When is brand name bidding worthwhile?

[3wdl]

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We're just about to take over a program that another agency has been running.

This program is on two networks and has a closed brand bidding group.

They do their own PPC, own the trademarks to their name and appear at the top of the rankings.

Can anyone give me a good reason as to keep the closed group, err, open? Obviously the biggest problem is that it may anger the affiliates who are in this group but that's not reason enough alone..

Cheers
J

[lowndsy]

Six possible reasons off the top of my head:

If competitors can /are bidding on the brand name as well - having more bidders for your brand means you get more results.

If the brand name has a generic appeal as well, like "hoover", or "red letter day".

If the in-house ppc budget is exceeded by the possible daily expenditure, meaning that sometimes the in-house ads won't appear.

If a PPC partner is simply better at it than your in-house team, generating better conversion rates and ROI.

If the people in the closed group are also the top affiliates for generic terms as well.
A certain PPC person who I kidnapped in Barbados (you know who I mean) told me that the sad truth is that brand bidding is lucrative and easy, and a lot of affiliates/agencies only do generics to keep the merchant happy while they rake it in off brands - stop them branding and they'll probably stop the generics as well.

If a PPC partner is prepared to take you to search engines which your in-house team don't target - I'd say being promoted on MSN, ask, yahoo etc could be worth a compromise on Google.

A couple of the reasons depend on there being no agreement with Google to block the keyword, but surprisingly few merchants (imo) have done that anyway.

[morleymouse]

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

[lowndsy]

no worries Dan - just covering all of the bases. Some of it was really basic, or based on bad management of the campaign, but that happens way too often, especially with budgets being mismanaged (how many successful programs do we see close because the budget was fixed by an uninformed offline marketing department?). As I said above, it's surprising how many merchants don't use Google to block off TMs. If there weren't any muppets in this game you'd have nothing to blog about would you?

Yeah I should be going to Manchester, though I do have a really busy couple of weeks at the end of September so I'll have to keep an ey on the finances. Got the summit, Y Design Awards, AF and god knows what else all at the same time.

[morleymouse]

too true, i never really feel that safe when looking at a merchant and then realising the month before they halved commission because it was a good month. If i was set to blow the budget and we were only on the 15th, hell, id double commission and take the rest of the month off!

Manc - definately worth the trip id say, £50 for the night via the aff future deal, ill buy you a few beers, and to top it all off it looks liek were spending all day in dodgems! if you can find a better deal than that let me know.

Back ot the question in hand though, it might be worth going to some merchants who have brand PPC affiliates in place and asking them how they work with them? What sort of arrangement etc

[cyberbird1]

Hi J,
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.

I'm not sure that's correct.

On Yahoo you can bid on trademarks if you are a reseller, information site or competitive comparison site.

MSN allow resellers/affiliates too and from 10th September will no longer maintain a list of owner approved advertisers.

Then there's the problem of sites that look like resellers but aren't really. I'm sure they can be removed by the trademark owner but that site or another always seem to come back pretty quick.

[Tyson Pearcey]

Hi James,

You've been doing this long enough to know havent you?

There are a number of areas to concider as its different for all programs . . . consider the following:


• Are the traded marks on the brand unbreakable and enforceable
• Is there broad matching in by competitor and other affiliates
• Are their competitors deliberately bidding on brand coz the can
• What does the Brand + Generic Landscape look like
• Will affiliates be able to support your PPC search efforts by keeping competitors from stealing your clients sales


Right there are loads more so drop me a line if you like and we can look at the search terms getting the most volume for your client and work out if the group is able to reinvest the money from brand into brand + generic and add value to your client. Most cases they do, as you know you can only technically have one display url per Google account so your coverage will be limited on your own. Yahoo is the Wild West and you’ll more than likely need affiliates supporting you in that space as you can’t police much there.

cheers
Tyson

[3wdl]

Hi James,

You've been doing this long enough to know havent you?

LOL - Yeah. I know the standard reasons, but based on the information I have I couldn't really see a reason for it, so wanted to make sure that I wasn't missing anything before I told the client it's not always the best tactic

Cheers
J