There's an ongoing debate in the affiliate and search marketing industries about whether merchants should allow their affiliates to run search marketing (advertising - usually CPC) campaigns. There are as many upsides as downsides - it's not an easy decision to make for merchants.

VistaPrint today announced that they will be allowing their affiliates to promote the very popular VistaPrint Free Business Cards campaign. They have obviously put a lot of thought into this and it shows with the guidelines they have set forth. While not the first to allow affiliates to promote through SEM, they are certainly a very notable enterprise that is doing so and will most likely motivate others to follow suit. Here are a few of the guidelines and restrictions set forth by VistaPrint:

• Several keyword restrictions are in place, including those dealing directly with the VistaPrint brand and products.
• Affiliate are not allowed to use the VistaPrint.com in the display URL.
• Affiliates must not use the trademarked terms VistaPrint or VistaPrint.com is search copy.
• Affiliates are not allowed to send traffic directly to VistaPrint
• Affiliates must not knowingly out-position managed VistaPrint ads