John Drops the Hammer on Affiliates Who use Misleading Advertising
Man, I love this.
John Reese (Traffic Secrets) just sent his affiliates an email with the subject line “WARNING: Some TS Affiliates Are About To Be Terminated” which starts off by saying that “there’s a really good chance that this email will not apply to you. It’s only aimed at a small number of people“. The message then goes on to say in part…
It’s completely against the TOS for our Affiliate Program to use *misleading* advertising of any kind.
Well, there are several of our affiliates currently using misleading advertising — especially with Google AdWords.
Anyone that’s using ‘controversial’ and/or misleading headlines or ads will be immediately terminated from the affiliate program if they don’t stop running these ads right away.
Stuff like, “John Reese Ripped Me Off” or “Traffic Secrets Lies” etc. etc. Then of course the ad simply redirects to someone’s affiliate link or a review page with their affiliate link.
Are you running misleading, negative ads like this? If you are, you have only a matter of hours to kill all of these ads or you will be terminated from the affiliate program.
We are working very hard to maintain the INTEGRITY of our business and we’re not about to condone this type of misleading marketing.
WAY TO GO, JOHN!!!
In all the years that I’ve been an affiliate marketer, and for all the rubbish, b.s. and bogus advertising that I’ve seen – particularly within the Internet marketing niche – I’ve never seen a manager or product merchant come down so hard or so quick to curb those affiliates who use these misleading tactics.
Now, I bet you can guess who is going to change her own affiliate agreement post-haste. 
Want more info?
Rosalind Gardner is a Super Affiliate blogger, author, speaker, and Internet marketing consultant.
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Hey the feeding frenzy to sell John’s course is worse than I thought.
I know John’s stuff is awesome.
But the affiliate bonus rush is just hard to take.
Makes it hard to believe he isn’t offering a contest?
Rick Butts
I just received that email, and I also thought it was pretty cool. It’s just not cool to use someone’s name like that. However, PPC marketers should keep in mind that there are plenty of other creative ways to write creative and shocking headlines without slandering the vendor.
And if you’re promoting Rich Jerk, well… he asks for it
Rosalind,
Maybe my thinking is flawed. Not aimed at being intentionally misleading, but I don’t see why this is so wrong a tactic. Let me explain.
I have a product that I am a user and affiliate for, that I believe 110% in. One of the phrases I found people typing into the search engines, over and over again, was ” scam.” In fact, I did it myself before I found out how terrific it was, just to find some dirt on the company (which I could not find!). It seemed too good in all the copy and I was sure there HAD to be somebody out there, discrediting and exposing them. Once again, I was wrong.
I saw the opportunity to bank on that search phrase and registered the domain, “scam.com.” The landing page explained my own search, find, and actually how the product was definitely not a scam.
I just see that as a good marketing tactic, given the opportunity. Am I wrong?
Hi Tony,
Check out the reply by Jeff Mulligan below which explains clearly and succinctly why using the “Product Sucks” ads tactic doesn’t work for merchants.
Cheers,
Ros
—–> hehe, changing your affiliate agreement post-haste lol, that was funny
Good for John! It takes an amazing amount of energy to be a watchdog… especially for your own product during a launch!
Just think of how many sales he might be missing by not allowing misleading advertising by his own affiliates?
It isn’t often that an internet market leader takes a stand like this so publicly and doesn’t pull any punches. Just plain black and white – these are the rules.
I love it!
Ros,
It takes some of your time and energy, not to mention integrity, to put up posts like this one. That is one of the things I appreciate most about your newletter and other articles. You are no b.s. in your information and do take the time to lead by example. In part, by doing exactly this and lauding this merchant, as well as by pointing out errors in judgement that may occur at other times.
While I am well aware that the subtle sub-text is still promoting the product in another post, it’s all about the way you’re going about doing it! These are things that other’s can decide not to take the time to do.
Regards,
Ayn Elise
Hi Ayn,
Thanks kindly for the kudos, but to be honest, posts that shine light upon the good or expose a rat are actually the easiest to write – no effort at all. Think I was really born to be a consumer advocate.
Cheers,
Ros
Ros,
I am glad those are effortless posts for you! That keeps them coming for us to read. Still merits a Thank You, as I can trust in your honesty and integrity. I thought reporter, yesterday, but that wasn’t really how I wanted to put it. So, yes, let your inner consumer advocate rant and rave onward.
1. There is no affiliate contest.
2. I am glad to see John doing this. PPC advertising like this hurts your brand. People who aren’t familiar with this type of advertising as a “tactic” see the headlines – and that makes a negative impression.
3. It won’t hurt John’s sales. The derogatory ads will be taken down and replaced with ads that don’t hurt the brand. The only sales it costs are to those who are doing the negative advertising.
Jeff Mulligan
Hey Jeff,
Thanks for stopping by… good to see you – and thanks kindly for the sharp focus explanation about misleading advertising.
Cheers,
Ros
Ros,
I’m relatively new to being a product vendor. Like you, I use ClickBank to handle cookie tracking and to pay commissions.
How do we effectively enforce our own affiliate TOS when our affiliates are using the ClickBank system?
There are a bunch of rules I want to force my affiliates to follow, but I’m clueless how to enforce a TOS on my ClickBank affiliates.
How are you doing it? How do you ban a “bad” affiliate within the ClickBank system? And how do you get your affiliate to agree to your TOS if they find your product in the ClickBank marketplace and get their hoplink from there instead of from your website?
Thanks for your time,
Andy
Well, now I’m more confused then ever but very, very grateful that I found you Rosalind and your book and a Jim Edwards’. I have joined a FEW “Affiliate Marketing Training” places since February because I thought this field might interest me and each one I joined TAUGHT us, ENCOURAGED us to use those tactics. I ended up leaving these places because I’m not comfortable with doing any business that way and had begun to feel that Affiliate Marketing was NOT going to work out for me afterall. I then purchased your book and have also begun following Jim and “I gotta tell you” it is a relief to find that there still is honesty & integrity on the ‘net! Unfortunately, because of the bad taste left from those “training” places and the NUMEROUS programs I purchased promising to train me and show me things that “any newbie can do”, I did not purchase John’s package because I thought it was just another one of “those”. Well, now I know my next step, after I click submit here, will be to find out “who is whom” that I SHOULD be watching, listening to and following and then I will forge ahead and become one of the respectable and knowledgeable ones. Many thanks again for your book and I am anxiously awaiting my “refund” period to pass so I can continue on.
Yet another Canadian on the web,
Cathy.
Frankly, it’s time to crack down on the WHOLE IM-guru-how-to-do-it-secrets-things-you-never-heard-of-before form of fraud, because that’s what most of it is.
Hey, you! Yeah, you with your credit card in hand ready to press the PAY NOW button. Save yourself the $397. There ARE NO SECRETS…at least, none that you can’t find in books running around $30 on Amazon.
While this is certainly true of many so-called gurus, I doubt you’ll get anything close to the equivalent of TS for $20 on Amazon. Personally, I think the smartest, most up-to-date guys in this business won’t waste their time with printed books because they can make more money and get more up-to-date info out quicker through electronic media.
Quibble with the word “secret” if you must, but there is plenty of information out there that is not on amazon or the bookstore.
Also – I remember recently going into one of the big box book stores and looking around the internet marketing section. Picked up a book on SEO. It was listing and explaining techniques for search engines that weren’t even around any more.
So buyer beware everywhere. That’s good advice.
Implying that John’s course is in the fraud category is just plain wrong.
Jeff Mulligan
But
I disagree. The principles of e-commerce, SEO, etc. are very well known, relatively immutable, and widely published. That’s why I say “There are no secrets.” If you bought the wrong book about SEO, I’m sorry. That’s what browsing a book first is intended to prevent. I just checked, and almost every book on SEO at Amazon.com has the “Search Me” feature turned on. Try that next time. Or, you can send John Reese’s kids to Harvard instead of your own.
Actually, I am really curious as to the effectiveness of John Reese’s campaign, because it seems to be “Product Launch Formula Lite” – build up but no JVs with “big names”; lots of emails, but most of the emails I got just said “TS2 released – here’s the link”; some bonuses, but some people just said “it needs no bonuses.”
So I am wondering if this new “low key” approach is going to become the norm, and whether this was as successfuil as some of the other big launches recently.
AND it is impressive that Mr. Reese is monitoring how his product is being marketed.
It was extremely effective, although I don’t think John has revealed anything public yet. You said no JVs with big names, but I saw a deluge of big names promoting this, so I certainly wouldn’t call the JV aspect low key.
John is in a pretty unique position to do a launch differently because of his incredibly strong brand. I don’t think many others would pull off a launch like this.
Jeff
Jeff,
Thank you for all of your replies on this blog on this topic. I’ve been marketing online for about 3 yrs (and making a dismal income,b ut it’s been loads of fun), and John Reese really is one of the 5 or 6 gurus with a “my word is my bond” reputation, in my eyes. I agree with you re the strength of his brand.
My reference to not having JVs was more along the lines of not having the usual bonus-wars and “deluge of emails from everyone with a list” kind of JVing. This campaign seemed more along the lines of “I’m a friend and/or student of John Reese, so let me tell you what he’s doing…” An interesting approach. Actually, it’s the opposite of that saying “if people spoke to you like they marketed to you, you’d punch them in the face,” right? (I think Rich Schefren uses that). I like it. Mr. Reese wasn’t punching anybody in the face – more like patting them on the back.
Good luck.
Rick Carter
I agree, way to go John! Negative advertising programs give us all a bad name and these people should be banned… I am not a fan of using shock tactics to get people to pay attention to my writing. The writing should speak for itself.
Hey Rick
I have to say you are right about all these people marketing each others
products take a look at who all are pushing Frank Kerns mass control 2.0
I think it is time for the FTC come after all these people I am canceling
all of my emails from over 50 affiliates this week today and following people
like you that tell the truth about what is going on with the markers on the
internet I am glad I found your blog.
Hello Ira,
Thanks kindly for the vote of confidence. I totally know what you mean — I get all those emails and more and ocassionally wonder if many out there understand the meaning of integrity.
Cheers,
Rosalind