ItsTheRightWay.com Shopping Tips

Affiliate Best Practices

This week we want to focus on affiliate marketing and the practices that an affiliate should focus on.
ItsTheRightWay.com receives its revenue from affiliate marketing. We place an advertiser's ad on our website and earn a commission from that advertiser.

So what are the best practices?
1)Research the advertiser prior to joining - An affiliate should always research an advertiser prior to joining that merchants program. The affiliate needs to make sure that their marketing tools are in line with the advertiser's.
Try to get as much info about the advertiser to make sure that your ethical or business standards are a match with the advertiser's.

2) Abide by the advertiser's terms - Each advertiser spells out codes of conduct or terms of use for an affiliate's involvement in their program. An affiliate should make sure that they are able to abide by those terms prior to joining an affiliate program.
Its' not fair to the advertiser if an affiliate joins a program but is unwilling or unable to follow the programs' rules.
Each advertiser sets out rules because they know what works for their company. Affiliates have the advantage of promoting a program that has been researched and marketed by the advertiser.

ItsTheRightway.com recently dropped out of an affiliate program because it was unable to abide by an updated affiliate policy. We didn't think it was fair to the advertiser or ethical to continue in a program that we couldn't abide by.

3) Follow best Practices - I believe it's necessary to follow ethical and moral standards when marketing a merchant.
We believe that it's unethical to click on an advertiser's ads (to inflate clickthroughs and revenue) unless you are testing to see if the link is still valid.
It's also a bad practice to have your friends, family or employees click on a merchant affiliate's ads to inflate revenue.

Another bad practice is using software that generates false or misleading clickthroughs. We believe that this is the same as stealing. We aren't talking about traffic programs that you may join. We are talking about software installed on your site that falsely clicks on advertisements.
All clicks must be valid and viewed by a real person. Traffic programs (where you join a traffic network) are real and proper forms of marketing.

4) Market the program in good faith - If you join a program you must make all attempts to adeqautely market that advertiser. You should also refrain from misleading your visitors about a particular merchant. Follow the marketing tools provided by the merchant and always be honest and ethical when marketing a particular program.

We know that we're all human and may inadvertently break a rule from time to time but we believe that if you follow ethical business standards then revenues will fall into place. Your customers and business partners will respect you and be willing to do business with you.