---
title: 'The Truth About Digital Marketing: Is It a Scam? PLR, Dropshipping, and Affiliates'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZdmNY41BU5c'
video_id: 'ZdmNY41BU5c'
date: 2026-07-16
duration_sec: 1639
channel: 'Gêmeos Investem'
---

# The Truth About Digital Marketing: Is It a Scam? PLR, Dropshipping, and Affiliates

> Source: [The Truth About Digital Marketing: Is It a Scam? PLR, Dropshipping, and Affiliates](https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZdmNY41BU5c)

## Summary

This video demystifies digital marketing, explaining that it is a means to sell products or services, not an end goal. It critically examines popular online business models like affiliate marketing, PLR, and dropshipping, highlighting their pros, cons, and common misconceptions.

### Key Points

- **Digital Marketing is a Means, Not an End** [00:17] — Digital marketing is a tool to advertise and sell products or services. Companies make money by selling products (e.g., Coca-Cola) or services (e.g., barbershops). Marketing directs customers to these offerings.
- **Evolution of Advertising Channels** [01:22] — Brands advertise where people are: from flyers and billboards to radio, TV, and now the internet (Instagram, Facebook, YouTube). The internet allows targeted ads, unlike traditional mass media.
- **Democratization of Advertising** [04:12] — The internet has lowered advertising costs. Previously, TV ads were expensive; now, anyone can start with as little as R$6 per day on Facebook and target specific audiences by age, income, etc.
- **Advertising Alone Doesn't Guarantee Sales** [05:32] — A good ad is not enough; the product or service must be compelling, and the customer must be convinced. Digital marketing is not a magic bullet.
- **Affiliate Marketing Explained** [06:12] — Affiliates promote other people's courses or products and earn commissions (40-60% of the price). They don't create the product or handle support. Success requires either organic traffic (limited reach) or paid traffic (scalable but risky).
- **Two Ways to Sell as an Affiliate** [10:38] — Organic traffic: promote to your social circle (limited). Paid traffic: run ads on Facebook/Google (scalable but you bear the ad cost; if no sales, you lose money). The product owner only pays commission on sales.
- **Better to Create Your Own Product** [13:24] — For content creators, it's better to create your own course rather than affiliate. You keep 100% of revenue, have control over quality, and build authority. The creators of this video do not sell others' courses.
- **PLR (Private Label Rights) Explained** [14:18] — PLR allows you to buy the right to resell a product (e.g., ebook) as your own. You pay once and can sell unlimited copies. However, the content is often low-quality, and selling without authority is difficult.
- **Problems with PLR** [15:38] — PLR products often make exaggerated claims (e.g., grow 12 cm, cure diabetes). Sellers may create fake authority figures. The real money is often made by selling courses on how to do PLR, not from PLR itself.
- **Alternative: Co-Producer Model** [17:12] — Instead of PLR, partner with an expert (e.g., nutritionist) to create a course. You handle strategy, traffic, and sales, and split revenue. This ensures quality and builds trust.
- **Dropshipping Explained** [19:40] — Dropshipping: create an online store, list products from suppliers (e.g., AliExpress), and only buy the product when a customer orders. No inventory needed. Low barrier to entry.
- **Hidden Costs of Dropshipping** [20:59] — Revenue ≠ profit. Costs include product cost, ad spend, platform fees, taxes (8-10%+), and returns (up to 7 days). A R$50,000 revenue might yield only R$5,000 profit at 10% margin.
- **Challenges for Dropshipping in Brazil** [23:24] — Long shipping times (20-30 days from China) vs. local delivery (1 day) hurt customer satisfaction and repeat purchases. Customers may find cheaper alternatives on AliExpress/Shopee. New tax rules (60% tax on imports) threaten profitability.
- **Final Verdict: Possible but Hard** [26:16] — People have made millions with these models, but it requires building a real company with processes and team. The creators prefer extra income methods (like their course) over these models due to longevity concerns.

### Conclusion

Digital marketing is a powerful tool, but success depends on the business model and execution. Affiliate marketing, PLR, and dropshipping have low barriers to entry but come with significant risks and hidden costs; creating your own product or partnering with experts is often more sustainable.

## Transcript

people online getting rich overnight, even underage ones, saying it's all thanks to digital marketing. In this video, you'll discover the whole truth. The first point everyone needs to understand once and for all is
that digital marketing is not the end goal. So, nobody makes money solely through digital marketing; it's a means. Hold on, you need to understand this first. But we're going to talk about our opinion on PLR, dropshipping, and
affiliate marketing. You might ask, "How can digital marketing be just a means?" That's why we always say it's very important that you have the knowledge and understand how the world works, how a company
makes money selling a product or a service. There's no way around it; it's only in these two ways. The guy who goes there and sells jars of air freshener in your city is selling a product. The barber, the barbershop, goes there and sells the service of getting a haircut, a
barbershop, goes there and sells the service of getting a haircut, a end, it's a service. Coca-Cola sells a product, the famous little red bottle, and what else? Apple, for example, sells both products like iPhones,
example, sells both products like iPhones, MacBooks, AirPods, and so on, as well as services like...  iCloud to have more cloud storage, Apple Music. However, to need someone to consume, you need customers, and to
get those customers, for them to discover your brand, you spend money on marketing. So you have to advertise it somewhere, and where are you going to advertise your product? Where are you going to advertise your service? Where are
people there to see that advertisement? In the past, there was no technology, no cell phones, no TV, no radio, nothing. Where advertise to? They were on the street. So, people are still on the street, right? But
today there are more options. So they would go there, print a flyer, hand it out, make a billboard, right, Renan, with the big brand there? People would drive by and see it. This still exists today in New York, you know, there are a lot of
giant screens advertising things. But we have other options. Besides, time passed, and the first means of communication that came into existence was the radio. So, our families would gather there at night, everyone near the radio, and listen. And
obviously, brands, to sell, will have to go where the people are. So, if people are listening to the radio, they will advertise.  On the radio, then on TV, where are people? Watching TV, whether at home or on the street. So what happens is,
brands go there and pay to advertise on TV, so much so that in the middle of the program, during commercial breaks, there are several ads from various companies. And nowadays, where are people? Obviously, everyone is living their lives,
going to work, on the subway, in the car, but they are inexplicably glued to their famous cell phones. So they are on Instagram, on Facebook, on people are currently. You yourself are right now, on YouTube. And since
everyone is on the internet today, where will companies advertise to sell? So you must have seen it around, you must have been surprised already, right? Renan is watching a video on YouTube peacefully, and suddenly that thing beeps, the
peacefully, and suddenly that thing beeps, the iFood ad. You wake up like that, or you 're on Instagram scrolling through your Story, and suddenly, between one person and another, ads appear, ads appear in the feed, ads appear on Facebook, everywhere.
And companies will always advertise where there is traffic of people. If in the future the metaverse is the place where people go, they will always be there. So everyone is there with the little guy who created it with glasses.  Virtual reality is a parallel reality where
brands advertise. For example, in GT RP (GTA RP – I don't know if you're familiar with it, it's basically playing GTA but simulating real life), several brands have already advertised on servers. There was a food company that advertised, a
server. So, if there's traffic, brands will be paying to appear. The meaning of digital marketing is doing marketing in the digital environment, doing marketing on the internet. And nowadays, any large company with a
vision for the future is on the internet because that's where people are. So, continue growing has to be where people are. If they are on the advertising on the internet.
Magalu, Casas Bahia, any store that sells physical goods is also on the internet, and the internet has democratized this. In the past, for example, to advertise, Casas Bahia would spend millions, and
reais to advertise during prime-time soap operas, even if it 's in the middle of the night, the time when there are few people watching on the most obscure channel possible. Even then it was very expensive. Nowadays, for example, iFood advertises on Google, advertises on
Facebook, you...  You can also advertise in the same way. So, starting from R$6 per day on Facebook, you can already advertise and more money you spend, the more people you reach. In the past, for example,
advertising on TV would reach everyone; today, on the internet, you can segment the audience that will see your ads. So, you can take much more advantage of reaching the right person with your ad. For
most people who consume makeup are women. So, you won't you'll only target the female audience. You can specify the age of this audience, the income level of this audience—you can
creating an ad on Facebook, for example. But anyway, you can see that digital marketing is used to sell, but simply advertising does n't guarantee anything. It doesn't guarantee you'll sell, it doesn't guarantee you
'll make a lot of money. If the ad is bad, nobody will want to click on it; Sometimes the ad might be good, but after clicking on your link and entering your need to buy what you're advertising. Selling, or she may have seen the ad,
liked it, may have entered your website, liked it too, but she wasn't convinced that you're the best option to deliver the product to her. She'll go there, for example. Anyway, here in Brazil, some people have appropriated the name "
digital marketing" to talk specifically about certain business models, so there's dropshipping, affiliate marketing, PLR, and these business models really use this dynamic of advertising online to sell. However, digital marketing is
n't limited to just these business models. We've already shown that any other business uses digital marketing to sell. Let's start with affiliate marketing and how it works. [Imagine someone
saying that now it's Hotmart, everyone will work from home, it's digital marketing, they'll study digital marketing from home,
market that has become very popular and moves a lot of money is the online course market, and I know that many people have prejudice against online courses. So, there really are many bad or even misleading courses, like we've already shown
evaluating Shenmue clothes, that you'll earn money watching TikTok, that you'll...  Making money with the PIC robot... And these people who create these courses should even be in jail for selling these lies. Just as there are
many good courses out there, there are truly serious people entering the So, for example, there are courses for lawyers where the person graduates, knows about law, but doesn't know how to get clients, doesn't know any of that. There are courses
to pass public service exams, so the person doesn't know the tricks to the test, and they teach you how to pass it. For example, there are neuroscientist courses that, through science, show ways for you to be happier, more productive, and
add a lot of value to people's lives. We also sell courses online, so we have "Your Second Salary." We've already had two classes with over 4,000 students, and we teach people how to make extra income, how to get a
second salary at the end of the month using five different methods. For example, airline miles—every time there's a promotion, we sit here, record exactly how it has to buy the points here, you transfer them with bonuses to convert them into airline miles here, and so on.
Selling miles will generate profit, and any student who follows the step-by- step instructions will profit. Last month there was a promotion where you spent R$300 of your credit card limit and received R$500 in profit within 90 days by
selling your miles. You can do this in 30 minutes thanks to the knowledge we provide. Many people say it takes them a week or two to achieve this, and it ends up being extra money that
bills because most of their regular salary goes towards daily expenses and survival. It's extra money you can spend, invest, do whatever you want with, and this is just one of the five ways
course's proposal isn't that you'll become a millionaire, but that you'll generate pocket. Another point: if someone buys our course and doesn't apply anything, they won't make any money. On
live event discussing this further.  To participate, you first need to register using the link in the description. You'll enter your name, email, and WhatsApp number to receive all the information. If you want to change your life and earn more
money by returning to affiliate marketing, you'll be selling online courses. know anything. You'll affiliate yourself with an existing course, and by selling through your link, you earn a commission. Normally, every platform
affiliate and earn commissions. For example, here on Hotmart, any platform see some products you can affiliate with: "Profitable Easter Manual" (it should teach you how to make eggs to sell and earn money), the commission is up
to R$10.33 per product sold. You 'll get your link there, and for each sale you make, you earn up to R$49.34 per sale; "Stretch Mark Removal Method" (up to R$49.34 per sale); " Eyelash Extension Method" (R$40 per course
sold). Normally, the commission you'll earn is between 40% and 60% of the product price. So, for example, someone created this course.  This is a nail extension product, and she's offering it to people to become affiliates and earn
a commission on each sale they make. The maximum price for this product is R$97. This is because it's a base price for the product; you buy it, there are no extras, nothing else that results in that R$97. If
someone buys it paying R$97, you receive R$ 43.45. The advantages of selling as an affiliate are that you don't have to be an expert because you're not the one creating the course or providing support;
your only responsibility is to sell it. Many people get rich with this affiliate marketing in 2023, and I see it with one or more of these products and you'll have to
commission you have to sell. There are two ways to sell the product: the first is through organic traffic. So you'll go to your Instagram or Facebook, promote the course, and try to sell
to someone who follows you, who 's in your circle.  So, product that the people in your social circle who follow you are interested in. Another thing is that what you can sell ends up being limited to
those people. So you can sell to one, two, five people, but after you you'll stop selling. That's why people go to the second method, which is paid traffic. They pay Facebook, Google, or
They pay Facebook, Google, or TikTok to advertise their products, in order to find customers and get more sales. The producer themselves you to create these ads and put them on Facebook and
Google. So you go down here, look, promotional materials folder in the cloud, you'll have materials there to make these ads. Certainly, with paid traffic it's much more scalable; you can sell to many more people. However, the
problem is that you only receive the commission; you don't receive the total value of the product. And you might ask yourself, why does the producer of this course pay you a commission? You can see it's 97.43, almost half the value of the course, just for you to
sell? Because think about it, for them to sell, they have to advertise, and sometimes they...  You'll spend a value very close to what he pays you to acquire a client. So, he's giving you the money to sell; he
client or selling. So he pays a little more, right Renan, than he would spend on traffic for you, and he doesn't have any work chasing sales, and there's no pays when you sell. You can advertise, you
any product; he only pays you when you sell. So, you can spend, for example, R$500 on Facebook to run ads, the ads don't convert, and you don't sell anything, and you'll simply be at a loss. He'll only pay if you make a
sale. You can make money, you can, some people do, but because you don't own the product, you only earn a commission, and you have to spend money to advertise and sell, the margin ends up being tight
because if the person who owns the product and advertises will earn 100% of the sold. If you're an affiliate, you only earn your commission. I see it as a better alternative, for example, "Oh, I want to sell nail courses, start
producing content about it on social media like TikTok and Instagram."  And YouTube, because you go there, develop an audience, and you can sell a audience and earn a commission. So you don't spend money on paid traffic,
expertise. For example, you go there and say, "Wow, look how pretty my nails are! How cool! If you want to learn how to do them like this, buy the course affiliate link and earn your commission. However, for those who are going to create
content, I don't see affiliating with another product as the best option. It's better to create your own product. So, if you create content about nails, for example, go ahead and create your own course on nails because that way you'll have control
really good. And besides, it's not a commission; 100% of what you sell goes into your pocket. We create content for the internet ourselves, and we're not going to sell anyone else's course as an affiliate. We create our
own product that we know is good, that delivers what it promises, and we take responsibility for it. We provide support for our course. Imagine if I came here and sold someone else's course that's rubbish. I linked it to...  My
what the person there is delivering because I'm just an affiliate. Now, in our case, we have total control over what we deliver. Moving on to the famous PLR, for those who don't know, an acronym that stands for Private Label Rights. You might be
wondering, "What the heck is that?" It's the right to resell a product. So basically, in this market, practically speaking, you'll sell info products, whether in the form of a course or an ebook. So, let's say you want to sell
a course that's yours, you don't want to be an affiliate, but you're not an expert in anything. So you search on Google, for example, "book to lose weight," and put PLR there. You buy the right to resell this book as many times as you
want. So you pay... (and it's not royalties, it's a commission, right Renan?) Like with affiliate marketing, you buy once, you can sell to as many people as can sell this product to. In other words, you paid once, let's say 15, and the
right to sell this product is yours. And what this person will do is take the content, usually in English, translate an ebook, for example, and make this ebook...  Okay, so he's going to create or transform it into a
create a sales page, usually make a sales video, and start running ads to drive people to that sales page, whether on Instagram, Facebook, or Google. Then the person will watch the short video, and at the
end, there will be an option to buy it. I 'm not saying everyone does this, huge problem in this market. Think about it: ebook to lose weight. Do you think it's going to be well-made content? Do you think it's
going to be the best content on the market about weight loss? And another thing, do you really think it's easy for someone to be willing to pay R$50 or R$100 for an ebook? It 's really difficult. People who do PLR love to say that they sell without showing their face,
that they don't depend on their image, but it 's even harder to sell a book without the image, without the authority of someone behind it. There's no nutritionist behind it, no endocrinologist giving
authority to the book you're selling, and then in the sales video to convince people.  The audience is eager to buy it, so the guy goes and appeals to them, he creates a non-existent doctor with authority behind that product, invents that he discovered the
secret formula, the combination of some vitamins that will make you burn vitamins that will make you burn fat even without exercising, even without dieting, and there's PLR for everything you can imagine. I've seen PLR that
says I'll grow 12 cm, 2 cm is a huge difference, enormous, 12 is enormous, obviously it's impossible to grow after adulthood, but the guy runs ads saying that. I've even seen PLR that says you'll grow to the size of a
cassava, I've also seen PLR that says it will cure diabetes, it's really worrying. It's possible to make a serious PLR with a tangible proposal of something that actually works, it's certainly possible. I 'm not saying that everyone
who sells PLR does this kind of nonsense, but it's certainly what will sell the most are these miraculous proposals, these in this area of ​​digital marketing and was starting now, I would prefer to
create my own course, and if I had no specialization and knew nothing, what I would do would be... co-producer then  I would look for someone with nutritionist, a language teacher, or a psychologist. I would make the
course. You know what you're delivering here; you're an authority, you'll deliver what really works, and I'll take care of all the strategic aspects of launching the course. I'll manage the WhatsApp groups, drive
traffic, handle your positioning, decide what we 'll talk about in the launch live stream to convince people to buy, and I'll earn a percentage of the sales." I see that it's much harder to actually sell something of value, to
deliver a good product, than to become an expert like some people do, making those sales videos, delivering them to people, and where someone comes along and says, "I sold 50 million in PLR
ebooks on weight loss." Where these people really make money is by selling courses on how to do PLR. But they want you to believe they sold without showing their face, that they sold the ebooks, sold PLR, and earned all that money, and that
's it.  If someone who sells PLR (Profit Sharing) launches a course on how to sell PLR and earns more money from the course than selling the PLR ​​itself, there's no problem. The problem is wanting to say that they earn much more money doing PLR when
often they're not even running PLR anymore, they're just selling the course. We ourselves have our "Extra Income, Your Second Salary" course, and in the last class we sold more than R$ [amount missing].  800,000... I'm not fooling anyone, I'll say it straight up: our course isn't meant
you to make extra income. So you can make 1,000, 3,000, 5,000. There are students who have even made R$10,000 in a month. We and our team really apply the earn money to obviously validate and teach the students. However, where the
real money comes in is with course sales. In the last class, the second class, we sold R$1,800,000, and I'll tell everyone upfront: you won't earn R$800 just by following the methods. You'll earn what's possible, which we
show through the methods. In less than a year on YouTube and AdSense, we earned over R$1 million, and our course isn't for that. So if it makes sense for you to have a second salary, an extra income of 1,000,
3,000, 5,000, or R$10,000, it depends on your dedication. You go there and...  Buy now! If your goal is to become a millionaire overnight, our course isn't for you. And I'll be honest, I believe no course will make you a
value transparency, which is why we always tell you the truth here. Finally, we have dropshipping. For those who do n't know, it works like this: nowadays, the e-commerce market for selling physical products online is very
popular. So you can buy something online, and it will arrive at your house, from online, and it will arrive at your house, from a fork or a mouse to a refrigerator or a stove. However, in the traditional model, to sell
the stock at home. So, if I want to sell mice, I'll have to have the mice to deliver to the customer who will buy from me. In this have the stock of the product you're selling. So, for example, I
create an online store and put several products up for sale, testing them. You create your store, you generate traffic to bring people to it, you run ads on Instagram, Facebook, and Google, and people will find your
store.  You'll be able to test all of this, and if someone goes there to buy a product, spent anything. From the moment they buy it, you go there, buy it from the This model has a very positive point: the barrier to entry is very
low because, after all, you create your store, test various products, and only when you sell it do you buy and deliver it to your end consumer. But it also has its
negative points, starting with the profit margin. Not that it's a problem, but it's because sometimes many people end up being misled, right? So, for example, you go there, see your favorite dropshipper, open their store's dashboard, whether it's
open their store's dashboard, whether it's Shopify or Yamp, and it shows, "Wow, I made R$50,000 this month!" You think, "Wow, this guy is killing it!" Not everyone, but some people think that; they think it's profit. No, all that money goes into
their account. However, that R$50,000 is what went into their account. Now you have to deduct the costs they incurred to make that profit. Starting with the product, you don't need to have inventory, but when someone buys the
Chinese supplier and ship it to the customer's home. Typically, in these dropshipping models, to make a profit, for example, someone sees a pair of pliers on AliExpress for R$3.30. To make a profit, they advertise these pliers for R$
90 in their store. So, first, they have to pay the cost of the product. Another traffic. Because you have your store, great, but people won't just arrive at your advertise to bring them there and make sales. Besides that, you spend
money testing various products. So, for example, you test a product, spend money on traffic, and if it doesn't sell, you'll spend money on several of these products until one of them starts selling. A company will
a fee for that too. Remember, the government and your business partner also have to pay taxes. If the person is under the Simples Nacional tax regime and earns around R$50,000 per Nacional tax regime and earns around R$50,000 per month, their tax will be between 8% and 10% or
even more.  In other words, the return comes out of your revenue. There's the Consumer Protection Code here in Brazil, so if a customer buys your product, they have up to 7 days to return it to you. You have to reimburse them at no
cost, and there doesn't need to be any justification. If the person bought it, looked at it, and didn't like it, they return it. That loss is also yours. So this applies to any company, not just dropshipping companies that have their
costs. All companies have their costs. So don't think that if someone made R$50,000, that's R$50,000 going into their pocket. If the profit margin is 10%, what actually went into their pocket was R$5,000. You have to understand how a
sometimes someone comes along and says it's not about making R$ 10,000, it's not difficult, but 10,000 that goes into your pocket. If your margin is 10%, what effectively went into your pocket was R$1,000.  I know that many people have actually made
money with dropshipping, but I see that it's getting harder every day. Think about it: today you buy a product on Mercado Livre (Brazilian online marketplace) and in major cities it arrives at your house on the same day, or at most a day later.
Someone buying from a dropshipping store will have the product shipped from China, meaning it will take 20-30 days to arrive. Do you think that person will be satisfied waiting all that time when Mercado Livre here in Brazil delivers in one day? That's the thing; you'll
have customers who will bother you every day and never buy from your store again because of the delays. So you spend money on customer you acquired doesn't have LTV (Lifetime Value), they won't buy from
make a sale, you'll have to spend money on ads. I have a colleague who owns a company and sells on Mercado Livre; he delivers one day, the customer buys once, then buys again through dropshipping. This is much more difficult
because of the delivery time. Another point is that in 2018 and 2019, express shipping was common for buying internationally from outside Brazil.  It wasn't as popular back then, but nowadays it's much more popular. Even AliExpress, you go to the website and everything is in
Portuguese, right? Some people buy things without even knowing what's coming from China. The payment is in Reais (Brazilian currency), meaning it's much more popular to buy from China or from Many people come across an ad, look, a product that looks good,
go to a dropshipping store, then they go to AliExpress Shopee, see it's 1/3 of the price, and end up buying it there. Now comes another problem: in the past, these cheap dropshipping products, up to R$50, passed through customs without tax, and
they did. However, this R$50 rule that everyone's talking about already existed, but it was for individual to individual transactions. So theoretically, you had to pay tax, but in practice, if you were going through, you would n't pay anything. Now
the government wants to tax even individual-to-individual transactions, and why do they want to do this? Because in the past, it was obviously possible to tell if it was an individual or a company. But since the taxation applies to both companies and
simply tax everything, even if it's less than R$100.  50 So if this really happens, it will become very complicated for people who do dropshipping and import from China. Imagine all the products they sell;
you'll have to add 60% more in taxes, plus the ICMS (a Brazilian sales tax) which varies from state to state. Dropshipping will die because of this. I strongly believe not, because as long as e-commerce exists, dropshipping will exist. But they will need to
reinvent themselves because of this. If it really happens, they will have to have suppliers in Brazil. Something will have to happen for this business to sell via dropshipping and make a profit, they had to sell for much more than the
normal price on AliExpress. Now, with 60% more tax, they will have to include it in the price they are charging because it's not the customer who will pay coming from China. In short, any
can make money, and the truth is, it's possible. There have been people who have made millions doing this and still do, for sure. You can start small, but to reach that level of making millions is because
you have developed a company. So you  He went there, created processes, knows how everything works, trained people, hired people, and actually has a company that operates in the digital market. If someone asks me if I would do any of these types
of businesses, the answer is no, because of all the experience I have problems I've shown, I see that these aren't businesses with very long longevity. But I'll mention an extremely positive point about all this:
the barrier to entry is extremely low. You can start start a business you had to have a much larger initial investment, and here in the digital world you can start with very little, and the potential you have to grow
start changing your life, I prefer extra income. So don't forget to the 8th (link in the description), and until the next video.