At oneNetworkDirect, merchants decide which affiliates get approved to sell their products. As a network analyst at oneNetworkDirect, I’ve seen a number of affiliates get rejected. After receiving a rejection notice they frequently send me an email asking, ‘Why was I rejected?’ The most frequent reason for being rejected is that the affiliate’s website doesn’t comply with oneNetworkDirect policies.

If you’re going to use oneNetworkDirect affiliate banners and links to sell products, your site can’t sell drugs, for example. (Seems pretty obvious, right?) The site cannot post adult content, nor can it advertise or promote wares–products for sale in violation of copyright law. oneNetworkDirect does not allow gambling websites, either. If your site is devoted to any of these pursuits, we don’t want our banners or sales links to appear on the site. It’s that simple.

If you’ve joined oneNetworkDirect and have logged into your affiliate control panel, you’ll want to start accessing programs. Some programs allow immediate entry, but most will ask you to submit a request to join. If you submit a request to join a particular program within oneNetworkDirect, your request gets sent to the vendor. So the vendor will take a look at your website to see that it complies with the overall program rules, and with the vendor’s specific goals for building its own affiliate sales team. Some vendors will reject your application if they see any ‘Under Construction’ statement on your website–as they view this as being sloppy.

Sites devoted to political activism are often perceived as being unattractive to sales campaigns. While some charitable or political activity on the site may be deemed acceptable to a given vendor, not infrequently it will be viewed as a turn-off, particularly if it is dark or harangue-like.

Fraud prevention is an ever-present aspect of ecommerce program management, of course. Anything within your application which ‘looks fishy’ may result in your being rejected by a vendor. If you’re email address is trustno1@imgonnaripuofftoday.com, don’t be surprised if your application gets mothballed—or if your login doesn’t work anymore.

So these are just a few things to think about when applying for admission to programs within oneNetworkDirect. oneNetworkDirect strives to be a friendly environment in which affiliates feel supported and welcome as they maximize their sales success—so please don’t let all the rules I’ve mentioned detract from this.

Most of these policies boil down to ‘common sense,’ but the program rules I’ve mentioned may differ in minor respects from some other affiliate marketing programs you’ve worked with in the past. If you’ve been rejected by some program and want to know why, feel free to email us affiliates@onenetworkdirect.com to discuss the matter. But more often than not, the answer will lie in making your website compliant with oneNetworkDirect and/or vendor policies.

Gavin Sullivan
Network Analyst
oneNetworkDirect