Brand Activity, The Need For Separate Cookies - A Horrific Scenario

[Matthew Wood]

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A few weeks ago I wrote about the power of the Brand Bidder Cookie

For those who are unsure what the issue is here is a basic scenario..

Joe manages a content based camera site with a loyal user base which he has invested in nurturing. He writes quality content to pre-sell the cameras and has recently innovated by shooting videos of the electrical goods which has increased conversions ten-fold to great applause by the merchants he is promoting.

A loyal member of his site views the video, loves the product and clicks Joes link, activates the cookie and all is well for Joe at this stage he can look forward to getting the reward for his investment.

However the user wants to discuss the purchase with their partner, they agree its great and after that decides to buy the product later that evening.

The user returns to the same computer, like most users they have Google set as their homepage and they type in the merchant 'brand name' the user clicks on the paid ad from another affiliate on the same network. This overwrites Joe's cookie set earlier that day after viewing Joes video and the affiliate conducting paid search on brand gets the monetary reward from the merchant.

The time, effort and cost of Joe conducting the review, shooting the video and innovating for the benefit of the channel is lost.

The brand bidder wins.. the network wins... does Joe?... does Affiliate Marketing in the long term?

I agree with last Cookie wins in virtually all instances at the moment EXCEPT this scenario.

Every network who has not implemented an adequate solution to this problem is doing a great injustice for their affiliates, merchants and the industry.

Surely this is a scenario that should not be occurring in 2008? Should affiliates within the cycle start to get a share of the pie?

[Qui Gon Jinn]

Content affiliates & those that do paid search on generics or product related terms, are simply lining the pockets of the closed brand bidding groups (BBG)it could be anything from 20 to 70% of cookies being overwritten, hence the need for for a seperate program for any program with a BBG, with a different style of tracking which is easily identifiable by another afiliate & also DOES NOT overwrite other affiliate cookies ie BBG cookies must never win, plus the transparency several networks are lacking with regard to disclosing which programs have BBG's. Another addition would be a whitelist of brand terms the referring url could be referenced against to allocate to the more worthy affiliate, though this could be got around with redirects, but an advantage with redirects is that it will stop the network or merchant / agency harvesting your keywords for those that offer their own in house search services.

[Matthew Wood]

I guess the next step is to get clarification from each network.. anyone care to comment?

[GW-Sean]

Just thinking out loud here - so please don't take this as Gospel.....

There are a lot of questions to work around here, but would it not be feasible to to set up a similar solution as was used on the 24Studio brand payment system (apologies for referencing this again - but its the only relevant example I had!!

24Studio have their own brand PPC activity and do not allow affiliates to bid on the brand, but in theory this is the same situation (when it comes to the bottom line)

If an agency is handling an affiliate program, and using a 3rd party tracking system to de-duplicate against other methods of online advertising.... conceivably it would be possible to host the closed-group brand bidders using one tracking URL, and the other affiliates using another. This would mean we could set up a system similar to the 24Studio brand-PPC payments linked above.

Obviously the brand bidders will need to pay for their advertising costs as well....so we should make an effort to split the commission accordingly. I accept that the brand bidders costs may not be proportional to a content affiliate for example - but we really need to make sure that everyone is happy with the deal, and that everyone is able to cover their costs etc. (maybe allocate the commission 80% content and 20% brand bidder for example... it would be up to the Agency/Network/Affiliate/Client to agree on the proportions here)

From a Network perspective in particular...networks who are hosting this type of situation directly - would it not be simpler for them to have the closed group set up as a separate program? This would allow them to commission the affiliate(s) differently, and report separately etc..... it would also leave more room as mentioned by Qui Gon Jinn for a duplication process and commission allocation etc.


Just a couple of thoughts into the pot anyway

Cheers

Sean

[loquax]

At what point do you draw the line though..

You're saying a content site that has done the pre-sell shouldn't lose out to a brand bidder.

Ok.

Now what if that content site pre-sells then loses out to a customer who then wants (and guess what I'm going to throw in here...) yes our friends the voucher code sites or the cashback sites?

Tell me what the difference is?

Affiliate is still preselling... but "loses commission" as customer has wandered off elsewhere (for whatever reasoning).

I appreciate that why you think "this horrific problem is doing a great injustice for their affiliates, merchants and the industry" but if it's ok in a brand bid sense, then imo it should also be ok in a cashback, voucher code sense as well...

Because for me it's an equally "horrific problem" losing commission to other affiliates for the pre-sell stuff I do whilst trying to run the time intensive service I provide.

Jason

[aaclapham]

This is just the same with discount code sites?!?

A person goes to my review site, reads the reviews and then goes to the site to buy, they then see a discount code box at the checkout which sets the alarm bells ringing, and then go and search for a discount code.... the discount code site will probably get the sale leaving all my hard work of getting the sale unrewarded!

[Kandevil]

This is just the same with discount code sites?!?

A person goes to my review site, reads the reviews and then goes to the site to buy, they then see a discount code box at the checkout which sets the alarm bells ringing, and then go and search for a discount code.... the discount code site will probably get the sale leaving all my hard work of getting the sale unrewarded!

my idea of removing the discount box on merchants checkout pages if requested by the affiliate (by affiliate id) can make some difference here I think.

[Matthew Wood]

Sean a separate programme for 'exact match' brand terms would rectify this programme overnight.

I'm sure some networks / merchants operate in this way but for transparency I' love to see examples.

Now what if that content site pre-sells then loses out to a customer who then wants (and guess what I'm going to throw in here...) yes our friends the voucher code sites or the cashback sites?

Tell me what the difference is?

Affiliate is still preselling... but "loses commission" as customer has wandered off elsewhere (for whatever reasoning).

Jason, voucher codes are a different scenario in most circumstances unless the voucher code affiliate is bidding direct match on the brand.

Any merchant allowing that I guess are incompetent or being wrongly advised.

Terms such as "brand discount codes' are another story for another day but IMO are also in a grey area. Its not wrong, but then again we need to gather facts on the % of cookies overwritten by such user activity.

Someone with an intention to buy that has an affiliate cookie already planted IMO should not have that cookie overwritten by a competing cookie on 'exact match brand terms' from a brand bidding affiliate.

If its broad match including brand from genuine search marketing activity then naturally that adds value in most circumstances for the merchant.

Jason a cashback site is another scenario, the user has made a 'concious decision' to use such a site... in the scenario I list above the user is simply making a purchase unaware of other means of gaining a discount.

Ian I agree with your suggestion but could that not alienate other marketing channels / initiatives?

[kier]

Jason a cashback site is another scenario, the user has made a 'concious decision' to use such a site... in the scenario I list above the user is simply making a purchase unaware of other means of gaining a discount.

The issue is surely not intention but about rewarding those who provide incremental value appropriately. As Jason has said numerous times he is losing loads of money to users who take the content he has worked hard to put together and then decide they would rather have 100% of the commission themselves by going through Quidco. Every user who joins a cashback site and uses it properly is effectively dead to him and other affiliates like him who work hard to generate their sales through writing content.

They are different examples of a common underlying issue: how to appropriately reward affiliates for the value they add in the buying process.

[D-Mac]

Kier, can we assume from your post that Webgains are actively looking at solutions for this?

[loquax]

Kier - you're my new affiliate hero!

Matt - why is the value of a content affiliate losing out to cashback/discount different to one losing out in the brand bidding example? Please explain the differential?

Time and effort is still being lost - the consumer is still deciding to buy - they're still reading and making a decision based on the same content.

The only difference imo is the process the consumer is choosing to make their way to the eventual sale.

You cannot call for an adequate solution to avoid brand bidders, unless you're prepared to call for the same solution for all other scenarios that can go against content sites including cashback and voucher code affiliates.

Jason

[GW-Sean]

The only difference imo is the process the consumer is choosing to make their way to the eventual sale.

You cannot call for an adequate solution to avoid brand bidders, unless you're prepared to call for the same solution for all other scenarios that can go against content sites including cashback and voucher code affiliates.

Jason

Hey Jason - you've sparked off a couple more thoughts (which is impressive at this time of the day! )

I'd say here that we need some analysis of customer mindset to determine the result really.

For example, with brand bidding, the customer has decided to purchase based on earlier learnings from a content site and/or offline advertising. The mindset is fairly straight forward here....you could safely say that the decision has been made, and the customer is just doing the actual leg-work to buy the product.

However, the situation isn't a clear cut when it comes to dicount code sites or cashbacks.... has the customer already decided to buy (and they're just utilising the cashback site as a tool...a means to an end?) ? - or has the customer found the site and had their mind made up by the offer of an extra discount on the product they were looking for..... its all a little bit grey-area for us to start putting hard and fast rules into place, in my opinion.

Plus....for cashback sites specifically, it would be a betrayal of customer trust (...as in their opinion they should be recieving their cashback, but they wouldn't get it if the commission is cancelled) - this would reflect badly on both client and affiliate!

Does this make sense?

[kier]

Kier, can we assume from your post that Webgains are actively looking at solutions for this?

Yes, we're looking at the issue currently.

[loquax]

Does this make sense?

Not really...

The customer is on the content site and has been influenced by that content to make a purchase. They decide to buy based on the initial content regardless of their next step... yet according to Matt it's ok to reward the content site IF the customer goes via PPC, but not if the customer goes via cashback or vouchers?

I can understand that the PPC guy has done nothing for the sale, but I'd also strongly argue that neither has the cashback site or code site.

Jason

[Matthew Wood]

For example, with brand bidding, the customer has decided to purchase based on earlier learnings from a content site and/or offline advertising. The mindset is fairly straight forward here....you could safely say that the decision has been made, and the customer is just doing the actual leg-work to buy the product.

spot on IMO as per my initial arguement there is no additional value for the purchaser in the purchase loop.

yet according to Matt it's ok to reward the content site IF the customer goes via PPC, but not if the customer goes via cashback or vouchers

Not what I said - I said in my opinion a content affiliate should be rewarded if after planting the cookie a user subsequently searches for the exact brand name term in a search engine where a paid search affiliate using 'exact match' overwrites the first content based affiliates cookie.

The brand bidding affiliate is adding no value to the relationship in this instance and is pro-hibiting real value add affiliates such as yourself Jason.

Now as you've raised cashback, I think its something that you have to work with and get your head around. It accounts for 35%+ of network revenue and whether we like it or not the likes of Quidco are important to networks and merchants. It's not going to go away as its a proven business model. We all have to adapt. We all have to change the way we work.

At the end of the day it's a users perogative to decide to use a cashback site, they have made the decision to sign up after a personal recommedation, viral marketing campaign or from PR and earn a discount rather than lining a content based affiliates pocket. Harsh? Yes, unfair on content affiliate? Yes. But if you were the consumer what would you do? you will never get away from that answer.

A network can't ban cashback sites, or start allocating % of commissions based on the role or hand in the sales process. Firstly its going to give an awful brand experience for the the user as they don't get the expected cashback expected and trust me they will ring the merchant, the ASA, the cashback site and sometimes even the network!

So regarding cashback IMO we all have to live with the sites and find ways to monetise in alternative ways.

Voucher codes, now thats a tricky one. If it was me I would suggest to any merchant that they strongly disallow bidding on "brand discount code" or ask for negative match to be enabled for their brand terms. However this is never going to stop affiliate SEO'ing for those terms on their site - isn't that the affiliates traditional hunting ground?

A merchant will know if they are working with a discount code site and its again their decision to allow or disallow their involvement within an affiliate programme.

Threads such as this help educate all parties and its great to have the debate!



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