An Open Letter to the SEM Marketing Community from Clickbooth Regarding Blog and Review-based Site Standards and Espousing Industry-wide Self Regulation

Affiliate marketing is a rapidly evolving industry in which new marketing techniques are born everyday. It is also unique in that it is the one industry in which a single individual can compete for marketing inventory with the largest media companies in the world.

With such an open playing field, significant changes to marketing methods through new content-intensive techniques are being made on a daily basis. A special and important level of responsibility has now been placed on affiliates to ensure that the consumer is not misled and is constantly and consistently protected. This type of self regulation is what protects not only the consumer but also the publishers and advertisers, resulting in a successful future for all parties.

As a leader in the performance marketing industry, Clickbooth – and its parent company IntegraClick – have always felt a responsibility to lead by example, particularly in developing and implementing self regulation and controls on these new marketing channels. Whether it is the CAN SPAM Act of 2003 or the complete banning of incentivized traffic years ago, it has always been and will continue to be our most important mission to protect consumers and our partners throughout every step of the marketing process.

As a point of reference, the CANSPAM Act of 2003 drew a line in the sand between publishers marketing the right way and those employing unscrupulous methods. We are seeking to draw that line again between the publishers who are running legitimate review and blog sites and those operating misleading fake blog and review sites.

This is more than just a situational issue. It’s important to distinguish between compliant marketing practices and misleading techniques, as that is the only way to ensure the longevity of the industry. To create a long term and scalable business, it is important that publishers refrain from misleading consumers in any way. This is the best combination of consumer protection and enlightened self interest: by protecting the consumers, publishers are also protecting themselves.

At Clickbooth, it has always been our practice to identify and then refuse to work with prospective partners whom we believed did not meet our standards for integrity and consumer protection. Now, even though we are not attorneys and cannot give legal advice, our compliance team has decided to publicly issue a formal set of guidelines. These were developed after conducting extensive research with case attorneys and regulatory bodies to understand the distinctions between a compliant blog or review site and a non-compliant one.

We are now communicating this to all of our partners to continue to ensure that all publisher traffic generation methods are 100 percent compliant with regulations and not misleading to the consumer in any way. Clickbooth’s Senior Director of Compliance, Ziare Brown, has been pivotal in this entire process.

This process entails more than a set of guidelines. We will also be auditing any blog and review sites via an ongoing audit process to ensure the full compliance of everyone in the partner relationship.

We have now posted our initial guidelines and review process so other advertising and affiliate networks can follow our lead and ensure the compliance of their partners as well. They are available for review at:

http://www.clickbooth.com/compliance_blogreviews.html

We recommend you review these guidelines to ensure that all internal and third party marketing efforts meet these standards. There is no margin for less than 100 percent compliance. This is our standard and that of the partners we will continue to work with. As a company, Clickbooth is willing to help any current or future publisher, advertiser or network understand and comply with these guidelines. We will work with all industry partners to ensure their continued success via long term, integrity-based consumer marketing.

We are excited for you to join us in taking the first steps in this brand new arena.

Thank you,

John Lemp

CEO/Founder of IntegraClick Inc. and Clickbooth.com