Due to the Google AdWords Trademark changes coming into force on May the 5th 2008 and the way some UK affiliate networks are sweeping merchants towards Brand Bidding Groups I thought now would be an ideal time to help train anyone up to current Brand Bidding Group Pro standard so they are in with just as much of a chance as the “professionals” are (if it were a level, non biased or financially weighted landscape we operated in) of getting to play on the brand groups likely to pop up in May.

Ok let’s begin the standard three step process of how to be like most of the current brand bidding group participants .. firstly create a landing page on your chosen site, ideally something like merchant-name-keyword.co.uk  or merchant-name.superdooperamazingdeals.co.uk  and add content that’s basically a direct clone of the merchant’s site, then for step two create an adgroup and make an advert with the merchants brand in the title, body and url text, step three entails just adding the merchant’s brand as a keyword with square brackets around it like [merchant brand] .. that’s it well done, congratulations, you just attained Brand Bidding Group specialist status !

Now you should bid like this until you get a tug from someone (which may never happen if you are lucky) for not adding enough value, in which case do merchant’s brand with another keyword such as buy, apply, cheap, cheapest, so now you have something like [cheap merchant brand] etc.

Now bid like this for as long as possible, you’ll make a killing on most brands, some of them will cough it tens of thousands of pounds in nice juicy commissions per month with no clue that you are literally just taking cash off punters already heading in through the the door,  but if you are pulled about adding more value with a bit of a wider spread then you’ll have to resort to the dreaded phrase match, the curse of the BBG.

The phrase match is the last option in the BBG keyword matching arsenal (to be really successful in brand bidding you’ll virtually never use broad match), using phrase match means your ROI may suffer as you’ll actually be getting traffic that’s not as targeted as that nice juicy exact match you have been getting .. it’s possible that you may even have to spend ten minutes researching negative keywords to make sure you don’t show for irrelevant terms such as complaint, support, contact, email, vacancy, recruitment, return etc. So for your wider phrase match keyword spread you’ll have to bid on terms like “merchants brand” and “cheap merchants brand” etc.

If tugged again you may have to actually - god forbid - create a generic adgroup where you actually compete with other merchants and affiliates on the traffic for the merchant’s sector!  Very scary I know.. your ROI is going to take a hammering now you’re actually expected to add value to the merchant’s campaign you may even dip below 100% ROI here!

There you go, that about covers 90% of the work that’s being done out there on brand campaigns, some guys are trying hard and do add value but they make up a small minority as far too many don’t try hard and aren’t adding value and the networks seem complicit in this pervasive apathy and that’s actually bordering on exploitation in my view, merchants are being took for a ride in some instances.

Ok maybe the cynic in me shone through the above steps, I wish I was totally joking however I, as well as many other affiliates, see what’s happening on many brand campaigns, some of the brand bidders are literally having a laugh at the merchant’s expense. They are given brand bidding rights as they have “performed on brand campaigns in the past” or “have a proven history with brand campaigns” according to the networks who favor them, which is a bit like the argument for making a serial killer the hangman as he’s got experience, (sure he can do it but he won’t always do it how it should be done).

Performing on a brand campaign is child’s play! it often is as simple as [brand name] at £0.xxp per click and bank the profit, many of the brand bidders are taking advantage of their favoured status by doing this and very little else, I’ve seen many solely brand bidding doing zero generics and active like this on multiple campaigns, some of them are so mercenary and opportunistic that they even brand bid when they shouldn’t be on merchants which don’t allow brand bidding.

With most of the BBG’s affiliates owning one or more Ferrari’s, Porsche’s or Aston Martins etc. now just how much better can one affiliate be at doing [merchant brand] then the next guy ? if the current level of bias continues it’ll be fun to see which brand bidder buys a Learjet first .. no doubt at least one already has a net jet card!

This evident favouritism isn’t healthy at all, it’s not giving merchants full value for money and it’s breeding mistrust and annoying many affiliates who do add value from content and generic PPC activity. There needs to be a wider spread of capable affiliates involved rather than the few BBG cliques … and NO I’m not touting for brand bidding rights! I’ll never kiss ass to get a single one!

With my objective head on for a moment, I can understand why networks wish to work with affiliates who behave and will do as they are told and have enough spending power to go for a full month but why, if taking everything at face value, would they risk alienating other affiliates by letting the BBG’s have far too many brand campaigns and add zero value to them, we all know what the crack is with most of them, they are taking the piss, there’s no other phrase for it that so succinctly rounds it up!, I know of top generic performers having their brand bidding status revoked only for a favoured brand bidder to be given it who then proceeds to bid just on brand terms,  despite that fact the original affiliates were driving generic sales too! now how screwed up is that!?

It leaves many affiliates thinking that there is more than this than meets the eye, too many small cliques in play with who knows what network/affiliate agreements, some even speculate that reduced overrides are in play to lure in bigger brands but then a profit share element agreed between network and brand bidders.

Some networks have tried to put a slim facade on brand bidding more recently, Buy.at for one have made token half hearted gestures of late by throwing a couple of campaigns out to a wider audience but it’s too little, too late to be convincing, however I hope it will escalate in volume and depth over this year and become a serious expansion of the number of affiliates involved.

Tradedoubler made a song and dance about opening up brand bidding to a wider group but then proceeded to make the application process for each one about 25 pages long and take around four hours to complete, the resulting information being worth well over £1000 in free consultation! with the usual suspects seeming to be taking most of the slots by default in reality it leaves many affiliates fighting for just a couple of spots on most campaigns.

From talking to other affiliates it would seem that those excluded / not deemed worthy to brand bid have lost faith in some networks integrity and impartiality as a result of seeing some of the chosen few do clearly very little and earn so much from poorly set up campaigns (from a merchant point of view, I’m sure the ROI for the BBG’s is excellent) which often don’t cover even misspellings let alone generics.

Many affiliates feel that networks need to be more accountable for their actions in regard to brand bidding and who gets to participate in bidding groups, i.e cut the cloak and dagger crap and the we use “brand bidding specialists” facade and open brand bidding up to those affiliates already performing on generics in preference to the existing few with a proven history on brand, bearing in mind even a child could perform on brand that’s not exactly a glowing recommendation and reason enough to annoy your generic PPC guys.

I’m sure brand bidding will evolve over this year, hopefully into a more transparent situation where a wider spread of affiliates get to show their worth rather than just being seen as second tier generic ppc idiots whilst the BBG’s just mop up all the nice, easy and highly profitable brand traffic on some networks.

It’d be good to hear networks justify why some brand bidders continue to be given brands to hit when it’s patently evident they are adding little value and the generic PPC guys out there on the campaign are overlooked repeatedly, it’s hard not to draw conclusions that there’s a machiavellian set up going on when it’s all so closely guarded by those few that are involved!