Asinine Terms & Conditions .. or .. Keyword Policies

[Qui Gon Jinn]

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This thread is dedicated to the rise in ridiculous terms & conditions or keyword policies for various merchant programs in what is a currently a very pertinent issue.

As most of us regularly week on week read these whilst applying to programs, it shouldn't be too difficult to find some real gems.

Whether it be ludicrously long & indepth and/or constrictive T&C's or keyword policies, lets group them together & address in one singular thread

Each week an award will be given to a merchant for the donkey (ass) of the week award in the form of a tongue in cheek virtual award (looking for someone to create a comical visual image), and invite them on or off the forum the reasoning behind these.

PS Please nothing about it being a merchants perogative as an easy get out.

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Currently I am going through signing up to various programs on OMG. Many I have already signed up to & collected links in the past. Now on quite a few I am greeted with

"You must agree to the programme terms and conditions at the foot of the page before your tracking URL will become available."

With jargon I don't fully comprehend & terminolgy like the ... fullest extent of the law ...

Now I have come across this with OMG in the past & have been told that affiliates don't receive commissions unless they agree to these. Please OMG, affiliates are not psychics and I don't have the time to yet again trawl through every program to double check all the time, especially when you haven't informed us about these.

With some of the T&C's alone, not keyword policies, we could have an absolute field day. I get so bored even reading them, that they dedicated more page folds to these than actual content about the merchant.

[Shane]

here's a nice logo for the proud recipient of the weekly award to display on their home page

[Azam.net]

Awesome design Shane and great idea Paul.

OK, not a PPC case and not strictly about the subject at hand... but what the hell, involves the natural listings which are only about 5 cm away from the paid ones, so I hope the submission will count - can just picture Richard Branson grinning as he wins the award

A while back we were ranked number in the natural listings of Google for "Virgin Megastores". One day we got a nasty letter from lawyers of Virgin Megastores trying to make out that it was illegal for us to be number one and them to be number two.

They clearly didn't have the foggiest idea how SEO worked. We consulted a lawyer and he said they didn't have a leg to stand on. We were an affiliate and were only promoting Virgin Megastores on the page ranked number one. Hadn't done any blackhat SEO.

Was incredibly frustrating, but I decided that Virgin had far deeper pockets than us to fight a legal case and so we let them win; we tweaked our site to drop out of the top spot.

Had other 'issues' with merchants on organic results as well. Not our fault if these blue chips pay £500,000 to Armani-clad designers to do their websites even though they can't do basic SEO.

Now look forward to reading more entries...

[KirstyM]

Ha ha ha!! I love it.

Wonder how many merchants would display their award proudly?! Perhaps the A4U award ceremony could have a "Golden Donkey" award for "Least Well Considered PPC Policy"?

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Nadeem,

SEO counts too, it comes under merchants having meta tag restrictions like "white" Elephant.co.uk on OMG

"The Affiliate shall not be entitled to use any of EUI Limited’s brand name trademarks as metatags."

Plus the 1000 or so words to trapse through.

[KevinEdwards]

Hi,

OK, here's a network's perspective on PPC T&Cs. I know this doesn't necessarily directly answer the question but will hopefully offer another point of view in light of other threads and blog posts that have been doing the rounds recently.

If all affiliates stuck to the rules there wouldn't need to be arbitrary T&Cs, language that rankles or causes consternation amongst those that stick to the letter of the law.

Only this week I had an angry merchant phone up confused as to why his PPC T&Cs were constantly being flouted. We of course acted swiftly and have often nipped abuses in the bud but it shouldn't have happened in the first place. I've lost count of the affiliates for this particular programme who seem incapable of understanding that any brand name bidding is strictly forbidden. Ok, what part of strictly forbidden can't those affiliates who break the rules understand? Those who do it fail to understand they damage the reputation of all other affiliates, us as networks and affiliate marketing generally.

I know the vast majority of affiliates stick within the limits and there are always bad apples but that doesn't really wash when you have a face to face with the merchant and you're having to account why you've failed to do what you should have done. If I was brutally honest I could pretty much say 'well we'll do our best to enforce and monitor the PPC T&Cs but you will get some affiliates who will blatantly flout them to make a quick and ease buck and whilst we'll withhold commissions/throw them off the programme, there's not much we can do to stop it'.

Put yourself in the merchants' shoes - they're used to traditional offline marketing where they can control their brand message. Even in official PPC and CPM they know exactly the message being broadcast (where the CPM inventory appears is a whole different matter...). With affiliate marketing you only have so much control over this messaging. For some advertisers it's difficult to grasp that, despite stringent checks and balances, they will have to relinquish this. We of course try to educate all merchants on how best to manage this but if an affiliate manager is under pressure to ensure everything is 'on message' it's no wonder affiliates and networks bear the brunt when simple rules can't be enforced when they can through other channels.

I agree there could be more consistent and diplomatic language used at times and some PPC T&Cs are daft but these are exceptions - just like the affiliates who abuse the rules are.

But let's not get on our high horses and claim all affiliates are squeaky clean. Anyone who's worked for a network could namecheck a number of affiliates active on this forum and vocal in this industry who are less than ethical at times and known to 'bend' (if not flout) the rules.

I always champion the benefits of affiliate marketing and without fail recommend our merchants meet up with their PPC affiliates to understand their business and what they need in order to work together effectively. Often they do. That way you can build a relationship built on trust, not a 'them and us' adversarial mentality.

Having said that, it only takes a couple of rogue affiliates to breach the T&Cs and undo the goodwill and hard work invested by network and affiliate alike...

I know some people will react negatively to what I've said, but I feel it needs to be stated.

[Azam.net]

I know some people will react negatively to what I've said, but I feel it needs to be stated.

I think you make a very valid point Kevin and am glad you did make it. You are absolutely right, affiliates are far from squeeky clean either. I am fortunate to be able to see things from not only an affiliate but a merchant and network perspective and it is disappointing to see affiliates flouting the rules, not just by mistake but in a way that is obviously deliberate. Thankfully those are by far the minority. My stance is that if they are repeatedly breaking the rules, they should not be made welcome in this industry, as they damage the image of affiliate marketing in its entirety. Too many people turn a blind to unethical affiliates, black hat SEOs and even computer hackers saying "they mean no harm" or are "loveable rogues".

What Paul is referring to above is merchants who use their power to make it difficult for their affiliates to operate and make an income. All sides need to be fair to each other and then this sector will not be perceived as the ugly sister of online marketing by blue chips.

[Brendon]

>> A while back we were ranked number in the natural listings of Google for "Virgin Megastores". One day we got a nasty letter from lawyers of Virgin Megastores trying to make out that it was illegal for us to be number one and them to be number two.

Noooooo! Please, please change the site back! I know a few people at Google, and I am fairly certain that a counter legal doc from a $150bn corp (less likely) or a VERY high profile blog post ridiculing the letter would work wonders (remember the BMW thing? Exactly)

>> Put yourself in the merchants' shoes - they're used to traditional offline marketing

True - we are in a transitional phase right now. I would also assert that the "traditional offline marketing" mindset WILL kill those merchants who insist on adhering to it in the long run. You don't get to "control your brand message" in the same way online - tough, deal with it.

If I set up a site and outranked [large merchant site] for their own brand name, and plastered it with [brand name] sucks content, it's not their business unless they can make a case for libel.

>> But let's not get on our high horses and claim all affiliates are squeaky clean

I know it. And yes, there are several things that can, and do, happen that are probably ATUALLY illegal (fraud in the main). But there's also things like SEs placing ads via their own internal, proprietary, nothing-to-do-with-affiliates matching algos which causes affiliate ads to show on a "restricted" keyword. And then networks / merchants have got all upset and threatened all sorts of dire consequences for things that were never intended nor even under the control of the affiliate, and all without checking the pertinient facts

So let's not get on our high horses and claim all networks / merchants are squeaky clean, either

[Qui Gon Jinn]

It's not just about PPC. It's also about meta tags, lengthy legal jargon & pettiness in T&C's & 100% certainty any T&Cs of either type without affiliates or network being made aware of changes, which happens all too often.

As well as those networks that do go beyond timidly advising merchants but actually learning to say no to them, without the concern they may or may not lose the client, unless they learn to do so then ever operating decreasing circles will endure & they gradually are being ever increasinly slipped in.

Quite often I may find ppc policies have changed without notification, and rather than post it on forum or blog referring to names I may simply inform someone from the network.

And when are some merchants / agencies ever going to comprehend broadmatch. I have said it a few times before, but if an affiliate signs up to a program, ensure you take a copy of their description & t&cs & keyword policy.

Kevin, thank you for offering your perspective as one of only a few networks who regularly participate on the forum with opinions whether agreed or disagreed.

[hpops]

Nice post Kevin, nice thread Paul, fantastic logo Shane

The language used does rankle, but I think the biggest problem is it doesn't actually address the people who will break the rules, it just paints the account manager as unwelcoming. The rules should be stated clearly, once, in one place. The network should have their policies of retaining commission if terms are broken and it should sit with the network to (diplomatically) bring up issues of non-compliance. I do feel that its about time someone developed tools to check this sort of thing automatically. Surely a network could use a technology compliance tool as a deal maker.
Although obviously that sounds a bit too much like innovation for these days.

[drivetowin]

A very good thread. I agree with Kevin that some affiliates do bend/break the rules.

I have long argued though that networks do not do enough to counter this - why not have a very simple system - if you flout the rules once for one merchant you get a warning, flout the rules a second time (whether for that merchant or not) and you get commissions withheld for the merchant affected, flout them a third time (again whether for that merchant or not) and you get kicked off the network and lose ALL of your pending commission up to that point.

It would only need a simple change to the t's and c's for the network to implement such a scheme. Please don't give me the argument "legally we can't do that" - legally you shouldn't let a merchant walk away with two hours notice with no financial penalty but ALL of the networks do.

Unless the networks get tough with the rule breakers, get tough consistently and publically name and shame a couple of offenders so others realise what can and will happen, we will just end up with t's and c's that get more and more convoluted and just ignored anyway.

The counter to this though is that as Paul has indiscated it needs networks to present merchant t's and c's in a central location, in terms that don't need a law degree to understand and to ensure that any changes are communicated efficiently and effectively - why not set up a system where each time an affiliate logs in it displays all of those merchants to which the affiliate is signed up whose t's and c's have changed since the last log in.

I'm not living in utopia though - I know it won't happen - however much networks tut tut at affiliates behaviour, they still cream their 30% override on those commissions made by affiliates who are breaking the rules (knowingly or inadvertently) and as the old saying goes - turkeys don't vote for Christmas...

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Keith,

Networks will then have to be careful they don't end up like CJ Network Quality, who imo don't appear to understand broadmatch amongst other issues & hold your cheque back when you are not in the wrong. We have already had 4 this week from various networks/merchants, one wasn't even our link. Minor or inadvertent mistakes happen all sides, how over zealous do we want to be. But, without a single point of reference & compulsary notice of changes, together with standard "acceptable" terms, networks will have to be careful they don't become over zealous. Granted most networks are more polite in their approach nowadays barring a couple which is the gentlemenly way to go.

Room for leeway is required, with enquiry & decorum.

Then by the same token can we name & shame merchants who what seems weekly you receive an email from who don't understand broadmatch or can seperate affiliate links to sponsored listings & occassionally what is even their own sponsored listings... unfortunately occassionally a network cannot differentiate .... and also those who sneak restrictions in after you have been suspended or didn t have there at all. If we did there would be a lot of blog entries & forum posts.

On a side note, merchants should register there trademarks with various paid search providers, mispellings they may have more difficulty, then it's not surprising what merchants don't even own trademarks to their own brand or cannot get them registered.

Anyhow, anyone got a nominees for potential award winners.

[Ambski]

Hi there,
I have posted previously about Keyword Policy Nonsense and I can see both arguments.

Getting back to the thread, just had one in from Q-See on AW.
"Can you please Stop Sponsored adds of q-see in google adwords."

I replied explaining that:
"Apologies for this oversight but It is not obvious to add these terms as negatives within your merchant details. The text whereby you indicate that no brand bidding is allowed is in amongst the text which is promoting the program. There is also no 'Keyword Policy' or 'Terms & Conditions' detailing the restrictions."

To which they replied:
"we have now changed the PPC restrictions to our Account"

A quick look at the merchant details and all thats changed is they've added 'q-see' to a new Keyword Policy? That's it. The rest is down to the my idea of url & variation restrictions?

Also what the hell is this:
"We wish to notify our affiliates of these new PPC changes before affiliate window set up the Snoopy software on our merchant program"

Am I about to be set upon by a big nosed dopey American dog?

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Perhaps my interpretation of this maybe wrong, but isn t this sending out the wrong message, and is ethically wrong.

On Tradedoubler, though their keyword policies are becoming gradually clearer, though still lack of informing of affiliates re changes & I don't agree with sub domain restrictions, this following search policy on a number of their merchants does send out a mixed message.

4.6 You are allowed to show adverts on trademarks, or variations, of advertiser’s competitors?

With quite a few merchants saying YES ... So this permits an affiliate to promote Merchant X, to bid on their nearest competitors brand & trademarked for names merchant Y