Tonight on the ShoeMoney radio show my guest will be the lovely Jazette Pester, Senior Affiliate Manager from Affiliate.com.
I have tried for a long time to get affiliate managers on the show but end up getting there marketing people or CEO’s. Not that I don’t like that but I want people with boots on the ground who are in the trenches!
You can participate by asking questions in the comments below, asking questions during the show (4pm CST 5PM EST) via twitter or phoning in, Or you can just sit back and listen!.
We will discuss many topics but the key topic for tonights show is the FTC’s new rules and how they will effect advertising on the tubes.
The Federal Trade Commission has some new guidelines that will seriously impact internet advertising. Here are the new rules under consideration:
• Consumer testimonials would have to be substantiated and ads would have to include generally expected results. Endorsers, not just advertisers, could be held liable for deceptive claims. “You’d have to say not only is it extreme, but how extreme is it,” the FTC’s Richard Cleland said.
• Celebrities who talk up a product in an interview must disclose if they are getting paid for the promotion. Celebrities who endorse products would have to disclose if they have an ownership interest.
• Expert endorsers, like doctors, must have experience in the product area they are endorsing. If they don’t, the limits of their expertise must be stated. For instance, an ophthalmologist identified only as a doctor could not be portrayed as an expert physician endorsing a hearing aid.
• Bloggers who get free products and then endorse them on their blogs would have to make it clear they got the products free.
Should be a great show! Look forward to hearing from you.
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2414 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 58 comments… read them below or add one }
I don’t quite see how they are going to enforce these rules, whatever the case may be.. I’m looking forward to the interview!
I was really hoping they’d address sites like these:
“COMPLETELY FREE TRIAL*
*$94/month hidden bullshit membership fees”
Wow, she is quite hot. Too bad it isn’t a TV show… i would watch her read the phone book
Seems like pretty straightforward stuff. Kind of like common sense for folks who play the game legit…
This may cause problems for those trying to hide something or deceive the consumer… Which is how it should work.
Looking forward to seeing it enforced.
So people who play the game “legit” run ads that “include generally expected results.”
Yeeeaahh I’m sure they do.
well these rules really effect the market
I think this is good, encourages people to produce honest sites promoting affiliate programs. Being open about the product you are promoting will stop people making outrageous claims that get better click through.
And how will it impact international bloggers/IMers?
They can’t enforce the same rules on them.
Is it me or I see nothing special in those rules. It is common sense. You need to disclose everything.. In the long term, I don’t think it will have a huge impact.
Looking forward!
these rules are only under consideration and it will be interesting to see which ones get approved and how they are enforced…FTC has no jurisdiction to blogs or ads running out side the US…
In light of heightened FTC activity regarding scams, as well as the condition of the US economy and the many people suffering financially as a result, I would like to get Ms. Pester’s comment on my latest post ‘An Open Letter to the US Affiliate Community’.
If these get approve will definitely hurt the industry.
You know… and please don’t call em a tin foil hat wearer, EVERY law or regulation in the US starts with donations and lobbying from certain groups of interest!
I have to wonder how much influence lobbying from Google had to do with this direction?! In effect, they are the BIGGEST advertiser on the internet and they too will have to comply!
I have heard Matt Cutts quote FTC a few times in his efforts to push the cause of disclosure.
To me.. if these are in fact made as law… it gives search engines like Google, who clearly cannot police their own index without help, the strength of laws behind them, to immediately drop sites from the index, who are not in compliance with the new laws.
**Soon to be added to the new Google TOS**
(SIC)
Google Inc is a US based company, therefore, our index must comply by US laws and regulations. If your website or blog is not in full compliance with all US laws, we must remove it from our index.
Additionally, we encourage all Webmasters to visit our new page here, and report all sites not in compliance with the new US laws and regulations.
M
Seems to me, as a canuck, that we “need” some rules that go “past” national boundaries…can’t wait to hear about this tonite!
Jim
I really don’t see how these will effect us however they will effect companies who use celebrities in their ads and also it means customers may be hasty to right a review.
Are these same (or similar) rules in effect for TV advertising?
Wow, that could really change things… I mean overall it’d be for the better I think… There are always ways around it though, I mean if you think of politics, Queen Nancy Pelosi is one of the primary shareholders in T Boone Pickens wind power company and is pushing for…. hmmm Wind Power! I think alot of endorsements are more complicated and that their rule prob wouldn’t stop it.
The testimonials thing could be huge, I would wonder how you would actually implement it though… On our site I’m starting to time stamp them all but beyond that I don’t know what I could do?
I think it would be good to address blogs where the people comment on their own blog with several different accounts. “Your product XYZ sounds very interesting and I’m SURE it will help my business!” I’ve been noticing alot of this in our market.
Great Post, sorry to go on and on..
Ahh…double standards. So why can’t we just put results not typical at bottom of the testimonial in 10pt font like TV? Either way this is stupid, I’ll just buy hosting from France or something.
How many more times will cpa empire change it’s name for legal purposes?
It’ll be interesting to see how this pans out. There are millions of bloggers in the U.S. How would they enforce this?
Yeah I don’t know how they could enforce it without the system being massively abused..
I will be hard to enforce (probably by complaints only) On the other hand, These rules are not an issue if you try to be honest in the first place.
Aint my fault if some 350lb person thinks they can lose 10% of their weight in two months by sitting around eating diet versions of every snack available on the planet. Just being brutally honest here. People should know money doesn’t buy results without hard work to go with it. People who felt deceived by weight loss miracles should feel ashamed of themselves for not studying basic health sciences first. Those getting billed for unwanted trial products are the exception, but the ones who actually wanna maintain their lifestyle as is and expect results won’t be deterred even with full and complete disclosure.
And it would be funny to see these rules in effect. People will find ways around it. Like radio spots that fast forward the voice for the fine print or tv that makes it really tiny font that is unreadable. Or credit card award programs that pile 20 pages of crap together into a tiny phamlet explaining everything you can’t do with their rewards program.
So what, bloggers give the vendor a penny via paypal now for the “free” product and now it’s not “free” anymore. Problem solved. Bet Google lobbied for the blogging rule…
I hate the fact that you can’t advertise your best offer because “Everyone” isn’t eligible. Car companies advertise 0% apr with a baby disclaimer and no one raises an eye brow.
Like everything else the “Government” meddles in or obstructs, not much will change. The legit people will comply, and the d-bags will continue to scam.
It’s like gun control…
Outlaw guns and only outlaws will have guns!
I’d be interested in hearing what you guys have to say on the Acai Berry craze
This is interesting, this rule could really impact how we we do business on the internet.
It was only a matter of time… it should be interesting to see how this changes the marketplace.
On a scale from one to ten…Ten being totally pissed off and 1 being happy…
What does Shoemeister think about the pushing of new FTC rules?
Also if the new rules do occur…Will you be changing the way you do business with some of your sites or are you already following the rules?
From the affiliate perceptive I see the potential impact, but as an online consumer I am sick and tired of “product reviews” with affiliate links.
When I am in “shopping mode” and start to hunt for real user reviews, any review with deep links immediately loses credibility for me. Too much fraud online and it is about time some sort of regulation is created to protect the consumer
Knowing this business…Has really changed my “shopping mode”….
Jerome Russell sold spray on hair on TV, but their altered photos and paid actors giving testimonials are apparently not deceptive claims.
Jeremy,
I don’t have any campaigns up yet. Just seven blogs and a dream of making a living on-line.
The daily-click-budget excuses me from any concern regarding FTC rules.
Google will finally get slapped, and the FTC will require Google to ban non-compliant sites.
As you have stated, Adsense / SEO are dead, CPA and CPM are the new kids on the block for profitable on-line business models.
Respectfully,
Nicholas Chase
http://www.twitter.com/nachase
How, when, and where can I listen to this ?
Question bump…
This will could get interesting:
“Celebrities who talk up a product in an interview must disclose if they are getting paid for the promotion. Celebrities who endorse products would have to disclose if they have an ownership interest.”
Hi Im Tiger Woods, Im getting $$$ to talk about this awesome Buick.
Wow, That is a really interested convept.
That will change a lot of advertising.
I liked your joke about Tiger Woods
I hope you upload a audio of the same since we all cant watch it.
Well ads generally are created to fool people. That’s how the world works. If you can hype one product, you’ll win in front of your competitors. It’s impossible to stay honest and at the same time make quick bucks.
Google can earn so much from their adwords program because they allow advertisers to hype the offers. Affiliates who make 5 or 6 digits income also have to spend 5 or 6 digits of USD to Google. Also the merchants themselves. Well, after all FTC is only for the US, right
You surely have no idea internet is an international world, not just US so it’s not kind of a big deal, at least for me.
Why don’t they bring this into mainstream media??? Why hurt us?
No..let the big multi-billion dollar companies continue making TV campaigns that are more misleading than the internet..
HOW CONVENIENT…………
how on earth would they enforce it?
This is great to clean things up a bit but when I watch something with an actor I can careless if they got paid or not.
What say you?
How do you get started in affiliate marketing? What kind of steps and requirements do you need before you start this venture.
Whats the difference in strategies between marketing my own products and an affiliate product?
In a way this is both good and bad, it’s for sure going to hurt some advertisers and going to make things harder for them however it is going to clean up the ads market and make it somewhat less saturated, whereby any kid and his grandmother can put a landing page together with some fake testimonials and endorsements so this should make things more interesting.
Lets see how this one is going to effect. Because in the past also we have seen such kind of laws which were hide in narrow alphabets.
But I am sure if they will imposed this strictly than we will get rid off such falsy smiles.
topic of discussion is very interesting,,, must be effecting the extraordinary, especially for bloggers
Although I think that this is quiet a big step for internet advertising, I am curious on how will they implement these new rules and how effective it will be seeing that humans with profound intelligence can still go about finding loopholes in every statements. Very well, I am also looking forward to this, but I can’t help saying that this will have a great impact to internet advertising especially the entrepreneurs which would either result into a lot of pros and cons.
Interesting that everyone seems to have missed the fact that in the past year, if you pay attention, there has been white texted ‘disclaimers’ added to celebrity endorsed television commercials.
We’re all consumers, and we know (or should) there is no such thing as something for nothing, or that the ads we see are there to help us live better because the advertiser loves us! Grow up.
How will this affect affiliates? I think it will serve to make the industry better by shaking out the dregs that are making sales harder, prospects more skeptical and in the long run increase ROI for those of us who take our business seriously.
Interesting info regarding the FTC. Thanks.
i wanna be on your show just to talk to this cute and fine a** girl… who dat? who dat?!
It’s to protect consumers…and, it’s the govt. so what can you do…
These are really simple guidelines, but it would really interesting to see how they are enforced.
I agree completely, something has to be done , but sadly these types of guidelines always will stay guidelines…
Cheers for the post, I enjoyed the read. Bookmarked.