Do You Guys ONLY Run 'White Hat' Campaigns And Still Make Bank? (27)
Do You Guys ONLY Run 'White Hat' Campaigns And Still Make Bank?
A much newbie question that I guess I should ask for opinions from you guys.
Do you guys ONLY run 'white hat' campaigns (no intellectual property infringement, no copyrights violated, etc) and still make bank?
I've researched this topic on Google and throughout the forum but there seems to be no clear answer. Looks like sometimes people advise not to go into the danger zone. But at the same time, it looks like they at least did it once in the past or once advocated it as "creative"?
What's your take STMers?
Yes, 100 percent white hat.
As an an affiliate marketer it's natural to explore both sides of the coin, albeit with caution.
Most of the advertising on the planet is white hat and we can be pretty sure people are making money off it.
If you are exploring grey areas, I'd recommend doing it on less mainstream sources.
If you want longevity and to expand as a reputable business, make sure you do this through predominantly white hat campaign strategies rather than things that may a) disappear overnight and b) damage you or your business.
There is no clear answer.
It's based on how YOU want to do things. The industry as a whole is pretty grey to begin with. Everything else remains on you.
I personally do a mix of white and grey.
You can definitely make a killing with white hat stuff. It just usually takes a lot more effort and upfront work, but the pay offs are usually better over the long term.
The black hat money is just usually really fast, quick and short term money imo. People can run black hat for years, but not stably and it won't result in you having a long term business.
It really depends on what you consider white hat. Most affs that think they are running white hat aren't really.
Who buys stock images for ads ? (Just as an example).
The nature of performance marketing is to push things. In many ways its what give affs "the edge"
Like mentioned above, there are many shades of grey and most of the time you will probably end up being more grey than white but there's definitely a line to cross where something becomes blatantly black hat and will get you in trouble with networks or worse
Thanks a lot guys for your replies. Much appreciated!
I'm sure many other newbies will have the same question like I do.
And after reading through, I realized that I don't have for myself clear definitions either.
So, what's YOUR definition of 'white hat' and 'grey hat'? Or you can give me a quick example about one made up offer and how you would go promoting it that you consider it white, grey, or even black?
Sorry if I'm asking for too much.
To further elaborate on this point, chasing the black hat stuff is, in a way, squandering your most precious asset as a business owner, and that’s time. Yes, you can, on occasion, make a sudden burst of cash, but with black hat stuff as you described, there is little equity there and rarely any asset built. When the black hat technique is discovered and banned (as they always are) all you are left with is cash on hand, and that is quickly spent while you race to find another black hat technique that will soon disappear—and that leeches away your time.
Also, if you are engaging in activities like copyright infringement, use of unlicensed intellectual property, etc. you can get yourself and the product owner in big trouble (if promoting affiliate offers). A business acquaintance, Josh Bezone (good dude, owns BioTrust Nutrition) got sued by Oprah Winfrey many years ago and lost a business because idiot affiliates were blatantly using her image and saying “Oprah Recommends” not realizing what a ruthless businesswoman she is.
Another friend recently dodged a bullet when an affiliate started using a photo of a woman from a fat acceptance blog as a “before” photo for his female fitness program. Her subscribers saw it, tattled to her, and he was only able to keep her from an interview with the Huffington Post about evil affiliate marketers by taking fast action. Obviously the affiliates that did this are persona-no-grata which brings up another precious asset in business: your reputation.
If you read Robert Green’s excellent “48 Laws of Power” book, you will see one of the only laws there is no reversal to is reputation. And while there are some people who admire a black hat marketer, they’re not the kind of people who will help you out of business jam. Most professional businesspeople want little to do with the black hat marketer because of liability issues they cause. Get a reputation as a guy who engages in practices you describe, and you will eventually build a bad reputation, severely limiting your ability to stay in business.
Now, the idea of “grey hat” is another issue because, almost by definition, every entrepreneur engages in “grey hat” activities, such as finding creative ways to run on media that says they don’t want your offers. Hell, Kenneth Cole launched his business with a “grey hat strategy,” getting a permit to shoot a movie so he could set up shop outside a trade show in New York City that wouldn’t let him in. He had no intention of shooting a movie, just wanted access to the contacts inside the trade show, and found a creative way to do it. He is admired for that, as he should be.
A better question has to do with chasing short term cash only opportunities vs building equity over the long term. There are plenty of completely white hat short term cash opportunities that do come along, and the question to ask yourself is, “does spending TIME on these activities get me further away from or closer to my goal of building an asset that produces permanent and lasting wealth?”
The answer to this question does vary. At times it makes sense to take a pass because your time is better spent on the long term strategy which will bring you closer to your goal. At times it makes sense to deviate course a bit and pounce on it, so you can use the cash to fund your longer term, more expensive strategies.
A recent example of this was all the TeeSpring craziness—there is not really any equity in selling tshirts to people without getting the customer, but if you were good at Facebook ads during the craze (is it still going on?) you could bank a lot of quick cash and use some of it to fund your more long term efforts, while moving some money into wealth, investing some in whisky and women, and squandering the rest.
So, for a variety of reasons, I’d advise against becoming a pure black hat guy, although some strategies are worth study (if not implementation) so you can “grey them up.” The more important concept is knowing when to pass on a short term cash opportunity and when to seize it, and that’s something that requires informed analysis when the situation arises…each one is different.
-John
PS I buy stock images for ads (and Kindle books), especially after having two buddies get shaken down by law firms who troll the web looking for unlicensed use of images, then shake down the business owner for $4k. I had this happen to two friends, and in each case, an over-eager, well meaning employee swiped a photo off the web, put it on the website, and fell into the scam.
I do ok 
Originally Posted by deondup
You are also not going to believe this, but we even apply for copyright permission whenever we use any image of money or banknotes in any creatives (e.g. from the Bank of England http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/bankn...banknotes.aspx)
Originally Posted by cmdeal
Stock images are a massive time-saver, apart from anything else.
100% stock images here, as i had a nasty experience when i was around 17 years old.
in general anything that will not put you in jail its ok (assuming you behind company)
when you are small dont afraid to break the rules!!!
its can be your competitive advantage vs the big guys..
every situation has pros and cons..
you need to do your risk managment..
its very deep subject, and lots of cases, so use your head..
Stock images 100% save time and headaches...
Always use stock images:
A little story. I had a site built years ago in the work at home niche and the designer used a couple of generic office type images, I never even considered the source of the images. The site was up for over a year, then one day I received a Fedex letter and an email from a very large US law firm saying I was using 2 images without permission from their client Corbis. They were demanding $6K per image or else!. Apart from nearly have a heart attack and removing the images asap I started to search around to see if could find if this had happened to anyone else.
It obviously had and it even had a name...spamigation. Essentially large image companies use high end law firms to demand payment for using their images without permission . It's sad because some people pay up.
I just sent back an email saying the site was information only, non-commercial and had no revenue so my company had no funds to pay. I never heard back.
Originally Posted by solaris
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I'm curious how they eventually find you? Your domain is supposedly private and they cannot view your information? Unless they trace it all the way to the traffic source and then demand them for the information? And then charge you only 6k? If it's 100k it's profitable but all these for 4 figures?
Any suggestions for stock images for a new-ish affiliate (so not too expensive)?
Ahahaha...yeah that would be interesting.
Welp, I have used http://www.freedigitalphotos.net in the past and purchasing is pretty inexpensive. At least I haven't had an issues with them.
Originally Posted by twoninetytwo
http://www.sitebuilderreport.com/stock-up
http://thestocks.im/
http://gratisography.com/
http://join.deathtothestockphoto.com/
A good way to use stock photos for ads but not costing yourself an arm and a leg to see if they work is using the image without paying during the split test and when you have a money image you then go and buy the original in the stock site.
The way you do this is find the images in the stock site and do a google image search for them and you can usually find them without the watermark.
Very little chance of being busted if you run for a day or two max.
So in short, pay for the images, but only the ones that work
Originally Posted by xavierfok
Originally Posted by xavierfok
Then host forwards it to you with the note comply or they will suspend your account and further cooperate by sharing your info if you dont.
Always found taking my own pictures 'if you can' out performs any stock photo.
In terms of paid stock photos, I like dreamstime.com . However, there are new ones popping up all the time - worth shopping around!
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