When doing research for my affiliate program management book, “A Practical Guide to Affiliate Marketing”, I looked at 100 affiliate programs in the same vertical, and analyzed their program agreements. The results were literally shocking: 51% of the merchants lacked Terms of Service agreements altogether, 36% had extremely generic ones, and only 13% of the affiliate programs in my sample had full affiliate program agreements in place. Does your affiliate program clearly outline the “do’s and don’ts”, the responsibilities and obligations of all involved parties? If it does not, you are in for a long-term headache.
Another amusing fact discovered in my above-quoted study was that close to 70% of the affiliate programs that did have the full agreements in place had them copied – often world-for-word – from their competitor’s affiliate programs.
If you are reading this, and you could use some initial guidance on what an affiliate program agreement should look like, and what areas it should cover, I have made one publicly accessible here: Sample Affiliate Program Agreement. Feel free to use it, but please take your time to modify it to suit your own situation.
Best of luck!!
