The affiliate marketing industry is skyrocketing. It is becoming increasingly popular with the brands which promote their products online. Just take a look at these recent statistics:
- • The global affiliate marketing industry is valued at more than $17 billion.
- • By 2027, it's projected that the industry will expand to a market size of $27.78 billion.
- • Currently, 81% of brands rely on affiliate programs to increase brand visibility and enhance sales.
- • Affiliate marketing is experiencing a 10% annual growth rate.
Such impressive growth is quite logical as affiliate marketing is profitable both for affiliates and brands which choose such a way of promoting their products.
Unfortunately, not everyone is ready for affiliate rules compliance. Some marketers try to find tricky ways to earn more by doing less and ignoring affiliate policy compliance. That’s why brands can’t but monitor their affiliate rules compliance if they want to avoid financial loss and regulatory issues.
What Is Affiliate Compliance?
Let’s start with defining affiliate compliance. Affiliate compliance refers to the rules and guidelines that affiliates must follow when promoting products, services, or brands. These rules are set by the companies or networks the affiliates work with, as well as by local laws and regulations.
In simple terms, affiliate rules compliance ensures that affiliates advertise honestly, don’t make false claims, and respect legal requirements. This helps protect both the company’s reputation and the customers' trust.
For example, in most cases affiliates must avoid brand bidding to ensure affiliate policy compliance. This means they should not use the company’s trademarked names or terms in paid search ads without permission. Doing so can create unfair competition and harm the company’s online presence.
Why Is Affiliate Compliance So Important?
Affiliate compliance is crucial because it helps maintain trust between the affiliate, the company they promote, and the customers. When affiliates follow the rules, they ensure that their advertising is honest and transparent, which protects the company’s reputation.
If partners ignore affiliate policy compliance, it can lead to misleading promotions, customer dissatisfaction, or even legal troubles for both the affiliate and the company. This can damage the brand’s image and lead to financial losses. On the other hand, when affiliates stick to the guidelines, they help create a positive experience for customers, which strengthens the brand and builds lasting partnerships.
8 Types of Affiliate Policy Violations
Affiliate non-compliance can appear in different ways, each posing distinct challenges to businesses. It's important to recognize issues with affiliate marketing compliance to manage them properly.
- 1. Brand bidding. Some affiliates may use brand's key words to run paid ads in order to get highly qualified branded traffic to convert through their affiliate links. The users entering such queries are more likely to purchase the product. The affiliate profits from the money the advertiser has previously invested in building the brand.
- 2. URL hijacking. This occurs when affiliates register domain names that closely resemble your brand’s domain, often using slight spelling variations. When users mistakenly type the URL, they might end up on these sites, resulting in unauthorized affiliate earnings.
- 3. Cloaked websites. These websites appear legitimate on the surface but hide the actual content from advertisers or affiliate networks. Cloaking can also be used to show one version of a website to affiliate program reviewers and a completely different version to users.
- 4. Ad-Hijacking. The affiliate creates ads that mimic the brand’s official ads, using the brand’s keywords and sometimes even its trademarked terms. When users click on these fake ads, they are redirected through the affiliate’s link. This allows the affiliate to earn commissions on sales that would have otherwise gone to the brand directly if affiliate marketing compliance was not ignored.
- 5. Cookie stuffing. Cookie stuffing is a misleading tactic where affiliates secretly place cookies on a user’s device without their awareness or permission. This artificially boosts referral stats, resulting in unearned commissions and distorted marketing performance data.
- 6. Forced clicks. These clicks are not made by genuine users interested in the product or service but are artificially created to inflate click numbers. The goal is to earn undeserved commissions without maintaining affiliate marketing compliance. Click fraud can be carried out manually by individuals or automatically by bots or software.
- 7. Mobile attribution fraud. Attribution fraud is a type of mobile ad fraud where dishonest actors attempt to claim credit for app installations by falsely reporting fake clicks as the last interaction before a real user opens the app for the first time.
- 8. IP spoofing. Certain affiliates might use IP spoofing methods to hide their actual identity or location. This trick makes it difficult to detect and resolve affiliate marketing compliance problems. IP spoofing involves altering the source IP address to trick systems into believing the traffic originates from another location.
Those are the types of affiliate policy violations that you should be aware of.
5 Steps to Maintain Affiliate Compliance
Here’s a step-by-step guide on how you can ensure affiliate program compliance:
- 1. Set clear affiliate program rules. If you want to ensure affiliate rules compliance, you need to set transparent standards and prohibitions in your affiliate program. Without them, affiliates are free to make their own choices regarding ways of promoting your brand. In other words, you will not be able to make them ensure affiliate rules compliance.
- 2. Monitor your affiliates. Monitoring is not just for new affiliates when it comes to affiliate policy compliance. As your partnerships grow, it’s crucial to continually oversee your affiliate relationships. Ensure that there are no unusual spikes in activity, and maintain regular communication with your affiliates to confirm they ensure affiliate program compliance.
- 3. Use technology tools. Nowadays, brands can use automated monitoring systems that feature violation detection and real-time alerts to ensure affiliate policy compliance. For example, Bluepear monitors branded search 24/7 from different GEOs, devices, and browsers. The tool tracks all the violations and sends real-time notifications.
- 4. Notify your affiliates about the tracked violations. Gather all the evidence of infringement and send them to the violator or marketing affiliate network. The automated tool Bluepear combines all the URLs, screenshots, and IDs in one report which you can send to affiliates directly from the program.
- 5. Check your affiliates again. Sometimes one warning is not enough to stop violators. That’s when automated monitoring tools come in handy: the program will continuously monitor all the affiliate activity in your branded search. So, if someone repeatedly ignores affiliate compliance, you will get real-time notifications about it.
Just follow these steps to maintain affiliate marketing compliance and protect your brand from violators.
Wrapping up
In conclusion, affiliate marketing is experiencing significant growth, benefiting both affiliates and brands. However, to fully capitalize on this potential, it is essential for brands to enforce strict compliance with affiliate policies. By using automated monitoring tools, brands can safeguard their reputation and avoid financial losses.
