Winning the rights : Brand Bidding

[Matthew Wood]

Easyspace is looking to reward affiliates who drive generic traffic to the Easyspace website with rights to brand name bid. DGM Affiliates are running a competition throughout March so that all affiliates will have the opportunity to earn exclusive PPC brand bidding rights for Easyspace. The 4 affiliates who drive the highest volume of validated sales over this period will be awarded exclusive rights to be in the closed group of PPC brand name bidders, starting from 1 April 2007. Brand bidding will initially be run throughout April and if it proves to be successful for all parties will continue. Affiliate positions in all search engines will be based on volumes driven i.e. the affiliate driving the highest number of sales will be given the 2nd position in all search engines beneath the clients' own official listing. As an added bonus, the winner of the competition will be allowed to use the easyspace.com display URL and the runner up the easyspace.co.uk URL in both Yahoo and MSN and sit in the top position, in place of the client.

An interesting angle that I think is a very innovative solution to a common problem without the need for lengthy tenders - 'pay for performance' taken to a new level!

I think however the 'prize' should be reset on a quarterly basis. Otherwise affiliates with a large bankroll could potentially take a hit financially during the competition period to win the potentially lucrative contract. Just a thought.

Matthew.

[Supercod]

As you say not an all bad way to approach it, certainly beats filling in a form that you already know you won’t be picked before you have even wrote your name down.

Certainly can be improved on, points for trying.. However still don’t believe closed groups are the way to go but that’s down to each individual Merchant in the end.

[Matthew Wood]

beats filling in a form that you already know you won’t be picked before you have even wrote your name down.

- cynical Clarke?

[Supercod]

Originally Posted by Matt Wood - cynical Clarke?

Me, never

[Nicky A]

Hi Guys

Thanks for the interest shown and your comments. This is something that we have carried out on a few programs already and find that it works very well.

We do of course always want to give affiliates a fair chance and look to constantly review those in our closed groups to ensure that they are adding value for the client. We also look to identify affiliates who are working effectively on a campaign in order to give them the opportunity to get involved in closed groups.

Kind regards

Nicky

[renegade]

It does make sense to lets sites which are already sending generic traffic run brand name campaigns. It's also true those with deeper pockets could take a hit to win the right but it would be an awkward balance to get right.
It might also be better not to have a fixed number of affiliates winning the rights so that if quite a few affiliates are driving a steady but low volume of sales it would make sense to award the brand name bidding rights to more affiliates in order to generate a larger volume of sales overall.
It's certainly an interesting development and I'd like to see this arrangement explored by other merchants/networks, it feels like a more logical and fairer way to handle brand name bidding than simple closed groups.

[UKOffer]

Congrats to DGM for promoting this and for being totally transparent about the process involved in gaining brand name bidding rights. But....isn't this how it has always been done? I've only ever been invited to brand bid if I've delivered high volumes of sales from generic traffic.

So is this anything new? No, but its possibly one of the first times it has been laid down in black and white on a forum/emails so well done DGM.

[ian]

A vast improvement on the tender process / kickbacks / and other ways to join an closed ppc group, but would it not be better to approach affiliates that have already generated good sale volumes on generic ppc and organic traffic.

It seems (to me) to be a more sustainable method than having a month of madness where affiliates try to outbid each other on trafic that will be droppd once the brand rights have been dished out.

Just my 2p

[Nicky A]

Hi Ian

That's a fair comment, but the reason behind doing it this way is that everyone is in with a chance and that the privilege is not just given to those who have historically delivered.

Opening it up to the whole affiliate base plus giving affiliates who are not yet promoting the program means it is a level playing field.

Nicky

[3wdl]

Sorry for asking a silly question, but why on earth would the merchant want to waste their money like this?

A quick search for "Easyspace" shows that they are the only ones bidding on it, so it's not as if it's to protect the brand.

Just seems rather pointless and something that will end up being an expensive exercise for your client, IMVHO.

That said, a good way to do it (though nothing new).

[Steved]

I have to agree James. I've just spent the past month trying to get rid of brand bidders for one of my clients. On the variations where they do not rank well naturally we are doing our own brand bidding, which only costs us about 2p per click. Any ideas why a company would allow affiliates to brand bid?