How do the new FTC guidelines affect affiliate marketing?

October 6, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 15 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Opinions 

Yesterday, October 5, 2009, the FTC published their final guidelines governing endorsements and testimonials. This ruling will affect celebrities, bloggers, testimonial advertisements, and probably more.

The press release is here:

FTC Publishes Final Guides Governing Endorsements, Testimonials

The actual guidelines are in a pdf file that I have tried to download several times, but, so far, have only been able to get a portion of it.

The actual guidelines are described as:

16 C.F.R. Part 255: Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising: Notice Announcing Adoption of Revised Guides

They are available as a pdf file:

Text of the Federal Register notice

As I said, previously, I have not been able to read these new rules, yet, so I’m just wondering out loud at the moment.

How does this affect affiliate marketers?

Are blog posts with affiliate links covered under these new guidelines? How?

(Disclaimer: I am not now or ever have been a lawyer. I do not give legal advice. I don’t even play a lawyer on TV or the Internet.)

I can read from the press release that anyone who is posting sponsored articles to their blog will be affected. Since I don’t do that, I haven’t given the ramifications much thought.

I almost never receive a freebie in return for writing a review, but I have no problem disclosing that fact when it happens.

Most of us would never fall under the label of “celebrity” and never get paid huge sums of money to endorse a product on a talk show or in social media, but if you do, now you have to disclose that fact.

Still, how does this affect bloggers who are affiliate marketers?

Does every link have to be disclosed as a possible money-making link?

Will it be enough to add a few lines to our disclosures page?

Are we even covered by the new guidelines?

What about you?

Will these new FTC guidelines affect how you run your business and how you advertise and market products and services?

Act on your dream!

JD

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FTC plans to monitor blogs for compliance

June 29, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 8 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Network Marketing 

Previously, I linked to an article that Lynn Terry wrote about this subject. Today, I found an article on The Washington Post…

FTC plans to monitor blogs for claims, payments

I’m all for this monitoring and oversight by the FTC. I think it’s time that bloggers and others be held accountable for the veracity of their claims. We need more truth in advertising – especially as it relates to the GRQ (“get rich quick”) crowd.

But, what worries me about this, is how will the FTC go about doing this? What will trigger warnings and what will trigger lawsuits.

Done right, it can help clean up the blogosphere. Done wrong, it can hurt innocent people who haven’t done anything wrong.

I’d love to see the FTC jump all over the websites, and their owners, who knowingly make claims that are not true. We don’t need that trash confusing people.

On the other hand, I’d hate to see someone who earns a few dollars by linking to an affiliated merchant be hurt because they didn’t adequately disclose that they earn an income from someone who purchases from one of their affiliate links – or when someone clicks on their Adsense ads.

What will the FTC require?

Right now, I don’t know. If you find something about this from an official source, please share it with us.

Will a single page on a site that discloses how we earn income from the site be sufficient (probably not), or will we need to post a notice on every page or near every link from which we may earn income?

For those of you who are receiving coupons, special offers, and/or payment from advertisers, how will you be required to disclose that when you post your review and/or talk about your experiences with a particular company or product?

Dammit Jim, I’m a marketer – not a journalist!

I try to make it clear that I am not a journalist. I don’t pretend to write objective news articles.

I’m a marketer. I earn my living from affiliate marketing, and a smaller amount from Google Adsense Ads (although I’ve removed them from this blog).

Some links are direct links to companies and/or products and I don’t earn anything if you follow those links and purchase something.

Most, however, are affiliate links and I’ll earn a few dollars (or a few cents) if you purchase as a direct result of following my link.

Do I have to disclose that for every single link?

Will I be grandfathered in, or will I have to go back and find every affiliate link on all of my sites and inform readers that I may (but probably won’t) earn something if they click the link and then purchase?

Will affiliate links be considered advertising or endorsements?

Many blogs receive compensation for advertising, either through Adsense ads, something similar, or privately-sold advertising. How will these be seen by the FTC review.

If I tell you that you should purchase something, will that be considered a personal endorsement? What are the differences in responsibility between paid ads and personal endorsements?

I think these are important questions, and I’ll be following this issue closely.

In the meantime, I want to make it clear to you that I earn my living by selling products and services to you, if you click on my affiliate links and purchase.

Does that mean that I’ll promote everything that earns me a buck? No, it doesn’t. The longer I work in affiliate marketing – and marketing, in general – the pickier I become concerning the products and services I recommend.

What do you think?

Are these legitimate concerns, or not?

Act on your dream!

JD

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Lynn Terry blogs about the FTC and Social Media Marketing

May 20, 2009 by John Dilbeck · 24 Comments
Filed under: Advertising and Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, Blogging, Social Networking 

For the first time in several weeks, I fired up my newsreader and started catching up on what my friends have been blogging about recently.

One of the first things that caught my eye was Lynn Terry’s post, FTC to Regulate Social Media Marketing.

She did a good job linking to information about this, so I won’t repeat what she said. Click the link, above, to read her post; it will open in a new window.

I think it’s about time that the FTC started to crack down on deceptive advertising and claims, and the new emphasis on “atypical results” is a good thing, too.

Although I can’t show you specific statistics to back up what I’m about to say, it’s common knowledge that over 90% of affiliate marketers never earn anything, or at least earn very little.

Yet, there are people and websites out there that claim that it’s the easiest thing in the world to join a few affiliate programs, set up a blog, and start earning thousands of dollars.

This claim is simply not true.

Yes, there are a few people who earn thousands of dollars every month through affiliate marketing, but they are the exceptions – they are the people who enjoy “atypical results.”

Perhaps it was a matter of timing. Maybe they got in at the right time.

Maybe they had more experience in marketing and advertising than most of us.

Who knows why they were successful.

Online marketing is still not as easy as some would paint it.

So, I’m hoping that the FTC does crack down on all the hype and scams that are floating around.

On the other hand, it worries me a bit that they may go too far.

Some of us try very hard to have a good knowledge of what we recommend. I am a satisfied customer of the products and services I recommend the most, but I can’t be 100% sure that I haven’t said something, somewhere, sometime, that may come back to bite me.

What about you?

Have you ever taken someone else’s word about a product and recommended it with little or no personal experience?

I don’t think you want to open yourself up to all the problems that will arise when the FTC cracks down on blogs and social networking sites.

I am far from getting rich, and my affiliate marketing income has dropped dramatically since last September, but I’m in this for the long haul and look forward to the months ahead when my revenue will rise, again.

I feel that I’ve been ethical and honest about the things I promote, but I look back and see that some things I liked a few years ago no longer look as good as they did then.

Does this mean that I have to find all my websites and everything I’ve ever published and see if they need to be modified and/or deleted?

I really don’t know.

Lynn’s post has given me something to seriously think about now that I’m getting back to work.

What do you think?

Act on your dream!

JD

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