On March 12, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) updated its guidance for advertising disclosures in a guide called .com Disclosures: How to Make Effective Disclosures in Digital Advertising. The original guidance from 2000 left open many holes including advertising on mobile devices and places like Twitter and Facebook.

As affiliates, we have already been advised that disclosure must be “clear and conspicuous.” The new document goes even further. In fact, it specifically states that disclosure at the end of blogs posts is not acceptable. Here are some of the highlights from the guidelines:

• Consumer protection laws such as the FTC’s prohibition on “unfair or deceptive acts or practices” apply to all media, including mobile devices.
• Disclosures must be placed “as close as possible” to the claims.
• If there is not room on the ad to disclose, it may be acceptable to make the disclosure on the page to which an ad links.
• Scrolling should not be necessary to find the disclosure.
• If it is too difficult on a particular platform to make disclosure clear and conspicuous, the platform should not be used for advertisements.
• Advertisers should review their ads in the mindset of the “reasonable customer” and assume that customers do not read the entire page.
• Pop-up disclosures should not be used.

How do these pertain to affiliate marketers?

The guidelines themselves are not particularly instructive, but the examples at the end of the guidelines are extremely helpful.

Example 14 in the guidelines is very similar to the types of recommendations that we do in blogs posts and across other media:This is very similar to the Twitter or Facebook posts that most of us in affiliate marketing make. The FTC states that this Tweet would need two different disclosures: one that JuliStarz was getting paid for the endorsement (which would include affiliates) and the second as to the actual health claims being made not being typical.

Here’s the rewrite suggested by the FTC:

The rewrite suggests placing “Ad” at the beginning of the Tweet. Further examples say that it is not enough to write in one place that you are being compensated and then not later refer to that compensation when you do the actual endorsement. The disclosure and the endorsement must be right next to each other. In addition, using “#spon” after the endorsement is not sufficient because consumers may not understand that “#spon” actually means “sponsored by an advertiser.”

Example 21 specifically speaks to bloggers. The blogger received the product for free to review it. She disclosed that fact at the end of the blog post. However, because there are links in the blog post that might take the reader away from the post before they make it to the end of the post, the disclosure at the bottom of the blog post is not “clear and conspicuous.”

Although the new Disclosure Guidelines do not specifically refer to affiliate marketers, it seems to me that there is no way that they could not apply to us. Between the guidelines and the examples, they refer to paid endorsements, Twitter, bloggers, and receiving free products in exchange for writing reviews.

Added: Here is more specific guidance previously from the FTC on the term “endorsement” where they do specifically implicate “affiliate marketing.” Important to note:

• “Would a button that says DISCLOSURE, LEGAL, or something like that be sufficient disclosure?” No. A button isn’t likely to be sufficient. How often do you click on those buttons when you visit someone else’s site? If you provide the information as part of your message, your audience is less likely to miss it.
• “If it’s clear that what’s on your site is a paid advertisement, you don’t have to make additional disclosures. But what’s clear to you may not be clear to everyone visiting your site, and the FTC evaluates ads from the perspective of reasonable consumers.” (This would likely mean banner ads and maybe widgets?)
• “an endorsement would be covered by the Guides if an advertiser – or someone working for an advertiser – pays a blogger or gives a blogger something of value to mention a product, including a commission on the sale of a product. Bloggers receiving free products or other perks with the understanding that they’ll promote the advertiser’s products in their blogs would be covered, as would bloggers who are part of network marketing programs where they sign up to receive free product samples in exchange for writing about them or working for network advertising agencies.”

Are you reading the new Guidelines the same way that I am? Will it change how you disclose your affiliate links and free products in product reviews?

I’ve been a full-time affiliate marketer for 7 years and during that time I can never remember feeling like there was enough time to do everything that I want to do. Part of my problem is that I am always coming up with new ideas that I want to try out. Knowing that 1) my merchants are increasingly sending more daily deals, and 2) my customers are always looking for them, I wanted to find a way to reach as many of my members as I could in different ways while also allowing for non-members to find my deals.

I started brainstorming how to make it happen without a lot of programming. I have a programmer on staff but I didn’t want to invest a lot of time in something that I wasn’t sure would even have a lot of return. I liked the concept but couldn’t justify creating a whole new system to make it happen. That led me to looking at the existing tools that I was already using to see if I could use them in new ways.

In less than 24 hours and without any programming help I was able to create the Sunshine Rewards Daily Deal newsletter. My process was interesting both in terms of the general way in which I approached it as well as the specific results I have achieved.

Using Tools I Already Have

I have a forum that runs on vBulletin, and I have a subscription to AWeber. Surely there would be a way to combine the two such that when I post in the forum it could get piped into a newsletter? It turns out that it is quite simple. I created a new forum on Sunshine Rewards specifically for Daily Deals. I then set permissions such that only employees could start new threads. We enter each deal as its own post, including an image.

We took the RSS feed for that forum and created a new AWeber newsletter via Blog Broadcast that would pull from that feed once a day Monday through Friday.

We used a basic template to keep it simple. We also included a place for one “Featured” offer that would be available only in the newsletters and not in the forum. Now our members have the choice of finding the offers in the forum or waiting for the newsletters.

Benefits of the Project

With very little work we can use the same content in two places because we know that we have members that like receiving content in different ways. Members are getting the very best deals in one easy place. We have a new feature to use for leverage with our merchants in exchange for increased commissions or exclusive deals. With an average open rate of over 25% during non-holiday shopping (and higher during peak shopping times), we know that people are paying attention.

We asked for consumer feedback recently and it was terrific. We have very low unsubscribe rates and the list continues to grow well. Members like that they can comment on the posts to either get more information about the deals or comment on the deals if they have already tried them. The user-generated content is a nice addition to the deal. And the AWeber analytics help us to tweak which deals we are posting based on where we see interest (or not).

Brainstorming the Logistics

I am thankful that I have my Mastermind Group to help me come up with solutions like this. Even if you do not have a group like that, you can still get creative on your own. My best suggestion is to visit the AWeber blog frequently and see how other people are using the service. Think about your own problems and how their ideas can become your solutions as well. One of the biggest keys to being a successful affiliate marketer is learning how to make the most with what you have and spend your time wisely. Combing different technologies is a great way to do that.

Have you used AWeber in a unique way or combined it with other technologies? I would love to hear about it!

You know how people always say that you should learn from your mistakes? I made a mistake this week that taught me a big lesson in a completely unexpected way.

On Wednesday I started a contest on Sunshine Rewards and sent out a paid email with the subject line “New Survey Contest! Win up to $50.” I thought it was a pretty persuasive subject line to get people to read the email and click on the link at the bottom to visit the site and earn a penny. Unfortunately, we had a system glitch that resulted in people not getting their penny when they clicked on the link. Woops.

We started getting a lot of questions/complaints in the forum about why people didn’t get their penny. We never did figure out the glitch in the system that caused it, but we decided to send out the exact same email the next day with a new subject line and a little line about how we messed up the day before.

The only thing I changed the second day was the subject of the new email line with an apology that we owed them the penny. The rest of the email was the exact same and they had to scroll to the bottom of it to get their penny. Check out my site traffic for the month, with the day I sent the second email circled:

Two interesting things about this chart:

• There was no real increase in traffic the day that I sent the first email announcing the contest. Apparently that subject line (which I thought was good) meant nothing to my members.
• My site traffic DOUBLED with the second email. The best day of the month for me. Looking back at my stats, it was the best day traffic that I have had in over a year.

I would not have even thought about the possible increase in traffic if I had not received an email from Todd Farmer after the second email went out telling me that he thought the subject line was great. But when I looked at my stats, I was amazed.

As affiliate marketers, we often feel like we live and die by our Google search results. But this just goes to show that email is still effective when done properly. I have a lot of thinking to do now about my mailing lists and how to better use them. No, my revenue was not double for that day, but part of my goal is just getting people to the site to remind them what we are about so that when they do shop and take surveys, they remember to use us. I’m confident the exposure we got on that day did the trick.

Next steps? Figuring out what other subject lines would work for all of my lists, where I want them to land when they click through those emails, and how I am going to convert those views to money.

Do you experiment with subject lines? Have you been surprised at the ones that have and have not worked?

This week I was lucky enough to give a webinar through Affiliate Summit entitled “Monetize Your Blogging Skills with Affiliate Marketing.” The intent of the webinar was to teach bloggers how they can easily move from blogging to affiliate marketing with a little bit of important information and some easy tools. It was not a basic seminar about what affiliate marketing is (see my Start Monetizing Your Blog video for that information). Rather, it was food for thought about disclosure statements as well as some helpful plugins and network information.

Below are some notes and links from the presentation as well as a YouTube replay of the seminar.

• Disclosure statements are necessary for any bloggers who start recommending products or merchants. The FTC requires that they be “clear and conspicuous.”
• Visit disclosurepolicy.org to help you formulate one.
• The Exec-PHP WordPress Plugin is useful for inserting php into WordPress pages and posts.
• Use it in conjunction with GoldenCan and PopShops to create SEO friendly shopping pages or coupon directories.
• The Pretty Links plugin is great for redirecting affiliate links and cloaking (if you use the old version).
• Sub-identification tracking will help you better understand your conversions. Each network does this differently.

I think this webinar will be helpful to both brand new affiliates as well as those who have been in the business for awhile because we all do things a little bit differently and have different tips and shortcuts. Thanks to Affiliate Summit for giving me this opportunity!

Last year I was lucky enough to participate in a panel at Affiliate Summit West with two industry veterans, Kristin Kinsey (affiliate manager and owner of MadHatter Consulting) and Carolyn Tang Kmet (now the affiliate manager for Groupon), and moderated by Marty Fahncke. Our presentation was entitled Start Monetizing Your Blog Today and is a great primer for new affiliate marketers. A few things have changed (Carolyn got married!) but the basics of the presentation are still solid.

Carolyn started the presentation with an introduction about the basics of affiliate marketing, who the players are, and how it all works. I then discussed ways that bloggers can use affiliate marketing including banner and text links. Kristin finished up by explaining the role of affiliate managers and Outsourced Program Managers (OPMs).

Areas Covered

• Affiliate Marketing 101
• Stakeholders
• Evaluating Merchants
• Types of Creative
• The Affiliate Site
• Extreme Site Makeover
• Resources
• Contact Info

Below you will find both the PowerPoint (via Slideshare) and the actual video of the presentation thanks to Affiliate Summit.

my philosophy

I’ve recently been talking to a number of bloggers who are having a hard time understanding the types of products that they can promote through affiliate marketing. Many of them associate affiliate marketing with either ebooks or diet pills. I decided to try a little experiment and see how many products I used in one day that I could easily blog about and include affiliate links. Some of these products I would just mention in passing in a blog post. Others could be an entire written or video review. I actually got tired of writing them down there were so many. Here’s are some of the highlights.

• Took a shower using philosophy senorita margarita shampoo, shower gel, and bubble bath
• Got dressed in my favorite jeans-1969 long and lean from Gap (which also happen to be on sale as part of their Columbus Day Sale)
• Straightened my hair with my Sedu Ionic Ceramic Pro Flat Iron that I got from Ulta
• Put on my favorite perfume, Pink Sugar by Aquolina (purchased from different places depending on who had it on sale, usually Sephora)
• Made a cup of tea using my Teavana Perfect TeaMaker
• Got some work done on my Dell computer with my two Dell monitors
• Listened to music I had downloaded from Amazon and iTunes
• Opened some packages with my Slice Box Cutter
• Read some of The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney
• Got dressed for Zumba in my Tek Gear shirt and pants (from Kohls) and my Saucony running shoes (from Shoebuy)
• Spruced up with Black Candy Apple body lotion from Bath and Body Works
• Watched recorded movies on my DirecTV DVR with my husband

I could go on and on. But the point is that these are all products that I really use and could easily write about. They fit into niches like beauty, moms, home, reading, entertainment, exercise, food, etc. And this was only about half of what I even wrote down. In a given week I would also have affiliate marketing recommendations for travel sites, kids’ clothes, toys, gardening, football, cooking, finance, and more. It’s all about looking at your site and figuring what fits into it and then where to find those links.

If you need more help making that transition from blogger to affiliate marketing, I’m doing a webinar for Affiliate Summit on October 19th, 2011, at 12pm EST entitled Monetize Your Blogging Skills with Affiliate Marketing. It is free but there are limited spots available. I also did a webinar as part of the Blogging ABCs entitled 5 Affiliate Marketing Benefits for Bloggers that you can view on replay.

Inspired by the Wil Reynolds keynote at Affiliate Summit as well as Eric Nagel’s custom rel=”author” coding, I convinced my husband that I needed a plugin for my sites. Most of my sites run the Thesis theme, so I asked him to make it Thesis specific. He likes to think bigger than that, so he created it to run on any WordPress blog. You can visit the Easy Rel Author plugin page for more information if you are not running Thesis. If you are running Thesis, keep reading to find out how the plugin works for you.

What’s the Purpose?

If you are not sure yet why you even need to include rel=”author” on your posts, check out the search results below. I did a search for “seasonality in affiliate marketing.” Although my own post about my Seasonality session at Affiliate Summit ranks highest, Eric’s post grabs your attention first because of his picture next to it. How did he get his picture there? He’s included rel=”author” in his blog.

Search Result Example

Before the Plugin:

Before you even modify your site or add the Rel=”Author” Plugin, you need to set up a Google Plus profile for yourself. You then need to add profile links FROM your Google Profile to any sites that you blog on. These go on your About page on the right side. (see my Google Profile below)

Google Profile Links

Install the Plugin:

The Easy Rel Author Plugin is very simple. Click here to download it. Install it and then choose whether you want your Author Byline to link to your Google Profile or whether you would like an additional line added to your footer. The default is your Author Byline.

If you choose the additional line added to your footer, you will also need to choose whether you want a small Google Plus image or your name for the link. You’ll see that for this blog, I chose the default Author Byline link at the top of my posts. If you want to use it as a footer, check the first option in the settings. If you want it as a footer but your name rather than the Google+ image, check both of these boxes:

Footer Options in Settings

Add Your Google+ URL to Your Profile:

For each user on your blog, go into their User Profile and add their Google+ URL to the Contact Info section.

Add Google+ URL to Profile

Link Your Byline:

If you choose to have your Byline as the rel=”author” link, you will need to go into your “Thesis Option” “Display Option” “Bylines” and check “Link author names to archives.” If you are going the footer option, you do not need to do this.

Testing 1, 2, 3:

Although it can take a week or two to see your picture in the search results, you can use Google’s Rich Snippets Testing Tool to test your individual posts to see if they are working. I’ve heard that new posts take a couple of weeks but older posts can take even longer depending upon how frequently your posts are crawled. You may also need to fill out Google’s Authorship Request form. From what I can tell, Google is still manually deciding who can use this functionality and who cannot. The general consensus is that it will be turned on for everyone before too long.

Those are the basics. The plugin is still brand new, so I’m sure that we will quickly get a lot of feedback. I wouldn’t be surprised to see something built into Thesis soon to take care of this. If you are not using Thesis and still want to use the plugin, you can follow most of the above but go to Easy Rel Author Plugin for more information.

Please let us know if you are using the plugin and if you start seeing results!

Updated 10-11-11 The plugin works! It took me awhile to get my profile approved, but as you can see below, my picture is now showing up next to my search results. You can see that it is much bigger than the pictures below the search results where people have +1 the post. The only thing that I am confused about is that it seems like it is only working some of the time. I am guessing that it is just a matter of getting replicated across all of Google’s servers at this point? But it is progress!

The Rel=Author Plugin Works!

As part of my presentation for Affiliate Summit East 2011, I have prepared an Editorial Calendar (“editorial calender” for those of you with spelling issues) to help bloggers, affiliates, and merchants take advantage of Seasonality in Affiliate Marketing. The calendar is basically a listing of different holidays, events, and seasons that you might want to write about or monetize in some way. While it certainly is not an exhaustive list, it should give you a good start on your planning as well as get your creative juices flowing about other similar events. Understand that some events change dates from year to year and that you need to be looking at least a month in advance to plan for many of the events.

You can download the calendar by clicking on this link: Seasonality Calendar. Use it however you like but please link back to me if you decide to post it on your own site.

Hopefully those of you in attendance enjoy the presentation and those who download the calendar find it helpful! Let me know if I missed anything major and I may revise the calendar as necessary.

I admit that I am lazy when it comes to photos and graphics for my blogs. I’m not creative and I don’t have time to search for a lot of free images. I’m also careful not to violate copyrights. So I use iStockphoto for most of my sites. 9 times out of 10 I can find what I need in there within just a few minutes. Their images give my blog posts a little life and my sites a more professional look (like the image on my tutoring site).

Up until today, I didn’t even realize that they have a referral program. But even better than the fact that I can get something for referring you (assuming you buy credits in the next 30 days), I found out that YOU can get 10 free iStockphoto credits when you sign up through my link! That’s a pretty good deal, especially if you are just looking to try the service for the first time or only need a picture or two. Take the free 10 credits and don’t feel bad if you don’t end up buying any more than that. It’s worth it just to try it out.

The price of their pictures depends upon the type of pictures that they are and the size that you need. I find that I only ever need the smallest sizes for my sites, so that keeps the price down. I also buy my credits in bulk because I know that I will use them. You don’t have to link back to their site when you use the images either (which is the major down side to a lot of the free graphics and free photo sites).

I’m excited to pass along the free iStockphoto credits to my friends because I know almost all of you could use them for something or other. If you are already using iStockphoto, leave a comment below with your experience. If you’ve got another site that you use regularly for images, post that as well so that we can all take a look.

Last month I blogged about The Ugly Side of Affiliate Marketing and described some major issues that I was having with, among other things, with my Google Adsense Account and the eBay Partner Network. I’m happy to report that all of the problems have been resolved. However, it wasn’t without a lot of help and a lot of lessons learned–lessons that can apply whether you get hit with the nexus tax, unexpectedly dropped by merchants, or even dropped from entire networks.

I took the opportunity to discuss it with my Blogging ABCs co-hosts Deborah Carney and Liz Fogg. Here are some of the things that we talked about in the podcast that I learned from this debacle:

1) Diversify. Have different types of sites in different niches. Work with different merchants across different networks. This saved me because I still had other revenue streams even when two of them were down.

2) Separate Accounts. Use separate network accounts when you have multiple sites or especially different types of sites (incentives, coupons, gambling, etc). It will come in handy if one of your sites gets flagged or if you decide to sell a site. If I had done this with both Adsense and eBay, I likely would not have run into either problem that I had.

3) Use link redirecting. Redirecting will help you change out links quickly if you need to. In addition, you can use shorteners so that your domain shows up instead of someone else’s when you post your links in other places. In some cases where I did this, I was able to change out my links quickly. Where I didn’t, I will probably have a lot of dead links and lost revenue opportunities.

4) Network. Meet in person with as many people as possible. Further, after you connect with them, follow up, reinforcing your connection. When you need help, those connections may be the difference between keeping and losing your business.  I can honestly say that without my network I may not have ever gotten these problems solved.

Some Resources we mention:

Pretty Link Lite
YourLS Open Source shortener that you can install on your own website

In the end there was a silver lining; my sites are back to normal and I’ve learned some valuable lessons that I need to share with everyone else so that this doesn’t happen to them. You just knew with a nickname like “Sunshine” it would have to end like this, right?