I like Aaron Wall and typically agree with what he writes, but part of yesterday’s article over at WebProNews doesn’t sit well with me at all. He discusses the benefits merchants can gain by utilizing affiliate tracking software for non-affiliate type ads. He talks about how affiliate tracking software can be used by merchants to track various ad campaigns and conversions and how it can be used to track special ad buys or traffic sources that aren’t traditional affiliates. All good and smart points. Then he suggests something I think is highly unethical.


Affiliate Software to Track Your Ads | WebProNews
“Cloak Your Own Actions as an Affiliate – If you are doing high risk ad buys it might make sense to sign up as your own affiliate and make it look like it was one of your affiliates who bought that keyword or ad.”

When certain *questionable* merchants and networks get busted publicly for bad behaviour like using spyware, advertising in places like Myspace against the TOS or unethical trademark bidding I wonder how often they blame it on a “rogue affiliate” when the rogue affiliate was really them.

Since when is *cloaking your identity* and *pretending” to be someone you are not, a good marketing practice? Granted when Aaron says “doing high risk ad buys” he may be talking about something more benign than the way some unscrupulous merchants would use this. But seriously, if it’s something you want to hide THAT bad you should probably not be doing it to begin with!