Million Dollar a Month Super Affiliate Shawn Hogan Speaks Out About FBI Charges

Super affiliate Shawn Hogan was indicted last week by the FBI on 15 counts of wire fraud and criminal forfeiture, a charge against him for cookie stuffing while being one of Ebay’s top affiliates.

At his peak, Shawn earned up to $1 million a month in affiliate revenue from Ebay.

Shawn is speaking out about these charges and you can read his side here.

If you want to see the other side of the story it can be viewed at Moebedard.com

On the business side of things, Shawn’s post shows that keeping your eyes open for new markets and affiliate programs can really put the wind at your back with making big money in affiliate marketing.

Even though Shawn may have done it illegally with cookie stuffing, at the start of the Ebay affiliate program there was still tons of opportunity for those playing by the rules.

It‘s always better to enter markets where the wind is at your back versus fighting it out in a market that has bloody waters and tons of competition with lower margins. Sometimes new markets are the best. So as an affiliate always keep your eyes open to new markets.

On the legal side of things, there are also some important lessons in Shaw’s post.

While I don’t have any idea if Shawn’s story is true, it’s quite believable to me that any company trying to gain market share could have some employees push the limits.

What would you do if an employee of your affiliate partner asked you to push the limits as an affiliate?

In business pushing the limits can happen at all levels of employees even the CEO as it did in the mortgage scandals of 2008.

Even most recently in the case of Hewlett Packard who just ousted its CEO Mark V. Hurd, for lying on expense reports among other things.

Smaller companies you might be dealing with in affiliate relationships will likely have more entrepreneur drive and even less controls in place to monitor what affiliate managers are telling affiliates.

So don’t get too confident when an employee of your affiliate partner is telling you to do something shady, blackhattish or against the terms of the affiliate agreement.

And remember it’s always best to get all communications in writing even if it is not shady!

Covering your a$$ can make a big difference.

Tags: affiliate maketing, ebay, shawn hogan, Super Affiliate