Sample Merchant Terms of Agreement

Most affiliates I would say 99.99% of them abide by all rules of affiliate marketing. Even when no merchant TOS exists most of them will follow the rules as an industry and from network own rules. Occasionally either new affiliates getting into affiliate marketing or some that either do not care will need to have some type of rules set in place so that when you do contact them there are no excuses or that they did not know.

As an affiliate program consulting and managing company we protect our clients trademark brands all the time. This is one of the most valued part most often asked by our clients how we do it and how we police daily the activities of all affiliate partners and their traffic. We have been doing this successfully since day one and probably would not need a TOS but we are often asked what are some good terms to setup in an affiliate program for affiliates.

We always ad and suggest this or a similar TOS below as it covers most terms needed in a program but you may edit and add your own TOS into your program any time and not all wording may be suitable for your program.

Sample from EverythingFurniture.com and EverythingOfficeFurniture.com TOS (Terms Of Service)

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To sign up as an affiliate or as an existing affiliate partner or partner of EverythingFurniture.com and/or EverythingOfficeFurniture.com within any location or business relationship please verify that your site(s) does not have any of the listed “concerns” below. Periodically we may monitor and review your site(s) or other partners site(s) and send or post on our forum or update you direct and/or all partners at the same time with a friendly reminder of our terms or TOS. Our criteria for approving any affiliate or continued relationship with all affiliate partners or partners is that all sites and places where our banners, links, coupons, datafeed, products or product images are displayed or promoted must be in English or Spanish only for now, even through the use of email, blogs or forums, etc., whether you use any of our own domains/sites that we provide to you or your own domains/sites blogs or forums, is that they be kept free of errors on your end or from any affiliations with other sites that promote and or use technology software, parasitic activity and browser helper objects, redirecting toolbars, illegal activities, hatred, or porn, etc.

Concerns that may cause temporary or permanent removal from program:

A – verify that there is not a “‘no page found”, “wrong page found” or error message showing on your site
B – verify that site has no inappropriate content such as porn, hatred, illegal or offensive material
C – verify that site is not in another language other than English or Spanish
D – verify that site does not have a URL or domain re-direct, IFrame or forwarding to another site not approved or competing site
E – verify that you have appropriate contact name or email listed for you under your affiliate account
F – verify that your site has no parasitic activity, too many pop-ups, or automatic downloadable software ( download software such as those within a banner or link from desktop supported technology companies, incentive type sites, toolbars, adware, spyware or variations there of that may redirect improperly are not approved at this time )
G – verify that our datafeed or products are not included, uploaded, downloaded or advertised on places such as Froogle, (Google Products ), competing merchants stores or sites, eBay, etc or similar locations by you, an associate or partner as an affiliate link, banner, domain, page, or re-direct, etc. other than on your own sites(s), domains, etc. that may conflict with our own stores or other affiliate partner sites.

PPC and use of Trademark Restrictions/Terms:

- no direct to merchant ppc using our trademarks using a search engine campaign such as with adword, yahoo or msn
- must have your own EF/EOF landing page first is using a search engine campaign such as with adword, yahoo or msn
- no ‘official’ wording using a search engine campaign such as with adword, yahoo or msn in the ad title
- no trademark using a search engine campaign such as with adword, yahoo or msn display url

Until further notice you may continue to use EverythingFurniture.com, EverythingOfficeFurniture.com or variations thereof only for search engine ppc campaigns whereby customer lands on your site or page first that promotes and displays links, banners, coupons, product images ( such as use from a datafeed, make-a-page or other product display tool ) or any item related to EverythingFurniture.com, EverythingOfficeFurniture.com and thereby when customer lands on your site or page they must click-though from a link, banner, product image ( such as use from a datafeed, make-a-page or other product display tool ) or coupon onto EverythingFurniture.com or EverythingOfficeFurniture.com. If you are NOT using any of our trademarks and only using furniture related keywords or categories or products for your keywords you MAY continue (until further notice ) to use direct to merchant ppc only for that purpose using furniture keywords. You may NOT have the word ‘official’ in any ppc campaign that follows any of our tradenames and you may NOT use our tradenames in the display url.