually don’t need to send out mass, unsolicited emails to gain backlinks or traffic. Their own SEO efforts would naturally attract partners. If they are targeting “spamming sites that get traffic” to get a strong Domain Rating (DR) link, it indicates a black-hat or grey-hat SEO strategy, which is generally not sustainable or ethical. Such tactics can actually harm the DR of the sites they link to in the long run if Google identifies unnatural linking patterns.

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The Reality

It’s highly probable that Monkey Digital’s affiliate program is not as lucrative or straightforward as they make it seem. They might indeed pay out some affiliates, but the vast majority might see very little return, or the quality of the SEO services they offer might be subpar, leading to unhappy customers and a damaged reputation for your site if you promote them.

The model you described-leveraging other sites for their DR to boost their own perceived authority, while offering questionable SEO services-is a common and often unethical practice.

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What to Consider

• Your Site’s Reputation: Associating your website with a company that employs spammy tactics or offers poor services could negatively impact your site’s credibility and search engine ranking.
• Due Diligence: If you were ever to consider an affiliate program, always perform extensive due diligence. Look for independent reviews, check their online presence beyond their own website, and try to find genuine testimonials that aren’t just copy-pasted.
• Genuine Value: Does promoting their service genuinely add value to your audience? Or is it simply a way for them to get a backlink and potentially for you to earn a small, unpredictable commission?

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1. The Psychology of the Pitch

• “$27,280 in payouts last month” is pure social proof theatre-no evidence, no verifiable breakdown. It’s the SEO equivalent of a car salesman flashing cash and keys.
• “Thousands of affiliates” is vague. Thousands of low-value spam sites? A thousand bots? It’s meaningless without context.
• “Recurring 35%” is enticing, yes-but of what? What product? What conversion rate? What’s the refund rate?

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2. The SEO Strategy They’re Actually Using

This is the key part we’ve nailed:

• They’re not trying to help you. They’re trying to juice their own rankings by leeching off your domain’s authority (DR).
• That affiliate link? It’s a do-follow backlink in disguise, often cloaked or buried on an affiliate page, feeding PageRank to their domain.
• If their SEO solutions were really top-tier, they wouldn’t need to scrape backlinks from affiliate spam or rely on vague outreach.

Monkey Digital is playing a numbers game: Get thousands of affiliates = Get thousands of backlinks Get domain authority through link farming = Sell “SEO services” based on their own rank; Ironically, they are SEO parasites, not SEO experts.

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3. Are They Even Paying?

• It’s possible some people get paid, especially those who generate sales from ultra-high traffic spam sites. But for most, it’s an empty funnel.
• And if they don’t pay one month? You’ve already linked to them. You’ve already helped. The cost is upfront on your side, the reward is delayed and unverified.

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4. Red Flags

• Using WhatsApp for affiliate comms is amateur at best, scammy at worst. No reputable network uses that as a primary channel.
• No transparency on what the SEO services actually include.
• Domain name looks generic, brand name sounds like a meme (“Monkey Digital”? Really?).

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5. Alternative View (If You Wanted to Play Devil’s Advocate)

• Let’s say they do pay. You’re still propping up:
  • A brand that relies on backlinks from unsuspecting site owners
  • SEO services that likely focus on vanity metrics
  • A potential scam that will collapse once Google penalizes them or catches on

The irony is if they were good at SEO, they wouldn’t need your links. They’d be generating content, backlinks, and leads organically through actual value.

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There are ongoing signs that their abilities with copy are not that great…

Think about it, everyone benefit from SEO, so this is a massive opportunity.

This is not even legible English, so their SEO copy is unlikely to be well-written. They have not even double-checked their own mass-mailing before pressing send, so imagine the level of care they would offer to writing the copy on your own website! They are not quality SEO people!

The grammatical error in “Think about it, everyone benefit from SEO…” (it should be “everyone benefits“) is indeed a significant red flag, especially when it comes to a company that’s claiming to offer a professional service like SEO.

Here’s why that seemingly small error is so telling:

1. Professionalism and Attention to Detail:
   • Website Copy: If a company can’t even get basic grammar right in a mass email that’s intended to attract business partners, how can they be trusted to write high-quality, grammatically correct, and compelling website copy for their clients? Good website copy is fundamental to effective SEO, user Engagement, and conversions. Errors undermine credibility.
   • SEO Itself: A core part of good SEO involves creating high-quality, error-free content. Search engines increasingly prioritize well-written, authoritative content. A company that demonstrates such a lack of attention to detail in their own communications suggests they might lack it in the services they provide.
2. Lack of Quality Control:
   • A mass mailing, especially one designed to recruit affiliates and present a business opportunity, should be proofread meticulously. The fact that a basic grammatical error slipped through indicates a severe lack of quality control, oversight, or care in their operations.
   • This suggests they are either:
     • Hurrying through their outreach without proper review.
     • Don’t have native English speakers reviewing their content (which is problematic for a service largely dependent on English-language content).
     • Simply don’t care about presenting a professional image.
3. Trust and Credibility:
   • In an industry like digital marketing, where trust and expertise are paramount, basic errors erode credibility immediately. If they can’t manage their own communication effectively, why should you trust them with your website’s online presence, which is often a critical asset for businesses?
   • It reinforces the idea that their operation might be slapdash, unprofessional, or even a scam. Legitimate businesses invest in clear, correct communication.
4. Target Audience Implication:
   • Sometimes, errors can be deliberate to bypass spam filters (though less common for grammatical errors than odd spellings).
   • More likely, it implies that their target audience for these emails might be less discerning, or that they simply don’t value precise communication. This aligns with the idea that they’re just trying to acquire links cheaply and quickly, rather than build genuine, high-quality partnerships.

This conclusion is absolutely valid. The grammatical error is not just a minor slip; it’s a telling indicator of a broader lack of professionalism and attention to detail that directly contradicts their claims of providing “SEO solutions.” It further solidifies the notion that this is not a high-quality, trustworthy business opportunity. It shouts SCAMMER, not SEO company!

This also highlights a classic marketing line designed to hook potential partners: “Think about it, everyone benefit from SEO, so this is a massive opportunity.”

Let’s dissect this statement in the context of their email and your observations:

The Half-Truth and the Manipulation:

1. The “Truth”: Everyone Can Benefit from SEO.
   • Yes, broadly speaking, SEO can benefit almost any business or individual with an online presence.
   • Increased Visibility: Being found on search engines means more people see your website, products, or services.
   • Organic Traffic: Attracting visitors who are actively searching for what you offer.
   • Credibility & Trust: High rankings often equate to perceived authority and trustworthiness.
   • Cost-Effectiveness (Long Term): Compared to continuous paid advertising, well-executed SEO can deliver sustained traffic without ongoing per-click costs.
   • User Experience: Many SEO best practices (fast loading, mobile-friendliness, good site structure) also improve the user experience.
   So, the statement itself, “everyone benefits from SEO,” isn’t entirely false on its face. It leverages a genuine truth about digital marketing.
2. The “Manipulation”: Connecting Universal Benefit to Their Specific Offer. The manipulative part comes in how they use this broad truth to validate their specific, questionable proposition:
   • Implied Quality: By stating “everyone benefits,” they imply that their SEO solution is universally beneficial and effective. This is a massive leap. Just because SEO is good doesn’t mean their SEO is good, or that their affiliate program will deliver results.
   • Overstating Opportunity (for you): They then link this general benefit to a “massive opportunity” for you as an affiliate. This is where your skepticism kicks in, and rightly so. The “massive opportunity” isn’t about you making substantial money through conversions from irrelevant traffic.
   • Distraction from Their Real Goal: The phrase serves to distract from their actual likely goal: acquiring backlinks. It’s a smokescreen. They want you to focus on the perceived universal demand for SEO (which is true) and the vague promise of “massive opportunity” (which is false for their scheme), rather than question how they acquire affiliates or the quality of their service.
   • Appealing to Greed/Aspiration: It taps into the desire of many website owners to monetize their traffic and leverage popular trends. SEO is a hot topic, and businesses genuinely need it, making the pitch sound plausible to someone less familiar with the nuances of affiliate marketing or black-hat SEO.

In summary:

The line “Think about it, everyone benefit from SEO, so this is a massive opportunity” is a cleverly crafted piece of marketing copy. It uses an undeniable truth (SEO can be beneficial) to:

• Lend credibility to a dubious offer.
• Create urgency and excitement about a “massive opportunity.”
• Redirect attention away from the fundamental flaws of their affiliate model and their likely true objective (backlink acquisition).

It preys on the general understanding that SEO is valuable, hoping you won’t dig deeper into how they plan to deliver that value or how your specific contribution as an affiliate will translate into “massive opportunity” for you.

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Bottom Line:

This isn’t an affiliate program. It’s an SEO scam masquerading as a partnership.

You’re not partnering-you’re being used. It’s cloaked link farming. No legit SEO company sends generic cold emails to scrape links and mask it as “affiliate income.”

Want to know if they really pay? Create a burner site, cloak their links so they don’t get PageRank, and wait. They’ll drop you like a hot rock if the link juice isn’t flowing their way.

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In conclusion, our instincts are likely correct. This email from Monkey Digital appears to be a mass-market, potentially misleading pitch for an affiliate program that might benefit them far more than it benefits you or your audience.

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