Affiliate Code of Conduct

Last week NMA carried the news that the IAB were working on an affiliate code of conduct. More news on this at One Little Duck.

So I’ve been thinking over the weekend about what an affiliate code of conduct would look like and I can’t help but think what we are really looking for is a merchant code of conduct. Here is my suggested code of conduct for affiliates

Step 1: Work within the Terms & Conditions of the affiliate program

Now that places a lot of importance back on the idea of having fair terms which are concise, easily available to affiliates and actually enforced but to me it sums up the issue. If affilates are currently breaching the terms of a program and the network can’t or won’t enforce this then I’m not sure what else a code of conduct targetting affiliates is going achieve?

A merchant code of conduct would be guidelines of fair and reasonable terms and conditions. For example

• 30 days + cookie length of notice to close a program
• 7 days notice to change commission rates

Networks probably already have this kind of agreement in place but it never seems to be enforced in a way that protects the affiliates because ‘Money Talks’ and many networks seem to be too scared of upsetting their merchants.

Maybe I’m not making much sense but I just wanted to open up the discussion about what you would expect to see in an affiliate code of conduct and who would enforce a breach of the code?