Moose on the Loose

Today we are pleased to announce the Books Direct Prize Pool Incentive.

A few months ago Books Direct approached my close friend Fraser Edwards & I to ask if we would consider running their brand based paid search activity through Affiliate Window. Which was previously ran by another outsourced agency & the program was on another network. The program is now solely on Affiliate Window.

Not being a fan of straight brand bidding groups & the little value it would add to the program, we pitched a concept to Sarah at Books Direct ….. See Here ….. Books Direct being a forward thinking merchant were receptive to the idea and so the incentive was formulated to generously reward affiliates for the incremental sales they drive to Books Direct.

A new affiliate account was set up solely for the purpose on the brand campaign on a no profit basis where all commissions (at the normal rate) earned are placed into the prize pool as well as the override the network Affiliate Window receives. Deducted from this are the paid search advertising costs. Books Direct, Affiliate Window & us all have access to the various paid search accounts for any costs & keywords used so that transparency is maintained throughout.

The main prize draw is at the end of the year and is confidently expected to be in excess of £10000. The activity for June collected a pool of £1,236.97, activity for July collected a pool of £2,627.38 … a total so far of £3,864.35. So we have August to December inclusive to be added to this.

Get Your Golden Ticket

In Charlie & The Chocolate Factory fashion, there are lucky winners each month who can claim their Golden Ticket for the bumper prize.

Each month, all affiliates who have made a sale, or no sales but have generated at least 100 clicks on the Books Direct programme will be entered into a prize draw. Each sale will count as one prize draw entry, so the more sales you make, the more chances you have to win. If you have made more than 100 clicks, but no sales, you will receive “one” prize draw entry.

Each month, 5 winners will be selected who will each receive a prize of £50, as well as a “Golden Ticket” to enter the main draw, to win the remaining prize pool, which will be divided between 2 winners. The exact date will be announced later in the year but will be end of 2008/early January 2009.

Each month the prize draw starts afresh! You can enter every month and increase your chances of winning the big prize.

Omitted From The Prize Draw

Fraser & I already do quite a lot of generic activity for Books Direct from our own individual & joint accounts. In July we earned about £2,624.00 commission & in June we earned about £2,048.00 commission. However though in theory we could qualify for the incentive, we have taken the decision to omit ourselves from any prize draws leaving it open for other affiliates to grab a Golden Ticket.

Fuller Details

For more detailed information please read the following threads & blogs

Books Direct Brand Bidding – Prize Pool
Books Direct Blog
Books Direct: Prize pool offers monthly £50 bonus and a grand pool of circa £12,000
An Alternative To Brand Bidding Groups
Plunge Into The PPC Prize Pool & Grab a Golden Ticket

Thanks Books Direct & Affiliate Window

Fraser & I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Books Direct for their generousity with the incentive & Affiliate Window for their efforts in the joint coordination & adding their override to the prize pool too. The setting up has been quite seamless & straight forward. Hopefully affiliates eyes will be lit up, be encouraged, start promoting further & add incremental sales to a decent program.

As you are aware Brand Bidding Groups (BBGs) have generally been for the familiar privileged few & favoured affiliates within some networks with the result of maximum reward with minimum effort with content affiliates suffering the stealth tax of cookie over-writing. There are a affiliates who are millionaires by doing something a monkey could do & offer little or nothing to the affiliate marketing space apart from being suited n booted & pretending to have a corporate persona as wide boys talking industry jibberish.

The solution I propose opens this all up to protect content affiliates & share the wealth where no network has suitable reason to withhold integration of the concept, unless there is possibly something to hide.

Here is the process of how it would be set up, now you must read through the WHOLE of this to understand this is quite simple & the real potential for all affiliates & the merchant.

1) An affiliate agrees to volunteer themselves!!! They look after the brand bidding group on a non-profit basis on direct to merchant paid search activity on brand terms, hybrids & obvious variations & mis-spelling. Obviously they would liaise with the merchant regarding the content of ad copy if it is necessary, though often this is best left to experienced affiliates to manage the campaign responsibly & professionally. You’ll also find volunteer affiliates will be more expansive in their use of keywords & not just exact match of brand [BRAND]

2) A separate Google, MSN Adcenter or Yahoo (YSM) account would be set up for each merchant so that the network, merchant and affiliate(s) involved have access to as well for keywords used & advertising spend. The reason for this will be more apparent a little later, so start licking your lips now.

2) What is paramount is transparency!!! The name of the affiliate(s) and the keyword database are available. Other affiliates not directly involved with the non-profit brand bidding group can also put forward suggestions of keywords to add to the mix & possibly integrated.

3) There will be no overwriting of content affiliate cookies at all!!! Content affiliates also include those who do paid search on product or generic keywords in paid search whether this is direct to merchant (i.e. permitted to use the display URL of the merchant in advertising or bringing traffic into their own site). This would require a separate network account being set up (an easy enough process), the main bit of work would require liaison between the network & some integration of code on the merchants behalf. Now at the moment we see Affiliate Window have done the honourable thing with Woolworth’ s. I don’t wish to knock it and it’s good progress, but the disadvantage of the Woolworths approach though is that it rely’s on cross referencing with a white list of keywords. The beauty of this scheme I am suggesting is that this separate link NEVER overwrites other affiliate links, but it can be overwritten in the normal manner of last referrer currently adopted. This content affiliates cookie always wins.

4) Obviously this non-profit affiliate can promote the merchant in the familiar manner as a content affiliate, on generic & product related terms in the normal way by using their affiliate links from their day to day account.

5) Now, the above is a great start within itself, but with paid search engines you can only use a certain display URL once (i.e single display URL policy). This is where some work is required on behalf of the network to earn their over-ride. Quite simply separate domains (either owned by the network or merchant) are set up for creation of landing pages or templates probably (preferably varying in design). The network would create these template / landing pages in liaison with the merchant for the brand bidding purposes, but if flexible enough these can also be utilised by normal content affiliates to integrate into their sites, thus offering multiple usage of the templates / full page sized content units.

The purpose of this is to provide more coverage in advertising listings with an increase in advertising slots incase competitors are bidding on the merchants brand & hopefully increase the transition of traffic actually going to the merchant. This needs to be only fully adopted if competitors are appearing in the space for keywords relating to the merchants brand. It’s a safeguard to counter competitor advertising or could be used in unison with the merchants own inhouse brand activity if they have one.

Now, the Non-Profit BBG can use one of their own URL’s to display the template (when bidding on brand going direct to a landing page), but there would need to absolutely zero leakage to other parts of their web site or web sites they own to make it fair i.e. to ensure other parts of their web site don’t benefit from bidding on brand. For their normal (non BBG) link then they fall into the same offerings as other affiliates.

It is important networks do work for their over-ride rather than sitting on their laurels ensuring these templates whether created by merchant or network are updated at reasonable intervals.

Now for the Deal Clincher

6) You are maybe asking what happens to the commission earned from this brand bidding. Well, we share the wealth of course, it all goes into a massive Prize Pot to share amongst other content affiliates who promote the merchant. The cost of the paid search activity (remember from a separate Google, MSN, Yahoo account) is deducted from the total commission earned via the brand bidding. These figures are released to the affiliate community for transparency.

7) The way the Jackpot Pool can be shared out is as follows. The Jackpot can be divided into 5, 10 or even 20 equal amounts. For the content affiliates promoting the merchant, 1 sale = 1 ticket where an affiliate can win no more than one prize for that specific merchant. Prize funds could anything for £20,000 to £100,000 or even more (don’t forget Millions have been made by these brand bidding groups, agencies & networks), which is a lucrative cash bonus for any content affiliate. Alernatively half the prize pool could be divided proportionally amongst their top 10 affiliates & the remainder going into the lucky dip. The frequency of these draws could be quarterly for lesser amounts of annually for a huge bonus.
Whereby:

• Content affiliates will more likely be incentivised to promote the merchant. Of which some could be used to launch their own bigger or greater projects, plus of course reaping the rewards of their own hard work.

• The merchant has a greater potential to receive an increase in incremental sales because of the generous Jackpot / Prize Pool available.

• The network still receives their over-ride, with any increases in incremental sales, plus they would be held with higher esteem with affiliates for their transparency & dedication to sharing the wealth amongst content affiliates.

• The wealth is shared amongst more worthy content affiliates across the industry rather than the familiar pre-chosen select few that some networks embrace.

Disadvantages

a) Some networks may jump on the bandwagon – Using the spin of strategic groups by maybe only offering a token program here or there trying to fool un-savvy affiliates or those that see things through Rose Tinted GlASSes. A network must be committed to this fairer solution of handling BBGs.

b) Finding volunteer affiliates – This wouldn’t be too difficult as I know, including myself, there are content affiliates who would embrace this. Setting up brand bidding campaigns on the different paid search engines only takes a small amount of time & requires little managing, except for occasionally updating ad copy & ensuring ROI is obviously profitable.

c) Who will fund the PPC activity? Well this should be the network of course. Why would they object? They have to do something for their money, it’s a no brainer really, since they would still receive an over-ride whereby PPC costs are recouped anyhow, rather than the volunteer affiliate awaiting for their expense. Any network objecting to this would need their scruples testing, when this should be weighed up against the increase in incremental sales & esteem they could gain & hold amongst affiliate peers which would transcend to other programs on their network. Just think about it for a moment!

You may ask, then why doesn’t the network simply do the whole branding themselves. Well who says some don’t do this already through mates or their selected cartel of affiliates with kickbacks. At least with what I propose it’s transparent & again the wealth is shared.

This solution in my book will clearly demonstrate which networks, merchants & agencies truly have any sincerity to what is a very workable solution. What traction this idea developes into, I cannot predict, but the opportunity is there to do the right thing for content affiliates & the industry as a whole, with the ball firmly served into their court.

There you go my fellow peers. The proposed solution to brand bidding groups & sharing the wealth amongst the true content affiliates.

Any additional advantages you feel this offers please offer a comment, so that we can get this solution rolling. And any volunteers please feel welcome to put your name forward. Any merchants interested in trialling this concept can email me “moose [at] mooseontheloose.co.uk” or PM me through the forum where my handle / username is “Qui Gon Jinn“

Let me commence with a definition of Praetorians, these people were venal & corruptible. Venal means these are people capable of betraying honour, duty, or scruples for a price. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr summarised this quite nicely as “A large praetorian bureaucracy, filled with ambitious, possessive . . . and often sycophantic people, makes work and makes trouble”, ruthlessly seeking personal advantage. Historically the Praetorians were eventually defeated by the citizens & Constantine who united the empire at the cost of much toil and bloodshed. In my opinion these Praetorians are the affiliates, merchants, networks & agencies associated with brand bidding groups who plunder at the expense of the citizens (decent & ethical content affiliates)

Today, May 5th, as you are probably aware marks the introduction of the Google AdWords Trademark Policy Revision, Google will no longer prevent you or anyone else using AdWords to place adverts on Google for trademarked terms of other companies or competitors nor will they prevent previously unauthorised ads from showing.

Initially I doubt there will be any almighty surge & it will probably commence with a whimper, but it will gradually gather pace into a crescendo. So don’t panic Mr Mannering just quite yet, just monitor you brand & have contingency plans in place if the situation arises.

It’s probably worthwhile reading my previous blog and those from other respected affiliates to give you a little background on this latest Google policy change Click Here For Details.

Personally, I sit on both sides of the fence on this topic depending on the circumstances. Bidding on competitor brands isn’t particularly good practise & shouldn’t be encouraged though for the competitor this can be extremely beneficial in increasing the profile of their smaller unrecognised brand by riding on the back of a larger brand (not necessarily better reputation).

No doubt gentlemen’s agreements will increasingly unfold, mainly between larger brands, where parties agree not to become embroiled by bidding on each others trademarks. The problem is misspellings, variations & hybrids are not realistically covered and sometimes encroach other marks in the process.

If a merchant has any fairly generic words in their brand name, there isn’t a whole lot they can do on broadmatching issues & any networks trying to enforce affiliates putting in negative phrases can take a run & jump from a very tall building.

Put the boot on the other foot, would merchants put 30,000 affiliate brands as -[negative] keywords into all their campaigns … Of course they wouldn’t. And with paid search affiliates having dozens or hundreds or thousands of adgroups it’s impossible & impractical.

So any network or merchant telling you to put in negatives can be prodded with the poopy end of a highly electrical charged cattle stick on the genitals & requested to shove off, wiping their feet on the way out.

The Exception to The Rule

If you followed the link above Click Here If you didn’t, then those Praetorians involved with BBGs I consider as legitimate targets, these parties involved have never considered the rest of us affiliates with cookie overwriting by selling out & “Getting Rich Quick by Selling br$and to the Arabs for £75m” or getting on some broadsheets rich list plus the other familiar BBG’ers. There are primarily four networks.

Therefore I will openly applaud any advertisers, affiliates or competitors, to target these parties. Will I personally involved with this? I haven’t yet decided, but I wouldn’t be foolish enough to have anything traceable back to myself, but will possibly / potentially quite happily furnish the foot soldiers the keywords required. It’s about time we rightfully clawed back some of what has been taken.

There is a small army of citizens (content affiliates) who have simply had enough. Those Praetorians in their Ivory Towers can quite happily have their discussions about myself & a few other affiliates. The Gauntlet has been picked up it’s been “enough is enough” for sometime now.

I haven’t forgotten the quote from a newly appointed UK network representative in Las Vegas last year who expressed they as a network wouldn’t change their ways & that this person was there to build up #29 & other BBG businesses.

Therefore if you are a merchant who currently has a BBG in place then I suggest you rethink & rapidly adopt alternative options like the one proposed here. “Sharing the Wealth – The Solution to Brand Bidding Groups”

Please note if a merchant doesn’t have a BBG then please don’t target them.

In the immortal words of Citizen ‘Wolfie’ Smith … “Power to the People” & a thumbs down to the The Praetorians. (relevant wrt to Roman times when the original Praetorians existed & the thumbs down given by the emporer in arena battles)

Rules of Engagement

Parties involved with BBGs manipulated the unwritten rules of engagement & worked the system via sheer greed with zero concern for anyone else, the seeds of this incentious period are quite obvious when you examine events chronologically, patterns, career paths, social circles with information volunteered quite freely when alcohol induced & a Penfold (the mole from Danger Mouse). The rules of engagement will change & for the better.

Ask Yourself

Are you a Praetorian, A Citizen or an Apathetic Buffoon?

Opting Out Required

Due to some networks reluctance to disclose which merchants have BBGs, I propose an Opt Out form or application where the merchant has to publicly say they don’t operate a BBG, thereby reducing the chances they will be subject to competitor bidding. As having to opt out seems to be the fashion, this maybe a prudent course of action to get transparency once & for all.

Exciting Product Launch

Hopefully, very soon, maybe this week even I’ll be able to blog about an exciting product launch pertaining to competitor & affiliate brand bidding, which may upset a few apple carts of those in their Ivory Towers & is highly recommended for merchants to use.

Happy Birthday Grandad

Finally I would like to say Happy Birthday to my grandad, who passed away a few years. He is fondly remembered & his words of wisdom I still follow.

I don’t know if you have noticed, but Wikipedia is not listed in Google UK, nor does it have any pages listed, which seems a bit asinine.

Click Here to Search Google UK for Wikipedia

Fortunately?! for Wikipedia they are listed in on Google (The Web), but then it is subject to Google’s embedded site search … Google Embedded Site Search – Brand Abuse ?

Hot News From Google HQ

Here is  some hot news from Google HQ which other affiliate buddies have already blogged, just make sure you are sitting down when you read it. All I can say is that one of my recent blogs will become even more applicable … To Not Appear or Not To Bid … That is the Question. Have a peruse of the following.

Google Trademark Shake Up – Apocalypse Ahoy ! by Shane

Google UK Gives Trademark Triggers The Bullet by Jason

AFK for a while?

My basecamp shall be relocating for a couple of weeks for fairer climates with a few affiliate colleagues whilst we drench ourselves in Ambre Solaire … sizzling like sweaty sausages in the sun.

Out of Hours Bidders

As you maybe aware, when I “work” I tend to burn the midnight oil & continue until the sun has well and truly risen in the east, during this time I do notice a significant number of out of hours brand bidders, which day in day out seemingly go unchallenged, which leads me nicely to my next piece of exciting news (well for me anyhow).

The Grim Reaper Unleashed … Soon

To curb these out of hours bidders The Grim Reaper is soon to be unleashed into the public domain for more suitably commercial purposes, for those several networks which have been turning a blind eye to pocket the over-ride or not covertly monitoring the PPC environment satisfactorily, it will probably turn out to be their Nemesis, simply because it won’t be taking any prisoners.

Just a little thought for you, expanding on a recent blog entry, is for paid search affiliates to be a little wary of a possible trend in the keyword policy for merchants, whereby merchants will start restricting you from not only bidding but also APPEARING / SHOWING. Putting you at the mercy of Google’s expanded match or possible full introduction of automatic broadmatch or any other paid search engine’s broadmatching algorithmn.

First of all let’s cover some real basics, and I mean basics.

Currently most merchants with restricted keyword policies say don’t bid on their brand, which is fair enough, though they should ensure they actually register the official marks they own with the respective paid search providers.

The misspellings & variations has a different discussion of its own pertaining to it’s merits, though these keyword policies too are respected. However, does a merchant really know what they ALL are? The answer is NO, so in essence the standardised “no misspellings & variations” policies you see illustrates that either network or merchant or both isn’t thinking outside the box. For example is that merchant appearing in number one spot organically for those? Many merchants foolishly think that because they might appear number one or high up in organic search, even on their brand, they get a 100% CTR, when by rule of thumb it is probably a fraction of this. Even if you think reasonably, say 60%, that is still 40% leakage! Which can be offset still further (not completely) with a paid search advertisement in place, assuming they know ALL the variations & misspellings?

What merchants / networks fail to realise is that paid search & seo are not so different entities, if you ask this simple question.

“Do you agree that it’s unreasonable to expect a merchant to pay commissions on sales generated on their brand name by affiliates appearing in organic results?” … My answer is that I think it is unreasonable. Each has an element of cost & can be influenced to a certain degree but not ultimately controlled because of paid search & search engine algorithms. How do you know you haven’t had sales deduped becuase the last clickcame via a merchants own organic listings?

So many merchants / networks show there naivety on this alone!

A similar understanding can be thrown in the mix with hybrid phrases (brand +generic), there is then a likelihood of an increased number of sponsored ads bidding on the generic element, with merchants holding the brand part, still mistakenly thinking they get a maximum CTR rate from organic search, though if they are marrying this with paid search too (assuming they know ALL the hybrids, this is more measurable metric)

This related article will assist in the discussion to.

Say No ! to Restricting Affiliates Using Generic Terms in Paid Search Advertising

Now for the point of the blog …

To Not Appear or Not To Bid … That is the Question

Being asked (not dictated to like a scolded child) not to bid on brand, is fair enough, if an affiliate is using generic & product terms, a network / merchant / agency forcing negatives to cover expanded broadmatch issues & the possibly impending automatic match is over stepping the boundaries. Issues with Google’s algorithm for example are between the network / merchant / agency and Google et al … not the affiliate.

Ethical affiliates will respect not bidding on the brand & even misspellings / variations, but poppycock to negatives. Paid search affiliates will have thousands of adgroups & a number of accounts. To negative match every adgroup, account. merchant or site they promote is not only impractical, impossible but also unreasonable.

Put the boot on the other foot, If affiliates turned around to a merchant and demanded that the merchant put in a negative keywords for EVERY affiliate … i.e. 20,000 affiliates … which is an equal & reciprocated demand, do you think for one nanosecond that the merchant or network would agree or comply with this? No, they wouldn’t … so back off!

Now for the foreseeable trend, which affiliates should be wary off. Merchants & networks are going to try & circumnavigate this Google or paid search broadmatching problem by sneakily introducing a clause instead of saying you CANNOT BID on a phrase, YOU CANNOT APPEAR or SHOW FOR A PHRASE.

Take this as a warning, a few parties are really going to try this on by forcing negatives on paiod search affiliates.

Thus, yet again I refer to the aforementioned reasons, the onus is on the network / merchant / agency to register their actual marks with the paid search providers and apply pressure on them to stop aggravating affiliates. Any network that permits this to continue can expect an exodus of paid search affiliate (whatever the degree) unless they STOP putting the onus on & dictating to affiliates, because affiliates will bite back twice as hard or worse still simply abandon you.

So remember, forcing negative keywords is no jurisdiction of the network or merchant or agency. If you do, then you’ll need to re-examine the Pyramid of Perception.

Click Here for the Pyramid of Perception

Stop thinking SEO & Paid Search are different entities, preventing a merchant from appearing in organic search to a certain degree is just as easy or hard. So why aren’t SEO affiliates having the same restrictions imposed on them, ranking reasonably on Paid Search or Organic Results has their own elements of individual skill.

Why not turn to a SEO affiliate and say no more meta tags or name=”robots” content=”index,follow” or forcing javascript or images to be used for wherever the merchants name, variation or misspelling is mentioned.

Totally unreasonable isn’t it! Then in the same manner so is forcing negative keywords on paid search affiliates! When it seems there is lack in equality of who is receiving all the slaps by the happy-slappers, when perhaps neither paid search or seo affiliates should be be getting slapped at all.

Part of the problem is the training & perception of many network employees & merchants was incorrect from the start, so much so that it becomes ingrained as a bad habit, which needs to be reprogrammed, as bad advice is being given out.

But please heed this warning, as these are & will be further introduced without you fully realising and only then will it be from a network taking the side of a merchant, which is a familiar story with several networks. If it does, dump that merchant & if persistent the network too.

After reading Fraser’s latest blog entry Closed Group Brand Name Bidding.

A few minutes ago, I stumbled across this article “In the Matrix, which pill would you take, the red or the blue?”

For which I will publish below, certain extracts I will draw attention to & no doubt you can pull your own which is you deem is relevant pertaining to BBG’s (brand bidding groups.) If we treat this like a modern day parable then perhaps the philosophical message may come across in the way it was intended. It might seem a little cheesy, but the original author wrote a good article which could chessily be applied as follows.

“People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system.” !!!

“The question of which pill to take illustrates the personal aspect of the decision to study philosophy. Do you live on in ignorance (and potentially bliss) or do you lead what Aristotle called ‘the examined life’…”

Apathy & seeing aspects of affiliate marketing through Rose Tinted Gl-ASS-es comes to mind.

“The Matrix is a film filled with religious and philosophical symbolism. The plot supposes that humans live in vats many years in the future, being fed false sensory information by a giant virtual reality computer (the Matrix). “

“The perpetrators of this horror are machines of the future who use humans as a source of power. Humans are literally farmed.”

If we treat this like a modern day parable based on a film. The Matrix consist of a few questionable networks, affiliates & agencies, tightly controlling the BBG Arena, plus a few home grown tail wagging dogs or frankensteins.

“The central character of the film, Neo, is presented to us in the opening part of the film as a loner who is searching for a mysterious character called Morpheus (named after the Greek god of dreams and sleep). He is also trying to discover the answer to the question “What is the Matrix?””

Neo being any of those decent affiliates questioning the system.

“Morpheus contacts Neo just as the machines (posing as sinister ‘agents’)” … these agents can be the spin doctors rephrasing BBG’s as strategic search marketing groups akin to those who called spyware, adware instead & suffocating what’s going on via false niceties … “are trying to keep Neo from finding out any more. When Morpheus and Neo meet, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question “what is the Matrix?” (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo “Remember, all I’m offering is the truth. Nothing more.”

“The film as a whole and especially the choosing scene is deeply compelling. Why is the choice between what you believe you know and an unknown ‘real’ truth so fascinating? How could a choice possibly be made? On the one hand everyone you love and everything that you have built you life upon. One the other the promise only of truth.”

“The question then is not about pills, but what they stand for in these circumstances. The question is asking us whether reality, truth, is worth pursuing. The blue pill will leave us as we are, in a life consisting of habit, of things we believe we know. We are comfortable, we do not need truth to live. The blue pill symbolises commuting to work every day, or brushing your teeth.” or simply accepting without due thought that you are lining the pockets of these BBG’s & associated networks / agencies at your own expense via the power of cookie overwriting.

“The red pill is an unknown quantity. We are told that it can help us to find the truth. We don’t know what that truth is, or even that the pill will help us to find it. The red pill symbolises risk, doubt and questioning. In order to answer the question, you can gamble your whole life and world on a reality you have never experienced.”

As we know the red pill leads to unearthing the real truth.

“However, in order to investigate which course of action to take we need to investigate why the choice is faced. Why should we even have to decide whether to pursue truth?”

“The answer in short, is inquisitiveness. Many people throughout human existence have questioned and enquired. Most of them have not been scientists or doctors or philosophers, but simply ordinary people asking ‘what if?’ or ‘why?’ Asking these questions ultimately leads us to a choice. Do you continue to ask and investigate, or do you stop and never ask again? This in essence, is the question posed to Neo in the film.”

By being inquistitive the core business structure & survivability of a few networks & so called super-affiliates are based on BBG’s at the expense of development of the right tools for main core of affiliates in the marketplace as well as their own income.

“So what are the advantages of taking the blue pill? As one of the characters in the film says, “ignorance is bliss” Essentially, if the truth is unknown, or you believe that you know the truth, what is there to question or worry about?”

Hence, why so many affiliates don’t see the bigger picture.

“By accepting what we are told and experience life can be easier. There is the social pressure to ‘fit in’, which is immensely strong in most cultures. Questioning the status quo carries the danger of ostracism, possibly persecution. This aspect has a strong link with politics. People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system. Morpheus says to Neo “You have to understand that many people are not ready to be unplugged, and many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system that they will fight to protect it.””

Note: People doing well under the current system are not inclined to look favourably on those who question the system.

“The system also has a place for you, an expected path to follow. This removes much of the doubt and discomfort experienced by a trailblazer.”

Perhaps you were a sheep in a previous life.

“Another argument on the side of the blue pill is how does anyone know that the status quo is not in fact the truth? The act of simply questioning does not infer a lack of validity on the questioned. Why not assume that your experience is innocent until proven guilty? Just accept everything?”

Do you have the tenacity, courage & conviction to question the unhealthy aspects within affiliate marketing so that it can change for the better?

“So if the arguments for the blue pill are so numerous, why take the red pill? Why pursue truth even though it may be unpalatable and the journey to it hard? In the film, Neo risks death to escape the virtual reality and discovers a brutal reality from which he cannot return. As he discovers the trouble with asking questions is that the answers are not necessarily what you want to hear.”

Some affiliates simply cannot accept what is going on or are in denial and as for those guilty parties they are convinced by their own untruths they continually spew out.

“To justify taking the red pill we might ask what is the purpose of an ignorant existence? Further still, what is there in merely existing? Simply existing brings humans down to the level of objects; they might have utility or even purpose, but where is the meaning? Existence without meaning is surely not living your life, but just experiencing it. As Trinity says to Neo, “The Matrix cannot tell you who you are.”

Those who question what’s going on often do for selfless reasons.

“Given the potential disadvantages of choosing the red pill, the motivation for discovering the truth must then be very strong. The film makes much of this point. Trinity says to Neo “It’s the question that drives us, Neo.” and Morpheus compares the motivation for Neo’s search to “a splinter in your mind – driving you mad.” The motivation for answering the question is obviously strong as the answer will help us to find the meaning in our lives.”

“What we are looking at here is the drive to answer a question, but the key to this is what drove the question in the first place. The asking of questions about our environment our experience and ourselves is fundamental to the human condition. Children ask a seemingly never-ending stream of questions from an early age. It is only with education and socialisation that some people stop asking these questions. However, we remain, as it were, hard-wired to enquire.”

Change should only be embraced if the values we truly uphold are maintained. Be mindful of the consequences of the change for the unity and integrity of affiliate marketing as your conscience is your own judge” – By The Moose on the Loose 2008

“This is an inevitable consequence of consciousness. A being with a mind, conscious of itself and its existence, experiencing a reality, needs to organise the data that it receives from its senses. Simply observing and recording does not allow for consciousness. It is what we do with that information that allows us to think. In order to process and store the vast amount of information received, the human brain attempts to identify patterns in the data; looking for the patterns behind what is experienced. This is asking questions of the sensory information, and requires reasoning. By definition a conscious mind seeks to know. Knowing something requires more than just data, but intelligence or reasoning applied to that data. To attempt to obtain knowledge we must therefore question the data our mind receives; thus, consciousness questions.”

“So the metaphor of the journey to truth that Neo takes is complete. The journey starts with a question, there is a search for the answer and the answer may be reached. This shows us that the journey does not start with Neo choosing between the pills, or with ourselves deciding whether to question. The act of asking the question is itself the starting point as the aim of asking the question is to seek truth and knowledge.”

“We have established that consciousness is aware and seeks knowledge and that thus the conscious mind must question. To question is to seek the truth and start on the journey to knowledge. Therefore the choice between the pills is surely made for us. The fact that we are conscious appears to require us to take the red pill.”

It’s a shame so many are inert.

“However, this can be simply countered by someone who would prefer to take the blue pill. They may wish to seek the truth in a different way, or in a less mind jarring set of circumstances. They can choose the blue pill and not deny their consciousness, but to stop seeking the truth entirely would be to deny their consciousness.”

“Thus we are philosophically driven to seek the truth and the act of questioning whether to seek it is in itself seeking the truth. As conscious minds we will always seek the truth. However, the choice over the red or blue pills is not solely a choice between whether to question or not, it is a personal choice on the method of discovering the truth.”

Finally, which really defines you as an affiliate to move this industry forward & stamp out what is wrong within the industry, do you take the red pill or the blue pill … your true conscience is your own true judge.

Also read

The Power of the Brand Bidder Cookie by Matthew Wood

Brand Activity, The Need For Separate Cookies – A Horrific Scenario

I have just realised I have been doing this affiliate malarkey for the past ten years all wrong, and now realise how to get rich quick by selling br$and to the Arabs for £75m.

1.) To start building your br$and Castle. Set up a network with a basic looking interface & reporting tools, most affiliates like bells and whistles but the brand bidders find these clutter up reporting unnecessarily.. after all what’s to report ?? so the KI$$ format is best.. “Keep It Simple Stupid”.

2.) Research the market for potentially easily manipulated affiliates to be planned in to the BBG’s (br$and Bidding Groups). Essentially they should know how to use phrase and exact match and waffle on convincingly to any merchant about benefits of allowing them and the network to brand bid but how a closed group is best to protect it.

3.) Sell your $oul to the devil ? (but make sure it’s on exact match [soul] and negative match –don’t … In the same process remember to neglect those genuine affiliates who were supportive of your network when you first came on the scene (what is their opinion now?). Not to worry they were only to  instrumentally used & abused for your overall agenda.

4.) Produce presentations with eloquent corporate spiel on the advantages of br$and bidding groups – 3D graphs work best, however don’t mention the dreaded G word (generics) anywhere EVER ! …

5.) Increase your stationary supply of brown manila envelopes. Ensure you get self seal as your tongue is probably quite dry & so is that of your BBG’s. Aalways ensure your BBG’s are well fed, (send huge hampers) watered (cristal, veuve cliquot) and warm (Bahamas, Miami, Las Vegas), you don’t want them getting annoyed at having to work so hard, we all know adding a couple of new exact match [brand name keywords] per month is very tiring !

6.) Carry on finding more sycophants & embrace them into the br$and bidding groups, Only bring in new “talent” which can be house trained & who will sit and roll over when told to.

7.) Draw circles in the br$and with military tactical precision and call it “Operation br$and Storm”

8.) Your hive of BBG drones are now under servitude of the Queen B, however they must not speak out against the network and only post minimally on any forum. Any insolence MUST be punished with loss of of a BBG, preferably drones will only post in forums or blogs when told to and then only in a supportive and positive manner.

9.) Get your br$and bidding groups to buy you a yacht. There is nothing like a bit of reciprocated a$$ ki$$ing.

10.) Produce something vaguely resembling a content unit & give it a fashionable name like a widget in order to maintain wider affiliate acceptance, at indeterminate periods launch tools and applications. PS: it’s not important if they actually work as majority of revenue is from your BBG’s which don’t need them anyway.

11.) Oh & don’t forget to pander to the br$and bidding groups, basically ask them how they wish to run things and just leave them too it.

12.) Adopt an omnipotent ethos, we are better than you.. you and you.. although of course not if you are a BBG drone.. in which case we love you loads.

13.) Entertain your br$and bidding groups, treat them like a harem of revenue generating supermodels, pander to their every need, real or imagined.

14.) Be convinced by one’s own self importance, if struggling repeat “we are the bestist” in the mirror every morning whilst brushing your diamond studded teeth.

15.) When profits are not looking great, get some Venture Capitalists interested, show them the brand portfolio and, mention turnover figures and then mention the new alignment of big brand budgets online instead of offline.

16.) Introduce the VC’s to your br$and Bidding Groups, heck given time the BBG’s may even end up as your VC’s ! and it can then be one big happy incestuous commune !

17.) Allow merchants to upload feeds without fully verifying whether they are accurate or work, then proclaim you have product feeds and are the next best thing since sliced bread, after all who cares.. it’s all only for show.. BBG’s are the dumper truck.. other affiliates are the specs of mud on the windscreen.

18.) Carry on kicking br-$and in affiliate faces for those who object to br$and Bidding Groups, they are only jealous and fed up of adding real value and clearly can’t drive the quality of traffic required to be a BBG drone.

19.) Don’t worry if profits are not looking too great for all that entertaining budget, you are convinced it will all work out. .. refer to point 15 ! get bigger, glossier graphs, quote bigger budgets, and smile more. Why not even knockout a new sluggish management area and keep it in perpetual beta mode.

20.) Tell your affiliates that you are employed there to build up the br$and Bidding Groups businesses, leave them in no doubt of your support, should a tongue bath be needed rinse with champagne and then get to work.. nothing is too much to keep your BBG’s happy !

21.) Water “Gate” Stones … Don’t stick up for your affiliates when a merchant inaccurately deletes sales, with them and the network falsely claiming affiliates are brand bidding, only to remunerate the affiliate directly without telling the merchant because you don’t want to upset that merchant. When dealing with real affiliates, become vague, quote T&C’s, rewrite merchant terms, delete data and at all times never forget the merchant is always right after all real affiliates are ten a penny ..(unless it’s a BBG issue, in which case.. explain he’s right but not fully informed.. refer merchant for BBG programming !),

22.) Suffocate your forum section with duplicated promotional postings & excessive use of superlatives, which are in received emails anyhow. Tactic is to suppress affiliate concerns to lower pages within the forum section … push bad news right down that page… get all BBG’s to blog or post something positive if anything negative happens.

23.) Produce minimal profit again,,, make even bigger graphs, even glossier images, throw a party or two, sponsor everything you can .. do whatever it takes to keep everything looking sweet until a bid comes in.

24.) Go on the charm offensive & invade the USA .. if del boy can do it.. we can !

25.) $ow the brand $eed of this low hanging fruit by getting content affiliates to promote with their presell, then let your favoured BBG’s mop up the gravy train of brand orientated bunnys that come hopping along by over writing the content affiliate cookies.

26.) If your reputation in the UK is duly taking a bashing the next two points is a quick fix.. divert attention rather than address any issues.. buy magic books off ebay and practice the art of distraction !

27.) Find a desperate unsuspecting mug who is looking to buy a network & be their fallback bitch, preferable something American , who don’t understand the past success and turnover is built on exact matched brand terms & buying a select group of BBG drones.

28.) Sell for £75m then pretend to look fully invested in it’s future still until the cheque clears and any tie in period ends.

29.) Remember to phone a friend or rent a crowd so that BBG’ers & Co can officially post on the forum.

That is the Get Rich Quick Scheme on Selling br$and to the Arabs for £75m.

Disclaimer : The communication and information on this blog is confidential and may be privileged. All information contained herein is, without prejudice. Any form of distribution, copying or use of this information are strictly prohibited.

Whether it be via broad, phrase, exact or negative match .. !

Brand bidding is a senstive area, but unquestionably responsible for being one of the main contributing factors for the initial growth of the affiliate marketing industry, which wouldn’t be where it is today, however one has to consider 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. With enough opting to permit affiliates to bid on competitor trademarks & variations.

What is your interpretation of this? Realistically what kind of mixed message does this send out not only to their clients, but may encourage some affiliates to do? Consequently, potentially contributing to allow the affiliate marketing industry to be tarnished.

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 brand 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. A technical solution needs to be found.

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. Or a worse case scenario, people simply don’t care.

Whether you consider it scrupulous or unscrupulous, the decision is yours, but this clause is a licence to print money!

In 2008 I think we need to re-examine this area a whole lot more for each network. The AMC (Affiliate Marketing Council) at the IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) could certainly contribute by implementing a code of practice for its members on competitor to competitor bidding, with the asssumed weight to clamp down on merchant & non-merchant members on unethical paid search practices, they get the necessaryinches in the publications, and if they are to prove they have any teeth, this one aspect which should be addressed.

Following 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 competitor bidding which networks all too often think is just an affiliate affliction.

With the example illustrated below, take note how gimpish the offending merchant is failing to cover their tracks … Blatant & Unethical! … Do they have no shame? … I wonder if the actual client knows what their paid search agency is doing.

The clue is in the highlighted red text.

Especially when there is a conflict of interest when both merchants are on one network, and that is Buy.at. No doubt if they see this they might inform their client & claim it as their own superior client support. But you saw it here first. However if they do, then are they blagging on one of their clients (Play.com) who might not be impressed. But if they have a quiet word first with the culprit (Play.com) to suggest removing it, then wouldn’t Waterstone’s be aggreived that Buy.at didn’t inform them first. To add to the mix if Play.com employ an agency to do their search, does the actual client realise the agency is acting unethically on their behalf?

Reverse psychology? Mind games? No win situation? … Perhaps … A quandary it is though.

Merchants need to get a true perspective, for every affiliate which is inadvertently appearing to or actually breaching a keyword policy, there are multiple times more other merchants & competitors who deliberately are, yet affiliates get tarnished with the poor reputation.

Merchant’s if your network is truly looking after your interests, then insist they point out these other merchant competitors to you, or do networks/merchants not have the integrity to take on the likes of Ebay, Ask & other merchants.

Also if you have trademarks, though the process maybe tedious, register them with the various paid search engines. The initiative is in your own hands.

True to form, from below, you can see Ebay & Ask dominating the space on Waterstone’s brand. What else did you expect?

I was & wasn’t surprised, but definitely disappointed, to find out from different networks that when a merchant changes their keyword policy, they still don’t have an automated alert method to ensure that both the affiliate or network are made aware of any keyword policy changes, no matter how significant or insignificant they maybe/seem or deemed.

On a merchants information page these are too easily merged or at a later date appended into the program description, or if a merchant has a specific keyword restriction or keyword link, changes can all too easily be made without anybody knowing, unless of course you’re a psychic / clairvoyant or have some form of extra sensory perception by feeling a disturbance in the force.

Countless times have keyword policies been changed or sneaked in without notification, most networks are very polite about any breach of keyword policy you may have not known about, a few are not, or alternatively you are kicked off a program because your psychic abilities are not finely attuned or your Midichlorian count is too low.

Because some networks, merchants & agencies are so protective & over sensitive with keyword policy, & have been for quite a while at an increasing rate, it really is about time some basic parameters are implemented.

Firstly there should ONLY BE A SINGULAR POINT OF REFERENCE with regard to a merchants keyword policy and ONLY whatever is written in there should be applied / enforced. Yes, we know about not having ambiguous keyword policies & the need for it to be written clearly, concisely, politely & never in a forthright or dictatorial manner.

Any changes for keyword policy can ONLY be made within the SINGULAR POINT OF REFERENCE keyword policy section & nowhere else!

Lastly & most importantly, whenever the slightest change, no matter how minute or subtle it maybe, is made within the SINGULAR POINT OF REFERENCE for keyword policy there MUST, MUST, MUST be an automated communication sent out to both affiliates & the network via normal email as well as any internal mail system on the networks admin area which affiliates access.

This is a simple request & something which is well overdue within the industry. Come on networks, it’s not exactly rocket science to set up.

Right I am off to have my Midichlorians levels boosted.