Well? For example, a powerful affiliate, who brings 15% of the traffic to a product, uses unethical methods or screws something up. As a result, the product is "boycotted" by the internet community, resulting in drop of sales, gravity, popularity, etc. I was just wondering; has something like that happened before?
Hi Dell, Absolutely it can affect the brand. Some affiliates just focus on short-term profits and trick users into purchasing. When the users find the fact, they know they were cheated, thus affect the brand. So it is important to write something honest to your users. Then they will trust you and thus you can have long-term profits.
Absolutely right. I had one instance where a guy mailed me regarding a product I was promoting. After he questioned me I had to read the complete information about the product and later gave him the right info. He tried it and later he recommended the product to someone else too. So being honest is the best way. Coming to the main question - If I wasn't honest, either he would've bought it and later when he knows that truth he would not have recommend to the other guy too. There is a loss of one sale. It goes on like that. Who knows you may lose even 10 sales. YES! Even a small affiliate has the power to affect the product negatively.
That kind-of sucks. But I can't think of any other way that could work, and that would be equally beneficial for both affiliate and vendor (and customer).
If the vendor is honest and has a good product and the affiliate has great skill to market it honestly then everything would work out just fine. Every method will have advantages - disadvantages also.
Ya, nobody can monitor their affiliates but nobody can do without them either. So I agree it is a risk a merchant takes.
Depends on how big the brand is. You can choose CJ or ShareAsale if you are concern about how your product is promoted. If I was the merchant on CB network I will only look for more sales.