Monday, June 1, 2015

Affiliate Disclosure


So yesterday I got an email from RIPT Apparel (mass email sent out to everyone) discussing affiliate disclosures and protecting my reputation with the FTC and blah blah blah.

It basically suggested that I should get my website and my posts up to speed to let any visitor know that clicking through my site to visit any store to make a purchase results in me getting a commission for that sale.

I've never hid that fact from anyone. Why would I? Why would it matter? If you like what I post and want to buy some of this cool art or grab a tshirt, go for it! Make my day! Make the Artists day! We appreciate your business! You have a great day! :D
Khajiit has wares if you have coin.

A little about me, I love video games, pop culture, nerdy shit. I do make my own art for sale, but I also curate and post other artists' work to my websites and social media accounts with special affiliate links.


It's a hobby of mine and way more fun than a "real job."
I really hope the site takes off. That would be amazing to see.

Ok, so let's just talk about what affiliate accounts I have... Maybe you yourself might be interested in dabbling in affiliate marketing. If you are, good luck! Here's what I know about it so far. As much as I didn't want to give away any "special secrets," the truth is, there really isn't too much "secret" to any of this.  BTW Here's a link to the FTC guidelines, just so you have it. > https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking#how

Skimlinks - Skimlinks is awesome. They list 20,000+ stores for users (like me) to work with including Amazon, Ebay, Target, Walmart... etc etc... from all the huge stores, to little shops. If you run a website or blog and you have not even checked out Skimlinks, I strongly suggest you do. They have the best tools available. They'll give you little code snippets you can stick on your website that will scan your typed content and automatically link any catchwords or phrases that match up with their database for affiliate stuff. Anytime you see a link that looks like this "http://fave.co/1p1P6Uk" from me, that's a skimlinks code (shortened url). Anytime you see a link like this one: "http://go.redirectingat.com?id=54633X1515053&xs=1&url=http%3A%2F%2Fskimlinks.com%2F," that is also via Skimlinks. Both of those links BTW go to Skimlinks' main website. And guess what? If you sign up via that link, I get paid a % on top of your commissions that you make! So go for it! Sign up and have fun with it! All the stores Skimlinks works with offer different commission rates, some will even pay you per click. Just go check it out it's pretty neat.



Shareasale - Shareasale is a site that also lists a lot of merchants. If you ever see a a link like this: http://shrsl.com/?~8udh or this: http://www.shareasale.com/r.cfm?u=832873&b=40&m=47&afftrack=&urllink=www%2Eshareasale%2Ecom%2F those are shareasale links.

I'll only use Shareasale if the website I am curating from isn't listed with Skimlinks. Shareasale is a bit more tedious in comparison to Skimlinks due to the lack of useful tools and overabundance of junk tools in the back end. Plus, in order to get a link I need to log in and click 3 or 4 times to get my link, where as Skimlinks has a Chrome plugin tool which allows me to grab a link on the fly.

Neatoshop - Neatoshop is one of the places where I have tshirts for available for sale. Actually they are one of the very best places online to get a high quality print on a t-shirt from. But they also have a pretty nifty affiliate program available to any artist over there that wants one. The links I use from Neatoshop just have an extension to the end of the url with my "special affiliate number" http://www.neatoshop.com?tag=110306.

Society6 - Society6 is another store I upload my own art to, and like Neatoshop they also have an internal affiliate program. All my links from Society6 also have an extension to them: http://society6.com/likelikes/prints?curator=likelikes, They have all kinds of crazy products to check out.

I think that's really it.

I personally don't collect any information about you, other than what google analytics tells me. The affiliate sites will put tracking cookies on the links you click only so they can pay me if need be. If you ever have any questions or concerns, feel free to comment below or send me a message.

Thanks!!


P.S. I have a special gratitude to all those who help keep this project of mine going via buying something through one of my thousands of links out there. Whether you know it or not, I truly truly appreciate it!! Thank you!