Date: Sunday, January 11th, 2009.  Session 3d, 3:00pm.
Session Description: There are two sides to ethical issues in affiliate marketing, and we will entertain audience questions for a panel of industry leaders.  The panel consisted of:

• Haiko de Poel Jr., Managing Partner, dp internet services LLC, DBA ABestWeb (Moderator)
• Connie Berg, CEO, FlamingoWorld.com LLC
• Chuck Hamrick, Affiliate Manager, affiliateCREW.com
• Brian Littleton, President/CEO, ShareASale.com
• Alex Butin, Freecause (Alex stood in for Paul Nichols from Ebates, who had to bow out last minute)

With Alex on the panel and the latest big issue facing affiliate ethics being toolbars overwriting affiliate cookies, I think that swayed the tide of the questions asked by both Haiko as moderator and Q&A portion.  I would have liked to hear more questions asked by audience members, but admittedly, I didn’t have any to ask myself since I’m still learning about all the different issues that eat at the ethics of the industry.

Bullet Point Review!

• Haiko made a good analogy to Las Vegas and asked: is the soul of the industry gone?
• Online marketing is becoming the default medium for high ROI.
• From your unique vantage point, where do you draw the line?
  • Chuck, as an OPM, said: Knowingly doing something that’s unethical.  Working with adware and parasites knowing that’s wrong.  Allowing PPC tactics you know affect other department’s performance.  Being an affiliate of your own program.  Playing favorites.
  • Connie, as a coupon affiliate, said: Coupon sites that have a toolbar that overwrites other cookies.  Auto load cookies.  Social media apps. Networks owning competing affiliate sites.  As new technology comes out there are new ways to cheat.
  • Alex, as a technology provider, said: Be clear with your motives, evolve your business models.  It’s up to merchants to decide what’s unethical, as a company they don’t want to create a tool that doesn’t do exactly what it says it does, so they’re not interested in shady features that aren’t advertised.
  • Brian, as a network, said: They see “interference” to tracking as a problem period, and since parasites, toolbars, etc. interfere with tracking, they’re out.  They’ve also seen a total disregard for other company’s policies (affiliates breaking Google rules was his example) and they have no interest working with those people.  Don’t turn the other cheek to practices you know are unethical.
• There’s a whole movement of squeaky clean networks and businesses.
• We need to take charge because the networks won’t.
• People are pushing the term “affiliate” under the rug and re-branding as “performance” marketing.  Performance is all inclusive and too broad to represent affiliates.
• Network compliance teams are a joke.
• The industry needs more disclosure and transparency, not division and separation that some organizations are actually providing (seemed to hint at the PMA).

Points brought up during the Q&A

• One question asker made the statement that “cookies are dead”, referencing the new browser technology recently coming out that has been blocking affiliate ad displays and blocking cookies.  Brian respectfully disagreed with the statement that cookies are dead, but said his network is looking at ways to track without cookies, but couldn’t get into specifics for obvious reasons.  Other panelists agreed that the cookie issue isn’t too big yet.
• Brook Schaaf asked about the negative thoughts associated with coupon sites, and Connie and the other panelists agreed that “one bad apple spoils the bunch”, so to speak.  There are shady coupon sites running toolbars that overwrite cookies, stealing non-affiliate coupon codes from the merchant’s website, and stealing exclusive codes from other affiliates that have given legitimate coupon sites a bad name.

Based solely on the description of this session, I was hoping for more of a discussion, but despite the room being packed, the panel was over 20 minutes early with just two questions asked.  I’m glad that it seems they took the feedback from Boston and toned the emotion of the session down a bit, and I hope to see further discussion at future Summits, or perhaps even a jam session type event to just address ethics.  It seems like a discussion bigger than an hour long panel can accommodate.

There’s also a recap from Michael Buechele’s point of view on the Affiliate Summit Blog:  Affiliate Summit West 2009 Session Recap – Ethical Issues in Affiliate Marketing. Check out a different perspective.

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Just a quick recap of days negative 1 and 1 of Affiliate Summit East 2008 before I head off to the Share a Sale Under the Stars party that started an hour ago (give me a break, I’m fashionably late!).

Day  Negative 1 (a.k.a. Saturday)

1. The Affiliate Classroom Live event went well overall.  I feel like the people in most of my discussions were picking up what I was putting down.  I feel like I could have been better prepared, but that was really my own fault.  I hope that I’m asked back in the future of other events and can do a bang up job!  Also met some cool peeps.
2. AffSpot.com forum meet-up was fun – got to meet some new people like Angie & Roger from Snow Consulting, talked at length with the ever charming Lisa Picarille of Revenue Magazine, finally met the lovely penguin Jen Good of JGoode Designs, was thrown schwag by Sam Harrelson & Aunesty Janssen the admins of the Spot, and met Bill (Beachy), Ron (7daysRon), & some others that came & went.  As I was looking down reading something on my phone outside the bar I recognized Jim Kukral of Scratchback soley by his mandals with socks walking by!  Love it.
3. Speaking of Sam, he had to bail on the Affiliate Dinner last night so he graciously gave me his ticket!  I went and had a great meal, lots of laughs at the expense of the roastee Connie Berg of FlamingoWorld.com, and talked at great length with apparently my #1 fan Kim Rodgers from 4Checks.com.  It’s funny that I JUST ordered my new checks from them for the first time last week, so we had a great discussion!  The highlight just might have been Brian Littleton from Share-a-Sale dressed up as Captain Jack Sparrow for Connie’s love of all things Johnny Depp.
4. Finally, while the concept of recording a live podcast for GeekCast live was a terrific idea, it ended up being a FAIL of epic proportions.  It was an insanely fun time talking and having fun with peeps but between the audience, topics, & Shawn’s BeerTender, it was too much of a party.  It was a blast though that kept me up until 3:45am.

Day 1 – Affiliate Summit Kicks Off

1. Registration was incredibly easy now that they’ve come up with self check in kiosks.  Love it!
2. Missed the PPC and Social Media tracks I wanted to attend thanks to a righteous headache this morning (no, I DON’T think it was a hangover!) but heard the social media was good.
3. Headed into the Meet Market and MAN was it packed!  Got my fare share of awesome schwag, bought myself an “I Gave Back!” button, and got some good info on some cool networks and programs.  It was a zoo in there so I had to bail, bu t it was good that I did since I’d lost track of time and was able to get to the NY tax laws session.
4. The day isn’t over!  I’m shutting this bad boy down in lieu of blogging about the other session I attended today and I’m heading over to the ShareASale party on the Odyssey Cruise yacht… can’t promise how long I’ll stay but it should be a blast!

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