To Not Appear or Not To Bid … That is the Question
posted in Affiliate Marketing, PPC Brand Name Bidding |
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.
