Affiliate Marketing Naughty and Nice List (2024 Edition)

December 19, 2024 by Tricia Leave a Comment

I can’t believe it’s been 11 years since I last did a Naughty and Nice List! (Looking back at that one is actually pretty fun) This year’s version is going to be a combination of Naughty and Nice meets Blind Gossip. Obviously companies have bottom lines and shareholders and lots of reasons for making business decisions in Q4. So I won’t reveal any names. But Santa still knows!!

The Naughty List

Dasher and Dancer

These two go together because they share the same parent company. These big name jewelry companies sent out an email on December 13 saying they had to “reduce publisher commissions” due to “budget constraints.” December 13…. jewelry… like peak holiday shopping season. What they meant by “reduce” was actually “eliminate.” Yep… 4% down to ZERO. So affiliate links would still work, but the affiliates would not get any commissions. A little late to try to swap out all of your links on high converting pages for the remaining holiday shopping season. So I guess they just got themselves a lot of free traffic.

Prancer

You know how we always tell customers that they won’t pay more if they shop through our affiliate links? That is NOT the case for a merchant I discovered this week. When trying to figure out why my conversions had dropped from 5% to 1% all of a sudden, I started looking around their site. Turns out that the product I was heavily promoting is actually 25% cheaper if you go directly to the merchant website than going through my link. And they are advertising the lower price everywhere outside of the affiliate channel. Of course affiliates were not told this. So we just look like chumps promoting this “great deal” for a higher price than the customers see everywhere else.

Vixen

How can this NOT be that huge world-ruling conglommerate that continues to dominate our industry news with it’s frequent fluctuations? If any company was a Vixen this season, it was them. Big rule changes. Huge traffic implications. No one knowing where they stood from one day to the next. If you define Vixen as “shrewish and ill-tempered,” they nailed it. Both attractive AND frightening. (Wait…this same company was on my Naughty List last time for a totally different reason!)

Comet

This astronomically-big company made a huge change to its terms of service in the middle of holiday shopping season and with only 7 days of notice. For publishers, it means making some big decisions about their links and the possiblity of having to change out tens, hundreds, or even thousands of them after reviewing conversions, commissions, etc. So much for spending time with the family this week! While the policy change in itself was likely warranted, the short notice and the holiday timing was unacceptable.

Cupid

What’s not to love about an email company who gives you a quote for what you want to do and tells you their system will do it? Then as soon as you create your account and upload your list, they immediately charge your credit card double? And when you ask them for help with getting their system to do what you need, they send you a link to their support database and tell you they can’t help you any further than that because you don’t pay them enough. I mean, what’s not to love, Cupid???

The Nice List

Donder (the O.G. Name from the Poem)

I logged into a network account this week and saw all of my transactions for a niche merchant for the month of November reversed. That seemed odd considering I was promoting strictly via content, didn’t use any coupon codes, and the transactions were all from different clicks on different days. I reached out to the merchant and within one hour they had not only investigated the issue but reversed the transactions back and set out to figure out what had glitched in their system. A+ for believing an affiliate AND jumping in to help! And this was a merchant who didn’t even know me! He was just helping because he actually cares about his program.

Blitzen

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. Does that seem weird and oddly specific? Well, they blocked a law that requires most affiliate marketers to file a “Beneficial Owners Interest Report,” at least temporarily. Given that most of us didn’t even realize we had to do this and the fines for it are pretty steep ($591 a day), this injunction will hopefully give everyone time to figure it out so at least no one has to pay any fines for being late.

Rudolph

A food merchant that surely sees a lot of holiday sales already not only issued an affliate exclusive coupon but extended a commission increase for the holidays! Affiliate exclusive coupons are so helpful for publishers who do deals of any kind. Or even who write content but augment it with deals. And a commission increase across the board when we saw so many decreases?? Rudolph was as close as you could get to Santa!

The Elves

I ran out of reindeer, but on my personal Nice List are a number of affiliate managers and agencies who kindly gave me commission increases for the holiday season. Even when I couldn’t promise traffic, they were willing to give me increases in exchange for placements. Your network is everything in this industry!!

So those are my lists. Who did I leave off?

Switching Email Providers Again?

November 7, 2024 by Tricia 5 Comments

Update: Well that was a huge screwup. I switched away from Aweber and then had nothing but problems with the new company!! In fact, after I signed up for the $35 price and loaded in my lists, they immediately autobilled me for another $35, saying that my “plan” wasn’t big enough. Even though I was definitely within the constraints of what the signup page said. Then! I spent a week trying to integrate my RSS feed into campaign emails…. even messaging their customer service. Their customer service basically told me that I wasn’t paying enough for them to help me and just referred me to their documentation, which was no help at all.

After days of freaking out that I won’t be able to send out all of the Deal emails to Sunshine Rewards members during the BIGGEST SHOPPING DAYS OF THE YEAR, I begged Aweber to take me back. They were gracious and reopened my account, with everything right where I left it. Now I just have a few updates to move forms back to what they were and a little cleaning of my lists. Lesson learned!!

Give Aweber a chance even if your price is going up! They will work with you to see if you can lower your cost by removing inactive subscribers or paying annually.

Original Post:

It seems like only yesterday that I was writing about Converting from Mailchimp to Aweber. In actuality, it has been over 2 years!

At the time, I switched because my Mailchimp monthly fees had gone up by over 40% in 3 years. I had used Aweber many years ago, and they were touting how much lower their prices were… so I switched all of my sites to them.

Fast forward only two years and my Aweber account is going up from $54.99 to $90! That’s almost double! Given how infrequently I use my list (if you are on it, you know it’s about 4 times a year), that’s a big jump.

I don’t have anything against Aweber. I have no doubt that they have added a lot of bells and whistles to their system that probably make it a good deal if you use all of them. I just don’t. I have an RSS feed of my blog posts (that I write a few of a year) and send a one-off email now and again.

I was on a PMA call and someone suggested another company to me. I checked them out and it seems like they will do what I need for only $35 a month. We shall see if an email goes out from this blog post!

If you have other suggestions, feel free to drop them in the comments. I have a feeling I am not the only affiliate marketer who is going to be changing in the next 4 weeks. Changing email providers is SUCH a pain, especially when you have multiple sites with integrations. So picking a good one is crucial!

Consumers Sue Brand and Influencers for Lack of Disclosure

June 27, 2024 by Tricia

I talk a lot (A LOT) about FTC disclosure guidelines and affiliate marketing. In fact, I keep a running post of the biggest news when it comes to guidelines updates and FTC actions around them. There’s no important distinction in the rules when it comes to affiliates and influencers, so for purposes of this post, I’m going to talk mainly about influencers. Understand that all of this applies to essentially anyone who is making money by endorsing products online or through social media.

tl;dr

Brands and influencers don’t just have to worry about the FTC coming after them. Consumers are filing lawsuits based on state laws that are almost identical to the FTC Disclosure Guidelines. If consumers start winning these class action suits, it will encourage even more consumers to file them when they buy products based upon the endorsements of influencers or affiliate marketers who do not properly disclose that they are being compensated in some way.

The Case Details

A case is currently making its way through the courts involving Blue Ice Vodka (Sava v. 21^st Century Spirits, LLC). It’s a convoluted case because it alleges many different things, including breaches of warranty and other things unrelated to influencer marketing. You can view the entire complaint here yourself to see examples of the influencer endorsements.

The pertinent facts as alleged by the plaintiffs are a basic influencer campaign:

Blue Ice Vodka pays several influencers to promote their products
The influencers “tag or recommend” the Blue Ice products without disclosing they are being paid
Viewers buy the recommended products based on the representations made by the influencers
Viewers claim the product was not as reviewed by the influencers and that they would not have bought them if they had known the influencers were being paid

There are several important points/issues for us as affiliate marketers:

The suit was filed by plaintiffs who were consumers (not the government)
The claims were brought under Florida, Illinois, and California consumer protection statutes (part of the “Little-FTC Acts”)
Some of the claims were based on an influencer campaign

What Are the Little FTC Acts?

There is a body of state laws that are modeled on the federal statutes that we refer to in industry shorthand as “FTC disclosure rules.” The FTC Act (and subsequent interpretive guidelines) are the U.S. Government’s enforcement provisions for consumer protection. The “Little FTC Acts” are state laws that provide for similar consumer protections but allow for individual consumers (or even competitors) to file lawsuits when they believe a brand has engaged in deceptive marketing tactics, which includes a lack of disclosure.

The court in the Blue Ice Vodka case said the Little FTC Acts “incorporate by reference the FTC Act and its implementing rules and regulations, as well as interpretations of the same set forth by the FTC and the federal courts.” This means that these state civil cases may end up coming down to interpretations of the FTC disclosure rules.

What Does This Mean for Affiliate Marketing?

Brands and influencers worry that they might have the FTC come after them for not requiring their affiliates/influencers to properly disclose. But I don’t think many of them are considering the class action lawsuits that might be filed against them by consumers who feel they were duped into buying the brand’s products by relying on undisclosed endorsements.

Although this case is far from being completely decided, a little footnote says something BIG that we talk about frequently when it comes to FTC disclosure:

“Judge Lefkow expresses her gratitude to her law clerk, Peter Douglas, who prepared the original draft of this opinion. Because the opinion carefully addresses each claim and each theory of recovery, the parties should seriously consider settlement before the cost of litigation overwhelms the value of the case.”

No matter how this case comes out, it’s going to be expensive for both sides. Even if the brand and influencers were to somehow prevail at trial or through appeals, disclosure suits are expensive. Whether filed by plaintiffs or the FTC, you don’t want to end up in the middle of one of these. Always err on the side of proper disclosure!

(Standard disclaimer that I am an attorney but not YOUR attorney! None of this is legal advice–but fair warning!)

My New Affiliate Marketer “Must Have” Accessory

November 29, 2023 by Tricia

I don’t often review products on this site, preferring to keep it focused mainly on affiliate marketing. But when a friend reached out to me on LinkedIn about a product she is working with, I knew immediately it would be right at the intersection of writing about affiliate marketing and actually DOING affiliate marketing!

(Disclosure: I was sent a Tri-Screen 2 for free to review. In addition, this post contains my affiliate links to earn commissions on the product. The review and experience with the product are 100% my own!)

Affiliate Marketing on the Road

The last 3 posts I have written on this site have been on the road. I’ve always said that one of the best things about being an affiliate marketer is being able to do it from anywhere. Now that I am an empty nester, I am REALLY taking advantage of that! In fact, today I am working from my happiest of happy places– Disney!

Less Productive On Laptop?

When I am at home, I have three screens. I always keep the same things in the same order. I’m almost always using at least two screens at once to copy and paste things… compare things… watch a video while multitasking. When I am on the road, my productivity drops significantly because my one laptop screen is not enough and I waste time switching tabs and it’s hard to make things big enough to see two things at once when I am writing posts or creating images.

In the past I would just avoid doing a lot of tasks while working from my laptop because I knew I wouldn’t be efficient at them. But as of this week, I am officially as productive when traveling as I am at home!

For a limited time take $75 off the Xebec Tri-Screen 2!

Setting Up 2 Extra Screens

When Blagica reached out to me about reviewing the Xebec Tri-Screen 2 and joining their affiliate program, I immediately jumped at the opportunity because I wanted so badly to find a product that would work for me. I’ve borrowed my husband’s portable second screen before and it was a step up from one screen, but it was also weird because it didn’t line up exactly with my laptop and it was at a weird angle.

When the Tri-Screen 2 arrived, I was at first a little bit overwhelmed by the number of cables. The tricky thing about a product like this is that for it to work for everyone (and it does), they have to plan for a lot of contingencies–what type of laptop do you have? how many ports and what kind? are they your only charging ports? So it comes with a lot of different cables!

I practiced setting up the screens at home before taking them on the road because I wanted to make sure I had everything I needed. Sitting at the dining room table, I was able to quickly open up the screens themselves and slip them around my laptop to the perfect position.

When it came time to connect everything, I followed the instructions carefully and did have to experiment a bit to figure out the best cable setup for my laptop, including watching the helpful online videos they provide.

For me, I ended up using an HDMI port plus two usb-c ports. This was the best way to set mine up and not have to worry about charging my laptop at the same time. But your setup may be completely different.

Xebec Tri-Screen 2 Is a Travel Dream!

Within a week of receiving my screens, it was time to travel for the first time. While the Tri-Screen 2 is light enough (2 pounds) to fit in your laptop bag or backpack, I elected on this trip to put it back in its travel box along with the exact cables for my laptop and put it in my suitcase. I think most people would just carry it in their travel bag, but I was traveling on this trip with a cute Disney purse rather than an actual laptop bag.

When I arrived in Disney to set everything up, it was the evening of Cyber Monday and I had so much to do online. I was able to unpack and connect all of the cables in about 2 minutes, adjust my screen and sound settings, and start work within 5 minutes. Everyone knows that as an affiliate marketer, you run a LOT of reports the Tuesday after Black Friday to see how everything went. Having 3 screens instead of 1 laptop screen probably cut my work in half.

The screens are obviously smaller than my main laptop screen, and I also adjust the display so that the font sizes are a bit bigger on those screens because my eyes aren’t getting any younger. But even with both of those things, I am able to see enough on the screens and they are lined up at just the right height so that I can quickly glance between screens seemlessly (the cursor also seemlessly moves across them!).

For a limited time take $75 off the Xebec Tri-Screen 2!

Having 3 Screens Is a Game Changer

I’ll never go on a trip of more than a few days without my extra screens again. It’s one thing to just get light things done on your laptop like checking email. It’s something else entirely to actually be working with reports and doing full content creation while also monitoring Slack and email and socials. If you or anyone you know works on a laptop like that and doesn’t already have extra screens, I wholeheartedly recommend the Xebec Tri-Screen 2. Consider it as a gift for someone else, or maybe just for yourself!

Xebec Tri-Screen 2 Review Basics

Weighs only 2 pounds
Works with any laptop
Can stay attached to your laptop while you close and transport it
Superb written and video instructions (even for someone like me)
Use one the road or even at home when not in your office
Makes a great gift because anyone can use it
Shipping takes about 2 days

Visit Xebec today and check out their other accessories as well!

Can Small Businesses Keep Afloat in the New Affiliate Marketing?

November 7, 2023 by Tricia

As PMA Executive Director, I LOVE seeing the growth of affiliate marketing. With every passing year we see more merchants giving it a chance and more traditional media finding ways to integrate it. But as a small affiliate, the pond just keeps getting bigger while I stay the same size. I’m happy with my “lifestyle business” and the flexibility that it allows me. At the same time, I can’t help but always wonder how much longer my 17-year-old business can stay competitive.

If you know me, you know I’m the original Pollyanna with rose-colored glasses. Because of that, I want to give you my tips today on how you as a small business can stay afloat in affiliate marketing. Whether you are an OG OPM, a hobby blogger, or any other affiliate marketing small business owner, I’m here to help!

Understand There Is Room for Everyone

From the very start, you need to remember that affiliate marketing is big and getting bigger. There’s room for all of us and many more. There are so many consumers worldwide spending money on so many things! Do you ever eat at your local mom and pop diner? Why didn’t you go to Applebees instead? Because there’s something for everyone all the time and every busines offers something just a little bit different. Focus on how you can be just a little bit different.

Have a Niche Within a Niche

Sunshine Rewards is a cashback site. We’re never going to be *insert big venture capital backed cash back site*. But do you know what those other cashback sites are NOT? They are not DISNEY FREAKS like we are. We look for Disney deals. We post Disney pictures. We pay out in Disney gift cards. (Please, Disney, don’t try to shut us down now…. we’re small potatoes!)

You can be a travel site but also focus specifically on people who don’t like to fly. You can be a craft site only for people who are terrible at crafts. You don’t have to be everything to everyone to be successful. Find your smaller target audience and focus on being everything just to them.

Get Personal with Your Customers

As mentioned above, I’m known for posting pictures of my Disney vacations on my cash back site. And you know what? Those family picture posts get more social media love than anything else I post. My members know me. They’ve watched my kids grow up. I get to know them. I couldn’t get to know a million members like I know the ten thousand at Sunshine.

Be Realistic with Your Goals

It would be ridiculous for me to try to demand the paid placement amounts that big publishers get, so I am not even going to ask. I’m honest with the size of my membership and the traffic that we get. Of course I am always going to stretch to get bigger and better brands for the site, but I also have to be realistic about what they are going to give me in return.

Set realistic goals for your company if you want to actually achieve them. It doesn’t mean not pushing the boundaries but it does mean using all of the available data and resources that you can find to figure out what is actually possible and worth working toward.

Like Attracts Like

If you are a small merchant trying to build up your affiliate program, why not start with small but willing publishers? If you are a small niche publisher, I guarantee there is a small merchant out there desperate for any solid traffic you can send. If you are a small agency, there are BOTH small merchants and small publishers who could use your help.

Not everyone is going to be a big dog. Commerce just doesn’t work that way. Find other businesses in comparable size to yours to see what you can do for EACH OTHER.

Leverage Your Network

This is a HUGE one for me and probably what has kept me in business. I cannot say enough times that affiliate marketing is about relationships. This means your competitors, the people you meet over drinks at conferences, members of associations you are in (yay PMA!), and anyone you can genuinely connect with.

Sometimes you can get away with being a smaller company but still getting attention from bigger companies if you have built up a good relationship with the people there. Quality often balances out quantity. When you have proven to people that you are genuine and earnest and will always do your best in your relationships, they are more likely to give you a leg up when you need it.

I’m sure there is a lot more to say, but this post is already my magnum opus. Oh! One last important thing! I have no idea what a small business actually is. Maybe I’m really talking about “medium businesses.” But you get the gist of this post. The “top” 5-10% of publishers make about 90% of affiliate revenue (or something like that). But that doesn’t mean the other 90-95% of us can’t add value!