You might have noticed, lately, that a few new affiliate links have been popping up in the Small Talk blog. As someone who has worked in the occasionally dirty trenches of the affiliate advertising industry, I want to be overly transparent with you about these links and what they do. So, let’s start — what are affiliate links?
What are affiliate links?
Affiliate links are unique URLs created to identify a website or user (like me!) that sends traffic to another website (for example, Amazon).
Here’s a good scenario: when I link to Amazon in a blog post, I use a URL that was created just for MARKETMOX. Amazon knows if you have clicked my link before you start shopping. This is because I’ve made an agreement with Amazon to create links from my site to theirs. In exchange, Amazon offers me a small commission from your purchase for referring you to them.
It seems harmless enough, especially when working with renowned brands. But it’s easy for affiliates to get carried away with their influence in blogs, social media and virtually anywhere you can paste a link. Not everyone will be as up front with you about the fact that they’re making money from their links and “recommendations.” This post is as much about education as it is about clarity in our practices. We want you to be informed content consumers! So, read on!
Affiliate programs
Behind the scenes, brands of any size may can host affiliate programs. While aiming to grow traffic to their site, marketing reach, SEO and more — they’ll offer affiliates some form of compensation in exchange for links, comments, posts and so on.
The trade usually results in an endorsement of their product or, at a bare minimum, some product placement in a post, photo, project, etc. This is important to note because it can often appear as though these are not advertisements or sponsored placements — but, as customers, you should know that they are. Brands are paying — sometimes big bucks — for this kind of exposure.
The terms and compensation vary from program to program. Sometimes, affiliates earn fancy swag, free products and gift credits online. And, sometimes, they earn cold hard cash. In fact, there’s an entire industry of mommy bloggers right now that are making bank on affiliate linking. Sadly, more often than not, readers have no idea what the influencer is earning from their link or if their referrals are genuine (because they’re usually money motivated).
Best practices (and most program terms) do, though, require that there be a disclosure near the link that compensation is earned. So, at least there’s that.
Huge benefits
Affiliate links on blogs like ours allows influencers to create a profit from their content — and that can lead to a variety of really cool things. For us, it means content in the Small Talk blog is completely free of charge to you. We load it up with some seriously invaluable insights that, thanks to affiliate links and other monetization options, don’t cost you a penny!
Big downfall
At least beyond MARKETMOX, you can’t trust everything you click. It’s important that you think for yourself while using the Internet and understand that links are, essentially, currency at this point in time. People are paying a lot for them. And, people are being paid a lot to distribute and share them. What you see, as a consumer, are cool trends in your feeds and posts — but take a minute to consider whether or not you’re being advertised to!
Our promise
As outlined in the MARKETMOX terms and privacy policies, we’re looking out for you. I won’t recommend or link you to anything I’m not genuinely in support of. If I do provide you an affiliate link, I will absolutely let you know that it’s there (just peek at the bottom of my posts for details). And, as long as you don’t mind a few links and ads here and there, I’m happy to keep churning out amazing free content to keep you rolling on your marketing strategy. Fair? I thought so, too.
That disclosure I mentioned — it looks just like this. Peek at that Amazon link up at the top of this post. It looks and feels like a typical Amazon page, because it is. But, I linked you there and Amazon knows it. Now, if you shop, they might send me some spare change as a ‘thanks’ for the referral. Cool, huh?