Following on from the recent Google trademark changes which caused a major headache for merchants seeking to monitor and manage their brand space, we are happy to announce the beta launch of BrandWatcher.com Pay Per Click Monitoring Solution.
BrandWatcher will aid advertisers in seeing exactly what is happening on their keywords and brand terms on Google AdWords in the UK 24 hours per day. Users will be able to see which ads are appearing on monitored keywords, the position ads appeared in, the affiliate network and affiliate ID in many cases, what the adcopy says as well as both the display and destination URL’s.
The primary focus of BrandWatcher™ is to allow merchants to monitor and control affiliate activity on AdWords (Yahoo and MSN to follow shortly), however it’s reporting features mean other tasks such as ad position or adcopy compliance can be managed with huge savings in staff time. BrandWatcher™ also provides the ability to categorise advertisers as approved, ignored or competitor so that merchants can more effectively monitor their brand space and cut down on the recording of irrelevant advertisers, If affiliate adverts are found showing for restricted terms when they shouldn’t be it takes only a couple of clicks to report them directly to the affiliate network(s) concerned.
BrandWatcher.com can also be used to monitor and control Brand Bidding Groups, firstly to ensure only authorised affiliates appear on the specified terms by approving the affiliate ID’s or display and destination URL’s of authorised bidders and then creating a second keyword campaign (subject to package keyword volumes) made up of the generic terms you expect your brand group affiliates to be promoting too, A clear picture of which brand affiliates are trying to get generic sales and which are just sat on brand terms soon becomes clear, this provides a good idea of who is adding value to your affiliate scheme and who is just sitting on the profitable brand terms and doing little or no generic work.
As it’s a beta launch no doubt there will be glitches, browser issues and frequent updates so we’ve decided to do 3 discounted introductory beta packages :
Bronze
Monitor 5 keywords hourly - £149+vat per month
Silver
Monitor 10 keywords hourly - £249+vat per month
Gold
Monitor 20 keywords hourly - £349+vat per month
This is hugely discounted introductory pricing and just for a point of reference the nearest competitor offers a far more basic monitoring tool for £200 per keyword per month!
Merchants could save over £1700 per month by using BrandWatcher.com compared to the nearest competitors pricing structure if monitoring 10 keywords as they would pay just £249+vat for a BrandWatcher.com silver package instead of £2000 with the nearest competitor and that’s not including the extra commissions and network overrides saved by using BrandWatcher™ to monitor brand terms to keep them free of unauthorised affiliate activity.
Higher volume keyword packages are available on request as are network and agency packages.
Subscribers receive a daily email detailing yesterday’s activity by any uncategorised advertisers, To investigate further users can simply log in and use a date rangeable report for campaigns where they can also drill the data down further by keyword, network, affiliate ID and even display URL, these reports can be downloaded in a CSV file for local use too.
To get the best from BrandWatcher™ users should categorise advertisers to streamline the reporting and clean up the daily alert email from competitors and irrelevant advertisers such as eBay and Ask.com etc. Then the daily report will contain only new activity but by logging in users can still see in the online reporting which ads are appearing on which keywords, in which positions and what they are saying in their adcopy etc. and we’ve many more unique features coming soon too!
In the screenshot of the reporting interface below you can see an OMG affiliate, ID no 3897 showing on “Virgin Credit Card” and “Virgincreditcard” search terms at 1am and 7am and the affiliate is using Virgin’s display URL.
To report the ads to the network all Virgin would have to do is click the report tick-box and then submit the editable pre-written email that’s generated with all the pertinent data in it, The network would then get a concise email detailing the keywords, URL’s, affiliate ID’s, Ad headline and adcopy including variations and times found, example below :
Affiliates, the honest ethical and hard working ones, will welcome the new BrandWatcher.com service as it levels the playing field on the brands that it monitors, although the rogue affiliates that bid out of hours at evenings and weekends or use merchant display URLs when told not to etc. won’t be thinking too warmly towards it as it’s going to cost them cold hard cash if the merchant decides to monitor their terms so how you view the beta launch of BrandWatcher™ will probably depend on how much money are making or losing from traffic gained showing ads on restricted brand terms.
BrandWatcher™ offers 24/7/365 visibility and accountability providing an objective and impartial monitoring capability to help merchants in the ongoing battle to keep their affiliate brand space as they wish it to be.
It’s a beta release and so will evolve as we’ve got even more features on the horizon so package prices will DEFINITELY rise soon but by signing up now users can lock in their package price for a full year as we’ll do a 12 month price fix for all live accounts when we go out of beta so take a closer look here.
May 21st, 2008 at 9:14 am
Looks a fantastic product mate. Whilst a lot of networks have similar in-house tools this will enable the actual brands themselves to monitor PPC ads indepentently of affiliate networks, thus giving them greater control of their own programme. Nice one.
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Awesom mate.
Well done…….poacher/ gamekeeper comes to mind.
Doug
May 22nd, 2008 at 2:53 pm
Cheers Kieron, yup it provides an independent, objective system that merchants can use themselves to actively monitor and manage their brand thus allowing them to now be proactive rather than just reactive at best or in the dark at worst.
Cheers also Doug.. aren’t always the best security analysts ex hackers ? lol.. I’ve never even been remotely dodgy compared to the lengths that some guys go to lately!.. I’m well aware that geotargeting and IP exclusion happens against merchants, networks and agencies so BrandWatcher was developed and will evolve with this in mind.
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:45 pm
Great bit of software, was this developed so that if you are in a closed brand bidding group, you want to kill the small fry off that have to sail close to the wind and think out of the box.
I suppose this now makes the rich get richer and again the playing field becomes a little uneven and that is why the affiliates think out of the box and sail close to the wind.
Shane, are you involved in closed bidding groups?, are you losing income to the small fry that nibble away crumbs from your exclusive bidding groups?
Jonty
May 22nd, 2008 at 6:48 pm
Forget to say as well, would the merchents then find out what affiliates terms are being bid on what keywords convert more and then ban affiliates from bidding on them terms and keep more money for themselves and the closed bidding groups.
A monster you have unleashed that I think will be bad for the industry, but again this type of program has been in use in the US for a long time and has not affected many people.
Jonty
May 22nd, 2008 at 8:09 pm
Totally agree
Ask Dave Naylor that nasty ex google spammer, turned purist
Doug
May 22nd, 2008 at 9:20 pm
Jony thanks for your comments and questions.
Brandwatcher hasn’t been developed to use from an affiliate point of view, it was developed for mechant use primarily but with an eye to agency or network use too, facilitating easier monitoring of restricted brand terms to indentify those affiliates who show accidentally or purposefully flout merchant T&C’s and appear on those terms costing merchant’s commission and network overrides when it shouldn’t.
No I’m not in any brand groups and if I were I wouldn’t be worried about “small fry” nibbling crumbs from around the edges of what programs I was on, I’d be too busy playing golf or waxing my Ferrari to worry about who was in 6th position and shouldn’t be! Do you think having our developer spend 8 months writing thousands of lines of code to outwitt the dodgiest affiliate brains around is to stamp out “crumbs” ? NO! it’s been developed and will evolve with merchants, agencies and networks in mind, to monitor merchant brand space and keep dodgy affiliates in line.
Brandwatcher should actually level the playing field for all those non brand bidding group programs although where a brand group is in play it will also aid merchants in monitoring that space and ensure all affiliates comply with T&C’s and any brand group restrictions. On top of that merchants can also set it up to see if those brand affiliates are appearing on generic searches SO in essence it can help weed out lazy brand bidding group affiliates who are sat solely on brand terms too, thus giving other affiliates a chance to be invited to step into that space.
One particular affiliate I actually despise (oh yes strong word but the guy is the personification of unethical) regularly brand bids out of hours, uses merchant display urls as well as totaly fake ones so if the merchants were using brandwatcher that would be stopped in no time so how is that creating an uneven playing field ? he would have to adhere to exactly the same rules every other ethical affiliate does!
As for the rich getting richer yes some will get richer as a result of using BrandWatcher but it’ll be those merchants who suddenly start saving thousands of pounds that were previously paid out in unwarranted commissions.
On the point of merchants nudging affiliates off converting terms, (assuming they can even identify those terms, as showing on a term doesn’t mean it’s that one converting!) One thing about adwords you’ll find is anyone can bid on a term on broad or phrase match and show for thousands of other terms too (i.e. bid for “credit card” and show for “stupid credit card” http://www.google.com/search?rls=en&q=stupid+credit+card just like those.. or “donkey credit card” “monkey credit card” in fact pretty much anything+credit card.
As a result of that more often now it’s so much more important to know what negatives are in play than the broad or phrase match keywords being bid on and even then so many affiliates don’t track their ROI to keyword level so there’s no guarantee even an ad in position one for a month is making any money.
So NO I don’t see merchants using BrandWatcher to identify what’s being bid on with an eye to banning affiliates from then bidding on them, if they do then they are very short sighted, taking a jump in the dark and clearly don’t understand adwords in the first place, that’s assuming that they are getting access to the exact keyword conversion data which networks don’t release to merchants so it’s a double non starter!
Regarding your comment :”A monster you have unleashed that I think will be bad for the industry” can I ask how long you’ve been in this industry ? as that’s not the consensus amongst other ethical affiliates I’ve spoken to, the only guys that should be getting nervous are the dodgy affiliates.
On a closing note don’t forget it only works for those merchants who are happy to cough up money to monitor their brands and seeing as many won’t spend a definite £149,£249 or £349 to save potentially thousands every month then I’m guessing you’ll be able to nibble away thinking out of the box for some time yet on many brands;)
May 23rd, 2008 at 9:42 pm
Hi Shane,
You presume I brand PPC then?, well incorrect, I long got out of promoting UK products and just deal with US programs now.
I have only been doing this 10 years now, so only a beginner.
This software will gradually be used by merchants to expand their keywords that you can not bid on.
Why would n’t they they might save £10k on keyword A, then loads of affiliates making a fortune on keyword B, so they ban that as well.
I would say 99% of affiliates sail close to the wind by either brand bidding in some shape or for, iframe links, hidden redirects, voucher codes directs etc and nibble at the crumbs been thrown by the closed groups and select chosen few, I do feel sorry for them as everybody is deserved a living, but then again this country is designed to knock the small sole trader who thinking out of the box makes you no living, wheich means you have conform to merchants whims and again then they own you and drop you as they wish.
Must give you a warm feeling knowing that you saving the merchants money but killing the life and blood of the industry i.e the affiliates.
Keep well and keep smiling,
Jonty
May 23rd, 2008 at 11:00 pm
Jonty, BrandWatcher shows which ads appear on monitored terms, not what has converted to a sale, there’s no visibility as to what has converted to a sale as we have no access to the merchant sale data, and neither do they via affiliate networks! so how can words be added to a banned list in any way other than by a wild guess by the merchant.
It will only get used to monitor the terms merchants have decided that their affiliates shouldn’t bid on, them making that decision to restrict a term has nothing to do with BrandWatcher, it will NOT aid them in identifying converting keywords to restrict.
Let’s say a mobile phone merchant called “smartphones” was a user, If they choose to restrict “smartphones” brand terms then do you have problem with that? I don’t, if they’vespent millions branding building across TV, Print, Radio etc. then should I be able to pay 20p a click to convert at 2/500% ROI off the strength of their brand presence if they don’t want me to profit that way ?
I don’ think so as it’s a brand PPC is a no brainer, it’s free money on established brands, so I’m happy to comply with their terms and conditions, if you aren’t then you seriously need to empathise with the merchant and respect how much work and money it’s taken them to build that brand up so it gets traffic on it’s brand terms, sure affiliates may have played a part in that at some stage but they have been paid for that along the way so if the merchant decideds to restrict brand terms then that’s their, perfectly understandable, decision!
Now if smartphones decided to use BrandWatcher to monitor generic terms and found affiliates showing for “mobile phones”, which was a high converting term for their own marketing, do you think they would be wise to tell affiliates to stop doing that ? I certainly don’t, the fastest way to get PPC affiliate backs up is to go all megalomaniac on generic terms and say they can’t bid on x or y genric.
They may save £10k on keyword A but if it’s at the expense of every serious affiliate kicking off in protest as they have done in the past when merchants try to ban generic keywords then it’s not going to be a very pragmatic decision is it and will probably cost 4 or 5 times more than the “saving” they’d generate by restricting generic terms.
Not being able to bid on brands if requested not to is accepted (by most affiliates) as being understandable, however not being able to bid on generics means the affiliate just moves on to the next merchant in that sector that does allow it, trying to ban affiliates on generic terms is a BIG no no! so that’s why any merchant with any sense won’t try to ban affiliates on generic terms.
I must live a sheltered life as 99% of the affiliates I know are ethical and don’t “sail close to the wind” (best euphemism I’ve heard for flouting T&C’s.. there’s no “close” about it really is there) so it’s nice to know that the scope for BrandWatcher may be even bigger than we first anticipated if there are so many dodgy affiliates out there.
If you read the rest of my blog you’ll see I’m no fan of the brand bidding group scenario but like them or loath them, the fact is they aren’t going to disappear fast hence we designed BrandWatcher with an eye to allowing merchants to actually see which approved brand bidding affiliates are actually trying to make sales on generics too, if they choose to set BrandWatcher up to do that, thus giving them the opportunity to identify and remove those solely sitting on brand terms and adding zero value to their program and hopefully the merchant will give someone else a chance to prove their worth on brand and generics.
We manage PPC for clients so for maximum ROI it’s imperative the merchant’s PPC shows rather than unauthorised affiliate PPC where the merchant has restricted terms in play, and by using BrandWatcher we’ve just saved another merchant a wedge, over £2.5k per month/£30K pear year, where BrandWatcher identified several unauthorised affiliates solely sitting on restricted brand terms adding ZERO value to the merchant’s program.
So yes that gave me a warm feeling when we saved the client a potential £33k over the next year including £3k of network overrides
BrandWatcher won’t kill the life and blood of the industry, it will however help identify those that “sail close to the wind” and aid merchants to stop them doing that, and if they wish to continue as affiliates then they’ll have to do ethical PPC, move to the next merchant who isn’t monitoring their brand space or build real sites that add real value and work like every other ethical affiliate, which I’d say is 90% yet you seem to think is only 1%
Despite 10 years at this you appear to feel that affiliates should be able to do what they wish, brand bid, iframe, hidden redirects etc. !? all I can say is thanks for adding weight to case as to why merchants need a solution like BrandWatcher.com
May 24th, 2008 at 12:01 am
Hi,
It will only get used to monitor the terms merchants have decided that their affiliates shouldn’t bid on, them making that decision to restrict a term has nothing to do with BrandWatcher, it will NOT aid them in identifying converting keywords to restrict
So the merchants won’t know what keywords convert well, i know they are a dumb bunch but give them a bit of credit they know terms that convert, they will exploit the software to the biggest potential, why wouldn’t they they would save another £33k plus overrides.
Now if smartphones decided to use BrandWatcher to monitor generic terms and found affiliates showing for “mobile phones”, which was a high converting term for their own marketing, do you think they would be wise to tell affiliates to stop doing that ? I certainly don’t, the fastest way to get PPC affiliate backs up is to go all megalomaniac on generic terms and say they can’t bid on x or y genric
But again why not they saving £33k, you sort of answering your own answers.
Despite 10 years at this you appear to feel that affiliates should be able to do what they wish, brand bid, iframe, hidden redirects etc. !? all I can say is thanks for adding weight to case as to why merchants need a solution like BrandWatcher.com
No I said thats what happens in 99% of cases, its hard to believe you have never done any of the above in your online life, (put you up for a saint hood)
Saving the merchant £33k is great, all credit to you, the death of more affiliates trying to earn a living, glad I just do my stuff in the US, could not be botherd with UK programmes with the all seeing eye watching and monitoring whats going on.
So you have never done any they wish, brand bid, iframe, hidden redirects etc in your online career, even when you first started?
Good luck with your software though I am sure it will have a place somewhere and somewhere down the line it will be used for purposes that you did not design it for, but thats you being ethical, I am sure the merchants would not do that either.(Would They?)
Keep smiling,
Jonty
May 24th, 2008 at 3:36 pm
Well done Shane and the entire Brandwatcher team. This tool has been phenomenally useful for us. We have affiliates blatantly disregarding the rules on a daily basis with the affiliate programs we manage and this has helped us catch them out more easily than we would have before.
Some affiliates who may have gotten away with things in the past could be unhappy with the launch of Brandwatcher.com, but I think this is a much-needed tool that benefits the industry.
A very happy…
Nadeem
May 26th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
Thanks Nadeem, We are glad you’ve found it of use, it was surprising to see not only the volume of affiliates doing unauthorised brand bidding but also the number that are trying it on more than once after being warned and laying low for a while, it highlights that this is an ongoing battle where even clearing the decks for a week or two doesn’t mean that the dodgy affiliates won’t try again later.
So just to confirm you point of view Jonty, You think everyone should be allowed to keep raping merchant’s brand terms, totally flouting all T&C’s and “thinking out of the box” and continue to “sail close to the wind” ?
Let’s flip that on it’s head, would you be happy if some of the merchants you work with intermittently sent your traffic to pages with no tracking pixels on purpose to shaft you out of commissions due, and they classed that as thinking out of the box and sailing close to the wind, is that not the same scenario as what you seem to think is acceptable ? basically obtaining sales by deceiving the other party !?
BrandWatcher, as the name implies is for watching brand terms, and as I pointed it out does not give visibility on conversions but as you already said merchants already know which terms convert what difference is BrandWatcher going to make to that process ?
If it turns out as bad as you suggest it will, then to save paying out any commission at all merchants will just ban ALL PPC terms. maybe they could save £330k then by culling all brand and generic PPC activity !?
Great idea for saving a fortune huh.. however it won’t happen for several reasons, main ones being : A) most merchants don’t get the depth of coverage good PPC affiliates can provide, B) a merchant can only legitimately cover one ppc slot on google and C) if you get stupid with your generic T&C’s affiliates will just move straight down the list to your competitor.
Clearly the scenario you suggest isn’t going to happen, merchants with sense aren’t going to try to remove generics, but yes some ill informed or just plain stupid merchants MAY try to, but obviously they’ll have no idea what they are doing if so and would have done that anyway, the only difference is that BrandWatcher will allow them to see which of the very few affiliates they have left after such a dumb move, are flouting their new T&C’s, whilst they wonder how their program revenue just dived by a huge wedge and their competitors just got busier.
Any merchant who tries to save money by culling some of the more popular generics is heading down a dead end street, as I said before, any merchant with sense isn’t going to try and ban affiliates from bidding on any generics, it’s probably the dumbest move a merchant can make and really winds up ppc affiliates so it will cost far more than it would save in the long run.
With regard to my impending sainthood, I never said I hadn’t done anything that would be considered dodgy now, I’ve been doing PPC since 2001 when it was like the wild west and nobody, including merchants, even knew what the rules should be nevermind if they anyone was breaking them so no doubt about it I’m guilty as charged! along with many others, but yes I’ve brand bid, used iframes to drop a cookie (on single merchants as an impression cookie, never cannon balled) and I still do use scrubbing redirects that remove all information (I’m giving nobody free marketing data).
Jonty you come across as having the opinion that affiliates have a divine right to bid on merchant’s brands as an affiliate of theirs regardless of the merchant’s wishes, and that BrandWatcher is some kind of underhand system desinged to cheat affiliates from their deserved living.
Our view is that merchants have the divine right to choose if they wish to allow affiliates to bid on the brand terms that they’ve spent hundres of thousands if not millions of pounds to get established, if they choose NOT to allow affiliates to bid then BrandWatcher will record those that are flouting merchant T&C’s and aid merchants to stop that unauthorised affiliate activity, call it thinking outside the box, or sailing close to the wind but it’s still flouting T&C’s knowingly so shouldn’t be happening.
I really don’t see it panning out how you seem to fear it will, you are forgetting the merchant has to subscribe to our system and most won’t spend a definite £149 to save a potential unknown amount (and our price is going to rise soon!) so most brands will be safe to abuse for the forseable future, although no doubt as BrandWatcher’s userbase increases, the affiliates kicked off merchants for unauthorised brand bidding will move down the food chain like a swarm of hungry ants.
I’m sorry that you don’t see the removal of rogue affiliates as an industry enhancing
move. Yes maybe some merchants will use it down the line for purposes other than it was designed but on their head it will be, if they understand the affiliate space they won’t make that mistake, if not then I don’t see BrandWatcher being the cause of it and to be honest if used for that purpose it will probably be a nail in their affiliate scheme’s coffin anyway as affiliates won’t stand for being banned on generics.
I guess we’ll continue to have different views on the issue however I feel cessation of rogue affiliate activity on brand terms enhances the overall appeal, image and potential of affiliate marketing from a merchant point of view and thus will benefit ALL ethical affiliates not just PPC, as the merchant’s ROI and profit margins from their own brand activity will be higher than via dodgy brand affiliates, meaning they have more profit to offer better affiliate commission rates to increase their market share, volume, turnover and overall profit figures.