Forum Moderators: skibum
They also run Adwords, however, and are annoyed to notice that affiliates are taking out Adword campaigns that contain only the affiliate link i.e. a link with the redirect through the affiliate programme and publisher's ID, that takes the user to my client's site.
Is this breaking the affiliate programmes T&Cs? Or Google's?
I wouldn't be so quick to nail them though. Letting affiliates advertise on adwords has pros and cons.
Pros
- A recent study showed that letting affiliates advertise on your trademarked name can actually boost sales as affiliates will offer different messages to searches. For example, one may say "Save 70% off" and another may say "Free shipping". These offers appeal to two different shoppers and you would not be able to fit them both into your ad on adwords.
- It eliminates you competition's ability to advertise on your space. Yep, that's right. Google's washed their hands of trademarks and it's only a matter of time before your competitor gets the bright idea to advertise on your name (Which works great by the way)
- It allows an affiliate to "test" your program. Some affiliates want to see how well a program converts and tells them whether they should spend the time actually building a site based on your company.
Cons
- Okay, yes, it's easy picking for an affiliate. You could technically see all that sales come to your links and they are canabalizing it.
- Branding issues. Not all affiliates are created the same. Some really suck at the whole PPC thing and their messages could hurt your brand.
- You are competing for your own name and it costs you money.
It doesn't have to be an all or nothing game though. There are several routes to take. You could say that an affiliate is not allowed to bid higher than you. You could hand pick a few affiliates to run PPC. You could ban them all together on your trademarked terms but allow them to advertise for you on your other products.
There are many options and you really need to look at the issue from all angles to decide which is best.
Most (understandably) block their brand from being bid on, but I think this too is a mistake because it allows their competitors to bid on it, but not their affiliates. Rules like 'don't bid above 10 cents for our brand' make sense, and accomplish the same thing.
[internetretailer.com...]
Hannamyluv, so it depends on the specific agreement between the merchant and the vendor? Okay.
As to my other question though: does Google allow it? i.e. I thought Google would require anyone who takes out adwords to provide their own site address (and that an affiliate link would break the t&cs)?
When a person is paying his or her own money (out of pocket) to sell your product (admittedly so they can profit themselves), I think it would be blithely stupid to not let them. Every company wants higher sales, affiliates are a good way of accomplishing this. I could understand a company being leery of people selling other products using a company's product search terms, but restricting affiliates from trying to sell your product (again, paying out of pocket) seems stupid, short-sighted, and detrimental.
I thought Google would require anyone who takes out adwords to provide their own site address (and that an affiliate link would break the t&cs)?
I suppose to the letter, doing this does break T&C, but G has never enforced it. As long as the redirect leads to the stated URL without pause, they don't do anything.
I think it is a no-brainer to allow affiliates to bid and link directly. If google would let merchants, they would fill up all the paid spots with links to their site. I would. This is a back door to accomplishing that.
When I have merchant hat on, that's my philosophy. In fact, if I get enough affiliates I may drop my own AdWords bids on those terms so that the affiliates don't think I'm competing with them. But then, I kind of like risk-free sales; I'm funny that way.
MQ
