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I ran a poll a couple days ago asking what people thought about free trial offers.
Do they think they are ethical? I wrote a whole post on Shoemoney about rebill offers. Quite a few people responded, and that was great to see.
So, without further ado, here are the results of the poll. (Click to see larger image)
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Pale blue is no response?
Not ethical but I see the draw for the affiliate. I think the company that is providing the product is the most unethical.
Interesting question. I’m all for something that people voluntarily enter their credit card numbers for in the case of a free-trial that turns paid – after so many days. Of course there should be an easy way to opt-out after the free trial and before the billing starts.
In the case of rebills – as long as it’s spelled out – again, it’s ethical. Nearly anything can be considered ethical (re: customer-website relationship) if the customer knows what’s happening and opts-in to “the deal”.
Rebills have legitimate uses, but they are definitely being abused. A lot of landing pages I’ve seen contradict the fine print. Many of them are so enticing, the user doesn’t make it to the end of the page where the fine print is located.
There are many reports that people had no idea that it was a rebill offer, and that canceling the order was practically impossible.
I don’t blame the affiliates, but the merchants need to be put in check! I believe these shady rebill offers are having a negative long term effect on ecommerce. There are many reports on sites like ripoffreport.com and complaints.com that tell the same story. The consumer had no idea it was a rebill, they thought they were trying something out for $5-$10, and ended up having to pay over $100 with no recourse because it is set up as a “contract.”
These people are going to really think twice about pulling out their credit cards and making future purchases online.
Ethical is you want to make money. Unethical if you don’t want to make money. Someone’s going to be promoting these offers and mostly likely Flogging people and i’m not talking through Google. I mean large scale media buys.
Affiliates that make real money promote RFT offers only or 80% of offeres are RFT.
Ignore the search engines. More traffic with Media buying just get the right concessions in place and know where you prospect hangs out and have top banner creatives running in rotation and you can make a killing with just 1 publisher.
Get the e-book by Carlos & Lupe Garcia.
Its the traffic bible.
Great poll Jonathan. How many people were surveyed in this?
I think around 340 people.
It’s a grey area, and a certain amount of it will exist online, the same way there are shady credit card deals, magazine deals, and other misleading offers in the real world.
But some people take it too far. Back in 1997-1999 Crescent Publishing did the same thing in the adult industry, where they stated the user’s credit cards would not be billed and were only being used as an age verification precaution. They took in over $188 million online in those two years. But then they were hit by and lost a mega lawsuit from the FTC for misleading advertising.
None of the affiliates I know are playing in that league, but it’s still the same concept. When you’re cashing checks, remember how someone on the other end of the stick is feeling. Don’t go too far.
Great synopsis Chad. Thanks. I agree. My feeling is that RFT’s can be a good thing for the consumer, if the product is not JUNK. If its a quality product and you give them more than 10 days to try it out and they still don’t cancel well honestly that is their issue, its not our fault as publishers if the consumer does not read the fine print. If the product is Junk i wont promote it, thats why I actually always take the RFT myself and see what the product is actually like.
Oh. and don’t you love how NJ is the only state that answered predominently “No, but I would promote”
buy an e-book to learn about traffic? gimme a break. They are ethical the way that the AM industry has been milking them for the last year, hence the issue now with Google and Yahoo. It is the customer who decides to put in their CC, but if the “fine print’ were in bold for re-bills, conversions would drop off drastically.