Tricia Meyer

Affiliate Marketer, Blogger, and Consultant

FTC Updates Endorsement Guidance

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Update: Visit this page to see a compilation of all of the updated information from the FTC on Disclosure.

The FTC put out one release today that was chock full of disclosure information. It contained information about a first-ever settlement with individual social media influencers, a description of warnings sent to 21 Instagram influencers, and notice of over 20 new frequently asked questions and answers.

You can read about the CSGOLOTTO settlement here and see sample warning letters sent to Instagram influencers here. Of note in the settlement is that it is the first time I have seen Twitch mentioned specifically with regard to disclosure. In that case, it appears that the merchant is being held liable. With regard to the Instagram letters, it appears that the influencers are going to be held liable if they continue to ignore the express instructions of the FTC.

More pertinent to affiliate marketing, I want to draw your attention to some of the FAQ. I can’t remember for certain which of these were in the original set and which are new in this revision, but all of the questions and answers below are things that I see being violated in my Facebook and Twitter streams on a daily basis. They are all worth reading and understanding no matter your role in affiliate marketing. [Read more…]

I Failed at Affiliate Marketing

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My younger daughter is starting high school on Wednesday. Last week we had a long heart-to-heart about her biggest fears going into high school. More than anything else, she told me that she is afraid of trying something and failing. She’s afraid of what failure feels like. She’s afraid everyone will make fun of her.

In talking things through with her, I realized that what I was telling her is really a lesson to anyone starting out in a new business–and affiliate marketing in particular. I told her that I have failed miserably in affiliate marketing. I have had some SPECTACULAR failures over the last 12 years. Some of them kind of embarrassing. However, if you don’t take a chance and allow yourself to fail, you will also never have the chance to succeed.

Sometimes failing just plain stinks and you lose all around. Have you ever heard of Badugi? Probably not. Back in 2006 I launched a site called “Learn Badugi” to teach people how to play a supposedly up-and-coming type of poker. I registered a domain, launched WordPress, added content…even had t-shirts printed. My tagline was “The Fastest Growing Poker Game in the U.S.” The only thing I learned from that site is that Google doesn’t like gambling. The site was so bad I can’t even pull it up on the Wayback Machine to show you.

Sometimes when you fail you learn something new you can use the knowledge somewhere else. That happened to me when I launched The Mean Mom back in 2011. It was meant to be a funny site where moms could share stories about being called “mean” by their kids. I ran contests, set up polls, and even started a shop for Mean Mom merchandise. It didn’t make any money and lasted less than a year. But I learned about BuddyPress, setting up CafePress stores, and just how many moms are “mean.” I even had a totally low-grade logo:

More often than not, “failure” is just one more step toward eventual success. I can’t even tell you the number of things that we have tried and failed with at Sunshine Rewards. We had the best of intentions for gift reminders, paid music recommendations, leaderboards, chat rooms, virtual pinball (yes…that was a thing on SR for a couple of years), and more.

Some of the ideas fell so flat we had to apologize to members and merchants. Some of them just didn’t do what we wanted so we abandoned them or shifted focus from them. Yet each thing we tried helped us learn more about our members, the market, and even our own capabilities. We still exist now in a very difficult market because we were willing to try and fail until we found what worked.

So I’m going to leave you with a few witty quotes I found about failure because other people have said things more eloquently than I can. Consider them the next time you want to try something and are afraid of failing. Or after you fail and you are trying to dust yourself off.

Doubts Kill More Dreams Than Failure Ever Will

Storms Make Trees Take Deeper Roots

Try and Fail But Don’t Fail to Try

When was the last time you tried something and failed? Do you find a way to see the best in your failures or let them stop you from trying again?

Affiliate Marketing Help Being Auctioned (No Bids Yet!)

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If you are an affiliate marketer (and I am assuming you are if you are reading this), there is something for you in the PMA Silent Auction. Besides all of the cool merchandise gift cards and packages, there are some items very specific to those in our industry that you should check out. I want to point out just a few of them so you understand how they might apply to you.

  • Song Written and Sung by Brian Littleton Just for You: It pretty much doesn’t matter who you are in the industry or what you do, this is pretty cool. It’s a little bit of branding because you’ll have Brian singing about you plus just really fun and something that might even go viral if you give it a nudge! Brian is one of the most liked and respected people in our industry (even by me even though he keeps beating me out for all of the awards that I want) and this item is truly priceless.
  • 6-month PREMIUM Publisher Toolkit Subscription: If you are a blogger, you have to bid on this. It’s worth $300 and the minimum bid is only $70. You can read my full Publisher Toolkit review but suffice to say I use it pretty much every single day on my blogs.
  • 3 months of Paid Search Monitoring from BrandVerity: This one is mainly for the merchants and agencies. If you haven’t tried BrandVerity before to monitor for trademark bidding and abuse by affiliates and competitors, now is a great time to try it with this limited offer.
  • $500 for Mobile App Development: EPage Inc. is offering programming/consulting services toward a mobile app development. I’ve known Brad Waller a LONG time and if you are even considering an app for your company, this is something to jump on.
  • Best-In-Class SEO: For as little as $75 you can get an hour of SEO help from Adam Riemer. Even though I have been doing SEO for 12 years, I know I don’t know close to what Adam knows. And even if you think you know SEO, it’s always great to talk to an expert and see what is new and hot that you might be missing.
  • Affiliate program help: There are actually three different company offering affiliate program help of some kind. This is obviously for merchants! If you are a merchant who has been considering hiring and OPM or just needs a boost to your program, these packages are starting at as little as $500.

If none of those apply to you, you might just want a 2-night hotel stay, a new bra, some sporting equipment, or other fun stuff. Check out the full auction because bids are starting to come in and it ends Tuesday!

New Indiana Nexus Tax Law Is Bad All Around

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Back in April with very little fanfare (or public comment), Indiana passed a law requiring out of state merchants to start collecting sales tax on online purchases made by Hoosiers. Although affiliate nexus legislation had been proposed in the past by Democrats, Republican State Senator Luke Kenley always made sure it was shut down. Now Kenley was one of the driving forces behind the new economic nexus tax. I’ll break down what it entails and why it is a bad idea for Indiana right now.

The Law

House Bill 1129 provides that an out of state merchant must collect sales tax on Internet purchases if the merchant either makes 200 or more separate transactions in Indiana in a year or their gross revenue from Indiana sales exceeds $100,000 in a year. The law took effect July 1, 2017.

The Rationale Behind the Law

State legislators believe that Indiana is losing out on too much tax revenue because people do not self report the taxes that they owe and it isn’t fair to in-state merchants who do have to collect the tax. Kenley stated that local businesses were at a “disadvantage” having to collect the taxes. The possible tax revenue that we are losing is often cited by both parties as being between $77 and $195 million based on studies in 2012. (Indy Star article)

The Rationale is Wrong

First of all, local merchants are not at any real disadvantage based on the tax issue. The Performance Marketing Association recently surveyed over 750 online shoppers. Only 1% said that one of the top reasons that they shop online is to avoid taxes. That means that at most, local merchants are missing out on 1% of their sales based on the sales tax issue. Conversely, they receive a lot of local benefits such as police and fire protection, roads, etc. I don’t want to see the mom and pop store go out of business, but if they do, it won’t be because they have to collect taxes on purchases.

Second, those numbers of projected tax revenue loss would be MUCH less than the 2012 projections. Amazon started collecting taxes in Indiana as of January 1, 2014. Yes, online shopping numbers have gone up since the study in 2012. However, much of that is from companies with physical locations in Indiana who are already collecting taxes (Best Buy, Walmart, etc). In fact, looking at Slice Intelligence’s numbers for the 2016 holiday season, at least 9 of the top 10 merchants for online spending were collecting taxes–for a total of over 60% of shopping. Imagine what those numbers look like when you throw in all of the other brick and mortars plus the merchants who were already voluntarily collecting.

We Have a Lot to Lose Now

The legislators know Indiana is in for a fight. South Dakota is already undertaking substantial judicial action to enforce their very similar law. In fact, our legislators specifically said that they anticipate the impending litigation. How much money will it cost taxpayers to defend this new law rather than waiting for the Supreme Court to take up the South Dakota case or for Congress to pass one of the several bills currently proposed that would end this whole thing? Attorneys will be the biggest beneficiary of this law for quite some time.

In addition to the money defending the law, the state is ALREADY losing income tax money as a result of passing it. Zulily sent out an email to all of the affiliates in the state saying that they are dropping them. Which other merchants will follow suit? The state just lost any income tax from affiliates in programs that drop any type of nexus state affiliates.

Taking that a step further, a business like mine (Sunshine Rewards) will now lose customers in general because I have lost a merchant like Zulily. So not only do I lose the Zulily revenue but I also lose all of the business of my members who want to shop through a website that works with Zulily. And for every dollar Sunshine Rewards loses, the State of Indiana loses the income tax on it. Multiply me across all of the affiliates in Indiana and we’ll see an immediate drop in tax revenue starting with our next quarterly filings.

Some of my biggest competitors have either moved out of the country or are owned by companies outside of the country–in many cases to avoid state issues like this. How is that good for Indiana or Americans in general?

Businesses came to Indiana after Illinois passed an affiliate nexus tax. Will those same businesses now make the decision to leave Indiana as a result of our law?

Right Motives, Wrong Execution

I understand that Indiana wants to capture more tax revenue (ironically it was the Republicans who passed this law despite always saying “no new taxes”). However, this law was passed without any real understanding of the potential implications for all of the affiliate marketers in the state. We were never given the chance to plead our case or even explain the ramifications. In trying to save the “little guy” small businesses on Main Street, they harmed the “little guy” small businesses run by work-at-home moms and dads, retirees, and other entrepreneurs. From a pure numbers standpoint, this law will cost Indiana a lot of money in the short-term with only the HOPE that it may make the state money in the long-term.

Affiliate Summit East Early Bird Prices Ending Soon

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Are you still trying to decide if you will attend Affiliate Summit in New York in July? Now is the time to decide because the Early Bird prices end on May 12! From now through then, registration starts at only $99 (Networking). The cheapest pass after that date is $249.

Which pass do you need?

I have only ever attended one Affiliate Summit where I didn’t have a VIP pass–my first. And it was essentially because I didn’t know any better and the conference was so different back then. Yes, I often get a free pass for being a speaker or being on the Advisory Board. But even when I take employees with me, I always buy them the VIP pass. There are three different passes and good reasons for getting each depending on what your needs are.

First: To me, some of the best networking opportunities take place over the casual meals, drinks, and snack breaks. You will meet a certain number of people in the Exhibit Hall and Meet Market. You’ll exchange business cards and maybe follow up later. But it’s in those more casual, laid-back meals that you really talk to people and understand their business and get to know each other. The VIP Pass includes the Sunday Snack Break (which people never take advantage of enough but should!), plus breakfast and lunch on Monday and Tuesday.

Second: I want to be able to attend any sessions that look good to me and take advantage of the different one-on-one and small group opportunities that are usually available only for VIP pass holders. You never know from one conference to the next if these opportunities will be the ones where you learn the most the fastest, but they usually are. You will get access to every single session plus the videos afterward. Do you want to attend some sessions but aren’t interested in eating the meals? Check out the Networking Plus Pass.

Third: If you just want to get your foot in the door of the conference or don’t have a lot of time to spend, the basic Networking Pass will get you keynotes, Exhibit Hall, Meet Market, Ask the Experts, and more. If you already have a lot of meetings set up and don’t attend sessions, it’s not a bad option. (or if you miss the Early Bird prices!)

If you have always wanted to attend Affiliate Summit and have a way of getting there in July, now is the time to get your ticket.

If you do a search on my blog, you will see me talking about Affiliate Summit ALL THE TIME. What I learned, what I taught others, what I hope to get out of the next one, who I met, how my business changed. I am looking forward to speaking once again with my mom!

So there it is…my pitch for why you should grab your tickets during the Early Bird prices. Head over to the Affiliate Summit site and see if it’s something you want to do in January. And if you end up deciding to go, let me know and I will see you there!