OPM/Affiliate Manager Ethics & Affiliate Privacy Issues

[Linda Buquet]

Was talking with Kevin Webster about a blog post he just wrote. OPM (Outsourced Program Manager) and AM (Affiliate Manager) ethics is not a subject I see blogged about very often. However considering the large amount of private information OPMs and AMs have access to, that is vital to an affiliate's survival [ I think it's a really important topic to bring up.

Kevin does a great job addressing some of the concerns I have and that many affiliates raise, regarding the private information that OPMs and managers have about them and their business models. He is now an affiliate, but was previously an OPM, so he can see both sides of the issue.

Ethics and the OPM
"As a former OPM (and if New York has their way, maybe a future one as well), I did a lot of thinking about the grave responsibility that comes with having the kind of data available to us that we did. As what amounts to being a liaison between merchants and their affiliates, we had sales statistics, valuable keyword information, and perhaps most importantly, a list of all affiliates in a program, and the ability to contact them.

That brings up, in my mind, one of the critical ethics issues in affiliate marketing, which is ownership of data..."

[Edwin]

Originally Posted by From Linked Blog Posts

When I was OPMing, I did look at referal links of all transactions. At the same time, I created no spreadsheets that contained this data, nor did I in any way let it leave the Shareasale interface

For the newbies, pay attention here what is said in the above quote.
In this case the manager doesn't use it for it's own benefit or pass it on to the networks in-house SEO/SEM team, but don't expect this to be the case with all networks or affiliate managers.

It would be really disappointing if you've found a set of profitable keywords for your PPC campaigns and suddenly you're competing with the network whilst before you had for example no competition at all.

The same goes for your landing pages, your web properties where you receive your traffic that you receive due to your keyword research and and website building efforts.

You may suddenly be having unexpected competition.

Deliver traffic but don't be fully transparent about it, protect your income!

And be very wary about networks and affiliate managers pressuring you to divulge your traffic generation methods...your keywords...your direct advertisement methods where you buy ad space on online properties.

Here is a post i found interesting about hiding your affiliate data.

[Linda Buquet]

Thanks Edwin - good points!