The Power of the Brand Bidder Cookie !!!

[Qui Gon Jinn]

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Matt's recent article has prompted this poll

http://www.affiliates4u.com/blog/art...bidder_cookie/

Question:

Should the cookie from a closed brand bidding group ultimately overwrite the same cookie from ‘more natural’ or "content affiliate"activity?

[Mogga]

If they're the last click?

Or for the full duration of the brand bid CPPC cookie it can't be overwritten?

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Even if the Closed Group Brand Bidder is the Last Click from Paid Search.

[ian]

Surely with google trademark protection, brand bidding is no longer needed to protect the brand? It is however a great way to reduce costs - implement a lower commission rate for brand bidding and you wipe out the higher cost 'content cookie'

[Paul Wright]

Unfortunately I dont' feel like there is an accurate option for me to vote but as I mentioned on matt's blog post..

Why not remove closed brand groups completely? Rather than ask affiliates to reinvest lower cpa's back into expensive generics simply pay them more so they can chase the volume anyway?

Cost to the merchant should be the same providing you've got your sales volume/tiers calculated correctly.

Cheers
Paul

[kier]

A very interesting issue but I don't feel enough options are being given in the poll. In particular I think cashback/incentive sites would be as good a candidate as brand name bidders to be included under such an approach. Both kinds of affiliate try and position themselves as the last referrer and both are liable to overwrite cookies from other affiliates who may have done the majority or totality of selling the product to the end user.

[3wdl]

I'm not a fan of Brand name bidding at all - it's something I would very, very, very rarely suggest to a client (unless their search is screwed or they have loads of competitors bidding on the brand and can't get it trademarked).

So the correct option is no, it should not override the cookie and it's one of the big reasons that content sites are suffering - I really don't like the idea of closed groups and as a network it's not something that I can see us offering.

[pistol101]

Excellent topic, it's good to give this more air.

The sooner we remove all brand bidding closed or open the better. It's costing merchants a fortune, and it's loosing merchants their content affiliates.

I'm with Ian that Google trademarks are relatively easily to implement. And any web design company can build some landing pages for use on the variations.

Some networks, agencies and affiliates are still printing cash from this, so don't expect it to end instantly, especially when it's enough for some companies to cease trading is it's stopped. More pressue is needed from us all.

The incentive sites can't be classified in the same basket as brandname bidders. The users of the cashback sites have made a conscious to use them. However there does need to be some thought from merchants as to how to use them.

[Travel Pixel]

We are with a merchant that has recently decided to brand bid on google (and its a strong brand at that). They have taken the sensible decision not to overwrite any affiliate cookies though and I have to congratulate them on that.

Their reasoning for beginning to bid on the brand was to display the latest offers etc that they are pushing without having to wait for google to index them, which I feel is fair enough. They also wanted to stop rogue brand bidders even though the name is trademarked in Google which leaves me a bit confused but hey ho.

I feel any brand bidding that overwrites an affiliate cookie, content more specifically, is just scooping up earnings that should have been credited to affiliates.

A long term approach to affiliate marketing is required and bidding on the brand to scoop up pre sell aquisitions done by affs for the merchant's benefit is wrong.

[kier]

The incentive sites can't be classified in the same basket as brandname bidders. The users of the cashback sites have made a conscious to use them. However there does need to be some thought from merchants as to how to use them.

They are not the same thing in every respect of course, but the core issue Matt raised in the article is the same in both cases, namely that a brand name bidder or cashback site by placing themselves as the last referrer can in many cases easily get the credit for a sale which another affiliate did the actual work in producing without adding any additional value into the transaction themselves.

[Shane]

when I was a shop fittings and equipment salesman I used to be out leafletting, chatting to shopkeepers and showing them the products we sold, building company awareness etc

I was paid a crappy basic and a fair commission, selling isn't easy like this so you were paid well for it, anyhooow.. I spent most of my time out and about doing demo's, tyring to sell.

I did ok after a while and then not so well, it seemed orders had slowed a touch but I eventually found out the office manager was taking calls on my phone, which should have been passed/logged for me to get back in touch with and he was selling and pocketing the commission.

now is this not the almost the same thing ? non brand affiliates are building brand awareness, showing the products/service/solutions and putting them IN the customers mind, only for the brand bidder to answer the phone on brand terms ? and the salesman get's nada for his hard work

[D-Mac]

Depending on your position in the market, brand bidders are part of the unholy/holy trinity: Brandbidders, Cashback sites, Coupon sites.

Being near the end of the year I regularly think about what my strategy will be next year. I seem to keep coming to the same conclusion: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Affs need incentives to keep working on content sites, coz where I'm sitting the grass looks greener on the other side.

I wrote about this recently in my one and only blog post: Macf.co.uk

[Travel Pixel]

I know of one agency, who I had a brief encounter with earlier this year, who manage a retailer's paid search program, keep the brand bidding to themselves and get affiliates to bid on the remaining generics and place links on their own content sites.

The agency overwrites the aff's cookies on the brand bid, boosting their figures and adding no value whatsoever.

[mainlime]

Slightly different twist on this, when I was working for a merchant we were approached through our affiliate network by an agency who would take over all our Adwords management on a CPA basis. No risk to us, pay only for sales. Sounded good. Except they wanted exclusive brand name bidding rights. We said no. We would have basically given them a license to print money. They could have made enough off our brand name ads (at 1p a click as no-one else was allowed to bid) to have covered half the keywords in the English language even if no-one who ever clicked those ads bought anything.

Speaking now as an affiliate I don't have a problem if a merchant wants to retain brand bidding for themselves. After all, why pay someone else to do what you can do yourself? But I would feel aggrieved if that brand bidding right was given to another affiliate or group of affiliates.

I suspect in time that SEO'ing a brand name will also get banned. From a merchant's point of view what is the advantage to them of an affiliate being top result for Brand X? If someone is searching for Brand X they're probably looking to buy Brand X anyway and chances are that the official brandx.com site would naturally be top anyway.

[drivetowin]

Shock horror - I'm agreeing with Paul on this one

But, to widen the debate a bit further, what about when the client is doing their own brand ppc activity (whether in house or via an agency) - should that still be last referer and negate the affiliate cookie?