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Affiliate Program Terms and Conditions
Please read the following affiliate terms and conditions carefully before you join our program or begin marketing our products. These terms and conditions are written in plain language intentionally avoiding legal speak to ensure that our affiliate members can clearly understand and follow these guidelines. Each affiliate is responsible for assuring that its employees, agents, and contractors comply with these terms and conditions.
DEFINITIONS
Simple Truths publishes inspirational gift books and products.
As used in these terms and conditions: (i) “we”, “us”, or “our” refers to Simple Truths®, our website, and any brand partners that we represent; (ii) “you” or “your” refers to the affiliate; (iii) “our website” refers to the Simple Truths properties located at www.simpletruths.com and any apps or other digital products produced by Simple Truths; (iv) “your website” refers to any websites that you will link to our website; (v) “program” refers to the Simple Truths Affiliate Program.
HOW TO BECOME AN AFFILIATE PARTNER WITH SIMPLE TRUTHS
- Read the Simple Truths Affiliate Program page to understand the scope of products and services being offered.
- Review the Simple Truths Affiliate Program Terms and Conditions.
- Sign up for one of our affiliate programs through eBay Enterprise or ShareASale. Links to these programs can be found on our affiliates page.
One of the key determining factors in approving your application is our understanding of how you will promote Simple Truths. To that end, the minimum qualifying factor is that you must have an active website. Applications that do not have an active website will not be approved.
Once your application has been approved, you will have access to our affiliate links for use on your approved website(s).
ENROLLMENT
After receiving your application, we will review your website and notify you of your acceptance into or rejection from our program. Please allow up to 2 business days for your application to be reviewed. We reserve the right to reject any application; however, we encourage you to contact us if you feel we have made an incorrect decision. Including all of the websites that you use in your profile will help us make a better decision.
WEBSITE RESTRICTIONS
Your participating website(s) may not:
- Infringe on our or any anyone else’s intellectual property, publicity, privacy, or other rights.
- Violate any law, rule, or regulation.
- Contain any content that is threatening, harassing, defamatory, obscene, harmful to minors, or contains nudity, pornography, or sexually explicit or adult-related materials.
- Contain any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, interfere with, surreptitiously intercept, or expropriate any system, data, or personal information.
- Contain software or use technology that attempts to intercept, divert, or redirect Internet traffic to or from any other website, or that potentially enables the diversion of affiliate commissions from another website.
LINKING TO OUR WEBSITE
Upon acceptance into the Simple Truths Affiliate Program, links will be made available to you through the affiliate interface. Your acceptance into our program means you agree to and abide by the following:
- You will only use linking code obtained from the affiliate interface without manipulation.
- All domains that use your affiliate link must be listed in your affiliate profile.
- Your website will not in any way copy, resemble, or mirror the look and feel of our website. You will also not use any means to create the impression that your website is our website or any part of our website including, without limitation, framing of our website in any manner.
- You may not engage in cookie stuffing or include pop-ups, false, or misleading links on your website. In addition, wherever possible, you will not attempt to mask the referring URL information (i.e. the page from where the click is originating).
- You may not use redirects to bounce a click off of a domain from which the click did not originate in order to give the appearance that it came from that domain.
- If you are found redirecting links to hide or manipulate their original source, your current and past commissions will be voided or your commission level will be set to 0%. This does not include using “out” redirects from the same domain where the affiliate link is placed.
PAY PER CLICK (PPC) GUIDELINES
If you are enrolled in our program and participate in PPC advertising, you must adhere to our PPC guidelines as follows:
- You may not bid on any of our trademarked terms (which are identified below), including any variations or misspellings thereof, for search or content-based campaigns on Google, MSN, Yahoo, or any other network.
- You may not bid on any of the trademarked terms of our brand partners, including any variations or misspellings thereof for search or content-based campaigns on Google, MSN, Yahoo, or any other network.
- You may not use our trademarked terms in sequence with any other keyword (i.e. Simple Truths Coupons, Simple Truths Offers, etc.).
- You may not use our trademarked terms in your ad title, ad copy, display name, or as the display URL.
- Search bidding is allowed on book titles and other terms, provided that any search traffic is directed to our website (www.simpletruths.com) or to a page on your site that advertises ONLY our products and services.
- You may not direct link to our website from any PPC ad or use redirects that yield the same result. Affiliates must be directed to an actual page on your website.
- You may not bid in any manner appearing higher than Simple Truths for any search term in position 1–5 in any auction style PPC advertising program.
If you automate your PPC campaigns, it is your responsibility to exclude our trademarked terms from your program. We strongly suggest you add our trademarked terms as negative keywords to your PPC campaigns. We have a strict no-tolerance policy on PPC trademark bidding. You will forfeit all commissions for a minimum of the past 30 days, your commission will be set to 0% without warning, and you may be removed from our affiliate program if you engage in PPC trademark bidding that uses our trademarked terms or violates our PPC bidding guidelines.
Trademarked Terms: Simple Truths®, SimpleTruths.com, Finish Strong®, Small Books That Speak Volumes®, 212 The Extra Degree, The Dash
COUPON GUIDELINES
Simple Truths runs an active coupon and discounting program through our own website. While we do not discourage coupon sites from our joining our affiliate program, if you are enrolled in our program and your website promotes coupon codes, you must adhere to the following Coupon Guidelines:
- You may ONLY advertise coupon codes that are provided to you through the affiliate program or network or that are displayed on our website(s). We are happy to work with our affiliate partners to define promotions that might work for your customers.
- Posting any information about how to work around the requirements of a coupon/promotion (i.e., first-time customers only) will result in removal from the program.
- Coupons must be displayed in their entirety with the full offer, valid expiration date, and code.
- You may NOT use any technology that covers up the coupon code and generates the affiliate click by revealing the code(s).
- You may NOT advertise coupon codes obtained from our non-affiliate advertising, customer e-mails, paid search, on-site coupons, or any other promotional campaign.
- You may NOT give the appearance that any ongoing offer requires clicking from your website in order to redeem. For example, if all items on the site have free shipping over $100, you may not turn this into an offer that implies that the customer must click from your site to get this deal.
Additionally, if your website ranks on the first page of Google for terms related to our website or company name(s) combined with the words coupon, coupons, coupon code, promo code, etc., and/or your conversion rate exceeds 25%, you may be offered a lower commission than our standard rate to offset the reduced profitability of orders.
DOMAIN NAMES
Use of any of our trademarked terms as part of the domain or sub-domain for your website, i.e. simpletruths.website.com or www.simpletruths-coupons.com, is strictly prohibited and is grounds for removal from the program.
ADVERTISING & PUBLICITY
You shall not create, publish, distribute, or print any written material that makes reference to our program without first submitting that material to us and receiving our prior written consent. If you intend to promote our program via email campaigns, you must adhere to the following:
- Abide by the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Public Law No. 108-187) with respect to our program.
- Emails must be sent on your behalf and must not imply that the email is being sent on behalf of Simple Truths.
- Emails must first be submitted to us for approval prior to being sent, or we must be sent a copy of the email.
Any web content or design elements (graphics, banners, etc.) created for the Simple Truths brand or products by an affiliate partner that are not specifically provided or previously published by Simple Truths must be approved in advance of being published on your website.
SOCIAL MEDIA
Promotion on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms is permitted, following these general guidelines:
- You ARE ALLOWED to promote offers to your own lists; more specifically, you’re welcome to use your affiliate links on your own Facebook, Twitter, etc. pages. For example, you may post, “25% off sale at Simple Truths through Wednesday with code COUPON25.”
- You ARE PROHIBITED from posting your affiliate links on Simple Truths’ Facebook, Twitter, etc. company pages in an attempt to turn those links into affiliate sales.
OPERATIONS OUTSIDE UNITED STATES
If you are conducting business in or taking orders from other countries, you will follow the laws of those countries. For example, you will comply with the European Union’s Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive if you are conducting business in or taking orders from one or more of the European Union countries.
REVERSAL & COMMUNICATION POLICY
Simple Truths takes pride in its very low reversal rate, which we attribute to open communication with our affiliates. However, we reserve the right to reverse orders due to order cancellations, duplicate tracking, returns, disputed charges, and program violations as outlined in these terms and conditions.
Additionally, if we ask you for clarification or more information on any orders or clicks that we suspect may be in violation of our terms and conditions, we expect that you will respond in a timely and honest manner. Below are violations of our communications policy.
- You are not forthcoming, you are intentionally vague, or you are found to be lying.
- You are not responsive within a reasonable time period and after multiple attempts to make contact using the information listed in your network profile.
- You cannot substantiate or validate the source of your traffic to our program with clear and demonstrable proof.
If any of the above apply, then we reserve the absolute right to suspend you from the program, reverse orders, modify affiliate payouts, set your commission to 0%, or immediately terminate your participation in our affiliate program. We know that many violations are a result of automated processes; however, it is incumbent upon each affiliate to ensure that it has the appropriate checks and balances in place to pro-actively address these issues and adhere to our program rules.
FTC DISCLOSURE REQUIREMENTS
You shall include a disclosure statement within any and all pages/posts where affiliate links for our affiliate program are posted as an endorsement or review, and where it is not clear that the link is a paid advertisement. This disclosure statement should be clear and concise, stating that we are compensating you for your review or endorsement. If you received the product for free from us or from the affiliate management team for review, this also must be clearly stated in your disclosure.
PROHIBITION AGAINST SOLICITATION FOR RESIDENT AFFILIATES IN SELECT STATES
As a condition of its participation in the Simple Truths Affiliate Program, affiliate agrees that its solicitation activities on behalf of Simple Truths within Connecticut, Illinois, Tennessee, and New York (hereinafter “these states”) shall be limited to only providing a link on affiliate’s website to Simple Truths’ own website. Affiliate acknowledges that under current law in these states, further solicitation and promotional activities may render Simple Truths liable for collecting sales tax on all sales to customers in these states.
Therefore, as a condition of participation in the Simple Truths Affiliate Program, affiliate is prohibited from engaging in any solicitation activities in these states intended to refer potential customers to Simple Truths, including, but not limited to:
(i) distributing flyers, coupons, newsletters, and other printed materials, or electronic equivalents of such materials
(ii) engaging in verbal solicitation, including in-person referrals or initiating telephone calls
(iii) sending emails intended to refer customers to Simple Truths
Proof of compliance must be sent to Simple Truths on an annual basis (by May 31 of each year), or affiliate may be removed from the program. Affiliate further acknowledges that state tax laws are subject to change at any time and such changes may render affiliates in certain states ineligible for continued participation in Simple Truths’ Affiliate Program. Simple Truths reserves the right to remove any affiliate from the Simple Truths Affiliate Program at any time and for any reason.
The preceding paragraphs only applies to affiliates that constitute organizations, clubs, and nonprofit groups. Affiliate shall maintain prominently on its website information alerting its members to the prohibition against solicitation activities in these states as described above.