Affiliate marketing has made headlines across mainstream news outlets recently, due to the controversy surrounding PayPal Honey.
The backlash, galvanised by YouTuber MegaLag and his video ‘Exposing the Honey Influencer Scam’, has generated a wider discourse around the fairness and accountability of affiliate tracking and attribution.
In the video, which has now reached over 14 million views, MegaLag lambasts Honey’s affiliate programme and business, calling it a “scam” that “steals money from influencers.”
The video has inspired reactions from other big-name YouTubers. Penguinz0 published a video titled ‘Biggest Scam in YouTube History’, which has garnered almost 10 million views, and another from Marques Brownlee has amassed over 5 million views.
Notable influencers like Austin Evans stated he will “under no circumstances, work with Honey ever again.” Hank Green made a video titled “The Honey Scam and the Ridiculous Mess of Affiliate Marketing.”
These reactions have not just translated to negative press. Honey has reportedly suffered a drop of 3 million users in the wake of this backlash.
One YouTube creator, LegalEagle, has now filed a class-action lawsuit “seeking damages in the form of the money” for the “billions” that Honey “prevented from reaching creators.”
The opprobrium has extended to other browser extensions too, both Pie and Capital One Shopping have come under fire in recent weeks.
The reactions are raw, but there is the potential for this to have a long-term damaging effect on PayPal Honey and even the perception of browser extensions in general.
Why influencers are unhappy with Honey
Over the past few years, Honey has been one of the most popular affiliate partners among influencers. MegaLag states that Honey has been promoted by over 1,000 YouTube channels, including some of the platform's biggest names, like Mr. Beast and Emma Chamberlain.
But now, sentiments have changed for a number of creators.
MegaLag outlines a few reasons why he believes Honey to be a scam, including accusations of false advertising and not being transparent to consumers. However, arguably his main contention is that Honey overrides affiliate link cookies for influencers, stealing the last-click attribution for itself.
He states that when a consumer clicks on an influencer's affiliate link but later uses Honey, the influencer's affiliate cookie is overwritten by Honey's. As a result, Honey claims the commission for the sale originally driven by the influencer.
PayPal Honey has responded officially, saying, “Honey follows industry rules and practices, including last-click attribution."
While the business has its detractors right now, several voices in the affiliate world have come forth defending it, pointing out the misunderstandings of affiliate tracking prevalent in a lot of mainstream coverage of this story and the original video itself.
In Honey’s defense
