FreshBooks

FreshBooks

Program Terms

FreshBooks Advertising Affiliate Terms and Conditions
Please read our affiliate terms and conditions carefully before you join our program or begin marketing our product. These terms and conditions are written in plain language intentionally avoiding legalese to ensure that they may be clearly understood and followed by affiliates. Each Affiliate is responsible for ensuring that its employees, agents and contractors comply with these terms and conditions. Thank you.

 

Definitions


As used in these terms and conditions: (i) We, us, or our refers to FreshBooks and our website; (ii) you or your refers to the Affiliate; (iii) our website refers to the FreshBooks properties located at www.FreshBooks.com; (iv) your website refers to any websites that you will link to our website; (v) Program refers to the FreshBooks Affiliate Program.

 

Enrollment


After receiving your application, we will review your website and notify you of your acceptance or rejection into our Program. Please allow up 72 hours for your application to be reviewed. We reserve the right to reject any application and will list common reasons why by email should you not be approved. However we encourage you to contact us if you feel we have made an incorrect decision. Including all websites you use and how you plan to promote FreshBooks will help us make a more informed decision. 


 

Website Restrictions

Your participating website(s) may not:
 

  1. Infringe on our or any anyone else’s intellectual property, publicity, privacy or other rights.
  2. Violate any law, rule or regulation.
  3. Contain any content that is threatening, harassing, defamatory, racist, bigoted, homophobic, sexist, obscene, harmful to minors, or contains nudity, pornography or sexually explicit materials.
  4. Contain any viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, or other computer programming routines that are intended to damage, interfere with, secretly intercept or expropriate any system, data, or personal information.
  5. Contain software or use technology that attempts to intercept, divert or redirect Internet traffic to or from any other website, or that potentially enables the diversion of affiliate commissions from another website.


 

Linking to Our Website


Upon acceptance into the Program, links will be made available to you through the affiliate interface. Your acceptance in our program means you agree to and abide by the following. 
 

  1. You will only use linking code obtained from the affiliate interface without manipulation. You are given an option to add additional tracking parameters to your links in ShareASale if needed. You may also use a tool like Pretty Links to manage your links. However, FreshBooks will not be held liable for lost earnings should your affiliate links not work correctly due to incorrect application of tracking parameters or external tools.
  2. All domains that use your affiliate link must be listed in your affiliate profile.
  3. Your Website will not in any way copy, resemble, or mirror the look and feel of our Website. You will also not use any means to create the impression that your Website is our Website or any part of our Website including, without limitation, framing of our Website in any manner.
  4. You may not engage in cookie stuffing or include pop-ups, false or misleading links on your website. In addition you will not mask the referring url information (i.e. the page from where the click is originating).
  5. Using redirects to bounce a click off of a domain from which the click did not originate in order to give the appearance that it came from that domain is prohibited.
  6. Self-referrals are prohibited. This means you cannot sign up to FreshBooks using your own affiliate links.

If you are found redirecting links to hide or manipulate their original source, your current and past commissions will be voided or your commission level will be set to $0. This does not include using our redirects, such as vanity URLs, from the same domain where the affiliate link is placed. FreshBooks reserves the right to remove any affiliate from its program without notice or warning if fraudulent activity is suspected.

 

Affiliate Promotion Types We Do Not Allow


At this time, we do not work with the following types of sites or promotional methods:
 

  • Coupon
  • Cashback
  • Loyalty
  • Shopping Mall
  • eCommerce
  • Browser Extensions
  • Rewards
  • Search Agencies

Please read carefully through the sections below to ensure you grasp the requirements and rules when promoting FreshBooks through approved methods. Failure to comply with promotion rules will result in termination from the program. If you break a rule and are removed, undoing or deleting it does not guarantee you back into the program, and very rarely can we allow you to return as a FreshBooks affiliate in the future.

 

PPC Guidelines

If you are enrolled in our Program and participate in PPC advertising, you must adhere to our PPC guidelines as follows:
 

  1. You may not bid on any of our trademarked terms (which are identified below), including any variations or misspellings thereof for search or content based campaigns on Google, MSN, Yahoo, Facebook or any other network.
  2. You may not use our trademarked terms as part of the name of your site (e.g., you cannot name your site FreshBooks Coupons).
  3. You may not use our trademarked terms in your ad title, ad copy, display name or as the display url.
  4. You may not direct link to our website from any Pay Per Click ad or use redirects that yield the same result. Affiliates must be directed to an actual page on your website.

If you automate your PPC campaigns, it is your responsibility to exclude our trademarked terms from your program and we strongly suggest you add our trademarked terms as a negative match. We have a strict no tolerance policy on PPC trademark bidding. You will forfeit all commissions for a minimum of the past 30 days and your commission will be set to $0 without warning if you engage in PPC trademark bidding that uses our trademarked terms.Trademarked Terms: FreshBooks, FreshBooks.com

 

SEO and Content

Promoting FreshBooks through content on your website or blog is the best way to promote FreshBooks. In fact, content marketing is our preferred promotion type for our affiliates. That’s not to say we don’t allow other types of affiliate marketing (guidelines for those below) in addition to content, but we typically only accept affiliates who use content marketing as their primary method for affiliate promotions. 

For example, if you have a blog and share content about FreshBooks but also want to try promoting our offer in a newsletter and on social media, that’s allowed. But if you only have an email newsletter landing page or social media profile when you apply, we may not be able to approve you.

SEO and Content Guidelines

Your site must contain original content and cannot be copied or heavily excerpted from other sites. Your content is checked prior to approval and if any of your content is plagiarized, we cannot accept you into the program even if you offer to remove it. If plagiarism is discovered post approval, FreshBooks reserves the right to immediately remove you from its program without notice. 

If your site doesn’t have a blog or area with articles relevant to our target audience, you may not be approved.Your site needs to be live when you apply to our program. We do not accept sites that say coming soon, give 404 errors or have security warnings. If your application is denied because of this, get in touch when the site is back up.

 

Sub-Affiliate Networks


Promoting FreshBooks through a sub-affiliate network is permitted, however you must be completely transparent with regards to where traffic from your sub-affiliates originated. Sub-affiliate networks must ensure that all sub-affiliates promoting the FreshBooks program adhere to our program terms and conditions. This includes restrictions on advertising through toolbars, browser extensions, and through any paid placements such as a pay-per-click campaigns. Sub-affiliate networks must also receive approval prior to allowing any type of coupon sub-affiliate to promote the FreshBooks program. 

Failure to comply with our sub-affiliate network terms may result in a loss and/or reduction of commission from sales made through any sub-affiliate that does not comply with our program terms. Repeated compliance issues may result in termination of sub-affiliate or sub-affiliate network from our program.

 

Domain Names


Use of any of our trademarked terms as part of the domain or sub-domain for your website is strictly prohibited i.e. FreshBooks.website.com or www.FreshBooks-coupons.com. Additionally, you are forbidden from using trademark terms to register a free domain on services like Wordpress.com, Blogger.com, Wix.com or any others. 

 

Affiliate Disclosures

Affiliate advertising disclosures must always be present. This is a short statement that tells your audience your content contains affiliate links and that you may earn money if they click and make a purchase.

The advertising disclosure must appear before any affiliate links are visible, cannot be in popup windows, drop down menus, sidebar, footers, the bottom of blog posts or anywhere else that would appear after an affiliate link and/or is not easily visible. 

Advertising disclosures must also always be used when promoting an affiliate link on posts/pages, any social media site, email campaign or other marketing piece. 

This disclosure statement should be clear and concise, stating that we are compensating you for your review or endorsement should they start using FreshBooks. Failure to use a proper advertising disclosure will result in an immediate removal from the FreshBooks affiliate program and all commissions will be reversed regardless of origin. 

For more information about FTC disclosure requirements, please review and abide by the FTC's "Dot Com Disclosures" Guidelines at http://www.ftc.gov/os/2013/03/130312dotcomdisclosures.pdf and the FTC's "Endorsement Guidelines" at http://business.ftc.gov/advertising-and-marketing/endorsements.

 

Email

If you intend to promote FreshBooks as an affiliate through email campaigns, you must adhere to the following:
 

  1. Abide by the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Public Law No. 108-187) with respect to our Program. That means people have signed themselves up to receive these emails from you and confirmed their subscription after signing up (double opt-in).You are not allowed to market FreshBooks by email to people who did not ask to be on your email list.
     
  2. Email must be sent on your behalf and must not imply that the email is being sent on behalf of FreshBooks.


 

Wording and Phrases


FreshBooks has very specific branding and terminology guidelines. To help you understand and apply these ideas in your affiliate promotions, you will be provided with Affiliate Voice & Product Positioning Guidelines upon approval into our program. 

 

Coupon and Loyalty Sites


Presenting FreshBooks free trial offer as a coupon, deal or incentivized offer is strictly forbidden. If you run a deals, coupon or loyalty site, you will not be approved into our program. 

Though highly unlikely, in a case we ever made a coupon available and you wanted to use it as a FreshBooks affiliate, please read the following closely. If we find any of the following, we may reverse all commissions regardless of origin and you may be removed from the program without warning. 

We do not allow the following:
 

  • Hidden codes – You cannot hide, use click to reveal boxes or block users from accessing a deal, coupon or discount code. You may NOT use any technology that covers up the coupon code and generates the affiliate click by revealing the code(s).
  • Workarounds - You cannot post information about how to work around the requirements of a coupon/promotion (i.e. first time customers only).
  • Expired codes – You cannot post any deal or discount code that is expired and all codes on your site must be current, active and approved.
  • Non affiliate codes – you cannot use any code, discount or deal that is not provided inside the affiliate network.
  • Full coupon details - Coupons must be displayed in their entirety with the full offer, valid expiration date and code.
  • False statements - You may NOT give the appearance that any ongoing offer requires clicking from your website in order to redeem.
  • Nonexistent codes or deals – You cannot post that there is a deal or discount available if we are not offering one through our partner program.
  • Pages to rank for URL + modifiers – You cannot create indexable pages that are built to rank for our URL + coupons, deals, discounts, savings, etc…
  • Posting codes to properties you do not own – You cannot post codes, coupons or deals to websites and web properties you do not own. You can however post to your own social media accounts, as long as you follow our trademark and branding guidelines.
  • We do not pay commissions on any leads for incentivized traffic. Only full sales.


 

Social Media


Promotion on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and other social media platforms is permitted following these general guidelines: 
 

  • You must adhere to the social network’s individual policy regarding affiliate marketing and/or advertising when using FreshBooks affiliate links on their sites.
  • You ARE allowed to promote FreshBooks to your own following; more specifically, you’re welcome to use your affiliate links on your own Facebook, Twitter, etc. pages.
  • You ARE PROHIBITED from posting your affiliate links on FreshBooks' Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. company pages in an attempt to turn those links into affiliate sales.
  • You ARE PROHIBITED from running Facebook ads with FreshBooks' trademarked company name.
  • You ARE PROHIBITED from promoting FreshBooks on any social media page or profile that does not belong to you.
  • You ARE PROHIBITED from using FreshBooks name or any variation as hashtags, pretend to be us, represent us or be endorsed or sponsored by FreshBooks.
  • You ARE PROHIBITED from using trademark terms when registering accounts or profiles (i.e. Twitter account or Facebook Group)

Keep in mind, FreshBooks reserves the right to end our affiliation should *any* of your social media posts (including those not directly related to or about FreshBooks) conflict with the values of our company. That means if you post views on social media that are threatening, harassing, defamatory, racist, bigoted, homophobic, sexist, obscene, harmful to minors, or contain nudity, pornography or sexually explicit materials, you will be immediately terminated from the FreshBooks affiliate program.

Toolbars, Downloadable Software and AdwareWe do not allow adware or software of any kind in the program. Adware by our definition is anything that can interrupt the shopping process, traffic, disrupt the end user experience or be used to display an ad. This includes but is not limited to PPV, couponware, reminderware, loyaltyware, contextual ads, interruptive ads, shopping windows, browser helper objects, CPV advertising. Mobile versions also fall into this category. 

 

Link Cloaking


All links have to be clearly visible and not cloaked. We need to see the referring URL from the exact page the last click came from. You cannot cloak links, use redirects or show us one page but end users the other. 

 

No Automonetization Tools or Scripts


We treat this the same as adware. Anything that interrupts the current shopping process will not be allowed for any reason. Turning direct links into affiliate links with javascripts, toolbars, contextual software, etc… will not be allowed since it is poaching traffic we would have had anyways. 

 

Operations Outside United States


If you are conducting business in or taking orders from persons in other countries, you will follow the laws of those countries. For example, you will comply with the European Union's Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive if you are conducting business in or taking orders from persons in one or more of the European Union countries.

 

Reversal and Communication Policy


FreshBooks takes pride in its low reversal rate, which we attribute to open communication with our affiliates. However, we reserve the right to reverse sale commissions due to duplicate tracking, disputed charges, downgrades from paid to free plans within 35 days and program violations as outlined in these terms and conditions. 

We also reserve the right to void lead transactions should they not meet the criteria of what we consider a valid lead. For example, if your lead contains unqualified data such as fake names or emails associated with spam sites, this is not a valid lead. 

Neither is a lead located outside of the countries we currently pay for leads from. FreshBooks reserves the right to change qualifying countries from time to time, but we will provide 14 days notice of impending changes. 

If we see several leads from the same IP address, they are swiftly reviewed and if the signup intent appears fraudulent, your commissions will be reversed and you may be removed from the program.

Additionally, if we ask you for clarification or more information on any orders or clicks that we suspect may be in violation of our terms and conditions, we expect that you will respond in a timely and honest manner. Below are violations of our communications policy.

  1. You are not forthcoming, you are intentionally vague, or you are found to be lying.
  2. You are not responsive within a reasonable time period and after multiple attempts to contact you using the information listed in your network profile.
  3. You cannot substantiate or validate the source of your traffic to our program with clear and demonstrable proof.

If any of the above apply, then we reserve the absolute right to reverse orders, set your commission to $0 or suspend you from the program.. We know that many violations are a result of automated processes; however it is incumbent upon each affiliate to ensure that it has the appropriate checks and balances in place to proactively address these issues and adhere to our program rules.

 

Terms and Conditions Changes


You will be notified by us via ShareASale email when changes are made, however it is your responsibility to check our terms and conditions from time to time in case you miss these communications. 

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