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I Would Like To Disclose My Disclosure | ||
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 Jeremy Schoemaker and Rand Fiskin recently got into a healthy debate about their thoughts on disclosing affiliate links and other financial relationships. They pretty much had opposite opinions. By now you should know who “Shoemoney” is as I recently interviewed him for nearly two hours. Jeremy is the creator of AuctionAds. *There’s a reason I just used that AuctionAds affiliate link. It’s so I get to use my new Disclosure Button. I’ll explain it in a moment… If you don’t know who Rand Fiskin is you need to. He’s one of the top SEO experts in the world. I highly recommend you check out his site - great stuff! Andy Beard recently chimed in on the discussion and had some great stuff to say about this blog disclosure issue. I’ve become a big fan of Andy’s blog and highly recommend it. He does a great job of creating very thorough posts. So what do you think? Do you think a blogger should clearly disclose that they are being compensated for posting affiliate links on their blog? (Or other links where they receive compensation.) Here’s What I Think I think it’s best to be as open and honest with your prospects and customers as possible. Trust is a major issue online and anything you can do to gain that valuable trust the better. The ‘laws’ regarding this type of marketing disclosure are still a little unclear. Some think it’s fine to just include a small link somewhere on the blog that discloses that the blogger receives compensation from certain activities on their blog. Others feel there needs to be more transparency than that. I agree with those that think there should be more transparency. There is already an abundance of deceptive tactics being used online — and Internet users are realizing it more and more everyday. I believe we, as marketers, need to start doing more things that build TRUST with our users. It’s just like publishing great content. The more VALUE you provide your audience the more it will benefit your business. And oh yeah, it’s probably also just the right thing to do anyway. And here’s the ironic part for marketers that are afraid that their compensation activities will suffer if they bring more attention to it. I believe the opposite is true. If you aren’t aware of the psychological implications of reciprocity then you need to read (or reread) Robert Cialdini’s valuable book Influence. If you’re delivering tremendous value to your blog readers they will actually want to help you. And this includes making purchases or following your recommendations when they are fully aware that you are being rewarded for it. They want you to be rewarded. Because blogger disclosure is still very much a voluntary thing, I want to do my best to set a good example and start doing more for the Income.com Blog. Starting today, if I ever make a blog post that contains an affiliate link or any other link that directly compensates Income.com in someway, I will include a little ‘button’ at the bottom of the post to indicate it. The link next to this little dollar sign button will say Contains Compensation. When someone clicks on this link this is the message they will see:
Financial Relationship Disclosure
From time-to-time other companies will pay us a commission on any referred sales or other compensation if we send any of our site visitors to their web site. Although we are sometimes compensated for making such recommendations please rest assured that Income.com will NEVER willingly promote poor quality products or services. You have OUR PROMISE that we will only recommend products and services that we honestly feel will provide you with tremendous value. You can test the new button at the end of this post. Why am I including this at the bottom of all those posts and not just putting a link in my sidebar or footer menu? It’s simple… Because most people WON’T SEE IT in the sidebar or footer menu. And if most people won’t clearly see it, it’s just like not having a disclosure policy at all. A tiny sidebar or footer link might protect you legally but it’s not going to increase the trust with your blog readers. Since 95% of the attention on a blog happens within the space where the blog posts are displayed, I feel it only makes sense to include it in the same section. So that’s what I’m going to do. * I’m working on a solution for my feed since they can’t view the button.
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June 9th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Good point John - I’ve actually seen people declare they were happy for you to get the compensation BECAUSE you had been so helpful to them…
I for one, was happy to test AuctionAds using your link… again for the same reason as above…
Please keep “raising the bar” - it’s what keeps internet businesses viable, instead of degenerating into a mire of poor products that people buy and sell to each other (and not just in the IM market).
Onwards and upwards!
Robert
PS. Buckminster Fuller used to use an expression called “obnoxico” which essentially means (in our market) products for sale that add nothing significant to anyone’s life - and I see that you are urging us to do the opposite, as was “Bucky”.
June 9th, 2007 at 6:37 pm
I agree with you, especially on your point about how you believe the opposite is true when it comes to identifying affiliate links etc. Whenever I view blogs I will usually hover over links to see their destination and if I see something along the lines of “?affid=XXXX” that greatly lowers my trust in a given blogger and i always go to the site directly and not using their affiliate link. If a blogger identifies that they put an affiliate link I am pleased to sign up through their affiliate link.
June 9th, 2007 at 7:57 pm
Hi John
Yes, trust is a major issue for internet marketers, and I’m glad to see you’re leading the way with this disclosure idea. Why not make it a plug-in, for viral effect?
Best,
Paul Hancox
http://www.trafficpersonalizer.com/
June 10th, 2007 at 8:45 am
Great points - you’re right on reciprocity. I often deliberately click on affiliate links when I feel the affiliate deserves a commission. So I don’t think disclosing will hurt your income in the long term.
Cool button - I might do something similar on my blog.
How about releasing a plug-in for this button?
Oh, and btw, I believe it’s “Jeremy Schoemaker” - not sure if he’s picky on that
Also, your Amazon link to Influence is “broken”, there is an extra “http//” in there.
June 10th, 2007 at 8:47 am
Wow! I didn’t even have a disclaimer on that at all on my blog. I will certainly add one a.s.a.p.
I like the button idea…I’ll have to see if my web designer can come up with a similar concept that fits with our brand.
Great discussion John!
Gisele
http://www.mybeautymatch.com
June 10th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Thanks, Hannes! I fixed the typos.
June 10th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Got to love open source software and plugins, and you chose a good plugin to base this upon.
It shouldn’t be too hard to hack the remainder of the plugin to link through to a universal disclosure page which is still a good idea to cover those “incidental” and often non-monetary benefits of why people link to each other.
Great to see you take a stand on this one John, it was becoming a little lonely.
June 10th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Many thanks, Andy!!!
June 10th, 2007 at 9:54 pm
Hey John
I to am a firm believer in being honest but I would like to make a comment about the affiliate link you know how hard it is to get traffic for us people just getting started and I know that there are people that when they see a affiliate link they will wipe it out and go to the main page and bypass the affiliate that worked so hard to get them to their web page. Know I’m not saying lie to people and say that is your web site but if you can put a redirect from your web site to keep them from skipping you well I do not think that is being dishonest it is trying to help people with what they need at the same time keeping them on your affiliate site.
Hope that made sense,
Bill
June 10th, 2007 at 11:45 pm
Bill, I understand exactly. It is a very very fine line. And it’s especially sensitive when it comes to blogs because blogs in general are thought to be more of a ‘journalistic’ thing… like someone’s individual words and not a “Marketing Message.”
June 12th, 2007 at 2:53 am
I completely agree with your opinion John. Whenever I come across a blog post with affiliate links, it made me wonder, is this guy really mean what he said in his post or he just made it up so he could reap all the commission from his affiliate links. In other words, his honesty is always an issue. But when people like you disclose your affiliate links, I know that this person is being honest. I no longer have to check whether the link is an affiliate link or not because I know it is. The writer is being truthful and has nothing to hide. In that case, since someone is getting paid anyway, why not the writer who made the good the recommendation?
shah
June 12th, 2007 at 10:58 am
As that old saying goes…”Honesty is the best policy.”
Personally, I’m very new to marketing on the net. Never really been involved in Affiliate
Marketing, but I do know that when your real and upfront with people, they will
reciprocate the same back.
Great posts John…keep e’m coming!
- Sam
June 12th, 2007 at 4:49 pm
I’ve decided to put this disclosure as a alt text whenever someone mouses over my logo on my wezeemall blog. If there are any objections let me know.
June 13th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
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June 15th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
This is a big debat, and I am not sure if I should tell it or not. My blog is an affiliate marketing blog, and I am walking my talk.
I am using affiliate links in some of my posts, and buyers didn’t complain yet. I also try to only promote quality products.
Quality is one of my business priority.
June 25th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! vprhhsuqnnsed
June 25th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
John
After reading this post the other day, I made a post to a blog and left my affiliate link there, but I said that it was an affiliate link and if they didn’t want to click on it they could click on the other link that I left, the owner of the blog sent me an email and said that normally she would take out the affiliate link but since it was so classy she would leave it in the post. I thought that was so nice of her.
August 13th, 2007 at 7:20 am
2 unethical people battle it out for king of spam and internet marketing scum, why do they still preach bs at tradeshows?
March 18th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
Jack…
Six Apart started a working group in February 2006 to improve the Trackback protocol with the goal to eventually have it approved as…
November 8th, 2008 at 3:11 am
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October 29th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Great debate. Once proper disclosure is done, the onus of qualifying whatever is written is with the readers.They can choose to trust or not trust. And these days people analyse the comments more than they analyse the main story.That is the trend I suppose.