NEW FTC Affiliate Marketing Guidelines: Can A Retarded Gorilla fix a Swiss Watch?

October 9, 2009 by michael44a · Comments Off
Filed under: Tools Used and Recommended!

Note: I’m not a lawyer, Never been a lawyer,
don’t practice law and I do not give legal advice! The information below is NOT legal advice. The following are just my thoughts and opinion.

As many of you have probably heard, the FTC recently enacted some new advertising standards that directly affect internet marketing in general -
across the whole board…

And this will impact basically every Affiliate offer, pre-sell page
and affiliate “review” page you affiliate marketers will create from this point forward.

Namely, the NEW guidelines deals with:

* Compensation Disclosure, and

* Honesty about Average Results

As I understand it, (and as Chris Rempel states in his blog) in summary, the new guidelines state that:

1) You have to clearly disclose that you are either being compensated or have a vested interest (commissions) in the products, services or otherwise “stuff” you feature in ANY of your content, and

2) Whenever you make claims about an offer – or publish testimonials – you have to either clarify or verify what the actual, average results are for an average user of the product.

From what I can interpret from the FTC guidelines (and it’s pretty vague),
you can still use your showpiece testimonials that are NOT average, but instead of just saying “results not typical” or “results may vary” – you have to
outright provide the *actual* average results in very close proximity to the
testimonial.

Something like: “This user experienced substantially above-average
results with this product. The average user can expect ___________”

(You can read a more in-depth take on the testimonial issue on
Frank Kern’s blog, by the way…)

I just want you to know, that I enjoy affiliate marketing and all its ups and
downs. And yes, I do promote some products that are created by others. And yes I do receive a very small amount of compensation when a customer purchases thru my affiliate links for a product. I usually only promote products or services that I have personally used and have derived some sort of benefit from that product.

As you look around on this blog, you will see various banners and ads for
various products. Please know that these are all my affiliate links to those
products. So if you decide to make a purchase, yes, I will be compensated (a
very small amount). But the point is, your experience using the product will NOT be average, there really is NO average, and no way in HELL can I predict what your results or experience(s) will be

MY FULL DISCLOSURE:

I want to make 2 points perfectly clear:

1) Yes, most of the links on this page are my affiliate links

2) I make NO claims as to what kind of results or experience you can expect when using these products.

So, the question is, Can the Retarded Gorilla really fix a smooth running
Swiss Watch? Probably not! But the FTC makes all the rules, AND you have to play by THEIR rules (and, as always, consult your lawyer, as your results may vary)!

Michael

Tags: affiliate marketing, ftc guidelines