Diary of an Affiliate Marketer
There has been a lot written this week on the rulings of the FTC. The rulings have an impact on anyone carrying out the business of affiliate marketing.
The FTC, as in the government, issued new rules for endorsements which is something we as affiliate marketers are doing every day when we send someone to a product page through our affiliate link .
To explain the ruling in its simplest terms you must issue some type of disclosure of financial
incentive. How this is achieved is entirely up to us the webmasters and affiliate marketers. To quote Richard Cleland of the FTC:
“That’s left up to the endorser,” said Richard Cleland, assistant director of the FTC’s division of advertising practices. “It can be a banner, part of the review. The only requirement is that it be clear and conspicuous.”
This ruling will have a huge impact on a lot of affiliate marketers and I’m sure there is going to be a lot said and written across the internet now that the rulings are public.
I for one think this is a good thing.
Why?
Well I think affiliate marketing had been abused by some people who had their interests at heart and not the visitors. Too many people think of the internet business, the online business, as a faceless sales process where people can get rich.
Unfortunately for them, the internet business is like any other real business. People buy from people they trust and relationships have to be built. Many of the successful affiliate marketers are successful because they have built up trust over the years through their emails and newsletters.
Their customers look forward to receiving their newsletters and emails because it brings something of value to them. For instance I am a member of the Perry Marshall Mastermind Club.
Perry is recognized the world over as one of the masters of Google Adwords and has written the successful book The Definitive Guide to Google Adwords which has been updated this year to move with the market and the changes to Google.
Now I and many others at The System (over 65%) look forward to receiving his newsletters and emails because they are full of the latest valuable information to do with making money online.
In the meantime I also get hundreds of spam emails trying to get me on the latest ‘acai berry diet’ sell me ‘watches’ online or tell me I’m not performing well in bed!
To make things worse there are a lot of false blogs out there called ‘flogs’ which are affiliate sites promoting things like ‘acai berry diets’. These flogs provide before and after images which have usually been manipulated using software such as Adobe Photoshop.
The flogs are deliberately misleading and I for one do not want people like that in the affiliate market industry. Anyone who has ever been involved in selling will tell you it takes 10 good sales to get one good referral but it only takes one person’s bad experience to tell 10 others.
We will have to see how all this pans out in the near future because I believe the deadline for putting your website in order and declaring your financial interests is this December.
I’ll take time out to study the report tomorrow and see what is happening.
By the way, in keeping with what the FTC is trying to do in forcing a better affiliate marketing industry, the links on this page are affiliate links because I am proud to be associated with these people and the work that they do.
If you don’t want to go to their websites through these affiliate links you can always go direct to their websites … either way I still fully endorse their products and services.
