One of the things that annoys me is how well someone claims they are doing and then I find out they are doing PPC. Same thing when a merchant publishes a top affiliates list

Merchants need to distinguish their lists from free traffic and PPC. Anyone can make sales using PPC.

What specifically are you referring to?

Hi Tom:

Basically I'm referring to how affs and merchants report success. They don't distinguish between free search and paid search(PPC) like they should.

Hey Jack

I think most of us take an affiliate's claim of earnings with a grain of salt these days, as we all know there are many variables involved.

Merchants on the other hand, recognize success in terms of $$$, and rightfully so. It would be unfeasible for them to attempt to distinguish, between affiliates who pay for traffic and those who don't. They reward their top affiliates for adding to their bottom line.....so why would they give a hoot, who is marketing with or without PPC?

Because it is misleading especially when contests are involved:)

The contests I've seen are simply for total sales, with no implications that PPC is or is not to be a factor. I can't fathom what is misleading about that. You drive the most sales....you win. ;)

Yep definitely a rigged contest as PPC will always win

PPC is advertising.

Businesses advertise to generate more business.

If affiliates were divided into "uses PPC" and "settles for whatever free ride they can get" categories, those in "uses PPC" category would be regarded as productive, serious professionals. A few of the free riders may have their act together, but most of these hobbyists aren't going to fool anybody into viewing them as professional business people.

I think it will be a bad idea for us affiliates to give the merchants the idea of separating affiliates by free search against those who use ppc. More and more merchants are adding policies preventing affiliates from using ppcs and worse, do SEO and template based sites. They think we are going to corrupt their brand, raise keyword prices, target keywords they don't approve and in the case of SEO, steal their traffic - - Oh I have heard it all!

Let's face it boys and girls... from here on is going to get ugly:
On one side, Google is thinking of now stopping affiliates from landing on the merchant page :headshot:, on the other side, you have merchants turning you off 'cause you are doing SEO with keywords they do not approve off :bullet_in

Do we really have to go back making heavy content sites?

The minute I see an email from a merchant complianing about using their name in my titles ect I drop them. Heck I have my navigation according to merchant name.