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Comment RSSAre CPA Networks Dishonest? The Value of Honesty.
Written by Peter TarrJuly 18, 2012 # 9:18 am # Marketing Insights, Specials # 13 Comments
Honesty (noun): a fairness and straightforwardness of conduct; adherence to the facts.
Trust (noun): assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something.
Transparency (noun): something transparent; (adjective): characterized by visibility or accessibility of information especially concerning business practices.
Honesty. Trust. Transparency. According to Merriam-Webster’s definitions, are these principles on which you’d run a business? I imagine if you poll a variety of business leaders, they’d all say these are important foundations of their company’s mission. They would probably say they strive to maintain these ideologies personally and that they certainly conduct their business using these guiding rules.
While they’re all honorable philosophies, they don’t mean much unless they’re put into practice. Unfortunately, the affiliate marketing industry has been a less-than-stellar keeper of these values as of late. Over the past few months, we’ve seen players in our industry take some pretty heavy hits. Some well-deserved; perhaps not so deserved for others. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter. No matter who is to blame for the “shady” activity, the industry as a whole inevitably takes a hit. When folks outside our industry read about marketing scams that they may be vulnerable to, they automatically place all companies within the same bucket: a dishonest, untrustworthy and non-transparent one.
As an industry, it’s time we take a stand. Everyone who considers themselves a part of the affiliate marketing industry should step up and act in an honest, trustworthy and transparent manner. What are some examples of how we can collectively move forward to repair our image? As an advertiser, present your company in an open manner and target those who would truly benefit from your product, service, or other offering. As a publisher, only seek to monetize and market content that you know is ethical. Don’t seek to make money from illegal or immoral content.
As networks, it is our responsibility to provide relevant and ethical offers for affiliates and be responsible with timely and accurate payments. It is also our duty to be the face of the industry. If someone has a complaint, respond to it. If there’s a suggestion, consider it as a potential strategy moving forward. In our digital world, it is all too easy to remain a nameless, faceless brand behind a computer. It’s time to step up to the plate. In fact, my company has taken an unprecedented step in offering a reward to anyone who could show evidence that they hadn’t been paid. Doing business online means accepting that there will always be individuals with hidden agendas making accusations anonymously. However, any company that stands by its products, services and reputation should be willing to conduct business with a level of transparency that speaks for itself. I feel we did exactly that in challenging individuals to step forward with evidence in return for a generous reward. Thus far, as expected, we have not had a single publisher approach us with a complaint or evidence.
Honesty. Trust. Transparency. In my opinion, you can’t run a business, let alone an industry, without these qualities. I challenge everyone in our industry – affiliate marketers, advertisers and publishers – to do their best to work towards these goals. Bit by bit, I believe we can rebuild our image and gain back the trust we may have lost from some of those who have been burned.
Written by Peter Tarr
Peter Tarr is the CEO for MonetizeDigital, a premier online marketing company that specializes in digital content monetization
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I can tell you ONE network that isn’t ANY of these traits and that’s Society Invite! Check this out – http://www.scribd.com/doc/100361262/Society-Invite-Fraud-Ben-Cagle – from another network they were apparently in cahoots with just recently. I found the original conversion on a FB group, Shady Affiliates.
Thats the funniest thing I´ve ever read.
Paste:
How does the China afliate know so much aboutExperian and US and UK Credit Report offers?
Well – you don´t have to be American to promote USA offers, right? We all know that americans are not the smartest people in the world – 80% of them never visited any other country.
I am European and I promote USA offers- is there anything wrong with this? Do I commit fraud, just coz I am not USA citizen ( which I don´t want to be)
Jeez, and the person wrote this can´t even spell domain:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/100361262/Society-Invite-
Paste again:
HE’S AMERICAN and the domin is still..
I might be blond Bulgarian -but in our country we type domain.., and don´t pretend we are on top of the world
Haters, will be haters- there are not many USA people to promote your offers. Most of them eat popcorn and watch soaps
I saw this on the web that went a long with your comment and found this to be pretty interesting. Whats even funnier is I went to the forum he is talking about and Steve Howe is a member there (he started his network mainly on blackhatworld which is where he got most of his affiliates to begin with) and one of his AM’s for convert2media is also on MMD looking for affiliates to push craigslist traffic. All of these forums are the same regardless of the content. Your going to have bad people everywhere. I’m not really sure what he proved other than he writes like a 5 year old.
Although this http://www.viewdocsonline.com/document/m7oz8x actually provides some factual info and tends to be more on target. Its funny I read in the group where this was posted and C2M says they faked the info/screenshots but we all know if they did then they would easily win in a defamation case, I don’t think these guys are that stupid. It looks like C2M has a lot of explaining to do. I also hear they owe a lot of people money. Just the word on the street. Be careful……
In the minds of many people in this industry, honesty and transparency doesn’t convert. And that creates the systemic internal mistrust within the industry itself.
Honesty amongst thieves can’t work and we are now seeing why.
Better question is WHEN and WHO at the network will go to bat for you.
Good topic and very interesting comment above from Liam
Michael Rich
Partner @ NAMoffers
I’ve always felt I was getting a fair shake from Adknowledge…
CJ, did not pay me for my first months work promoting a travel program… in 2008. I’m just getting back in to affiliate marketing due to this..
Good read. Only a few will remain at the top once this industry effectively consolidates. I think it will work out for the better in the long term. These networks that claim to pay but never do will eventually wither-out. That is true for every other industry, including Affiliate Marketing.
We have a very simple approach when working with affiliates and publishers: “Good traffic gets rewarded. Bad traffic gets punished.” You can tell me how great, clean, targeted, valuable, vetted, etc. your traffic is. You may actually believe it too. But when you send me “non incent” traffic from loan consolidation sites or display ads on “get a job” sites, I will know it and that traffic will get punished.
value of honesty? even google and apple have their own dirty little secrets. It’s the 21st century when capitalism is the king. I think as long as it’s legal, corporates would just do everything to make money.
Its a commercial guys. A well written one, but at the same time…. come on.
No offense intended to Pace or the original author of this….. commercial, but really? Your going to sit here and bash affiliates, as well as networks, as a network CEO?
Posting as a pure affiliate, not an internet marketer, affiliate manager, or super affiliate, I’ve gotta call BS on this entire article.
I’ve worked in several niches, most of the readers here know that I primarily work in Forex/Stocks. One of the great things about the Forex niche, is that we don’t backstab and cheat eachother as much as the CPA world does.
Why?
Because we need eachother to survive.
You’ll figure it out sooner or later. But as for the masked attempt at a commercial – Here’s some transparency for you, no matter how much polish you use, if you polish a turd, it’s still a turd.
The real value of honesty?
Dollars.
Steffan, the author of every article is at the both at the top of the article and their bio at the bottom.