At 9:30 in the morning, I was examining a patient when my cellphone rang. I answered.

“Sir, I’m calling from XYZ bank. Would you be interested

in a personal loan for….?”

Curtly, I ended the call and returned to work.

 

At 2 in the afternoon, the phone buzzed while I was in a meeting.

“Hello?”

“I’m calling to offer you a no-strings cr.edit card with

enhanced limits…”

Click.

 

At 6 that evening, as I was driving my daughter to the park, I got another call.

“Sir, I’d like to let you know about our new range of home

loan options…”

 

***** THIS IS THE LIMIT! *****

 

While I was getting one call a week, or even every day, it wasn’t too troublesome. Easier to ignore.

At 2 per day, it started getting irritating, annoying, and I kept thinking about doing something to stop it.

But when I got junk calls to my cellphone from banks THREE times in a day, I decided enough is enough - and so did MILLIONS of others.

Today, we have a ‘Do Not Call Registry’

 

The entire banking industry loses - big time!

 

Why tell YOU about this?

Because something similar is happening in the IM world.

Specifically, in the Affiliate Marketing industry.

It was always happening - but rarely, so it flew under the radar.

But the frequency has increased - and the blatancy. Many people are getting annoyed. Very, seriously angry.

It all came to a head this week, when an affiliate marketer with a huge list sent out an email with one of these mistakes … and people are up in arms.

One of them even wrote to Clickbank, which promptly freezed the account in violation!

Tomorrow, we may have a ‘Do Not Affiliate Market’ registry

 

And YOU, dear affiliate marketer, will lose - big time!

 

What to do?

I’ve set the ball rolling with a draft document about

“Acceptable Affiliate Practices”

 

I posted it to various affiliate marketing forums, blogs and sent it to industry leaders - and also put it up on my blog

here:

http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?UDwakZiZSiEytRxucwigrg

Affiliate marketing top gun, Allan Gardyne read it and said:

“Dr Mani has joined the discussion by creating an unofficial

‘rule book’ or a set of guidelines “good” affiliates would

adhere to. They’re guidelines which would help everyone

involved - the vendor, the buyer and the affiliate.

 

Nicely done, Dr Mani!”

 

 

As early-adopters of a medium like the Web, we share something in common - a desire to control the way we do things.

But these recent incidents, that escalate to the level of needing to lodge complaints with the big companies in the industry, can only be bad for the industry as a whole.

If I were in charge of Clickbank (which incidentally, I am not), and got repeated complaints about behavior like this from multiple affiliates, I would consider it worthwhile going to regulatory authorities and having LAWS made about them.

And that won’t be particularly nice for small players in the field, who might get caught up complying with legal requirements all day long, leaving little time, energy and cash to work on marketing.

So, that’s why these ‘guidelines’ came to be drafted - and why I’m sharing them with industry leaders and experts as well as every affiliate marketer, to have YOU help refine, enhance and hone them into an unofficial ‘rulebook’ for affiliate marketing.

No, we cannot enforce compliance - only the FTC or equivalent can.

But as the vast majority of affiliate marketers are honest, ethical, hard-working people who are likely looking for guidance to top names in the field (because of the lack of such a document), this collaborative, participatory effort could result in something this group might use to plan future affiliate marketing efforts.

And if by chance things deteriorate to the point official intervention becomes inevitable, we would at least have a good ‘code of conduct’

to adhere to, which would label us ‘acceptable’ affiliate marketers!

The guidelines however are of limited value without feedback, debate and additions. So please share YOUR thoughts and add-ons to it. You could post your comments to my blog, or on forums like Allan’s or the Warriors - or even write about it on your blog (remember to send me your link, so I can list it with other blogs writing about it)

Or you could simply help make this draft document more visible by posting it to your social bookmarks on del.icio.us, jots.com, Furl.net, Blinklist.com and Spurl.

Oh, and tell your friends and subscribers to share their views too.

You just might be making affiliate marketing something you can be proud about - rather than ashamed of!

All success

Dr.Mani

P.S. - The Acceptable Affiliate Practices document is here:

http://clicks.aweber.com/z/ct/?UDwakZiZSiEytRxucwigrg

95, 13th Street, Chennai, TN 60040, INDIA

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