Followthemoney.com Affiliate Program Terms of Service
(Last Updated March 1, 2019)
By signing up to be an Affiliate in the Followthemoney.com Affiliate Program (“Program”) you are agreeing to be bound by the following terms and conditions (“Terms of Service”).
Followthemoney.com reserves the right to update and change the Terms of Service to the Program from time to time without notice. Any new features that augment or enhance the current Program, including the release of new tools and resources, shall be subject to the Terms of Service. Continued use of the Program after any such changes shall constitute your consent to such changes. You can review the most current version of the Terms of Service at any time at: https://followthemoney.com/affiliate-terms
Violation of any of the terms below will result in the termination of your Account and forfeiture of any outstanding affiliate commission payments earned during the violation. You agree to use the Affiliate Program at your own risk.
Affiliate Account Terms
- You must be 18 years or older to be part of this Program.
- You must live in the United States to be a part of this Program.
- You must be a current paying member of any of Followthemoney.com’s membership levels to be a part of this Program. Only current paying members are eligible to join and earn commissions from the Program. If you cancel your own Followthemoney.com membership, your affiliate account in the Program and commissions from the Program will be suspended. If your Followthemoney.com membership has not been reactivated within 60 days, your affiliate account in the Program will be removed from our system. DO NOT LET YOUR MEMBERSHIP EXPIRE!
- You must be a human. Accounts registered by “bots” or other automated methods are not permitted.
- You must provide your legal full name, a valid email address, and all other information requested in order to complete the signup process.
- Your login may only be used by one person – a single login shared by multiple people is not permitted.
- You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and password. Followthemoney.com cannot and will not be liable for any loss or damage from your failure to comply with this security obligation.
- You are responsible for all Content posted and activity that occurs both online and offline when promoting and/or marketing Products, Services, and Memberships of this Program.
- One person or legal entity may not maintain more than one account.
- You may not use the Affiliate Program for any illegal or unauthorized purpose. You must not, in the use of the Program, violate any laws in your jurisdiction (including but not limited to copyright laws).
- You may not use the Affiliate Program to earn money on your own Followthemoney.com product or membership account(s).
Links and Graphics
Once you have been accepted into the Program, you will be assigned a unique Affiliate URL. You are permitted to place links, banners, graphics, coupon codes, or other media we provide (in the “Creatives” section of your account) with your Affiliate URL on your public site, on social media, or in other public web communications available for anyone on the web to view without hindrance. We will provide you with guidelines, link styles, and graphical artwork in the “Creatives” section of your account to use in linking to our unique products and services (“Product Sites”). Only the artwork provided in the “Creatives” section of your account is approved for use in linking to our products and services. We may change the design of the artwork at any time without notice, but we won’t change the dimensions of the images without proper notice.
Affiliates are permitted to re-post FollowtheMoney.com’s public Facebook posts, Twitter posts, and/or YouTube posts from the following public social media profiles:
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/ftmdaily
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/ftmdaily
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/ftmdaily
Affiliate Tracking
To permit accurate tracking, reporting, and referral fee accrual, we will provide you with a special affiliate ID to be used in all links between your site and Followthemoney.com. You must ensure that each of your affiliate links between your site and Followthemoney.com properly utilizes such special link formats. Links to Followthemoney.com placed on your site pursuant to this Agreement and which properly utilize such special link formats are referred to as “Affiliate URLs.” You will earn referral fees only with respect to sign-ups on a Followthemoney.com product site occurring directly through Affiliate URLs; we will not be liable to you with respect to any failure by you or someone you refer to use Affiliate URLs or incorrectly type your Affiliate URL, including to the extent that such failure may result in any reduction of amounts that would otherwise be paid to you pursuant to this Agreement.
Placement Of Your Affiliate Links
All affiliate links must be placed in a “public” and “transparent” manner online. “Public” means an approved website, whether your own or a third-party website (like social media). Affiliate links can only be used on approved websites and are not permitted to be used in e-mails, newsletters, or in any off-line manner. Affiliate links placed within an email or a document (whether PDF or any other type of document, whether online or offline) are prohibited. This also includes, but is not limited to, any printed material, online or offline sales funnel, mailing, SMS, MMS, email or attachment to email, or other document. Affiliate links may not be placed on a personal website that requires login credentials. In other words, if a prospective customer is required to furnish their email address in order to view your affiliate link, this is not “public” and you will be banned. If a customer has to login to a personal website in order to view your affiliate link, this is not “public” and you will be banned.
“Transparent” means that the affiliate link must be accompanied by a clear affiliate disclosure that explains that you will receive compensation if the user purchases something after clicking on the link. This disclosure must be clearly visible near the affiliate link without having to scroll or click another link. For example, an affiliate disclosure that is buried on an “About Us” page is a violation of our affiliate terms.
You may not cloak, hide, spoof, or otherwise obscure the URL of your affiliate link when sharing it publicly.
Affiliate links may not be placed on websites that are composed mostly of sales copy and that offer no other unique and/or high-quality content. Not only will placing your affiliate link on such a website result in your termination, it will also get you a penalty from Google.
Due to the litigious nature of the financial markets, affiliates may not create online communities, mastermind groups, ongoing coaching programs, or any other type of community for their affiliate referrals, prospective referrals or for existing paying members of FollowtheMoney.com.
You will not offer any person or entity any consideration or incentive (including any money, rebate, discount, points, donation to charity or other organization, or other benefit) to click on or use your affiliate link.
Affiliates may use only approved images, and other creative assets available to them in their affiliate dashboard. Any use of other images or creative assets, unless approved in writing, will be considered unauthorized and will result in the termination of the affiliate.
You must clearly state the following on your website or any other location where FTM may authorize your display or other use of affiliate links: “As a Followthemoney.com Affiliate, I earn from qualifying purchases.” Except for this disclosure, you will not make any public communication with respect to this agreement or your participation in the FTM affiliate program, without our advance written permission. You will not misrepresent or embellish your relationship with FTM (including by expressing or implying that we support, sponsor, or endorse you), or express or imply any affiliation between us and you or any other person or entity except as expressly permitted by this Agreement.
Ongoing Affiliate Qualification
There are two qualifying time periods for affiliates.
First, affiliates that have not referred one new sale to Followthemoney.com within six (6) months of signing up will be automatically deactivated.
Second, affiliates that qualify per the first time period qualification above and who do not refer at least one (1) new sale per calendar year will also be subject to deactivation.
Referral fees/commissions and payment
For a Product sale to be eligible to earn a referral fee, the customer must click-through an Affiliate URL to a Product Site and sign up for the product during that session. The session ends once someone closes their web browser, navigates away from Followthemoney.com, or otherwise leaves Followthemoney.com without signing up for a product before leaving the site. If a visitor clicks on a Followthemoney.com affiliate link, the unique affiliate ID is stored on their browser within a text file, known as a cookie, for 90 days.
There are two types of referral fees that can be earned:
- Bonuses
- Recurring commissions
Bonuses are paid out at our discretion and are typically used for seasonal promotions. Recurring commissions are paid every month on the first business day of the month. Commissions are only earned if a customer makes a successful payment.
We have added an enhanced feature to our affiliate program as of February, 1, 2019! The enhanced feature will allow affiliates to earn commission on purchases made by their referrals up to 180 days after the initial purchase. Once a customer has made a purchase that is credited to an affiliate as a “referral”, membership purchases made by the same customer will be credited to the affiliate as a “referral” even if the customer does not use the affiliate link on the future purchase. NOTE: customer must be logged in to their FollowtheMoney.com account in order for affiliate referral credit to apply to future purchases made within 180 days of initial purchase.
NOTE:
- Commissions will be payable 30 days after earned. Payable commissions will be released to the affiliate each month on the first business day of the month. The 30 day holding period is required because Followthemoney.com has a 30-day money-back guarantee on all memberships.
- If a customer cancels after the full-refund period (30 days), and requests a pro-rated refund pursuant to Followthemoney.com’s refund policy, commissions already paid to the affiliate on that customer account will be deducted from future payable commissions on a pro-rated basis.
The current commission structure is 20% of all recurring payments made by a referred customer (to see your commissions structure, visit your affiliate dashboard). As long as the referred customer remains active and current on their payments, the affiliate will continue to receive a share of the revenue. The commission structure is subject to change at our discretion. We will notify all Affiliates 30 days prior to a commission structure change. Commissions earned under the previous structure will be paid under the previous structure. Commissions earned under the new structure will be paid under the new structure.
We will only pay commissions on links that are automatically tracked and reported by our systems. We will not pay commissions if someone says they signed up or someone says they entered a referral code if it was not tracked by our system. We can only pay commissions on business generated through properly formatted Affiliate URLs that were automatically tracked by our systems.
We reserve the right to disqualify commissions earned through fraudulent, illegal, or overly aggressive, questionable sales or marketing methods.
Use of Pay-Per-Click Ads
While we do allow affiliates to use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising in promoting their affiliate links, there are certain brand-related keywords that affiliates may not bid on, including but not limited to: Follow the Money, FTMDaily, Followthemoney.com, Jerry Robinson, Profit Trakker, Market Trakker, (The) Robinson Report, Bankruptcy of our Nation. Affiliates who bid on these keywords, or other brand-related keywords, will face termination.
Payments by PayPal
Commissions are paid by PayPal. We cannot send checks, credit back your credit cards, send cash, or give customer credit on FollowtheMoney.com memberships. You are required to have a PayPal account in order to receive commissions. If you do not have an eligible account you can sign up for one at any time, but you will not be paid until you have one.
We will send commissions via Paypal to the “Payment Email” listed on the affiliate’s dashboard. You may input your “Payment Email” at any time, or update it any time from the affiliate dashboard.
Identifying yourself as a Followthemoney.com Affiliate
Your relationship with FollowtheMoney.com is as a “Member” and “Affiliate” only. You may not issue any press release with respect to this Agreement or your participation in the Program; such action may result in your termination from the Program. In addition, you may not in any manner misrepresent or embellish the relationship between us and you, say you develop our products, say you are “with” or “part of” Followthemoney.com’s organization, or express or imply any relationship or affiliation between us and you or any other person or entity except as expressly permitted by this Agreement (including by expressing or implying that we support, sponsor, endorse, or contribute money to any charity or other cause).
You may not purchase products through your affiliate links for your own use. Such purchases may result (in our sole discretion) in the withholding of commissions and/or the termination of this Agreement.
Payment schedule
All payable commissions are released to affiliates via Paypal on the first business day of each month.
Customer definition
Customers who buy products through this Program will be deemed to be our customers. Accordingly, all of our rules, policies, and operating procedures concerning customer orders, customer service, and product sales will apply to those customers. We may change our policies and operating procedures at any time. For example, we will determine the prices to be charged for products sold under this Program in accordance with our own pricing policies. Product prices and availability may vary from time to time. Because price changes may affect Products that you have listed on your site, you should not display product prices on your site. We will use commercially reasonable efforts to present accurate information, but we cannot guarantee the availability or price of any particular product.
Your responsibilities
You will be solely responsible for the development, operation, and maintenance of your site and for all materials that appear on your site. For example, you will be solely responsible for:
- The technical operation of your site and all related equipment
- Ensuring the display of Affiliate URLs on your site does not violate any agreement between you and any third party (including without limitation any restrictions or requirements placed on you by a third party that hosts your site)
- The accuracy, truth, and appropriateness of materials posted on your site (including, among other things, all Product-related materials and any information you include within or associate with Affiliate URLs)
- Ensuring that materials posted on your site do not violate or infringe upon the rights of any third party (including, for example, copyrights, trademarks, privacy, or other personal or proprietary rights)
- Ensuring that materials posted on your site are not libelous or otherwise illegal
- Ensuring that your site accurately and adequately discloses, either through a privacy policy or otherwise, how you collect, use, store, and disclose data collected from visitors, including, where applicable, that third parties (including advertisers) may serve content and/or advertisements and collect information directly from visitors and may place or recognize cookies on visitors’ browsers.
Compliance with Laws
As a condition to your participation in the Program, you agree that while you are a Program participant you will comply with all laws, ordinances, rules, regulations, orders, licenses, permits, judgments, decisions or other requirements of any governmental authority that has jurisdiction over you, whether those laws, etc. are now in effect or later come into effect during the time you are a Program participant. Without limiting the foregoing obligation, you agree that as a condition of your participation in the Program you will comply with all applicable laws (federal, state or otherwise) that govern marketing email, including without limitation, the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 and all other anti-spam laws.
FTC Endorsement Compliance
In accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s guidelines, we require affiliates to comply with applicable laws, regulations, and guidelines concerning advertising and marketing, including without limitations, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Endorsement Guides, which require that material connections between advertisers and endorsers (i.e. affiliates) be disclosed. This means that all Affiliate Sites (i.e. directories, review/rating websites, blogs, and other websites) and any email or collateral that provide an endorsement or assessment of FollowtheMoney.com’s Products and Services must prominently disclose the fact that you receive compensation for referrals. Required disclosures must be clear and conspicuous.
For more information and tips about how to comply with these guidelines, please see the FTC’s Dot Com Disclosures document here. Further, we advise you to seek and obtain your own legal advice on how these rules apply to your website or other promotional/marketing activities for which you receive compensation.
FollowtheMoney.com reserves the right to withhold commissions and cancel the affiliate relationship with you should we determine, at our sole discretion, that you are not in compliance with the previously mentioned guide or other FTC regulations or guides that we deem relevant.
Term of the Agreement and Program
The term of this Agreement will begin upon our acceptance of your Program application and will end when terminated by either party. Either you or we may terminate this Agreement at any time, with or without cause, by giving the other party written notice of termination. Upon the termination of this Agreement for any reason, you will immediately cease use of, and remove from your site, all links to any Product Site, and all of our trademarks, trade dress, and logos, and all other materials provided by or on behalf of us to you pursuant hereto or in connection with the Program. Followthemoney.com reserves the right to end the Program at any time. Upon program termination, Followthemoney.com will pay any outstanding commissions accrued that are considered “payable” (see “Referral fees/commissions and payment” section).
Termination
Followthemoney.com, in its sole discretion, has the right to suspend or terminate your account and refuse any and all current or future use of the Program, or any other Followthemoney.com service, for any reason at any time. Such termination of the Service will result in the deactivation or deletion of your Account or your access to your Account, and the forfeiture and relinquishment of all potential and/or payable commissions in your Account if they were earned through fraudulent, illegal, or overly aggressive, questionable sales or marketing methods. Followthemoney.com reserves the right to refuse service to anyone for any reason at any time.
The term of this agreement will begin upon your acceptance into the FTM affiliate program. Either you or we may terminate this agreement at any time, with or without cause (automatically and without recourse to the courts, if permitted under applicable law), by giving the other party written notice of termination provided that the effective date of such termination will be 7 calendar days from the date notice is provided. You can provide termination notice by email to info @ followthemoney.com at anytime. In addition, we may terminate this agreement immediately at any time upon written notice to you for Cause. “Cause” means any of the following: (a) you are in material breach of this agreement or you are in minor breach of this agreement but you do not remedy it within 7 days; (b) we believe that we may face potential claims or liability in connection with your participation in the affiliate program; (c) we believe that our brand or reputation may be tarnished by you or in connection with your participation in the affiliate program; (d) we believe that we are or may become subject to tax collection requirements in connection with this Agreement or the activities performed by either party under this agreement; (e) we have previously terminated this agreement with respect to you or other persons that we determine are affiliated with you or acting in concert with you for any reason, or (f) we have terminated the affiliate program as we generally make it available to participants. We may hold accrued unpaid commissions for a reasonable period of time following termination to ensure that the correct amount is paid (for example, to account for any cancelations or returns).
Upon any termination of this agreement, all rights and obligations of the parties will be extinguished, No termination of this agreement will relieve either party for any liability for any breach of, or liability accruing under, this agreement prior to termination.
Relationship of Parties
You and we are independent contractors, and nothing in this Agreement will create any partnership, joint venture, agency, franchise, sales representative, or employment relationship between the parties. You will have no authority to make or accept any offers or representations on our behalf. You will not make any statement, whether on your site or otherwise, that reasonably would contradict anything in this Section.
Limitations of Liability
We will not be liable for indirect, special, or consequential damages (or any loss of revenue, profits, or data) arising in connection with this Agreement or the Program, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages. Further, our aggregate liability arising with respect to this Agreement and the Program will not exceed the total commissions paid or payable to you under this Agreement.
Disclaimers
We make no express or implied warranties or representations with respect to the Program or any products sold through the Program (including, without limitation, warranties of fitness, merchantability, noninfringement, or any implied warranties arising out of a course of performance, dealing, or trade usage). In addition, we make no representation that the operation of the Product Sites will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we will not be liable for the consequences of any interruptions or errors. Furthermore, we make no representation that the operation of the Program will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we will not be liable for the consequences of any interruptions or errors. Affiliate tracking is not inherently error-free, and Followthemoney.com relies upon a third-party tracking software that we do not guarantee, imply, or represent will be error-free when tracking Affiliate URL clicks. Followthemoney.com will not be held liable for the consequences of any interruptions or errors in Affiliate URL tracking or any other aspect of the Program.
Independent Investigation
YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS AGREEMENT AND AGREE TO ALL ITS TERMS AND CONDITIONS. YOU UNDERSTAND THAT WE MAY AT ANY TIME (DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY) SOLICIT CUSTOMER REFERRALS ON TERMS THAT MAY DIFFER FROM THOSE CONTAINED IN THIS AGREEMENT OR OPERATE WEB SITES THAT ARE SIMILAR TO OR COMPETE WITH YOUR WEB SITE. YOU HAVE INDEPENDENTLY EVALUATED THE DESIRABILITY OF PARTICIPATING IN THE PROGRAM AND ARE NOT RELYING ON ANY REPRESENTATION, GUARANTEE, OR STATEMENT OTHER THAN AS SET FORTH IN THIS AGREEMENT.
Arbitration
Any dispute relating in any way to this Agreement (including any actual or alleged breach hereof), any transactions or activities under this Agreement or your relationship with us or any of our affiliates shall be submitted to confidential arbitration in Fayetteville, AR, USA, except that, to the extent you have in any manner violated or threatened to violate our intellectual property rights, we may seek injunctive or other appropriate relief in any state or federal court in the state of Arkansas (and you consent to non-exclusive jurisdiction and venue in such courts) or any other court of competent jurisdiction of Followthemoney.com’s sole choosing. Arbitration under this agreement shall be conducted under the rules then prevailing of the American Arbitration Association. The arbitrator’s award shall be binding and may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, no arbitration under this Agreement shall be joined to an arbitration involving any other party subject to this Agreement, whether through class arbitration proceedings or otherwise.
Indemnification
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE WILL HAVE NO LIABILITY FOR ANY MATTER DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY RELATING TO THE CREATION, MAINTENANCE, OR OPERATION OF YOUR SITE (INCLUDING YOUR USE OF ANY SERVICE OFFERING) OR YOUR VIOLATION OF THIS AGREEMENT, AND YOU AGREE TO DEFEND, INDEMNIFY, AND HOLD US, OUR AFFILIATES AND LICENSORS, AND OUR AND THEIR RESPECTIVE EMPLOYEES, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, AND REPRESENTATIVES, HARMLESS FROM AND AGAINST ALL CLAIMS, DAMAGES, LOSSES, LIABILITIES, COSTS, AND EXPENSES (INCLUDING ATTORNEYS’ FEES) RELATING TO (A) YOUR SITE OR ANY MATERIALS THAT APPEAR ON YOUR SITE, INCLUDING THE COMBINATION OF YOUR SITE OR THOSE MATERIALS WITH OTHER APPLICATIONS, CONTENT, OR PROCESSES, (B) THE USE, DEVELOPMENT, DESIGN, MANUFACTURE, PRODUCTION, ADVERTISING, PROMOTION, OR MARKETING OF YOUR SITE OR ANY MATERIALS THAT APPEAR ON OR WITHIN YOUR SITE, (C) YOUR USE OF ANY SERVICE OFFERING, WHETHER OR NOT SUCH USE IS AUTHORIZED BY OR VIOLATES THIS AGREEMENT OR APPLICABLE LAW, (D) YOUR VIOLATION OF ANY TERM OR CONDITION OF THIS AGREEMENT (INCLUDING ANY PROGRAM POLICY), OR (E) YOUR OR YOUR EMPLOYEES’ OR CONTRACTORS’ NEGLIGENCE OR WILLFUL MISCONDUCT.
Miscellaneous
This Agreement will be governed by the laws of the United States and the state of Arkansas USA, without reference to rules governing choice of laws. You may not assign this Agreement, by operation of law or otherwise, without our prior written consent. Subject to that restriction, this Agreement will be binding on, inure to the benefit of, and be enforceable against the parties and their respective successors and assigns. Our failure to enforce your strict performance of any provision of this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of our right to subsequently enforce such provision or any other provision of this Agreement.
The failure of Followthemoney.com to exercise or enforce any right or provision of the Terms of Service shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. The Terms of Service constitutes the entire agreement between you and Followthemoney.com and governs your use of the Service, superseding any prior agreements between you and Followthemoney.com (including, but not limited to, any prior versions of the Terms of Service).