At the AffSpot Affiliate Forum I get alot of Private Messages…  A whole lot of PMs.  And a trend I’ve seen of late is the number of questions I get about the FTC Guidelines for Affiliate Marketing (or blogs, tweets, etc.).  I also was watching the SXSW session about this very same thing (by following the tweets of someone from the FTC at the event along with some liveblogs). So rather than answering a pile of PM’s, here’s the info as I understand it.

If you get paid, you have to declare it.  Not on a global “disclaimer” page, on every article, post, etc.  If you get a free sample, discount, demo product, commission, etc.  You’ve got to declare it.  Now, you can be creative in declaring it.  But you have to declare it.  It’s that simple.  Doing anything less is asking for trouble.

Here’s a few other points I gathered and put into a simple “bullet point” format for you.

• If you mention that you like the Google NexusOne it’s okay.  You don’t have to declare anything if your just giving your opinion.  But if Google gave you one, you got a discount for blogging about it..  Receive a commission for every one sold?  Then declare it.
  
• What the FTC is looking for is transparency.  If your getting money, discounts, free product, etc. Just say so.
• You can be creative in your disclosure.  It doesn’t have to be a boxed “sterile” legalistic disclaimer.  As long as your site visitors will discern that you got money/products/services/discount, etc. then your good.
• You must disclose somewhere in the actual post/article/tweet/status update. It is not enough to post a blanket disclosure in the About section or sidebar of your site. The same applies to tweets. You must disclose in each tweet (but #add #spon is okay).

Here is the FTC disclosure page with revised guides and consumer education videos

And here is the WOMMA guide to disclosure

Opportunity knocks in the strangest ways sometimes.  Being a big believer in Luck = Preperation + Opportunity I have retained several domain names over the years.  Mostly of places I’ve lived, activities I enjoy, etc.  And I maintain them mostly through automation and a brief posting every few weeks or so.

Then, over this past weekend..  the Opportunity component came into play for one of them.  You see, I live outside of a small town.  The town is just big enough to support a couple small lite manufacturers, a couple gas stations, a couple resturants, a grocery store and a few churches.  The town is quiet and the schools are good.  But then over the weekend Opportunity Knocked.

There has been some talk over the past few months that “something big” was coming to town.  But nobody knew what it was.  Only that it meant jobs.  And in this economy, that brings alot of interest.  Over the weekend the official city website had a press release…  A gathering at a larger auction house in town to announce a new industry moving in.  Along with the opportunity for up to 3500 new jobs!  This is big news.  And a big opportunity.

And what did I do?  You guessed it…  a couple domains where I’ve built local focused sites that garner some traffic are now on the front burner.  And I’m choosing the Affiliate Programs I promote very carefully.  I’ve joined the affiliate programs for every local franchise business.  Auto Parts, Movie Rental, etc.  Dropped in a couple other programs that are represented “brick and mortar” in the neighboring towns, etc.  Over the years these sites have grown very authoritative for the City name (it’s a good thing the local paper has no concept of SEO).  So when the news hits…  My sites are prepped and ready to take advantage of the traffic boost.

Oh, but it’s not only that…  I’ve sold advertisements to several local businesses (who will be linking to the site as well), and added even more solid original content, information, and a news channel.  And the traffic is already building…  Can you imagine what it will be when the news hits, and my little site is #1 in Google / Bing / Yahoo for a sleepy little podunk towns name?

Affiliate Gold is what that is..  And it’s an example of thinking longer range, building sites slowly over time, and striking while the iron is hot.

(Guest Post by Simon Gornick, CEO of Spotcher)

As the economy tightens, advertisers and their agencies are looking inward to discover the best way to deliver effective marketing messages.

The landscape is in a state of deep flux. There are a flood of new approaches out there, all competing for eyeballs. But there’s one that’s rising faster, and burning brighter than most. Affiliate marketing.

Affiliate marketers are some of the most confident, entrepreneurial and innovative people in America. They don’t need hand-holding.

And they’re a big reason why we created our new web app.

It’s called Spotcher. Think of us as the “Craigs List of Online video”.

Spotcher is designed to help bloggers, affiliates, small businesses and mini-moguls of all kinds monetize their video libraries with interactive overlays.

At Affiliate Summit West, there was a great deal of buzz about how affiliate marketers can leverlage video, but also some hesitation.

Video adds value and staying power to a web page, and especially a landing page. Plus videos are treated well by the search engines.

And one more thing. Creating, hosting and syndicating an effective video is easier than you think, and we can point you in the right direction.

Whether your video is global, national or locally targeted, our simple system gives UGC and small business video a path to real revenue potential. If you’re interested in selling products via your own videos, Spotcher can really help you.

We don’t host videos. We just give you more control of them. Partnering up with video share sites gets you a ‘portion’ of the ad revenue. With Spotcher, we know you do an awful lot of revenue sharing as it is. Do you really need another outfit taking a bite out of the hard-won revenue your content is earning?  Didn’t think so.

THE WORKFLOW

• We’re a simple, no frills app that offers only two things. One, Interactive Overlays for your hosted videos, and two, the help and guidance you need to use them effectively.

• Affiliates drive their self-hosted videos through our brandable player, create and add monetizing or info links to their own interactive overlays, then market,  distribute and share their videos.

• Links can continue to monetize across all instances of each video for as long as they’re active, so the process works well for long-tail e-commerce.  And the good news is that videos index better the longer they’re around.

• Our site guides and helps our users on creating great videos, as well as converting, hosting, linking, indexing and marketing their libraries.

• Except for our free plan (which starts free and stays free), we charge a small subscription based on number of videos users link to us, and that’s it.

WHY INTERACTIVE OVERLAYS

• Interactive Overlays are a seamless, intuitive, opt-in way to get commercial messages across without compromising enjoyment of your video content.

• When used best, commercial message overlays enhance a video rather than distract from it. That can mean a big boost in engagement and click-throughs.

• We think self-generated overlays will be a far more effective way of monetizing the video explosion than any other ad format. So why offer anything else?

• Because the content is driving the consumer’s decision to buy, that potential buyer is often far more motivated punch that ‘click to order’ button.

• The best indexing algorithm is the one in your head. You know best the relevant products and links for your video content.

• With the help of our easy to use metrics package, as well as your network stats, you can figure out what’s what’s flying and what needs changing.

LINKING WITH SPOTCHER

CPS Text URLs work best. Use Skimlinks, Viglink or any deep-linking engine from your CPS networks like CJ, Linkshare, and Google to create product, category or site links that you can add to your overlays. If it works in your browser’s address bar, it will work in an overlay. Simple as that.

TRY SPOTCHER FOR YOURSELF

We’ve just got started, so we’re keen to get your feedback on how to make our service even better. And remember, Spotcher helps you monetize your first two videos for free, so you can get to know the system before you move to a pay subscription.

Simon Gornick is the CEO of Spotcher

http://spotcher.com

@spotcher

]]> http://blog.affspot.com/2010/01/add-cps-links-to-your-videos-with-spotcher/feed/ 0 http://blog.affspot.com/2009/12/google-and-amazon-roll-out-amazon-associates-for-blogger/ http://blog.affspot.com/2009/12/google-and-amazon-roll-out-amazon-associates-for-blogger/#comments Thu, 17 Dec 2009 11:39:08 +0000 scottm http://blog.affspot.com/?p=248

Oh what a web we weave…  Google has GAN, but integrates Blogger with the Amazon Associates Program.  Which when you think about it is a pretty good idea for both companies…  and for Affiliate Marketers.  With just a few clicks you can now put Amazon offerings on a blogger page.  And Google will know who’s doing affiliate marketing on Blogger (well, via Amazon anyway) and can use that data to advance GAN.  Let alone the traffic.

But this is a good thing for Affiliate Marketers using Blogger as well.  And the level of automation is pretty cool.  I gave it a whirl in the wee hours last night and just like the notice from Amazon said..  It was two steps:

“1.Bloggers highlight the relevant text and the Amazon Product Finder will search

Amazon’s millions of products and recommend the ones that are most closely associated

with the text”

“2.Bloggers can then insert a link or image to that product which includes their Associates

ID, enabling them to earn up to 15% in referral fees from Amazon”

We’ve been seeing more and more “automation tools” for offer selection here of late.  We actually have several test sites out running the various tools right now (and yes, a future post will compare them).  As of right now, the only downside is the reliance on Amazon for all the offers and Google’s restrictions on Blogger.  This makes it kind’ve tough to control every single aspect like most Affiliate Marketers like to have.  But, it also makes it much easier and faster to deploy sites, build niches, and see what types of offers are working.

Now, this isn’t good for OPM’s and competing Networks if this new tool works well in conversion.  It totally removes offer selection from the Affiliate Marketer and has the potential to disrupt the Merchant ==> OPM ==> Network ==> Marketer relationship chain.  It will make things tougher for small and mid-size merchants too.

This is something that could be good for business, or could potentially be bad for all but the largest operators.  Time will tell.

What a weekend!  After the “breather” day on Friday I took the weekend off.  Hey, being an Affiliate Marketer doesn’t mean you have no life!  But today..  Well, today is a big day.  We start deploying our network of minisites for real.  To recap what we’ve done so far (and why you need to go read parts 1-4 if you havn’t already).

Day One – Research – Did the Math and figured out how many sites (25) to make a living (theorhetically).

Day Two – Research – Niches and Keywords.  Learned how to find localities, keywords, and offers.

Day Three – Planning – CMS Tools, Domain Names, Plugins, Virtualmin, the mechanics of managing sites.

Day Four – Rollout – Built first site draft, tested CMS, wrote copy, did 1 site to get the hang of it.

Which brings us to today..  Day Five…

First things first today.  Rollout site one for real.  I took that dedicated server, used Virtualmin to “light up” a domain, loaded WebsiteBaker and the plugins I’m going to use.  Rewrote the content to match the locality, dropped in the important keywords in a NATURAL way (i.e. If your in the Dallas Ft.Worth Metroplex, etc.).  Brought the site live with my affiliate links in as creative a way as possible.  Oh, almost forgot (and this is important)..  I added rel=nofollow to all my affiliate links.  Check out the SEO section on the AffSpot Forum for details.  But it’s important.

I also brought site two online as well.  I wouldn’t have, but I needed two of the sites up right away.  Remember using OpenX Advertising Server to serve banners?  Well, when I built the site graphics (really, I outsourced that) I had banners made for every site.  So I’m going to server my own advertisements back and forth in my network of eyeglasses local minisites.  So I needed two sites up to get OpenX ready to go and two banners being served.  Enough said.

So, first site rolled out.  Now to promote the site.  Some people are going to say I’ve gone “blackhat”.  I don’t think so.  I think I’m being an intelligent marketer.  Here’s what I did and why I did it.  I built a Twitter account for the entire network of minisites and it’s named something similar to USAGlasses (no, that’s not the real name).  I plan on using the RSS function of WebsiteBaker to push all sitenews to that account automatically.  So when a promotion happens, I update the site and the site will “tweet”.

Second thing I did is to make sure I have glasses@DOMAINNAME.COM live for each site and tied the email list builder script (just a form page inside of WebsiteBaker) use that email address to communicate with prospects/customers.  All those email addresses go to my own central email box.

Third thing I did was I built several “feeder” webpages.  I used Hubspot, Squidoo, WetPaint, etc. with the general category of designer/discount/glasses/eyeglasses (whatever was reasonable and available) and posted ORIGINAL content at each.  Where the ability to read RSS was available (i.e. Squidoo and others) I made a piece of it read all the “tweets” that come in from any site updates.  I wrote a good article, and built a list pointing to my two sites that are live.  As each new site comes live I’ll add them to these link lists too. Not all of them on any single site.  Just a few so that there are no more than four links per site.  And then I have a link to two of the other “free” pages as well.

And I pointed all these pages at each other as well.  I wrote ORIGINAL content for each of them.  so there is new/different and useful information on each one.  THIS IS CRUCIAL!  We’re using minisites, so by creating these “free” pages we’re reaching out to potential customers.  You can’t copy/paste this material.  Every page must be original and helpful.

Then with my regular twitter, Facebook, delicious, Stumble, etc. accounts I bookmarked the two sites and the “free” pages I built.  In other words, I “primed the pump”.  Oh, I use pingomatic on every one of them too.

And MOST importantly…  I added the two sites to Google, Bing, and Yahoo local.  These are locality based minisites, So the Dallas site is noted as Dallas, LA as LA, etc.  We’re going local in a big way so we’ve got to do it right.  I have an 800# that I’m using on all the sites, and that’s the number I put on the local listing.  The reason is easy, I want to let people call.  I’m not going to get 25 phone numbers.  And in the “About Us/Contact Us page I always make a point to point out the 800# where you can Call Free even if your in XXXX (a city that ISN’T a local call but in the Metro Area).

Now it’s as simple as “Shampoo, Rinse, Repeat”…  I’m doing one additional site per day til they’re all up and running.  Updating each site at least once a week with useful information.  Only after every site is built and promoted do I even bother checking statistics.  Building traffic can take a little time and I don’t want to obsess on it..  Yet.

Want to talk more about the minisite network?  Just click the “Discussion” link below and we’ll chat about it at the AffSpot Forums.