Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

Julia De Friel

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

5 Compliance Issues

Website Content1. Deceptive Marketing2. Unauthorized Coupons3. Regulatory Risk

Paid Search4. Trademark Bidding5. URL Hijacking

Content Marketing Problems

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

1. Deceptive Marketing

Problem: Affiliates place banner ads or have forms

that promise a certain outcome ‘Free’ Promotions Pay-To-Complete Fake Facts

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

1. Deceptive Marketing

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

2. Unauthorized Coupons

Problem: Coupons end up on affiliate pages that

are unauthorized to be there Friends/Family discounts Vanity codes for single affiliates end up

elsewhere Outdated codes aren’t removed Affiliates crawl other sites to add more

coupons

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

3. Regulatory Risk

Problem: Publishers do not have proper

disclosures on their pages referencing their partnership Lord & Taylor vs. FTC

Inaccurate Content APRs Outdated Copy

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

3. Regulatory Risk

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

Solutions For Content Compliance

Build process for reviewing affiliate pages

Review affiliate pages for accurate content Correct offers Unauthorized/Inactive Coupons Disclosures

Paid Search Problems

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

4. Trademark Bidding

Problem: Affiliates showing up on your trademark

terms that get between you and a direct customer Geo-Targeting Day-Parting Misspellings

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

5. URL Hijacking

Problem: Affiliates placing ads that impersonate

your own (use your domain as the display URL) and/or direct-link to your website

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

5. URL Hijacking

1. Affiliate Site2. Affiliate Tracking Link3. Microsoftstore.com

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

Solutions For Paid Search

Conduct searches with a clean browser/cookie history

Review traffic sent through affiliate referrals

Follow all links from clicking on search ad to landing page

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

Solutions For Paid Search

Browse search engines from various locations

Use Google to simulate different locations

Conduct searches at random times daily

Affiliate Compliance: 5 Issues and Their Solutions

Questions