How to Protect your Brand's Value from being Harmed by Bad Affiliates

[Kristijntje]

About a year ago, I attended an online advertising event in New York, where several retailers complained about affiliates who were distributing their ads via adware. The retailers claimed that they had no idea that those affiliates were working with adware on their behalf. Some of the merchants had chosen to cut ties with a number of these affiliates once they made this discovery. Seems reasonable enough, right? So here we are a year later, and there are still many organizations that don't have enough reliable information to determine with whom they should partner.

Why don't advertisers know more about their affiliate partners? And given the relative risk of NOT knowing, what does this mean for those who are looking either to enter or to increase their web presence via affiliate channels? At the very least, it means Caveat Emptor (or perhaps more exactly: Caveat Mercator)...

full article: http://www.imediaconnection.com/content/11021.asp