I have been following PPC.bz for a while.  Good stuff for hardcore pubs.  They recently released what I feel is about as close to an epitath for Acai as there is.

Birdman has recorded a rough mix of the Classic Bye Bye American Pie but with the words rearranged to chronicle the “Day The Rebills Died“.

Whenever you can work FTC, Spam and Nigerian into a song, you have a hit.  Nice work from your basement.  What’s next a remake of Tom Petty’s Free Falling into Free Trialing?

Listen to it on PPC.BZ.  Mind you,  PPC.BZ ain’t for everyone.  That’s what makes it great.

As if the credit card gods needed any more power, their latest napalm like sweep of the continuity space would make even Attila the Hun blush.

Not that I am against this latest move. Actually I am all for thinning the herd when it comes to deceptive practices. I mean you would have to be pretty dense if you didn’t see the writing on the wall. First the FTC re-iterates its guidelines on online advertising, in particular weight loss and biz opp at the beginning of December. Then on the 15th they file proceed with actions against some larger players. They then proceed to cut off all Acai berry advertisers from their merchant accounts. And in a stunning move, in mid January, both Visa and MC take aim at the continuity community.

Under the banner of “brand damaging”, the credit card companies have decimated almost every well known Biz Opp continuity advertiser there is. This caused a tsunami like effect on the CPA networks, squashing massive amounts of offers under their well buffed wing tips. In what appeared to be a blanket approach rather than a pinpoint attack.

But from the ashes rises a Phoenix. There will be a new set of ground rules. Unfortunately no one knows exactly sure what will take place next. Is continuity dead, well not for some. Magazine publishers, online application providers and software providers won’t have to worry much, since they seem to deliver value in the eyes of the gods. For those who run information products delivered by web only or a Free Trial DVD mailed to their home, well it is a different story.

I spent three days at Affiliate Summit, and a fair amount of that time speaking with Transaction Processors about the situation. Their summation, be compliant and transparent, or face certain elimination. There were several companies there touting that they can get continuity campaigns back up and running as before. Some using European accounts, others utilizing other means to get advertisers back taking credit cards for continuity.

Most solutions seemed like short term stop gap measures that, in my opinion, will only end up getting shut down in another wave of whack-a-guru. I admit, that there will be some advertisers who have been able to weather the storm, and those tend to have rock solid processing relationships with their processors. But the majority have lost most of their continuity business for good.

I recently did an interview with Daegan Smith, an old friend and one of the smartest network marketers I know. We talked for over an hour on how these latest changes are reshaping our industry and how both advertisers and publishers need to be aware of the implications of running campaigns that are not compliant.

Take a listen or better yet, download it to your MP3 Player and take it with you. If you sell anything online or are thinking about it, listen to the podcast with Daegan. I am confident you will find something that applies to your business. If not, then you probably still think CPA stands for Certified Public Accountant.

Listen here:

Or download it here.

ells Fargo forgoes its rebills and subscriptions business.

Thanks to Ruck at Convert2Media.com’s blog post for alerting the industry about Wells Fargo departing the rebills/continuity/negative option billing.

Make sure to read the entire story on Ruk’s blog on what is happening with continuity in the performance and affiliate marketing space.

There is also some chatter on WickedFire Forum, you can read that here.

Continuity, membership, subscription, auto-ship, auto-renew, call it what you like, it is something that needs disclosure.  I have suspected for some time that issuing banks would correct this option with additional disclosure, but the FTC beat them to the punch.  Last month’s update to the Guidelines for Online Sales and Blog Post/Testimonials has made it crystal clear that the performance marketing slice of the online marketing industry is under a microscope.

For those who are not aware, a number of campaigns in the CPA Networks have been gone dark, and more will be modified to either make them more transparent to the end user or modified from a free “anything”, to a more traditional direct sale approach.  Last week, Wells Fargo announced to it’s transaction processing partners that they no longer be in the business of taking transactions involving rebills, continuity, and/or a negative billing option.  Essentially this means that any card issued by Wells Fargo, and I am assuming their recent acquisition Wachovia issued cards as well, will no longer be able to be “dinged” month after month automatically by the continuity fairy.

Credit  issuing banks in the US are seeing their chargeoff rates increase monthly.  This combined with increasing costs of servicing specific types of credit card transactions, such as auto-rebilled transactions, is forcing issuing banks to reconsider which lines of business actually make it the best margins.  When you get 20 people per 1000 transactions complaining about something to a live agent, the costs become prohibitive.  When you do hundreds of 1000’s of transactions daily, well the numbers just don’t make sense to continue servicing them.  This is what I believe is at the heart of the move.

As I write this today, I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg of additional jettisoning of high risk, card not present (CNP) transaction types.  I fully expect to see Visa weigh in with additional category shutdowns as they have instituted recently on the Acai Berry products, as well as transactional type smackdowns, such as the negative options.  The nature of the Acai Berry offers smacked of an alleged scam, which included multiple subscriptions and other offenses.  (NOTE: read this Acai Berry Users Complaint board post to see how many acai berry users are fighting back against these types of predatory sites).

What publishers need to be concerned about is the ability of the networks and their advertiser partners to either have already in place alternative payment methods, or how quickly they will be able to adapt  solutions to newer payment models that do not include risk free trials or negative options.  In addition, publishers should be more vigilant than ever of the campaigns they promote simply because when something affects the advertiser’s ability to process orders, that directly affects their ability to pay the networks who will in turn pay the publisher.

It all falls downhill.  Look for advertisers (actually look for networks) who are doing their own due diligence on advertisers.  You want a network who works closely and directly with an advertiser, who can help them avoid industry issues and point them in the direction of partners they can trust, particularly for processing.  Work with your AM’s to get complimentary access to offers you want to run and then monitor how they treat their subscribers.  This is something that only you as a publisher can do and communicate to your audience. (and according to the FTC should be disclosing).

So the sky isn’t falling, just Wells Fargo’s continuity business which is impacting a few transaction processors who do quite a good amount of business in the CPA Biz Opp and Health and Beauty space.  The sky does have some clouds and it is going to rain on more than a few publishers and advertisers (and CPA networks who were too highly vested in these types of offers) for a few months until Visa and MasterCard, Discover and American Express all weigh in on their versions of continuity/rebilling, and what is and isn’t acceptable.  Once the dust settles, the winners will be the ones who test religiously and develop multi-channel targeted landing and sales funnels.

The publishers who work closely with those advertisers (and their networks) more than likely won’t be caught with their shorts down (or a smack down).

Megan Mullally stars in Unilever's comically bent Turn The Tib Around video.

While I normally can excuse most of what I see on TV ads as what an advertiser (or rather their agency) thinks is cool over what will actually be most effective in selling the product.  Unilever’s latest advertising campaign for its I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!® brand margarine includes Will & Grace’s Megan Mullally starring in a music video set to the ‘70’s disco tune “Turn The Beat Around”.   Great song, great comedic actress and tightly choreographed dancing should equate to a hit.  But the ad fails.

The video has some very big tie ins associated with it, most notably choreographer Tyce Diorio of Fox’s “So You Think You Can Dance” and produced by North American Mindshare Entertainment.  The ad debuted on Wed. Dec. 16, 2009 during the finale of the “So You Think You Can Dance” show on Fox.  So you know it had some audience watching it.

But where I have an issue is their TV ad execution and strategy to drive people to watch the video.  The TV ad does not promote anything other than to watch more of the video you need to go to turnthetubaround.com.  Unilever, the king of coupons makes no mention in the ad of a coupon.  But when you get to the site, a coupon button is prominent.  That’s good, but in the days of Wal Mart TV ads touting being able to save hundreds of dollars every month by buying at Wal Mart, Unilever in my opinion needs to promote the added benefit of watching the video to get a coupon.  Like it or not, in today’s economy people are watching their pennies.

The video is annoying, but it is also a decent application of a video campaign except for the absence of the ad mentioning a coupon.  Women, whom the ad is targeted at, would more than likely sit through the video to get a coupon.  But Unilever, and their agency, have left this off.  YouTube shows less than 75,000 views of the video.  With the ad budget for this campaign, those views should be much higher.

They spent a good sum of money, for what?  A well produced comical music video that again brands the product as a healthy alternative to butter, but fails when it comes to a call to action.  The I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter® brand is well positioned and is well known to its target audience.  So why does Unilever settle for only branding when it can use expensive content like this to drive traffic to buy the product and collect information from their target audience.

I suggest they reshoot the commercial to include the coupon call to action and measure the results.  They might find that while the video is compelling, it can also be directly responsible for moving product off the shelves and not only bringing in existing users, but also new users whom the video has struck a chord with.

This month’s issue of Revenue Performance Magazine, formerly Revenue Magazine, features an article I wrote entitled “A Survival Guide for Networks”.

The article gives an in-depth look at what factors make up the strongest network models out there today.  Publishers have traditionally chosen networks based on payouts alone, but with the advent of updated FTC guidelines and new Visa/MC actions regarding negative option campaigns, the time is nigh that Publishers aligned themselves with Cost per Action (CPA) Networks that play by the rules.

The article is on page 32 of the online version below.

And no, the link below is not an affiliate link nor was I compensated for writing the article in any way.  Unless you call my complimentary copy of the magazine a freebie, which I have now disclosed.

Revenue Performance magazine, December 2009 edition

I have to thank Miss Holland for creating this site.  It is like a brain teaser for Internet Marketing junkies.

The site accumulates split tested landing pages and allows you to vote on which A or B version you think won the split test.

Try it out.  It is good fun and you learn which page won immediately with analysis and insights.

Jesse Willms picture appeared on ABC's 20/20 News Program. Click to Watch the entire segment from the show that aired on Dec. 11, 2009.

Last night, I was tipped off that ABC’s 20/20 program was airing a piece on Internet Marketing practices that go way beyond just adding a little “umph” to their efforts.

What I wasn’t prepared for, was Jesse Willms being outed on National TV.  Follow this link  to the ABC 20/20 website (scroll down the videos in the middle of the page to find the video titled “Slick Web Sites Use Photo Tricks” then you will have to suffer thru a 60 second pre-roll ad, supplied to the website by AOL’s Adsonar) to see the entire piece, which includes among other things a hotel in Poland that online looks like a peaceful chalet to vacation at, but in reality sits only meters from a nuclear plant’s cooling tower.

The story they focused on weight loss and Acai Berry sites that use allegedly deceptive images and testimonials for promoting their products.  They even had the story’s reporter visit Jesse Willms Just Think Media headquarters in Edmonton.  The story recounted how Just Think’s Wu Yi tea websites used the image of a woman without her knowledge (they took if from her blog) and then when her grandmother’s friend saw her image in an ad and made her aware of it, and she contacted Wu Yi’s offices, they offered her $1000 to use the images which she accepted.  She never used Wu Yi to loose the weght according to the ABC 20/20 story.  The images of her before and after the weight loss were the result of 8 months of daily exercise and calorie counting.

The story goes further into alleged deceptions perpetrated by Jesse Willms companies in marketing tooth whitening, weight loss, acai berry.  The 20/20 report suggests that there are many people who want their money back.  They even interviewed the Better Business Bureau about the 1000+ complaints he has racked up.  They made a big deal about the F rating, but almost every online seller of supplements starts at an F rating with the BBB simply because of the niche they are in.  The same holds true for business opportunity type merchants as well with regards to their BBB rating.  The ABC 20/20 story “Slick Web Sites use Tricks Photos” laments the lack of any attempt to resolve those complaints by Mr. Willms or his employees.

I met Jesse Willms only once, and at the time he was at a conference.  He and I enjoyed a beverage together and discussed a strategy for his sites that allowed him to leverage multiple networks distributing his product simultaneously.  That strategy was later implemented by his Agency of Record Network for the Wu Yi tea offer.  Unfortunately it appears from the ABC 20/20 story on Dec. 11. 2009, Jesse Willms allegedly used fraud and deception to make the sites he controlled convert better – allegedly doctoring photos and using stock images bought at iStockPhoto and other online image shops.

I have never promoted any product of his, and would be wary of any network that felt dealing with this type of campaign would help them in their long term goals.  It is my opinion that when networks actively make the decision to run these campaigns it seriously lowers the image of our entire performance marketing sector.  Which in turn reflects poorly on all of the professionals who make their living in this highly effective slice of the Internet Marketing pie.

If you are a publisher who knowingly promotes Acai Berry using the techniques described in this manner, you need to get some hand soap and wash up.  These types of campaigns make it tougher for legitimate advertiser’s campaigns to get through the flack this type of promotion fosters.  If you expect to continue being a professional affiliate, you should consider the long term implications of your actions.  Running deceptive advertisements, as the ABC 20/20 story alleges that some websites do,  only invites additional scrutiny in all aspects of our business.  If you haven’t been out in the sunshine for awhile, the FTC is gunning directly for these type of “over the edge” marketers and will pursue injunctions against them continuing their business’ online.

As a Publisher, you can have actions taken against you for promoting these types of campaigns.  If you need to review how the FTC feels about this, feel free to review Jim Edwards recent interview with an FTC official, posted on his blog.

If we want this segment of internet marketing, performance or cost per action (CPA) marketing, to see any growth, we will have to police our campaigns to make sure they are in compliance and are from trusted advertisers whose practices abide within the rules of fair play and transparency.

I was not aware of Sophos Security Software until a week or two ago.  And I only became aware of it because I found an interesting article on Russian fraud rings operating under the “Canadian Pharmacy” banner.

The owner of this software, is a guy by the name of  Dmitry Samosseiko.  He apparently spoke at a conference on Computer Virus’ in Geneva in Sept. 2009 and his speech was all about Internet Fraud, particularly by the Partnerka.

The Partnerka is a collection of hundreds, possibly thousands, of well organized affiliate networks that operate mainly from Russia, but also in other parts of the world as well.  I say affiliate networks, because at the heart of what they do, these “webmasters” promote false anti-spyware software, fake pills, fake dating, fake watches; almost every vertical has some level of these folks involved.

Fake in the sense that the end customer buying the product has no idea that it does nothing for their computer or them, and that these thieves are interested only in their credit card information, and not in creating a long term customer relationship.  The “webmasters” (read: affiliates) get paid for driving traffic to these false product sites and encouraging the traffic to purchase.

But what happens when the fraud starts to get out of hand, and spills over into legitimate products and services. The kind affiliate and CPA networks promote.  How does their plan work then?  Read Dmitry’s report to get the inside scoop and how you can prevent being one of those who has been taken.

Here is the Link to the Partnerka report.

Cool Tip of the Week:

When paying affiliates, look at the cashed checks through your bank’s electronic checks feature.  If you notice lots of unconnected affiliates all having the same endorser and the checks are being sent offshore, you might be the victim of a fraud ring.

Let’s get this out of the way.

Compliance Disclaimer: Some links on this site make me money.  Go Figure.  I am writing about Affiliate Marketing. So if you choose to purchase a product or service that is linked on this site, I want to thank you for helping a working stiff like me (and probably a lot like you) make a living from his passion.  It is this site’s intention to help you make more money for yourself and your family.  (But if you aren’t OK with that arrangement , then let the FTC know, since they are the ones who so gently requested that I inform you of any monetized links, my “material relationship” in FTC speak.  Heretofore, we were both OK with me just giving away good actionable information, views and reviews (and possibly some common sense); you, the reader,  enjoying reading it and thinking it was all just the ramblings of some sophomoric f**&ing philanthropist.  Don’t misunderstand me, I truly do enjoy helping more people understand the industry I work in, but even more so, I really like having asphalt shingles over my family’s  heads instead of cardboard.)

Now I am not an attorney, although the companies I have worked with and for, have spent a small fortune making sure they hired the best compliance attorneys in the industry.  I am also not a qualified legal assistant nor have any degrees in that field or any credentials other than my own experience.   OK, now I have disclosed that I am not an expert in the field of law and that anything you read on this blog is not intended to be advice of any kind.

If you have stuck around after the disclaimers to get to the good stuff, I thank you.  But I will not be sending you any gifts to thank you, as that might appear to entice you to endorse my blog.  In fact, If I send you anything I will make sure to disclose when I am taking your address that I am not placing you on any mailing list that will be used for any future mailings you did not want to receive to your mailbox from myself or any other third party entity.  Further I will be disclosing that I will not accept any form of gifts as an enticement for writing good things about you.  If you want to send me gifts, that is nice.  My birthday is December 16th.  Just don’t expect a shining review of a piece of crap.  Because a piece of crap will always be a piece of crap no matter what color you paint it.

And that brings us to the impending Dec. 1st  deadline for compliance with the FTC’s 16 C.F.R. Part 255: Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising: Notice Announcing Adoption of Revised Guides their Compliance Guidelines regarding endorsements and full disclosure.  According to the FTC’s David Vladeck, Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection. “We wouldn’t put our orders in writing if we weren’t going to enforce them.”

If you make true statements, you can be liable under the guidelines.  If you make false statements knowingly, the guidelines are squarely aimed at you.  The problem with the truth is that while it may be a portion of your customers that experience phenomenal results, is this the case for all of your customers?  If it isn’t then you will need  to find a way to let them know this.  A simple “Individual Results May Vary” is no longer the de facto standard in for your product or services disclosure that not everyone will have the same experience.

And if you are reading this and have ever endorsed me (and you know who you are), well then I have to thank you.  But I also have to disclose that every single one of the comments on my LinkedIn profile are completely unsolicited, even though most are gratuitously verbose about what I helped them with. I would like to also solicit anyone reading this blog to post an endorsement that is mediocre as I need to present a balanced and objective image to the consumer.  I do not want to mislead them that everyone likes what I do.  Unfortunately, the people I have pissed off over the years tend not to post endorsements.  So if you have written something about me or are planning to, you will be getting an email with a form that you will need to fill out that will forever prove that you think I actually know something (or not).  Oh yes, I must also disclose the material links of my association with them.  Most of the people who have written an endorsement or testimonial about me, I have never charged a dime for my time.

The FTC is chartered to protect the consumer from fraud and deceptive practices, that is their only mission.  And from the looks of their website, they have adapted to using the Internet to get their message out.  Their has been no lack of publicity in the marketing and advertising community regarding this change and I am confident that there will be enforcements of this new standard almost immediately following the Dec. 1st 2009 deadline for compliance.  Those enforcements will serve as guideposts to where the edge of the envelope lies.

In our slice of the industry, performance marketing,  I feel the players will be particularly scrutinized, as it is the fake blogs and unabashedly biased blog posts that have irked the FTC in the first place (or at least greatly contributed to it).  Affiliates have a tendency to find the edges and exploit them, in most cases unabated by the merchants greed and unwillingness to stop the train even though they were more than likely aware it was leading consumers down a path of poor customer service or product performance.

The bottom line for all of this lies in transparency.

Oh yea, on last thing while I am disclosing.  I work for www.ClickFusion.com , which is the fusion of an online ad agency, a Cost Per Action Network and Call Center Services serving both Publishers, Advertisers and Agencies.  It is a division of www.DotComSecrets.com, which is owned by my good friend and most respected colleague, Russell Brunson.  If you want more, visit the ClickFusion website and see what our vision is for creating the next evolution of an online advertising agency.  And yes these links and endorsement are paid for.  Hell, I know where my bread is buttered.

If You Promote Non-Compliant Campaigns – You Could Be The One Hauled Into Court

Recently, a disturbing development has shaken the already unstable footing of the online Publisher (or do you say Affiliate). The Attorney General (AG) for the State of Illinois, Lisa Madigan has, “filed consumer fraud lawsuits against three suppliers and a local affiliate marketer of acai berry products charging that the companies lure customers with free trial offers – through aggressive Internet marketing techniques – and then charge customers’ credit cards prematurely, do not always supply the product and make it nearly impossible to cancel.”

This is a significant change and most surely will be the harbinger of things to come.  In the suit, the AG coordinated efforts with Harpo, Inc., producers of “The Oprah Winfrey Show” and “The Dr. Oz Show” both of whom had their likeness infringed upon by the owners of the campaign, Advanced Wellness Research.  In a separate but related action, Harpo has filed suit against AWR and almost 50 other suppliers and their associated agencies for trademark infringement for using Oprah and Dr. Oz’s name and likeness in their campaign materials.

The action of the Illinois AG sends a clear message to not only the Health sector, but to all links in the Performance Marketing chain – make sure what you are promoting is compliant and not deceiving the public in any way.  The Publisher is identified in the suit as Amirouche & Norton, LLC, who are being asked to pay a civil penalty of $50,000.00, and an additional penalty of $50,000.00 per violation of the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act (where the court finds that the Defendant committed with intent to defraud), as well as an additional $50,000.00 per violation of the same Act as above, but this fine relates to only those instances when the consumer was over the age of 65. It also seeks to bar Amirouche & Norton, LLC from promoting health products ever again.

Pretty steep penalties, just for running a Risk Free Trial offer for Acai Berry.  Doesn’t seem very Risk Free to me.

The Complaint outlines very specifically what the infractions are against the Publisher, these include:

• Using Flogs like Beckysweightloss.com (removed) to mislead consumers about the product benefits.
• Use of celebrities images and names who are not spokesperson’s for the campaign, and misleading consumers into thinking these celebrities endorse the products.
• Failure to disclose the terms and conditions of a “free trial offer” in a place that is clear and conspicuous to the consumer.

The point here is simple: Think BEFORE you Promote.  If you cannot clearly understand the terms of the offer, or it seems deceptive in any way, you may want to replace that campaign with something more compliant.  If a campaign uses a celebrity image, steer clear unless it says specifically that the celebrity is a paid spokesperson and the Advertiser has the paperwork to prove it.  And lastly, the use of “fake blogs” or flogs as the Complaint calls them is never a good idea.  Even if you are selling statues of the Virgin Mary, faking testimonials or making up stories about the product and it’s benefits will only cut your career short in Online Marketing.

In a world where Subway(TM) is being made to rethink their marketing because their super weight loss spokesperson Jared is perceived as promoting submarine sandwiches as a diet plan, it is always best to take the high road.

Story Links:
- Illinois Atty General’s Press Release
- Complaint filed against Publishers, Amirouche and Norton, LLC
- Federal Trade Commission
- Tips on How To Judge if an Offer is Compliant

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