02/14/08
My views on brand name bidding and de-duping from merchants – part 1 of 2
Ever since I can remember there have been some strong views in the affiliate marketing world about brand name bidding and the latest hot topic in the industry is merchants de-duping their sales and reversing potential commissions to affiliates.
As someone that runs an affiliate network and someone that has in the past run a few affiliate sites I’ve been meaning to jot down some works about both for a while now and have finally found a few minutes to do so.
So let’s start with brand name bidding€¦
My view is quite clear – as a merchant there are very few reasons to allow brand name bidding – the only ones I can think of are:
a) You have a brand that is not possible to get trademarked
b) You’ve been waiting for ages to google to protect your trademarked brand
c) You don’t rank in position #1 in the organic search results
I’d welcome suggestions for other reasons but if your network is suggesting you allow it there is one clear reason why; they will make money from it.
I’ll highlight two things I have seen that show why on earth this is so mucked up.
A client being bullied by his affiliates
We were talking to a client based in American who sells online software. This client allows affiliates to bid on their very well known brand name and we suggested that they do this themselves and stop affiliates from doing so.
I was shocked when the client said they had spoken to their existing network and some of the affiliates and were told that if the policy changed, a number of the affiliates would stop promoting them and they would loose sales; essentially he explained that he felt he was being held to ransom by his affiliates but because they needed the sales they would allow this to happen.
What kind of world are we in when a client is saying he is being held to ransom by his affiliates!!
A network back hander
I’ve made it quite clear on previous occasions that when I have done affiliate work (especially the limited PPC I have done) I do not work with any programs that I manage; I feel this is an ethical decision that I have stuck to for years.
While we’re talking of ethics, imagine my surprise when a very large network that we were working with suggested to me that if we allowed a small closed group of brand name biddings, they would suggest that I myself was on that group.
Obviously I turned this offer down but imagine that this is not the first case of it happening.
So who should bid on the brand?
There are two very simple things you should do here/allow here:
1) Either set up your own campaign on Google, Yahoo and MSN for brand terms and bid on them yourself – you won’t need a large budget for this
2) If you work with an agency (on a % of media spend rather than % of sale basis) then get them to setup the campaign to do this, it will work out a lot cheaper.
I’d welcome further comments and suggestions from affiliates, merchants, agencies or networks about other reasons to allow this but still find it strange that there are so many closed groups for brands that really don’t need to waste money in this way.
Make sure that you come back to the blog soon for part 2 of my rant about merchant de-duping of sales!
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Fully with you on this one James!
I get the feeling that there are too many affiliates that think they ARE affiliate marketing and they make the rules. They bully merchants in allowing T&C’s that just make no sense – brand bidding is often one of them.
I think many affiliates need to know that they don’t have the sole ability to deliver merchants huge quantities of sales. Often, with the right coaching, merchants can replicate most of what affiliates are doing.
Keep up the good work!
Lee
the never ending drama !
as long as they make sales for, why should u care what they bid on ? it’s better to let your competitors bid on your brand name, and not your affiliates, i guess…
the stupidity of this kind of discussion never ceases to amaze me !
Hi Razvan,
Thanks for taking the time to read the post.
It’s worth noting that I did state that one of the reasons where brand name bidding *should* be allowed is where competitors are bidding on the brand as it’s not trademarked, so your comparison really isn’t warranted for this post.
If you’re asking why I should care I can be quite honest – I’ve been working in the industry a long time and care about how it developers and unfortunately brand name bidders (and de-duping which i’ll post about tomorrow) are killing of content sites, with their commissions being stolen.
The reason it is a never ending drama is because it’s a key issue that still needs to be resolved; I’m not suggesting any forms of corruption just offering advice to merchants who may have been sold a false story by their network on the real benefits.
Regards
James
“the stupidity of this kind of discussion never ceases to amaze me”
I’m shocked and amazed that you’ve mustered the intelligence to depress your digits in the right order to string some words together. The sad fact is that if you can’t understand what James is saying and reply with such as stupid comment then you are a prime example of the naiveness of those that support affiliate brand bidding.
Razvan take a look at this post of mine and try again:
http://www.leemccoy.co.uk/2007/10/brand-bidding-agencies-networks.html
@Lee
“I’m shocked and amazed that you’ve mustered the intelligence to depress your digits in the right order to string some words together.”
how many languages can you string words together in Lee ? i can do that in about 5. wanna have a contest ?
enjoy your self indulged existence !
@James
thanks for the words. i am just sick and tired of affiliates being the scape goat for everything. while the networks are quick to punish an affiliate for brand bidding or whatever, i saw no effort when a merchant owes me $6,000 since February 2007. i wish the networks would struggle just as hard for affiliate rights as well.
[...] Ads (www.altogetherads.com), as you would expect considering Jame’s posts on the subject: here Ken __________________ MSN: k0106765 [at] yahoo.co.uk MOB: +44(0)7809572028 Email: Ken.Cheung [...]
[...] I’’ve heard you’re quite vocal and passionate about brand name bidding, what are your thoughts on this issue and what do you think can be done about it? Some merchants and networks will continue to allow it but hopefully those of us who are being quite vocal about the damages that brand name bidding is doing will be heard and things will start to change – it’s the big brands that are being wrongly convinced it is a good thing to do and a few of them are changing their policies which can only be a good thing. If you need to know more about the issues then check our my blog post. [...]