I’m regularly surprised at how many affiliates are brand bidding on terms which are not authorised on the program they are pushing, in effect these affiliates are poking their tongues out at hard working T&C abiding ones, ripping merchants off when they have specifically requested no brand traffic be sent and tarnishing the affiliate scene in general as a touch wild west still.
Just one minute of searching in any of the network admin areas will yield a list of merchants who have restrictive keyword and URL terms and conditions, another two minutes searching on Google (ignoring any authorised closed groups of course ) will show three main types of brand bidding miscreants :
The Accidental Affiliate is usually one of three types, Genuine Mistake, Dopey or Broad Match, The Genuine Accidental Affiliate may be running so many campaign’s it’s hard to keep up with constantly changing terms & conditions as they may be pushing hundreds to over a thousand programs worldwide so one keyword change isn’t going to hit their radar unless it’s emailed or brought to their attention somehow, just keeping abreast of the ad copy revisions, promotions, suspensions and closures is a big task.
There are some very conscientious affiliates who really do try and adhere to T&C’s, for example the last time I was in Portugal staying at Paul Wheatley’s pad I witnessed Paul spend the best part of a week updating his network T&C’s spreadsheet, (I could see him beavering away at it religiously as I floated around in his pool for hours on end !) So he has all the up to date details he needed to see he wasn’t contravening any restrictions but after seeing how many merchants he’s pushing it’d be hard not to get pinged a couple of time each week as terms change since the last trawl. So merchants and networks shouldn’t assume every time someone is showing on PPC for a brand term that the bidding is always on purpose.
The Dopey Accidental Affiliate is a clumsy affiliate, the one who makes enough of wedge each month not to have be looking too closely at things and definitely doesn’t check programs once they are running, he’s the guy with links up going to programs which closed a year ago, campaigns that kick in without him realising it because a merchant’s may be timed to switch off etc. I’ve seen an unauthorised brand bidding affiliate on a merchant’s keywords for over two months now with a misinformed affiliate ID that doesn’t work so it’s fair to assume he’s making enough cash in general not to have noticed this.
The Broad Match Accidental Affiliate is one who bids on a generic or related merchant, product or service and Google’s broad match algorithm fills in the blanks and plays radio one’s tenuous link game and decides that an adult sex toys vibrator ad is good to show on vibrating tooth brush or vibrating alarm clocks etc. So an affiliate could be bidding on say department store on broad match and Google will show them for Marks and Spencer’s related searches so if the affiliate is a Marks and Spencer’s affiliate and banned from bidding on their terms then he could be in trouble by doing nothing wrong, technically he’s not bidding on the brand even though he’s showing for it, Understanding broad match is probably the average network’s weakest point as very few people actually comprehend how broad match works so merchants & networks need to be tactful and non accusatory when investigating why ads are showing for a term, the phrase “you are appearing for searches on the term xxxx can you have a look why that is” rather than “you are brand bidding stop immediately”
The Brand Traffic Thieves come in varying flavours, eBay affiliates used to be bad for it with “buy brand name on eBay” now it seems to be the likes of Ask.com but also there is competitor to competitor bidding in play such as Trip Advisor bidding on “holidaywatchdog” then it’s affiliates bidding on a merchant’s brand then sending that traffic to a competing merchant’s affiliate scheme sometimes via a landing page, but still often direct
The Deliberate Affiliate makes the conscious decision to bid on banned brand terms anyway and send the traffic via their affiliate links to the merchant’s site as most networks aren’t too hot on monitoring it unless the merchant has OCD regarding their brand image, So the deliberate affiliate knows he may risk not getting paid but it doesn’t happen often enough to put him off or make the prospect unfeasible so he can pretty much bid away without fear.
I’ve seen campaigns with the same unauthorised bidders on daily for over a year, so in effect that merchant is paying out commission and 30% on top of that every day for that traffic. One program I used to be on when it was an authorised bidding group program must have paid out over £150k in commissions and network overrides in the last year alone, Often though it’s a poorly managed agency operation that’s running many of these brands where brand bidders seem to prevail.
I personally feel expecting networks to police brand bidding is a bit like letting the hungry dog guard the freshly cooked chicken as when an affiliate bids on brand and makes sales the network gets their 30% override, the merchant gets a sale, the affiliate gets paid so everyone is happy, well more like two happy parties and one is ignorant of the fact they’ve paid for traffic they specifically didn’t want to pay for via the affiliate channel. Speaking from an affiliate point of view it’s nice to get some brand activity as it’s often an easier environment to play in than generic keywords alone as so many merchants are chasing the generics it’s good to be able to offset some of the high generic costs with a dollop of brand however if the merchant says no to brand activity then that’s what it should be and you either accept and promote the program on that basis or leave it.A merchant I know recently sat down and did brand audit which resulted in him realising that some affiliates are driving 70% to 100% of their traffic on brand terms which are not authorised, so in effect he’s regularly been paying out a fair wedge in commission to some affiliates who are doing nothing more than sitting on unauthorised brand terms.
Networks need to realise that most affiliates genuinely do try and adhere to all brand restrictions although they don’t help us out that much as often there’s no single source of reference for brand related keyword restrictions and notification of program changes is very poor, Why isn’t RSS used to push changes to affiliates yet ? rather than emails that can get lost, spammed or forgotten (for the average affiliate it must be hundreds per day coming in !?) imagine just getting an RSS of the exact changes requried for just the progams you push with a minimum 7 day, but preferably 30 day, notice period .. how professional would that be in contrast to demands of “immediate” change and sporadic emails !?
I’m pretty sure 2008 will be the year that brand bidding becomes far more accountable and more closely watched, media spends will be far bigger than 2007 so the transparency that’s lacking now will be the most sought after feature as a result time for the brand only dodgy affiliates must surely be running out now !?
December 20th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
I think one of the major issues is the use of Negative Keywords. If affiliates, as i do, used these then there would be little mistake as to whether there traffic was within brand guidelines or not. Perhaps if we want more transparency from networks we should be giving networks regular information on what we are bidding on and the negative keywords we are using for campaigns before we are allowed to use PPC on a programme. I have too seen many affiliates bidding on brand coupled with generic keywords and ranking highly but when you search purely on the keyword the ad appears way down the list. This suggests to me they are actually bidding directly on the brand plus keyword but blaming this on being broadmatched. The major clue is how many of the same adverts seen on the purely generic search are now below them. But of course this could be blamed on a Google Quirk
So if we expect networks to be open lets start being open with the networks.
December 21st, 2007 at 12:43 am
Thanks for your thoughts Dan,
It would be good to be playing on a field where being open and sharing was a viable option but networks aren’t the impartial altruistic types some people think and as a result many seasoned affiliates limit what information is passed forward as best they can, Anyone who’s been on the affiliate scene for a number of years must by now have a healthy dose of cynicism as standard due to experiences over that time and passing networks keyword information is near the top of the list of “not going to happens” for many affiliates…
As for negative keywords I’m against these 100%, it will start with brand name and end up being generics, as we’ve already seen happen on a few occasions by some merchants who get keyword megalomania so personally I will not use negatives like this as it’s opening the door to a room that holds nothing but trouble for affiliates, if some people get their way we’ll be given an “authorised exact match” and “mandatory negatives” list when joining a program and I see volunteering or being asked to add negatives as the first step towards this….
You mention that you’ve seen “many affiliates bidding on brand coupled with generic keywords and ranking highly but when you search purely on the keyword the ad appears way down the list” …
This could also be interpreted as the generic keyword is being targeted heavily on exact match by the many affiliates bidding on it (who may also be bidding higher for the more generic keyword too) and that as a result any broad or phrase matched keyword ads are getting pushed down the page when you search on just the keyword as they are being outranked by exact matched ones …
Basically the broad or phrase matched ad would show for brand+generic as it’s a phrase matched or broad keyword …but the exact match ads obviously wouldn’t show as it’s no longer an exact match to their keyword as there is the brand word in the search term….
Broad and phrase matched keyword ads would show on brand+generic searches as well as just the generic but exact wouldn’t show on anything except the generic, and in theory (unless higher bids and/or high CTR etc.) the exact matched generic should ourtrank the phrase and broad matched generic keywords….
I’m not saying it is the case every time but it’s an alternative explanation of what you may be seeing, and illustrates that it’s not always as clear as it may seem.
December 21st, 2007 at 8:30 am
So let me get this straight, some people have issues with networks not being open enough but we shouldn’t have to be open because we are cynical of the networks?
And, you won’t use negative keywords because it could be the start of people asking you to use lots of them? So in other words if you are using even your method explained above there is a good chance you are being rewarded sales that you are not entitled too under the T & C’s of some programmes, ie generic plus brand?
And if the networks cant see our data what is to stop them being cynical of us, even if we are supposedly working within the guidelines. Some don’t trust networks but what do we have over the networks in terms of openness and trust? I don’t think we do as we all keep our cards very close to our chests when it suits us.
I just think this needs to be a two way street, you don’t get out for nowt in this world. We all know that
December 21st, 2007 at 10:03 am
yes it’s a bit of a conundrum isn’t it Dan.. how many years have you been an affiliate ? You sound way too sensible and positive to have been highly active for a number of years
Many of us are sceptical due to issues over the years, things like merchants suddenly appearing on exactly the same keywords that make sales and not on those that don’t, the fact that some affiliates are very well acquainted with network staff and are given “tips” on exactly what’s working and which keywords to target .. I’ve received them in passing when someone has tried hard to persuade me to have a go at a program so I know for a fact that happens and I wouldn’t want a list of keywords that I may have taken weeks and thousands of pounds to hone being passed direct to a network then straight on to another affiliate or merchant as it’s only as secure as the weakest link and staff turnover is high as is network hopping too, also figure into that account managers who run their own PPC activity too, some admit it but many don’t, so something being “confidential” is a relative concept.
Thinking as a real world business scenario if you sold someone a thousand laptops per week, and they then sold them on wholesale for 30% profit on top of that would you tell them exactly where you bought the parts from, the parts id numbers and give them the phone numbers of suppliers just to prove where you were getting them from ?
Negatives .. it will start with being asked and then it’ll be mandatory and I won’t be TOLD I have to use negatives, it will start on brand terms then migrate to the top performing generics, then so on and finally we’ll be like stray dogs hunting for left over’s if we go down the route of open books and total subservience to networks who seem happy to bend over and take whatever ill thought out demands some merchants impose just to get or keep them onboard.
Those being some of the very same networks that have said to me personally on more than one occasion “there’s no brand bidding allowed but hey who’s going to notice at evenings and weekends” now is that the kind people for an open relationship you seek ? Ones who basically ignore what a merchant says when it suits them.. in an effort to make more money.. sure I guess some of it is account managers trying to get ever higher figures and hit bonus BUT they still represent the networks and are in charge of accounts.
Yes I do agree it would be nice for more transparency and a two way street would be a utopia but I just don’t see the foundations in place to go down that road anytime soon
December 21st, 2007 at 12:44 pm
[...] up to the most excellent read on Revenue Addict, this is just one of a numerous number of instances in the marketplace with competitor to [...]
December 22nd, 2007 at 10:26 am
One has to consider in addition to the above is whether any networks are sending out mixed messages, for example if you find time, on Tradedoubler go to the search policy section on a number of merchant’s information pages & scroll down to a particular clause.
4.6 You are allowed to show adverts on trademarks, or variations, of advertiser’s competitors?
The merchant has an option for yes or no. Realistically what kind of mixed message does this send out not only to their clients, but may encourage some affiliates to do?
The phenomenal growth of the industry, from revenues generated, has been mainly in part due to the allowance of brand bidding, and by judging networks at the moment, some are & will still be thriving in 2008 with coffers being filled from the over-ride of closed branding bidding groups. Which in all completely skews the sales figures the affiliate channel is earning/producing.
A solution certainly needs to be found, which prevents the content affiliates cookie being over-written. Whether a seperate link, or the referring keyword (which can easily enough be hidden anyhow) cross referenced against a whitelist of actual trademarks to ascertain who gets credited with the commission from the sale.
But going back to clause 4.6 is this particularly ethical? I am surpised it hasn’t been addressed for wider debate & can only assume both merchants, affiliates & other networks have been oblivious to it.