Forum Moderators: skibum
In some ways its good since if the consumer punches in the name of my site in the browser, which I guess is a common occurance, they make it easier to find my site.
But at the same time, I would appear in the natural rankings without that, so its almost like they are cheating me?
Any opinions would be appreciates -- this area feels so gray that I don't even know how to look at it! :)
He pays the marketing costs, you pay for the sale. You and the affiliate both win.
It also doesn't hurt to have 10 independent sites claiming your 'product is the best' and 'buy now here' when a user is researching your brand.
At the end of the day it needs to be a business decision. What results in more profits for your business?
As a merchant you want to make as much money from your affiliate program as possible. You need to consider the following:
1) Does filling the search results page with listings for your company (instead of your competitors) help you do this?
2) Are affiliates causing confusion or misleading consumers by placing their ads?
If affiliates present a variety of different links to your site when searches for your name are done, this might be thought of simply as better merchandising. It presents the visitor with a variety of different ways to enter your site and they may be more likely to enter the site on a page that contains exactly what the are looking for so total sales are higher.
Most affiliates probably prefer no restrictions and if this policy results in more profits for the merchant, then its a win-win situation. If it doesn't then one workable policy is for the merchant to specify in their TOS that affiliates may not outbid the merchant for the merchants branded terms. By doing this affiliates can still make some cash, the merchant gets added exposure and sales and there are likely to be fewer ads for competitors showing up.
The other thing it makes sense to add into the TOS is that affiliates cannot put things like "official site" in the ads as this almost certainly causes confusion among consumers when there are 2 or more ads for the same site all claiming to be the "official site". Any merchant who runs an affiliate program should at least consider PPC campaigns on thier own brand name. On the other hand, an affiliate program can serve as an outsourced PPC program if the merchant either doesn't have the resources to run a PPC program or simply prefers not to put in the work to run PPC.
If the decision is made not to allow affiliates to bid on brand names, the best bet is to give notice (typically 7 days) of the change in policy to give affiliates time to change their campaigns or adjust their bids.
Now the merchant dominates G for their chosen key terms/brand names, but the surfer gets the impresion of choice. This, in my view, is the correct approach as the merchant wins in a way that would have been much more expensive and risky had they built all the ads/serps themselves.
Merchants that disallow brand name bidding are being short-sighted, in my opinion. Quite often it is a red-faced PPC campaign manager, who has been given responsibility for promoting the brand themselves, that instigates these bans. Their logic is that the affiliates are duiluting the effectiveness of their campaign. In these situations the merchant needs to take a strong stance as the affiliates are adding to their overall online presence at no cost to them. The fact that a mediocre media/ppc company can't compete with their affiliates should be a sign to switch agencies or cease the activity altogether, not allow the "tail to wag the dog" as so often happens.
Merchants that disallow brand name bidding are being short-sighted, in my opinion.
I couldn't agree more. Despite being seductive in theory, Central Planning does not work nearly as well in practice as allowing multiple sources of initiative to sprout simultaneously.
Some of my merchants even allow me to take anything I want from their website as long as I bring them the sales without spamming.
I can't stand affiliates that have no imagination and bid on the companies name. It's pathetic, and a very short term gain at best.
I think it's because they can. Whenever I get banned from bidding on a brand name by the merchant, I find a less blinkered competitor to take the traffic.
Sure, it's easy money, but it converts and it's a win-win. Unless the aff is misleading the consumer by their ad wording, this practise is wholly defensible.
I understand that one can apply to G to prohibit bidding on a trademarked brand, thus reducing the ability to enable affs to do what they do best, which is to be creative with their marketing efforts.
Surely the reason that any merchant seeks affiliates is because they believe that they have exhausted their own ability to generate traffic and want to build their sales?
Extending this twisted logic to a silly level, maybe I should try to trademark Casino, Credit card, mortgage, loan, etc. etc. :)
