Virgin Wines - no links please??

**mrb1970** · 25-11-04

Does the below make any sense to anyone? Am I stupid?

Do they mean you can't have a link from the word "Virgin Wines"???

Dear Affiliates,

I hope you are all well.

Just wanted to reiterate that we will not pay any commissions on orders
generated by affiliates that have using our name.

Here a couple of examples how not to get your commission! Please be aware
persistent offenders are suspended and then deleted from our affiliate
groups.

Virginwines-com
Virgin Wines. Great Offers. aff
Europe online wine retailer
www.virginwines.com
or
Virgin Wines - £10 off
Get £10 off your first order &
£4.99 delivery to anywhere in UK
www.virginwines.com

Apologies to all affiliates that are generating valid sales without
masquerading as Virgin Wines.

Many thanks for all of your support now and ion the future.

Zara Timms
Corporate Development Manager
01603 886 501
Life's too short for Boring Wine!
http://www.virginwines.com <http://www.virginwines.com/>

**999gi** · 25-11-04

I think they mean PPC but sounds like you cant have virgin wines as the display url in your PPC ads even if you link direct based on their use of the word "masquerading"

**mrb1970** · 25-11-04

Yes, that's what I wondering but then if it was PPC what is the point of the examples?!

It must be that you can't link from the words "Virgin Wines" - hmm, how daft is that?

Or is it just me.....

Perhaps I'll promote Virgin Wines by linking from the words Slurp Wines!

**999gi** · 25-11-04

The examples look like adwords ads - even having "aff" in one

**drivetowin** · 25-11-04

looking at their example I am 99.9% certain they mean adwords ads

**Mogga** · 25-11-04

So how would they know?

Wasn't there something about them not liking something else not that long ago

**mrb1970** · 26-11-04

I'm dropping them............

**stulee** · 26-11-04

It didn't make sense to me either so I wrote and asked for clarification. This was the information I received back:

Guidelines for Virgin Wines Affiliates on PPC advertising and SEO.
Many of our affiliates use PPC advertising as a successful means of driving traffic to Virgin Wines, generating sales for us, and of course commission for you. We are happy for affiliates to do this as it generates a lot of exposure for Virgin Wines.
We have prepared the following guidelines to avoid any conflict between Virgin Wines ppc programme and our affiliates. If you have specific queries which are not answered in this document please refer these to our contact at Affiliate Window, to forward to us.
General Guidelines - References to Virgin Wines
We are happy for affiliates to mention Virgin Wines in the title or in the body of adverts.
e.g '£20 voucher for new Virgin Wines customers' - 'Click Here to claim a voucher to use at Virgin Wines'.
However we do not permit affiliates to masquerade as Virgin Wines by using Virgin Wines url as the domain name.. The domain name must show clearly as the affiliate in both organic and ppc adverts. Affiliates must also ensure they link to the correct page. Ie A £20 voucher advert links to our voucher page and not the homepage.
Virgin Wines rules regarding bidding on our domain name equally apply to Virgin Wines, Virgin Wine, www.virginwines.com, www.virginwines.co.uk , Virgin Wines Online, Virgin Wine Online and any other version of our company name. We will immediately be forced to suspend any affiliates who do not follow our rules and we will refuse to pay comissions so please work with us on this.
It may be necessary to request you to remove PPC adverts at short notice if we receive a complaint from a customers who is unable to find the advertised promotion. We would appreciate your cooperation in resolving any link errors or copy inaccuracies on your site as soon as possible.

I think that's fairly clear even though I don't understand their logic! I do wonder if they just don't 'get' how it works and understand that the URL does link straight through to their site, or that all affiliate ads work in this way. I wrote back to tell them they're about the only merchant I've come across who won't permit linking to the merchant site in the usual manner from Adwords ads. No response yet..