Affiliate Marketing
Forum Search


Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools Display Modes

  #1 (permalink)  
Old 12-02-08
Travel Pixel's Avatar
Travel Pixel Travel Pixel is offline
Travel Squared
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 271
Travel Pixel is an unknown quantity at this point
  Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Having just checked a brand search on google for inkfactory I came across the only PPC ad which goes through an Affiliate Future redirect. Their t&c's state no brand bidding allowed.

Is this a rogue bidder who should be kicked off or is there a closed brand bidding group affiliate future/inkfactory should be informing us of?

Hope to resolve this soon

Dave
__________________
Affiliate Citizen
One man in the thick of the action..
Travelpixel.net
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #2 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
Greavsie Greavsie is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 289
Greavsie is an unknown quantity at this point
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

hi dave

There are a few options

- it could be them using the tracking for their own campaigns.
- they might allow a one/two affiliates to brand bid
- it's a rogue bidder.

I'd go for the latter; but drop them a message highlighting the link; see if they respond.
__________________
Greavsie, Agency & Affiliate, Ex-Network, Ex-Search Engine etc etc etc
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #3 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
pistol101 pistol101 is offline
Legend!
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: AF London Dungeon
Posts: 2,301
pistol101 seems to know their stuff
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Hi Dave,

I'm not sure where you found the terms your refering to but here are the terms that have been in place for years.

PPC Policy: Ink Factory currently allow their affiliates to use PPC advertising (Google Ad-Words for example) to publicise affiliate links. There are a huge number of search terms for the products they sell (ink cartridge product codes and printer names for example), some are less fought over than others and with these terms with a very low cost per click their shrewdest affiliates are already seeing a very handsome return on investment.

So there is no issues with the affiliates ads. Obviously we'd prefer there to be no brand bidding by affiliates or merchants using affiliate links to track. I'm sure this will change in due course.
__________________
Peter Dickenson Peter@affiliatefuture.co.uk

Barbados...We hired a theme park....join the affiliatefuture cult
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #4 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
Travel Pixel's Avatar
Travel Pixel Travel Pixel is offline
Travel Squared
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 271
Travel Pixel is an unknown quantity at this point
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Yes apologies Pete, I must have confused inkfactory with another of the numerous ink merchants on AF when it comes to the PPC policy...

However, the issue here im more concerned with is if the merchant has allowed one affiliate to bid on the brand, without informing the rest of the affiliates who bid on generic phrases or are content based. Its fairly reasonable to assume that the brand bidder will be creaming off some of the commission from these other affiliates who are not in the group.

Im interested to know the answer.

Dave
__________________
Affiliate Citizen
One man in the thick of the action..
Travelpixel.net
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #5 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
pistol101 pistol101 is offline
Legend!
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: AF London Dungeon
Posts: 2,301
pistol101 seems to know their stuff
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travel Pixel View Post
Yes apologies Pete, I must have confused inkfactory with another of the numerous ink merchants on AF when it comes to the PPC policy...

However, the issue here im more concerned with is if the merchant has allowed one affiliate to bid on the brand, without informing the rest of the affiliates who bid on generic phrases or are content based. Its fairly reasonable to assume that the brand bidder will be creaming off some of the commission from these other affiliates who are not in the group.

Im interested to know the answer.

Dave
Yes you are correct with you assumption that brand bidding affiliates will be creaming off commissions from other affiliates. I've seen an example of 75% of transactions being overwriten.
__________________
Peter Dickenson Peter@affiliatefuture.co.uk

Barbados...We hired a theme park....join the affiliatefuture cult
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #6 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
loquax's Avatar
loquax loquax is offline
www.onelittleduck.co.uk
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: Swansea
Posts: 2,270
loquax seems to know their stuff
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Quote:
Yes you are correct with you assumption that brand bidding affiliates will be creaming off commissions from other affiliates. I've seen an example of 75% of transactions being overwriten
Is that 75% with respect to PPC affiliates or every affiliate? Is 75% an extreme or an average? Are you essentially saying that for every 1 sale a non Brand Bidding affiliate is making 3 are being lost to the brand bidder?

Jason
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #7 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
angelabx's Avatar
angelabx angelabx is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 1,390
angelabx is an unknown quantity at this point
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Quote:
Originally Posted by pistol101 View Post
Yes you are correct with you assumption that brand bidding affiliates will be creaming off commissions from other affiliates. I've seen an example of 75% of transactions being overwriten.
I have seen it happen myself in the past when a merchant changed their own brand name bidding from non-tracking to a 'last man in' basis and started overwriting affiliate cookies with their own. It resulted in a significant fall in affiliate sales.

That was a travel merchant but looking at inkfactory I'd guess it's their own campaign because it seems they have trademark protection with Google on the 'inkfactory' term.
__________________
Angel
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #8 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
Travel Pixel's Avatar
Travel Pixel Travel Pixel is offline
Travel Squared
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 271
Travel Pixel is an unknown quantity at this point
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Quote:
That was a travel merchant but looking at inkfactory I'd guess it's their own campaign because it seems they have trademark protection with Google on the 'inkfactory' term.
Well i would have thought that except for the fact the link goes through the affiliate future redirect and presumably overwrites any other cookies.

D
__________________
Affiliate Citizen
One man in the thick of the action..
Travelpixel.net
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #9 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
angelabx's Avatar
angelabx angelabx is offline
Registered User
 
Join Date: Aug 2003
Location: UK
Posts: 1,390
angelabx is an unknown quantity at this point
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Quote:
Originally Posted by Travel Pixel View Post
Well i would have thought that except for the fact the link goes through the affiliate future redirect and presumably overwrites any other cookies.

D
Yep, I'd guess that the merchant is using an AF affilaite link for it's own campaign so it doesn't have to pay out affiliate commissions on trademark searches. Using their own AF link is the easiest way to acheive this. It would just cost them the network override rather than the full commission + Override.

I do remember a story a while back of the in-house affiliate manager of one programme using his own personal affilaite account for trademark bidding with Google. He obtained Google trademark protection for his campaign and milked the money for himself. It was on this forum.

The travel merchant I referred to didn't use the network link. They used their own coding and stopped sales tracking to affiliate networks when their own Google adverts had been clicked. I assume you already know about that one though. By looking at the link in Google you wouldn't think it negated affiliate cookies but it does.
__________________
Angel
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #10 (permalink)  
Old 13-02-08
Travel Pixel's Avatar
Travel Pixel Travel Pixel is offline
Travel Squared
 
Join Date: Sep 2006
Posts: 271
Travel Pixel is an unknown quantity at this point
  Re: Brand Bidder on Inkfactory. Rogue or Closed Group?

Quote:
Yep, I'd guess that the merchant is using an AF affilaite link for it's own campaign so it doesn't have to pay out affiliate commissions on trademark searches. Using their own AF link is the easiest way to acheive this. It would just cost them the network override rather than the full commission + Override.
So if that is the case its the same old story of a merchant overwriting any affiliate value that has been added and hoovering up the 'potential' commission that should have been paid to the affiliate for their part in the buying process.

__________________
Affiliate Citizen
One man in the thick of the action..
Travelpixel.net
Digg this Post!Add Post to del.icio.usBookmark Post in TechnoratiFurl this Post!
Reply With Quote
  #11 (permalink)   <