Search Affiliate vs. My Company Paid search!

Status
Not open for further replies.
joescar

joescar

New member
Dec 28, 2007
28
0
0
:rasta:How goes it? So I work for a merchant who is primarily online. We have search affiliates that sometimes outbid us on our own name, so they have our display name but u know it is just a redirect from their company to ours. I am wondering if this is a good thing, a bad thing? To what extent should i let this be going on? This company brings in orders, but i was told not to let this happen from my boss. When does it turn into a negative and why is it not good for this to take place?:bowdown:
 


Well, the affiliate is bidding on your trademarked terms, yes? This means that you are losing sales that you would have had from people actively seeking you out as opposed to the affiliate bringing in new sales (the whole point of the process, isn't it?).

I would put a stop to it ASAP and put provisions in your TOS that they can not bid on your company name, have your company name in the URL, etc.
 
in some cases, it may be better to have them on the page than to not have them on the page. If competitors begin taking slots on terms that you have banned affiliates from, you will miss out on potential sales. If there is no one else on the trademarked terms other than you and your affiliate, you may want to get rid of them.
 
I appreciate the responses...my problem is, i dont want to cut any ties with some search people and then come to find out later that im screwed out of like 30k a month in sales...I have 2 brands...one is not so good...so it would make sense to allow it for the smaller brand right?
 
The bottom line is you WILL be screwed out of sales in the long run.
The companys brand name is the strongest "ready to buy" keyword you can get. Which is why you get hundreds of affiliates going out tooth and nail to try and bid on those kwyrods. The buyer searching on that term is either a repeat customer or they have been reccomended by someone else to your site as an authority on whatever it is you sell, which means you are losing out on all this because you are allowing affiliates to bid on your company name. They then get a cut on what ever it is your selling and you make less profit.
My advice to you is send out a change of TOS email and forbid any of them from using yoru comany name. If your products and store are good enough then you'll have a load of affiliates who are ready to send traffic your way without needing to bid on any of your company terms.
 
your basically paying a percentage of a sale for a click you could have paid pennies for if you weren't paying out on clicks for trademarked terms.
 
Bottom line is if you told me don't bid on your brand I'd bid on it and send the traffic to a competitor that would pay me for it and didn't have your lame restrictions. I'd suggest letting them bid on your brand name and just out bidding them as you can easily being as you're the advertiser and making much more then they are on a ROI.

Nothing worse then an advertiser that ties your hands. I had a payday company that did that so I just ran the same ad and sent it some where else. Then they lost the traffic and the sales. They sent me 10 different C&D's through different adwords account and then finally gave up. I still own 1-3 on their brand name. Don't mess with the bull or you'll get the horns. You're an advertisers use affiliates to your advantage and don't be so damn greedy to make every penny you can let the affiliates have some.
 
Before you go fucking with your affiliates. Monitor which ones are making you bank. See which ads are drawing you the most clicks and then incorporate those concepts into your SEO efforts.

All the whole new TOS and loss sales is bullshit if you have no idea on how to run web campaigns. The same people you piss off will drive traffic to a competitor if possible.

Think long term. Before you do anything put a plan in place. This means improving inhouse web marketing and better SEO first.
 
i am in a similar situation from the affiliate side. I just had to sign a contract that states I can't bid above them for certain terms, and each time they catch me its a violation... so you can set something up like that
 
smaxor said:
Bottom line is if you told me don't bid on your brand I'd bid on it and send the traffic to a competitor that would pay me for it and didn't have your lame restrictions. I'd suggest letting them bid on your brand name and just out bidding them as you can easily being as you're the advertiser and making much more then they are on a ROI.

You're an advertisers use affiliates to your advantage and don't be so damn greedy to make every penny you can let the affiliates have some.
Click to expand...

Its not that i am being greedy...in some cases, i would be giving away 33% per sale...Being a 4 month old at the company, i dont really think that is feasable as far as making positive change for the company! I appreciate your words of wisdom though!
 
Joescar - Do you have a aim/icq/email/phone any of those? Could you PM me it?

I may be interested in sending you guys sales
 
There is 2 solutions that I see here.

1. Allow your affiliates to bid on your trademark and not do any advertising yourself -- i.e. let them do all the work.

2. Don't allow your affiliates to compete and raise your bid terms with your trademark. terms
 
Seema said:
The bottom line is you WILL be screwed out of sales in the long run.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. If it's a competitive industry then many times you will have competitors bidding on your product name in the sponsered search listings already so at the end of the day it's still better to have your affiliates dominating the advertising area on the serps than having your competitors do it.
 
WildGunner said:
All the whole new TOS and loss sales is bullshit if you have no idea on how to run web campaigns. The same people you piss off will drive traffic to a competitor if possible.
Click to expand...

This is VERY true. In fact the first thing I do when an advertiser causes problems because I am bidding on certain keywords is usually to quit working with that advertiser/offer and start looking for a competitor with an affiliate program so I can send my traffic to them using the SAME keywords which definitely ends up hurting the advertiser in the long run...
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom