Officially, are we the affiliates of Clickbanks or the merchants listed there?

6 replies
Hi warriors,

Within my affiliate disclosure (to comply with the FTC), is it better to say that I'm the affiliate of Clickbank, or of the particular website(s) that I'm promoting?

For instance, if I were to promote the FatLoss4Idiots (which is a Clickbank product), do I state that I am their affiliate, or Clickbank's affiliate?

Thanks!
#affiliates #clickbanks #listed #merchants #officially
  • Profile picture of the author alleycatnews
    Clickbank. They "own" the product. In the sense they get all the $$$. And then distrubite it to the vendor and affiliate. They are the only ones that deal with refunds. The credit card bill says clickbank. I would say clickbank.
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  • Profile picture of the author Alexa Smith
    Banned
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  • Profile picture of the author John Cabral
    The only way Clickbank can a a credit card processer and not loose their merchant status is to own the products you sel through them so to speak so basically when you sell your product through them you are giving them ownership of your product and they pay you as an affiliate so to speak. Your sales price minus their cut. What is left after they take their cut is then divided up between you and your affiliates.

    So in theory you and your affiliates are affiliates of CB.
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    • Yes you're technically right, but if you think about the consumer 1st...

      If they are just reading your sales page about FatLoss4Idiots, they have no idea who Clickbank, they haven't clicked through yet. So to say "I'm an affiliate for Clickbank is meaningless". They don't know what an affiliate is and they don't know who CB is so it won't make any sense to them.

      And as far as the FTC goes I'm not certain they would feel that saying "I'm an affiliate" clearly discloses that you make money from the review. They want you to disclose you are getting paid, but you only get paid if you make a sale.

      So I would think something like the following would suffice: "If you buy FatLoss4Idiots from this site I make a commission". Or generically, "if you buy products from this site I sometimes make a commission".

      Not intended as legal advice and I'm not saying that's the ideal wording, just making the point about mentioning Clickbank and using the word affiliate.

      I think the wording in the links I shared in my post above are really worth reading.
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