• 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
• 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.
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