Forum Moderators: skibum
I'm a merchant that's just joined an affiliate scheme. I've noticed 2 things I don't like:
1. My google ranking for my own brand name appears to have dropped 3 to 5 places since joining the scheme (I was previously number 1)
2. One of my affiliates appears to be outbidding me for my own brand name (for some reason my ads don't seem to appear at all?) on google. This has already resulted in me having to pay a commission to them.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
Thanks.
Why not let your affiliates do their job and promote your site for you instead of bidding against them. Let the affiliates do the pay per click marketing. After all, the affiliates goal is the same as yours, to sell your product. Why try to compete with someone who is trying to help you? You are just driving up bid prices for your affiliates.
I dont understand why you are unhappy on this situation.
if i am in your position, i will be more than happy because this simply means:
1) you had hired a better person to work for you- thus you can have greater chance to have a successful campaign
2) you cover up a larger part on the SERP with your product- thus you are pushing your REAL competitor further down on the SERP, meaning greater greater profit.
getting on top of the paid listing (Google adwords foremost) and getting on top of the orgranic SERP need a lot of hard work and taking a higher risk (in case of Yahoo bidding). isnt it fair for your affiliate to get credited on their hard work? isnt it hard work needs to be appreciated?
if you are planning your program for long term success, you really should treat your affiliates as team members.
that's my tiny 2 cents.
Tahiti
p/s: just-a-plain-joke: if you dont mind, pm me the affiliate program you are working out on ..so i can skip the it when i am looking for suitable merchants..... ;)
I see your points, but it seems to me that before joining the affiliate programme I was number 1 for my own name and didn't have to pay for hits for people searching for me.
Since joining the programme I'm number 3 to 5 and am paying commissions because people are clicking on the paid listing that the affiliate has stuck in.
Thus I'm worse off.
I'm quite happy for the affiliate to drive whatever traffic they like to me for other terms, as long as they are better at it than me and it doesn't leave me worse off than when I started.
Thanks.
2) You can include in your terms that affs can't bid on your brand. But that won't stop them from bidding and sending the traffic to your competition. Best thing to do here is trademark it and keep anyone from bidding on it.
You need to be careful before making any changes. This should have been thought through beforehand. You stand a chance of alienating good affiliates now.
