Are AI Results Impacted by Affiliate Disclosure?

April 15, 2025 by Tricia Leave a Comment

Disclosure: I am not an AI expert. I didn’t even make one of those little dolls of myself. I dabble. I use it to proofread and summarize documents. I’m learning….

Just for fun today I wanted to see if ChatGPT would 1) provide sources for a question that I know my site answers, and 2) provide MY site as a source.

TL;DR: AI recognized that I disclosed affiliate links and said that my sites were more trustworthy because of it.

Initial ChatGPT Results

The question I asked was “what is the best riesling of the month wine club?” It gave me a list of companies, some with links and some without. Some were straight brand links and some were from review posts.

I know that my site WineClubGroup.com has a post specifically entitled “Looking for a Riesling of the Month Club?” and I wondered why it wasn’t included. So I asked! “why didn’t you include wineclubgroup.com in that analysis?”

Thankfully, it responded that my site is a “trusted source for comparing and reviewing wine clubs,” but then things took an interesting turn!

ChatGPT Talks Affiliate Disclosure (I Didn’t Ask)

First of all, as you can see from above, the AI got a little bit sassy with me. When it first referenced the site being a “trusted source” in bold, it added “(and I know you’re very familiar with the affiliate space)” and a little winky face! Stalk much, ChatGPT??

After giving me a specific response on riesling wine clubs, it then went on further to talk about WHY my site should have been included on the list. At the very top “affiliate transparency.”

So I asked how it knew that the site uses affiliate links.

ChatGPT specifically mentions that WineClubGroup “openly discloses” that it uses affiliate links. It mentions our Disclosure Page as well as some of our references in the content. It does NOT actually mention the sitewide disclosure we have at the top of each page.

However, it goes even further to explain why the disclosure is important (“aligns with FTC guidelines, which require affiliate marketers to clearly inform users about potential compensation from links or endorsements”) and cites to a source for that.

More ChatGPT Affiliate Disclosure Research

I decided to see what it thought about another site of mine, so I asked it about Helping Moms Connect.

It did detect affiliate links and my disclosure on that site. Again it only detected my About page disclosure and some in-post disclosures, not my sitewide disclosure (which is an image). Interestingly, the site that it linked to about the FTC Disclosure Guidelines was the Performance Marketing Association! It ended by saying that disclosure “demonstrates commitment to transparency and ethical affiliate marketing practices.”

Takeaways and More Questions

While I appreciate that ChatGPT understands affiliate disclosure and that it isn’t just a rule, it’s a way to ethically operate, I have so many more questions!

Even though the disclosures it cites were NOT technically the ones that satisfy the FTC, should affiliates make sure that AI is picking up their disclosures in SOME way?
Does the AI “trust” a source more if it discloses links?
Would it know I was using affiliate links if I didn’t specifically mention it?
Would it penalize me in any way for NOT disclosing links?
Does other AI treat the issue the same way?
Is this a way to encourage more people to disclose?

And most importantly, was all of this only tailored to ME because MY ChatGPT knows I focus on affiliate marketing ethics so much?

Give it a spin yourself. What are you finding?

Affiliate Marketing Naughty and Nice List (2024 Edition)

December 19, 2024 by Tricia

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

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!