Wednesday, February 21, 2018

affiliate links?

An old friend suggested that I become an affiliate of a new service she is providing.  Recommend her service, if people sign up, Nature's Gift gets paid.

And my immediate response was, "We don't do affiliates." and we dropped the subject.

But the idea of affiliate links has been running around in my head ever since.

And I'm glad that we don't.

You have all seen them, the blogs, the websites, that give a glowing review of a product. With a link to buy it.  Not from the person writing about it, but from Amazon, or a supplier, or the producer, or, whoever.

Some of these are perfectly innocent.  Mommy bloggers who are in love with a product and want to recommend it, and also get paid if their friends click on the link.

But there can be a dark underside of the whole affiliate concept...when the writer goes from recommending a product, service, school that they love, to only recommending products, services and schools that will pay for the recommendation.  A sort of "pay to play" arrangement.  And you, as the reader, can't know.  Does this writer recommend things she loves, and sometimes get paid for it? Or does she only recommend things that she gets paid to recommend?

We have all seen this.  I have watched it happen in this field that I love, and I suspect those who love the oils are not unique.  It probably happens in any industry, any area.

But... we don't.   Because when we recommend a school,  a practitioner, a product, I want you to know that we *love* it.  We hope you will love it too. At the very least, we want you to know that it exists.

Now, there is ONE exception to our "no affiliate links" policy.  Our "book list."  There are some books, rare and hard to find, like Sal Battaglia's and Madeleine's that we gladly import to make available to you.  We believe in them, and we "put our money where our mouth is."

If it were possible to offer all the books that we think you should be reading at a reasonable price, we would stock them.

But if we stocked them, you would still buy from Amazon. We can not match their prices for books printed in the US. So, we review the books that we recommend, and give a link for purchasing on Amazon.  If you purchase via our link we make perhaps 25 cents or so on the purchase.

These are our only affiliate links.  If you see me blog, or post on Facebook, or write a newsletter about another company,  a product that is not ours, a course that interests us... it's because we are enthusiastic about it, not because we are being paid.

Thank you for listening.

6 comments:

youneekone said...

Thanks for being you! I've stopped following some sites once they get so far into affiliate links I can't trust anything they say any longer.

Beverley Hawkins said...

A company after my own heart!

Marge said...

me too!

Janice said...

Hi Marge! I am actually searching for an essential oil company such as yours, to develop an affiliate relationship with! I have a new blog/web site and instead of getting into the business of selling essential oils myself, I would like to link to an ethical company dealing in high quality oils and aromatherapy products! It’s a shame you don’t consider linking with ethical, clinical, “real aromatherapy “ bloggers!! In between the “mommy bloggers and the dark undersides”, there are those of us who would love to be affiliated with real essential oil companies . I actually mentioned “natures gift “ in one of my recent blog posts . I won’t affiliate with mlm’s or low quality run of the mill eo companies! If you’re interested, let’s talk!! Janice Gagnon-Warr, Rn, ccap

Marge said...

Janice I appreciate your comments. And we have toyed with the idea of having an affiliate program over the years. But the same reasoning applies. We have a long list of clients/friends who link to us, who recommend our oils. And they are making the recommendation because they think we are the best.. or one of the best.. not because they are being paid. I know some very well respected companies have affiliate programs, but, for the time being, I can't see us doing it. I hope you will go on recommending us anyway, affliate or not.

Unknown said...

I am so glad to see this. A company with true standards. I'm am very glad you do not do affliations and will definitely be using this company. Was recommended this company yesterday by a Facebook group.