[dflsports]

I set up some new ppc guidelines for affiliates today at SAS. So far it seems like all are abiding and responded to my email with further questions. There is one affiliate that is clearly still bidding on terms (only 2) and generating sales. How long do I give the affiliate before I void sales?

I just sent the 3rd email of the day to the affiliate and I'm thinking that no response gives me the right to void commissions.

[rematt]

Your TOS is a legal and binding contract and any time you change terms & conditions you MUST allow a reasonable timeframe for acceptance and compliance. One day is not considered a reasonable timeframe in any state that I'm aware of. Just because you changed it, doesn't mean that they accept those changes.

Send the affiliate another e-mail that outlines the new terms and inform them of the penalties for non-compliance and give them 30 days to accept the new terms.

-rematt

[dflsports]

30 days?

I suppose I should learn more about the laws of how this works in regards to trademarks and ppc. It was my fault for not including the ppc terms to begin with. I'm new the the AM side and we're a very small niche with one product.

7 days sounds more reasonable to me. I did send out 3 emails today to this affiliate since he or she is not complying and everyone else is the other 2 ppc'ers are getting shafted since they replied to me (I did not ask them to) and said they stopped their ad campaigns.

[markwelch]

My understanding is that SAS program-term changes take effect in 7 days, and affiliates need not take any action to "accept" new terms. I don't see any reason to wait 30 days unless you've promised to do so. Arguably, it would seem unfair to impose new rules with just 7 days' notice IF you've previously encouraged affiliates to engage in specific activity which is banned now.

In general, you will evaluate apparent PPC violations on a case-by-case basis, to determine whether it's an ethical affiliate who simply didn't notice your program change, or if it's an unethical affiliate, or some "in-between" scenario. However, you should strive to be consistent in dealing with affiliates; don't succumb to the temptation to be more "tolerant" of affiliates who histoically have driven more business, as their success might be due to unethical activity.

And be especially careful not to over-react, or rely on incomplete or inaccurate information. And of course, if you find one or five affiliates breaking the rules, don't "punish" your honest affiliates by sending them insulting or hostile emails that are suitable only for the bad-actors.

[rematt]

Mark, The Illinois Uniform Commercial Code doesn't actually specify a time frame other than "reasonable". Unfortunately "reasonable" is somewhat ambiguous, however I don't think any court would consider 30 days as being unreasonable. Better safe...

-rematt

[Chuck Hamrick]

Once a reasonable notice of a violation of terms have been sent I give 48 hours (2 business days) then remove the affiliate from the program. If the only way to communicate with an affiliate is via the email in their profile then it is their responsibility to check that email. You can be damn sue that if they are spending $$ a day to run PPC campaigns they are watching all of it.

[CCBerries]

A slightly different view (after whatever timeframe you decide is correct): if the affiliate does not respond to numerous attempts to correct the problem, don't remove them from your SAS program, instead set their commission rate to zero (make sure it's just for that one affiliate .. not the whole program) Contact SAS about the problem and file a PPC violation with them, and e-mail the affiliate again about the zero commission rate.

If you remove them from the SAS program several things happen that will affect you negatively: 1) you can no longer send them e-mails through SAS, 2) their links will stop working.

Not every affiliate keeps up with invalid link reports (like would happen if you disabled them), or even reads e-mails from merchants.

Personally I just ran into a PPC violation on a program that ended in April. Through the use of geo-targeting and time of day targeting there are some unethical affiliates that will use Google’s unwillingness to let the domain owner see all ads running under their domain name to their advantage.

[dflsports]

Thanks for the responses. The affiliate did finally respond.

I'm all for being nice and sometimes it pays off :)

[rematt]

Once a reasonable notice of a violation of terms have been sent I give 48 hours (2 business days) then remove the affiliate from the program. If the only way to communicate with an affiliate is via the email in their profile then it is their responsibility to check that email. You can be damn sue that if they are spending $$ a day to run PPC campaigns they are watching all of it.Chuck reread the original post. This wasn't about a violation of current T's & C's, it is about a change in T's & C's. When existing terms have been violated, I'm in 100% agreement that you have total control over the length of time to wait for compliance. However, when new terms are introduced, the laws of individual states dictate the acceptance time frame.
Thanks for the responses. The affiliate did finally respond.

I'm all for being nice and sometimes it pays off :)Glad to hear it. The high road is usually the best route.

-rematt