Sunday, October 11, 2009
New FTC Regulations on Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently released new guidelines concerning paid sponsorships, product reviews, recommendations and blogging. You can view the document here and I suggest you read it as its is important to know what you should and should not be doing as an affiliate or merchant.
There has been a considerable amount of discussion about this new document and what effect it will have on affiliate marketing. The following is some of the more interesting and useful blog posts about the subject:
I see from the comments to these blogs there is alot of confusion about the topic. Here are my views on the subject that may or may not help.
1. This is only applicable to USA. If you live outside the USA then FTC has no jurisdiction over you. However your own country probably already has rules regarding this issue and may in fact be more restrictive than what this new guideline says anyway. I think its generally good practice to ensure you follow the rules of major developed countries such as USA, UK, Australia, Canada.
2. Dont lie or deceive. If you knowingly make false statements or deceive people then then you deserve to be punished. I have always thought it was illegal to make false statements in your advertising.
3. Disclaimers. It is probably wise to have a look at your disclaimer on your web sites and make sure they comply with the new guidelines. You may need to state that you may earn a commission from any sales resulting from links on your site. You may also need to disclose if you received advertising payments or any other benefits from sites that you mention or link to.
Please note that I am not a lawyer so none of this is legal advice. If you are concerned then seek out the services of a legal professional. I have a list of affiliate programs in the Legal industry that may help.
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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has recently released new guidelines concerning paid sponsorships, product reviews, recommendations and blogging. You can view the document here and I suggest you read it as its is important to know what you should and should not be doing as an affiliate or merchant.
There has been a considerable amount of discussion about this new document and what effect it will have on affiliate marketing. The following is some of the more interesting and useful blog posts about the subject:
- Permanent Link to Bloggers, Product Reviews, and the FTC Regulations by Shareasale
- The Sky Is Not Falling - But This Is Definitely a “Game Changer”… by Chris Rempel
- Watch out for headless chickens by Charles Kirkland
- New FTC Thing Is A Bigger Deal Than You Might Think by Frank Kern.
- New Advertising Guidelines from the FTC from Performance Marketing Alliance which is the main industry association for affiliates.
I see from the comments to these blogs there is alot of confusion about the topic. Here are my views on the subject that may or may not help.
1. This is only applicable to USA. If you live outside the USA then FTC has no jurisdiction over you. However your own country probably already has rules regarding this issue and may in fact be more restrictive than what this new guideline says anyway. I think its generally good practice to ensure you follow the rules of major developed countries such as USA, UK, Australia, Canada.
2. Dont lie or deceive. If you knowingly make false statements or deceive people then then you deserve to be punished. I have always thought it was illegal to make false statements in your advertising.
3. Disclaimers. It is probably wise to have a look at your disclaimer on your web sites and make sure they comply with the new guidelines. You may need to state that you may earn a commission from any sales resulting from links on your site. You may also need to disclose if you received advertising payments or any other benefits from sites that you mention or link to.
Please note that I am not a lawyer so none of this is legal advice. If you are concerned then seek out the services of a legal professional. I have a list of affiliate programs in the Legal industry that may help.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
New Affiliate Programs
These are my pick of the best new affiliate programs this week.
EZtrader - Options Trading
EZTrader.com is a revolutionary binary options trading platform. The simplicity and speed of EZTrader's binary options trading system and the low minimum investment amount, attracts sophisticated investors as well as trading beginners. EZTrader.com offers its traders a payout of up to 75% on every investment.
$180 CPA
High converting growing niche
Dedicated Affiliate Management
Large selection of creatives
2nd Tier
Join the program here.
Free trip to Costa Rica
NeverBlue Ads Affiliate Network is offering to take their top twenty Affiliates on an all expenses paid vacation to Costa Rica! This 4 day, 3 night all inclusive adventure will allow you to mingle with the best of the best in the Affiliate Marketing industry while taking in all of the luxuries and adventure Costa Rica has to offer. Winners will be the top revenue producers and also those with the highest increase so that means even new affiliates can win and there is still plenty of time left.
CBengine
ClickBank Product Analysis Tool
I have a pro membership at CBengine to help me identify profitable products at ClickBank to promote. This week has one new killer product:
SpreadProof Football Picks
Affiliates Earn $137 Per Sale. What If You Could Take Any Amount Of Money And Invest It In 5% Increments Over The Course Of 3 Months And Turn It Into 300% More Than You Started Every Year? With SpreadProof Football Picks You Can Do Just That.
Upcoming events
BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2009, 15th-17th October, Las Vegas
Use the coupon code BWESEP20 to save 20% on BlogWorld registration.
PPC Summit, 4 - 5 November, Chicago
Affiliate Summit, 3-4 December, Las Vegas
(0) comments
These are my pick of the best new affiliate programs this week.
EZtrader - Options Trading
EZTrader.com is a revolutionary binary options trading platform. The simplicity and speed of EZTrader's binary options trading system and the low minimum investment amount, attracts sophisticated investors as well as trading beginners. EZTrader.com offers its traders a payout of up to 75% on every investment.
$180 CPA
High converting growing niche
Dedicated Affiliate Management
Large selection of creatives
2nd Tier
Join the program here.
Free trip to Costa Rica
NeverBlue Ads Affiliate Network is offering to take their top twenty Affiliates on an all expenses paid vacation to Costa Rica! This 4 day, 3 night all inclusive adventure will allow you to mingle with the best of the best in the Affiliate Marketing industry while taking in all of the luxuries and adventure Costa Rica has to offer. Winners will be the top revenue producers and also those with the highest increase so that means even new affiliates can win and there is still plenty of time left.
CBengine
ClickBank Product Analysis Tool
I have a pro membership at CBengine to help me identify profitable products at ClickBank to promote. This week has one new killer product:
SpreadProof Football Picks
Affiliates Earn $137 Per Sale. What If You Could Take Any Amount Of Money And Invest It In 5% Increments Over The Course Of 3 Months And Turn It Into 300% More Than You Started Every Year? With SpreadProof Football Picks You Can Do Just That.
Upcoming events
BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2009, 15th-17th October, Las Vegas
Use the coupon code BWESEP20 to save 20% on BlogWorld registration.
PPC Summit, 4 - 5 November, Chicago
Affiliate Summit, 3-4 December, Las Vegas
See our affiliate events page for more details on all events.
Sunday, October 04, 2009
New Affiliate Programs
These are my pick of the best new affiliate programs this week.
Skorpion (TM) Skates
Skorpion Skates offer the hottest and most unique skates on the market, such as the Skorpion(TM) Quadline®, Skorpion Multi Terrain and SKORPIES(TM) Kids Skates.
Get 10% commission per sale and 2% 2nd tier earnings on any affiliates you refer. They offer 90 day cookies, fully featured tracking software (with DirectLink URLs) and a dedicated affiliate manager.
They also offer creative banners and resources to help you promote Skorpion Skates, including high res professional product and action photography. Join the program here.
Increased conversions for increased profits
There is no doubt that the more efficient you can get a web site to convert a visitor to a buyer then the better off you will be. It also follows that increasing the value of each buyer will also increase your profit.
In fact getting the most profit possible from each and every visitor to your site should be top priority for every affiliate and merchant.
Getting visitor to a web site can be expensive and even the "free" traffic costs you time or money to set up so its worthwhile doing what you can to get the most value from each visitor.
For example, if you currently are spending 5 cents per visitor and make 10 cents profit from each visitor to your site, then by making changes to increase the conversion rate or buyer value to say 20 cents you will triple your profits. It will also allow you to increase your advertising spend to say 10 cents per visitor and generate significantly more traffic which will result in more profit again.
By getting more value from your visitors than your competitors will enable you to buy more advertising and dominate whatever niche market you are in.
Tools
One Touch Upsell
Discover How You Can Double, Or Even Triple Your Sales WITHOUT Increasing Your Current Traffic . . .
One Touch Upsell have released a free report & video now detailing a new kind of sales pipeline that will instantly multiply the value of each and every click.
Even if you're already familiar with the one-click upsells and split testing, this report is critical to the success of your business. Your testing may actually be leading you in the wrong direction!
Their service may or may not be a good fit for you, that's something you'll decide. But, what you'll learn from the information inside is invaluable to you in itself. Use it, profit with it.
Upcoming events
BlogWorld and New Media Expo 2009, 15th-17th October, Las Vegas
Use the coupon code BWESEP20 to save 20% on BlogWorld registration.
PPC Summit, 4 - 5 November, Chicago
Affiliate Summit, 3-4 December, Las Vegas
See our affiliate events page for more details on all events.
ebooks and videos
My pick this week is:
Delta Squadron
I have known Michael Cheney for several years. When he started out he was a total loser..
He puts it all down to the "internet marketing Black Hole" that was stopping him from making money online and it's stopping you as well.
So what is this Black Hole? And how can you conquer it?
And how did this guy beat it to discover four secret keys that he used to make $5million in record time?
He was blasted from losersville to $5 Million and life of luxury, massive wealth and Lamborghini driving. How did he do it? Watch this video to discover for yourself
TheBossBuster
Gold Membership at TheBossBuster are still available.
Dan is so confident that you will clean up from this, that if you don't earn double your investment in the first 60 days, you get your moneyBack! Wow!
Just think about that for a second. Worst case scenario is that you spend a little time for nothing, but the potential upside is an fantastic income stream, working from home!
