IAB releases ethical merchant charter

IAB Affiliate Marketing Council launches second best practice initiative of 2009.

Wednesday, 12 August 2009

The IAB Affiliate Marketing Council (AMC) has released an Ethical Merchant Charter, to promote greater transparency in the industry and ensure better relationships between publishers and merchants. This is the second significant best practice initiative from the AMC this year, who in January launched their best practice guidelines for online voucher codes.

The guidelines have been released to assist merchants, with advice on how to best look after and communicate with their affiliate partners, providing clear information on terms and conditions of merchants’ business and programmes.

The AMC comprises 22 companies ranging from networks, agencies, merchants and publishers, and is dedicated to educating the market about the benefits of affiliate marketing and establishing best practice within this fast-developing discipline. Through producing the guidelines the AMC intends to achieve a fairer and more ethical way of working for publishers.

The guidelines – created and approved by all members of the council - address the following issues:

• Greater transparency on why sales get deleted

• Deduplication

• Guidance on what type of affiliates to work with

• What merchants should pay for

• Recommended notice periods

The guidelines will come into force on 1 August, and the AMC aims to review their impact and effectiveness on a quarterly basis, refining where relevant in order to provide merchants with the best guidance possible. In the next 6 months the council will also be working on best practice guidelines to increase simplicity in the use of rebate catchers.

Matt Bailey, head of affiliates at i-level and chair of the IAB AMC said: "The importance of relationships within the affiliate industry is long established, and as we seek to increase professionalism in the industry it is vital to ensure that transparency within these relationships is achievable on both sides. The release of these guidelines should serve two purposes: firstly to give publishers increased knowledge and confidence when working with merchants; secondly we aim to increase the knowledge of merchants by outlining to them that they need to treat publishers as partners."

Dan Redfearn, head of the IAB AMC said: "This is a very important step for the Affiliate Marketing Council as affiliates are at the heart of this model and need to be recognised as such and treated with fairness and transparency as with any business partner."

For more information contact:

Dan Redfearn, membership manager, IAB dan@iabuk.net, 020 7050 6942
Harriet Clarke, IAB, communications executive, IAB harriet@iabuk.net, 020 7050 6969

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Related stories:

• Affiliate marketing - a 'no risk channel'

• IAB affiliate council strengthens voucher code guidelines

• Bailey elected chair of IAB affiliate council