I just wanted to rant a bit about the state of affiliate email marketing.  Today I had a discussion with an email advertiser whose offers were being spammed to several other companies’ suppression lists.  His response was: "It’s not my problem.  I use third party affiliates and affiliate networks.  The affiliate networks I contract with are responsible for the senders they use."  I then proceeded to tell him about the issues he was having with his own unsubscribe links, and I again received the same response.  It wasn’t his problem.  His unsubscribe practices are ’solid’.  It is the responsibility of the networks to police this.  And so on.

Affiliate marketing has its place in email.  Done properly, it works for consumers, senders and advertisers.  But I am appalled by the lack of accountability I see with some organizations - especially organizations who I would expect to care.  I see two options for affiliate email marketing - self regulate or be regulated.  I fear that as affiliate marketing continues to take an "it’s not my fault, it’s their fault" attitude, that government regulation will kick in.  Affiliate marketers need to start thinking a bit differently.  Perhaps instead of shifting blame to others, affiliate marketers - especially the advertisers — will start to realize that they are responsible too.