Forum Moderators: skibum
We had an instance recently where a client was sent a cease and desist by a solicitor on behalf of some big wig advertiser for bidding on a apparently trademarked name, but because the term was derived from a phrase match, we suggested that they contact Google and now we have a page we can refer to.
Thanks Google, we didn't know of it's existence but now we can resolve disputes like this easily.
Trademarks Used as Leverage Against Affiliates [up2speed.com]
The words, banjo, cows backside and hit spring to mind.
To stifle those that have shown initiative in delivering no risk sales for a company is just crazy.
The Cost Per Acquisition for the companies to deliver the sales themselves will be far more than the cost of doing PPC, there is the staff to set it up, the staff to monitor the bidding etc..
I can see companies that turn their back on the crackheads losing out in a big way.
Thanks Google, we didn't know of it's existence but now we can resolve disputes like this easily
Now, I can look at it two ways. One, I can let affiliates run PPC ads. I could then back the PPC program down a bit and sort of let the affiliates take it over. I would have to do an analysis of what percentage of sales we pay in ad fees, but my gut tells me that it is more than the typical 7%-8% paid to affiliates. Plus we have the added bonus of dozens of people seeking out keywords that we may not have thought of and the freeing up of time within our dept to do "other" things.
But, on the other hand, there is the issue of brand and trademark abuse. I let affiliates go nuts on the PPCs and I have no control over how they advertise our products. Let's face it too, I would lose a certain amount of manpower to managing the extra affiliates who are of what I would consider a lower class of affiliates since they have put no effort into a real website. I can knock a few ads out in an hour or so and if it's for the easy items, I can do a dozen or more in an hour. It's a lazy way to make money if you ask me. Which isn't a bad thing, but it does tend to lower the bar for the quality of the affiliates you attract. The some of the products on our site are, umm..., very popular for short amounts of time due to extra mostly late night and sunday morning media coverage. Which means if I let any of my affiliates do PPC ads, then 20 morons could put up an ad. 20 ads that all say "Widget 2000 - Buy! Buy! Buy! www.widget.com" with one keyword of broad match Widget 2000. I have seen it happen in other company's affiliate programs. These type of affiliates are in it for the quick buck with no thought as to how it makes my site look or what it does to the user experience.
Call me an internet enviromentalist, but there is such thing as going to the well too often and with search engines, I think this is one of those cases. I want the PPC programs to last. Setting up a system that encourages the abuse of it would be counter productive to long term PPC profits for everybody.
It's not to say that all affiliates would be of this variety. I don't know what to do. I might forbid PPC ads by our affiliates but might approach a few of our affilates and offer to let them handle our PPCs. Or maybe I would put a clause that states that you must have special permission to advertise on PPC and then only have a short list of affiliates who I would allow to do so.
I say that now, but I have changed my mind a dozen times now. I'm not quite sure which way I will go, A) let 'em have at it or B) forbid it.
For the record, I'm not sure exactly which forum best suits this thread, but it seems the question of trademark/ppc/advertising/affiliates is broader than Google adwords alone. My apologies for hijacking your thread, webdiversity.
>where I stand
Travoli, wingslevel, & I discussed this quite a while. One of the odd developments Drastic and a few other predicted seems to have come true, a popular datafeed flooded the serps with rubber-stamped results. Obviously, this isn't a good outcome, either for the affiliates or the merchant. But we were not so sure that trademark was the real concern, our gut call was that the merchant was really worried that their site would be banned from the serps along with all the duplicate content fed through to the affiliate sites.
I think the issue of results in serps and PPC are very differnet. I completely agree that spammy stuff can harm a brand, and that search engines should be able to remove on request those serp listings that contravene rules. However, the quickest way to get people that cause the problems is to rescind their affiliate status, then the sites will disappear like a light.
As for PPC, my view is that an affilite has got the skill to put their own money where their mouth is should be applauded, not punished. The fact that they have proved PPC as a concept and business model for the merchant to then get greedy and want it all really doesn't sit right with me.
I think hannamyluv has the right idea, make it invitation only and work with your best affiliates.
