Hi J,
Hope all's well
My main thoughts, just to counter some of Steve's...
Re: competators ads and geenric appeal - if your client has the TM these dont really apply, the brand temr should contain only ads you allow.
Re: budget, if the cost of sale to the merchant is cheap through affiliates than what the brand term converts at the affiliate programme is set up wrong and your not rewarding affiliates correctly.
Re: PPC partner being better, applied to brand only its hard to go wrong
Steve not a dig at you at all mate as im sure these would have been raised anyway (either here on in private). You at the Aff Future do in manchester later this month? Been a while!
James,
My honest opinions on brand bidding are this:
If you choose to keep it open work with 1 or 2 affiliares on it and say from the start what you want, dont let them block keywords anf track it like you've never tracked it before. Work it with your client but set a %, so say you want a 50 / 50 split, brand and geenric. This split could be anything 30 / 70, 20 / 80 etc but set it, and thats what split you want brand vs generic. So for every 30 sales they make off brand they commit to making 70 generic ones.
Using this method you can guarentee the affiliate will be producing generic sales too and work to build the programme. Thats the sort of commitment you cant get from an agency