Is Yoonla a Scam? The Seemingly Good System Revealed!
​​​​Welcome to my Yoonla review!
Chances are, someone has just recommended to you about this awesome platform where you can join for FREE and earn $2 - $4 per lead.
So, is Yoonla a scam?
You've definitely come to the right place to find out...
Yoonla Review Summary
Product Name: Yoonla
Founder: Founded by New Zealand based digital entrepreneur, Reno Van Boven, in September 2016
Product Type: CPA Affiliate Marketing Program
Price: Free Starter Membership + Upsells
Best For: Anyone who wants to make money online
Summary: Yoonla is a decent Cost Per Action Affiliate Marketing program. You can make money with Yoonla but you're restricted to ONLY promote Yoonla membership. The more referrals you can recruit, the more money you can make. You can't build your online business in any niche you want and promote any products you like.
Rating: 45/100
Recommended: Not Really
More...
This is going to be a long and in-depth review of Yoonla, so I hope this navigation menu can help you find the information you need:
What is Yoonla?
Yoonla claims themselves to be the "Digital Lifestyle Platform" to help people become "Digital Entrepreneurs", make money online and create the lifestyle they want.
On the surface, this is just like any other Make Money Online (MMO) opportunities out there promising people to change their lives.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not judging a book by its cover. In this Yoonla review, I'll prove to you why I don't recommend this program.
Anyway, telling people they're a "Digital Lifestyle Platform" is similar to telling nothing. What does Digital Lifestyle mean?? It's just a fancy term that sounds cool. Agree?
So, let me explain to you what Yoonla is all about...
Yoonla is a CPA affiliate marketing program where people make money mostly by referring new members into Yoonla.
They have step-by-step training to guide you on how to set up your own lead generation system and drive traffic to it so that more people will join under you.
What is CPA?
CPA stands for Cost Per Action, which means you get paid when you invite people to take certain actions. For example, it can be watching a video, completing a survey or visiting certain websites.
In the case of Yoonla, you get paid whenever someone joins the platform for FREE. As long as they sign up as a free member and the system verifies that they're real person, you get paid anywhere between $2 - $4.
What is Affiliate Marketing?
Affiliate Marketing is a business model where you can make money by promoting other people's products. When people purchase anything through your affiliate link, you get paid.
In the case of Yoonla, you'll have your affiliate link to invite people to join the platform. And you get paid when they pay a fee to upgrade their membership.
That's affiliate marketing in action.
I'm Jerry!
I Created My Own 4-Figure Monthly Passive Income at just 21 Years Old!​
Inside Yoonla
Phase 1, 2 & 3
Yoonla was created in September 2016. They planned to roll out their platform in 3 different phases.
Phase 1 was called Yoonla Foundation and it was closed in December 2017.
If you happen to read other older Yoonla reviews, they only talked about Yoonla Foundation which only has 5 steps in their Starter Membership Dashboard.
As for Phase 2, it's called Yoonla Evolve and it's currently opened. It has 7 steps in their Starter Membership Dashboard.
Phase 3 is not available yet. I'll update this review in the future once Phase 3 is out.
Below are the 7 steps Yoonla Evolve has in their Free Starter Membership Dashboard. Every step has a short video to guide you so you won't be lost:
Step 1: Evolve App & Commission Tracking
This step is for you to download the Yoonla Evolve App file. This Zip file is needed for you to upload to your "website" to create a custom landing page.
Step 2: Create Automation Account
This is also a very straightforward step. Basically, they need you to pay $15/month to sign up for GetResponse.
GetResponse is an Email Service Provider (ESP) for you to collect subscribers' Emails and follow-up with them.
In their video, Reno said that you MUST not only sign up fro GetResponse, but you MUST also sign up through his link.
This is a red flag to me. GetResponse is the only compatible ESP for Yoonla so you must get it even though you may already have other ESP.
Not only that, he said you MUST join through his link so that they can track it easily and approve your Elite Membership.
But in reality, I'm 100% sure that he request you to join through his link because he wants to earn affiliate commission!
Step 3: Set Up Automation Campaign
You're going to set up your Email autoresponder in this step. It teaches you how to do that in GetResponse so that you can send automated Emails to your subscribers.
Also, you'll be provided with a pre-written Email Swipe Files so that you don't have to write your own Emails. You can just copy and paste it to your autoresponder.
Step 4: Create Small Business Account
Basically, this step is for you to purchase your own Yahoo Web Hosting so that you can have your own domain to host your Yoonla landing page.
Once again, Reno kept emphasizing that you MUST sign up through his link so that their Yoonla Evolve system can track your progress and approve your Elite membership.
But I firmly believe, he is just trying to make more affiliate commissions from you.
Step 5: Get Your Evolve App Online
In this step, you'll be guided on how to set up your Yahoo Web Hosting account, how to download FileZilla and how to use FileZilla to upload your Yoonla Evolve App Zip file to your domain.
Step 6: Customize Your Evolve Site
After uploading your Yoonla Evolve App Zip file, your basic landing page will be available. It'll look something like this:
Then you'll be guided on how to "customize" your landing page by changing the texts in the page below:
I really hate using the word "customize" here because you're really not customizing your landing page. You can't change the design at all. All you can do is to change the texts, such as your site title, headline, footer text, etc.
Let me repeat myself, you can't change the design of the landing page at all!
That's why at certain point, they'll recommend you to invest in LeadPages to create your custom landing page.
Step 7: Activate Your Evolve Funnel
This is the final step of your Yoonla Evolve Free Starter Membership.
All you'll be doing to to fill up a form to upgrade to their Elite Membership:
Basically, you're going to let them know your GetResponse order ID, API key and Yahoo Small Business log in details.
They said that this is for them to verify you as a qualified Yoonla affiliate and for them to help you set up your campaign.
Well, I'm pretty skeptical about that. I think it's more for them to confirm that you've purchased GetResponse and Yahoo Small Business using their affiliate link.
Anyway, once you've completed this form, they'll verify and get back to you within 24 hours.
Once you're approved as an Elite Member, here's what you'll get:
- More advanced training on things like split-testing, conversion optimization, funnel optimization, traffic generation
- Access to Yoonla Private Facebook Group
- Live Q&A session with Reno and other top digital marketers
- Most importantly, the eligibility to earn commission from Yoonla
Recommended: This is how I create a 4-Figure Monthly Passive Incom e at 21 years old...
How Much Does Yoonla Cost?
Yoonla's Starter Membership is Free to join.
But I'm really disappointed at their Starter Membership because it has very little value. The step-by-step training is all about asking you to purchase their affiliate tools and upgrade to Elite membership.
Anyway, here's what it'll cost you to be able to start earning commission from Yoonla...
- GetResponse - $15/month
- Yahoo Small Business - $12/month for hosting & $16 for domain name
These are the two main costs involved for now.
How to Make Money with Yoonla?
Like I've explained, Yoonla is all about promoting their own membership. To make money with Yoonla, you're going to promote their membership.
Here are the overall steps involved:
- Set up your Yoonla landing page
- Drive traffic to your landing page (mainly paid traffic)
- Build your Email list
- Follow up with your subscribers
- Promote Yoonla Free Starter Membership
- Make $2 - $4 for every Free Sign Ups (CPA in action)
- Make around $30 for every lead that upgrades to Yoonla Elite Member
These 7 steps are different from the 7 steps in the Yoonla Starter Membership I listed above.
This is the entire process of how the whole Yoonla system works while the 7 steps listed earlier on is how you get started with Yoonla.
How Does Yoonla Make Money?
So, if Yoonla pays you for every FREE referral you invite despite they don't upgrade, how are they going to sustain in the long run? In other words, how are they going to make money?
I believe this is one of the most common questions about Yoonla. So let me explain to you...
Yoonla is making their money from the following 3 ways:
1. Affiliate Commission
When you join Yoonla, the Free training will guide you to sign up with GetResponse, Yahoo Web Hosting and LeadPages as 3 of the necessary tools for you to build your online business according to them.
In fact, the links included in the training are Yoonla's own affiliate links. Or should I say they're Reno's own affiliate links.
This means when you join any of the products through their link and pay something, Yoonla earns an affiliate commission.
Yoonla is smart because the tools they require you to sign up all require either a monthly or yearly fee. Which means, Yoonla will keep making money as long as people pay for these services.
Personally, I don't think that should be the right way for a company to make money from its customers.
They ask you to get these tools but in turn they earn commissions.
2. Membership Upgrade
The main purpose of Yoonla's Free Starter Membership is to make you upgrade to their Elite Membership.
The Elite Membership cost $297. Out of this $297, they'll pay their affiliates 60% commission, which means they will earn $118.80 per Elite upgrade.
Currently, upgrading to Elite is Free. All you need to do is to subscribe for GetResponse and Yahoo Web Hosting.
So they're only earning affiliate commissions from you for now. They'll start earning from your Elite Membership upgrade once they start charging the full $297.
3. Email Marketing
Since Yoonla is a CPA affiliate marketing program, they have a huge Email list in their system. Don't underestimate the power of these Emails.
As long as you have a huge active Email list, you can monetize it in a lot of ways. For example, you can promote your affiliate offers or participate in Solo Ads.
I'm not sure how Yoonla is monetizing their Email subscribers but the fact that they have lots of Emails allows them to monetize however they want.
Pros & Cons
The Good
1. Huge Members Base
According to Reno, they've acquired 1.2 Million members during Phase 1. And currently, they have over 1.5 Million members worldwide.
To be honest, this is an incredible number and achievement. My top recommended platform Wealthy Affiliate, only has 1.3 Million members to date.
So having a huge members base definitely shows some credibility for Yoonla.
However, a more important statistic is actually the amount of ACTIVE members.
Wealthy Affiliate has over 10K active members every month​. I'm not so sure for Yoonla.
Due to the CPA nature of the program, I doubt they have that many active members. I'm guessing that a lot of members just come and go because they want to earn fast money.
If you know the stats, correct me if I'm wrong.
2. No Hype
Another good thing about Yoonla is that they are different from many of the scammy products in the make money online niche today.
After reviewing so many scam products, I can easily recognize what techniques they are using.
In the case of Yoonla, Reno is actually pretty honest and sincere in his welcome video and how he delivers the contents.
He doesn't promise you any income guarantee or give any hints that you can make money very easily.
3. Step-by-Step Training
Despite their Starter Membership training has very little value, I like how their platform is structured. You can easily navigate inside the platform and the step-by-step training is pretty easy-to-follow.
4. Lucrative CPA Program
Earning $2 - $4 per lead is actually quite lucrative as a CPA program.
Take a look at this guy. He's earning almost $2K in 6 days:
​This doesn't mean you can easily earn $2K just like this guy. He is a very experienced internet marketer. That's why he's able to do that in such a short period of time.
But the thing we can learn from this is that Yoonla's CPA program can be lucrative if you know how to do it.
The Bad
1. 'Pay to Play'
Yoonla has a Free Starter Membership. But you really can't do much with it. Like I've mentioned earlier on, the main purpose of the Free Starter Membership is for you to upgrade to Elite.
You can only start earning commission with an Elite Membership. Before that, you'll have to pay for your GetResponse and Yahoo hosting fees already.
And the cost of Elite Membership is said to be $297. So, isn't this another 'Pay-to-Play' program?
Real affiliate marketing doesn't require you to pay in order to promote. The basic costs only involve your website domain and hosting.
My rule is very simple: As long as you need to PAY in order to promote something in affiliate marketing, stay away from it.
Take Wealthy Affiliate as an example, it is my top recommended platform to learn and earn from affiliate marketing.
They also have a Free Starter Membership and a Premium Membership. But you can start building your website and start making money with just a Starter Membership.
Premium Membership allows you to get more training, tools, support and a higher commission rate. But that doesn't mean you can only make money as a Premium Member.
So that's the difference between a good and a lousy program.
2. Costly Paid Traffic
The training at Yoonla focuses on using paid method to drive traffic to your landing page. More specifically, they focus on Solo Ads using a platform called Udimi.
Basically, Solo Ads means that you're paying someone with a huge Email list to send promotional Email to their subscribers.
Solo Ads can be effective if you get it right. But it can also be very ineffective and costly if you don't know what you're doing.
You may see stats about the list of subscribers but you don't know how the seller obtain those leads. There's a certain risks involved.
The biggest problem happens when beginners are trying to get the hang of this traffic source. It can cost up to hundreds or thousands of dollars. Most beginners don't have that capital to invest in the first place.
That's why I believe beginners should not start with paid traffic. My top recommended traffic method is free organic traffic from search engines.
Despite it may be slow in the beginning, the traffic is free and targeted.
However, Yoonla doesn't talk anything about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and content marketing.
All they want is to drive fast traffic to see results. They even promise that once you become an Elite Member of Yoonla, their team will be running traffic campaigns for you. I highly doubt so.
3. Pyramid Scheme?
No, Yoonla is not a pyramid scheme. BUT the whole business model is all about recruiting as many members into the platform as possible.
Yes, you may be earning some extra cash. It's possible to make money with Yoonla. But do you really think Yoonla prepares you to become a truly independent Internet Marketer to promote and sell anything you want?
NO!
You won't be able to learn how to set up your own real online business in any niche you want. All you are required to do is to drive traffic and get as much referrals as you can.
I understand that Yoonla said you can use the training to promote any product you like.
Yes you can. But the problem is that you don't know how, unless you're already an experienced internet marketer.
That's why I said Yoonla doesn't prepare you to promote any product you like.
4. Only Compatible with GetResponse
Yoonla's system is only compatible with GetResponse. Even if you already have an existing ESP, you can't use it for Yoonla. You still have to create a GetResponser account and pay for it.
Personally, I like ConvertKit and I don't think I'm going to switch to GetResponse and pay for it. So if you already have your own ESP which you're used to, then this is going to be a problem for you with Yoonla.
5. Fake Website
This is a very common problem for many programs. They promise you upfront that you'll be building your own website.
But in reality, you're just building a landing page to collect Emails. This is the same for Yoonla.
Your Yoonla Evolve App is all about setting up a lead generation page for you to collect Emails and follow-up with them to promote Yoonla membership.
The good thing about Yoonla is that at least you're purchasing your own domain and hosting, which means the landing page belongs to you.
Some programs are even worse. They promote their services by claiming that you can get a "FREE Website". Instead, it's just a landing page which does not even belong to you.
If you want to own your page, you need to pay for the domain and hosting.
Any program that promise you for a free website, it's usually just a subdomain website.
Is Yoonla a Scam?
No, Yoonla is not a scam. But I really don't recommend it to you. Here's why...
Like I've mentioned earlier on, Yoonla is all about recruiting people. The more referrals you can get under you, the more money you can make.
Another thing about Yoonla is that the entire system has been DONE-FOR-YOU towards promoting Yoonla membership.
The good thing is that you don't need to learn everything since the system is already in place for you. But the problem is that it restricts you to ONLY promote Yoonla.
You can't build your online business in any niche or market you want. Even if you try to, it's very hard for you to succeed, simply because Yoonla doesn't prepare you for that.
You won't learn the necessary skills to operate your own website and your own online business to make money.
A Much Better Way to Make Money Online
For me, I'll definitely stay away from Yoonla because I don't want to be restricted and limited to only promote their membership. I want to have the freedom to run any online business I want.
It can be more challenging but I believe the benefits and reward you can reap is also much higher.
The good news here is that there is a system that teaches you step-by-step on how to build your own online business from scratch.
You can build your website in whatever niche you like and promote whatever products you're passionate about. That's the real way to do affiliate marketing, not being restricted to only promote one product.
Wealthy Affiliate is my top recommended platform for you to learn and earn from affiliate marketing.
This is the platform that allows me to build websites like the one your reading right now and make a consistent passive income every single month.
You're not able to build your own website with Yoonla for sure. All they do is to help you build a landing page to collect Email address and guide your leads to sign up for Yoonla.
So the choice is yours. Yoonla has its advantages but I believe that's not the right way to do affiliate marketing in the long run.
I hope this makes sense to you. Below is a quick comparison table between Wealthy Affiliate and Yoonla:
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Have questions? Leave them in the comments below and I'll get back to you ASAP. If you are or you were an Yoonla member, do share with us your experience as well 🙂