FTC guidelines: Tips on how to embrace the change

•    Have you read the new FTC guidelines?
•    Are you aware how it's going to affect you as an affiliate?

Here are a few tips on how to embrace the change such that it doesn’t affect you in a negative way. But before that let us understand the change that the new guidelines are likely to bring. The new FTC guidelines will make it tougher for spammers and unethical marketers that deceive their visitors. As everyone will now have to disclose their earning potential, honest and genuine marketers as well as publishers are also likely to be affected negatively. Read more about FTC Guidelines and Affiliate Marketing.

Make sure you don’t let the new FTC guidelines affect your business and hamper your conversions, with the help of following rules:

Rule no 1: Say only what you can deliver

If the merchants give you a guarantee that product will give you XX % of change in your life then only mention it on your site. Otherwise mentioning that you can lose XX% of weight or promising something that isn’t true won't be tolerated. This will be like deceiving the visitor, because neither you nor the merchant/manufacturer can guarantee that. Adhere to strict honest policy; promote products with genuine benefits rather than fake promises.

Rule no 2: Don't oversell just work on marketing (pre-selling)

Being a publisher/affiliate your role is to market the product and not to sale it. So leave the responsibility of selling the product on the merchants and you just work on marketing.

Rule no 3: Create smart disclosure on your site

According to the guidelines you need to disclose what you're getting which is to be easily visible to the visitors. By saying that it does not mean that you need to mention on every affiliate link that how much you are earning from this link. But you should be clear enough in your disclosure that a consumer can understand that you as an affiliate or marketer will get the commission if they click and buy a product. But now the issue is where to put such disclosure? You can create a new page of compensation disclosure and give link of that page on your homepage on top menu (if possible). Also you can put those links near to affiliate links so that it is easily visible. This may serve both the purpose: following FTC guidelines and lure visitors to buy the products without informing them how much you are earning. Ideally many visitors who are interested in buying products would not look out for any disclosure on your site even if it is compensation disclosure.

Later when the commission comes up with few steps on how to put the disclosure you can later on change according to their norms. By following these three rules, you wouldn’t have a lot to worry about.

Also you may look for new merchants, which are not based in the US and be on safer side.

FTC guidelines : Disclosures by affiliates/publishers

On 1st December 2009 new FTC guidelines were implemented for all those doing business on the internet with U.S. consumers/entity. It means any one being paid by US based company or where any part of online business or transaction takes place in US, the changes to the FTC guidelines will be applied to them. So publishers or affiliates promoting any US based merchants or targeting US customers have to follow the new FTC guidelines.

The new guidelines want affiliates to disclose their financial relationship with the merchants whose products they are promoting. Also next they want is to stop misleading and fraudulent testimonials which is the usual trend being used by affiliates to deceive visitors.

Many believes that the later part will hardly affect the affiliate marketing in whole but yes rogue marketers, spammers and unethical marketers would certainly have to be on alert. Those providing fake and fraudulent testimonials of  products will have to revamp their marketing strategies or else they would be in a big trouble. This may even give genuine marketers or affiliates an opportunity to get more conversion due to the trust they will built with visitors.

However disclosing how much they are earning is something affiliates are worried about. This disclosure can be as short as "Disclosure: Compensated Advertising" or "Paid Advertising". However the point is that the disclosure must be clear and conspicuous. It should provide an idea to the reader that there is a connection between the endorser and the seller. Usually FTC will not be applied unless there is an endorsement/recommendation, so affiliate marketing involving in any kind of straight advertising would be safe however if they are endorsing or recommending any products they have to provide a compensation disclosure.

Where to put the disclosure is again a big question. FTC wants affiliates to put disclosure that is easily and clearly visible to the visitors. Of course this does not mean they want affiliates to put this disclosure just as affiliates links. Obviously that is not the intention of these regulations. Their main intention is to create transparency in partnership between affiliates and merchants. It should clarify to the people the difference between advertising and non advertising. However how to put a disclosure is not yet clear. Lets hope to see some news on it soon.

People not following the guidelines would be charged $11000. So all the affiliates or publishers working with US based entity will have to make sure they properly follow the FTC guidelines. If you have any issues of query you may call them directly or mail them and find out. That would give you the better idea and help you to be safe from any kind of issues.

http://www2.ftc.gov/opa/2009/10/endortest.shtm

http://www2.ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005revisedendorsementguides.pdf