Brand Name Bidding “Corruption” - Put up or shut up
Oh Dear. Lee has just blogged about brand name ppc bidding and seems to be of the opinion that the approval process is corrupt. Sadly, he lowers the tone of his argument by ending with this paragraph:
So how much will it cost me to be an approved brand-bidder? What do I have to do? Do I need by some knee pads and mints? Or is it all above board, open and fair?
I’ve wrote about brand bidding before and put together some pros and cons for whether or not it should exist at all. However it seems that the issue for debate at the moment is whether or not the approval process for who should be allowed to brand name bid is corrupt or not.
It seems that some people like Lee and the “anonymous” (why let anonymous people post on your blog anyway? If they haven’t the courage to stand behind their convictions then they shouldn’t be allowed to post) blog poster in the comments section think that the same paid search affiliates get first dibs on brand name bidding. So what if they do? If they do its because they do a good job and have the expertise, financial backing and technology to do the job well. Whats the problem with that? If I was a network and needed 5 affiliates to brand name bid I would go to the 5 who I respect, know well and trust and who I know will abide by the rules, work well together and not mess it up. I repeat, whats wrong with that?
Having said all that however, I have to say that I’ve witnessed first hand that networks do allow new affiliates into closed groups. When I was heavily involved in the Broadband sector I was in pretty much every broadband brand closed group and I saw new affiliates being let into closed groups all of the time. And these affiliates were affiliates who brought in a lot of sales from either generic paid search terms or from having well placed sites that get a lot of natural traffic. They were given brand name privileges as a thankyou from the merchant. The other types of new affiliates let in to closed groups were ones who did well in other sectors and have proved their worth and were now offering to bring some incremental business to the merchant by launching a new site in that sector. So as long as they bid on generic terms they were also allowed to bid on brand terms.
And as for all these bribery and corruption conspiracies what do you think this is? Do you really see super affiliates meeting networks in dimly lit underground car parks handing over a brown envelope full of cash just so they can have brand name bidding privileges on “Dorothy Perkins”? Come on, what a load of complete, absolute and utter rubbish. If anybody has any evidence then either put up or shut up as all these “allegations” by anonymous people are doing nothing more than damaging the good name of the Affiliate Marketing industry.
Can I also say that yes, once upon a time brand name bidding was like printing money. Now if I’m totally honest its a pain in the backside. We are constantly having to adapt and change whole landing page/sites at Google’s whim, manage campaigns 24/7, adjust bids every 3.5 minutes (well, seems like it), ensure copy is to the merchants approval and generally have to react instantly when the merchant asks us to. And its for this reason that I don’t run many brand name campaigns these days. Sure I have one or two small campaigns on the go but not many. For me its just not worth the reward or the headache. I’d much rather dominate niches on generic terms, this gives you a much stronger position as an affiliate and allows you to command higher CPA’s and tenancy deals. That’s where the sensible money is honey.
What I’m listening to right now: Mary J Blige – “Just Fine”
Saturday, October 20th, 2007 at 6:11 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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[...] up for a bung? Posted by: info in Uncategorized Lee and Kieron have both blogged in the last couple of days about corruption in brand name [...]
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[...] His blog posts are not filled with hype and random information like some of the other big bloggers, all Kieron’s posts are informative and in the couple of days I have been reading it, I have learn’t so much. check out his post on brand name bidding. [...]
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
Keiron, perhaps you didn’t read the post properly.
I wasn’t saying that the process was corrupt, I was asking whether it is.
I think it’s a valid conversation or debate to have.
I’m disapointed that you feel I lowered the tone. If you don’t like the tone of my blog - don’t read it!
Lee
Lee
Much of this debate on both blogs (and any of the surrounding rumours/gossip/heresay/fact - delete as applicable) could be dispelled simply with more transparency from the networks.
As I commented on Lee’s blog make the results of RFP’s public - everyone then knows who has been chosen and who’s doing what. Why not go as far as to indicate who’s in each closed group?
It won’t happen as they’ll be excuses abound… but should multi million pound businesses be concerned by that if it dispels rumours of corruption or removes the shroud of secrecy which covers the industry?
I’d love the industry to have a whiter than white image but to get that image the lid needs to be lifted by the networks to demonstrate all is well and above board in the way they deal with RFP’s, closed groups etc.
Unfortunately until that happens OR an affiliate has the courage and conviction to prove and publish that there are issues regarding impartiality (rather than just anonly) then there will always be rumours and comment from those “in the know” or just simply disgruntled by the lack of clarity.
Jason
Interesting blog post Kieron.
I think there are a few things to take into account. Firstly, Brand name bidding can infact be corrupt. When I managed a campaign on a network that is well known for suggesting brand name bidding in the past it was suggested that I change my policy (from no brand name bidding) and allow about 5 affiliates to do so.
It was a good idea (as we didn’t have it trademarked with google) but the part that WAS corrupt about it was that the network (who knew I did my own affiliate activities) suggested that I be one of the brand name bidders myself.
To me, that is corrupt.
All that being said there are reasons to allow closed brand name bidding groups and often it is perfectly legit.
I think that transparancy is required and most of the networks (which pissed me off) refuse to do it.
As you know, I went to some of the IAB meetings & sat in a room with the senior staff at pretty much all of the networks. I suggested that to make things more transparent all they need to do is let affiliates know what programs allow BNB and what do not (and ideally when it’s up for renewal).
EVERY NETWORK IN ATTENDANCE (BAR ONE) REFUSED TO DO SO.
That says a lot for me - the industry is not a corrupt one but seeing as one of the glorious things about it is the fact that everything is so transparent it’s a shame that this is one area that isn’t - it’s something that needs to be addressed.
Hi,
I’ve added a network perspective to Lee’s blog on this topic - one that seemingly never goes away despite little supporting evidence to back it up.
yawn……
I cant beleive that after 4 years of the affiliate community debateing and dicussing this topic were still getting posts like this from Lee.
This is getting really boring now - lets move on and start talking about something new please before i kill myself.
Mongoose - what’s your prefered method?
for you as a blog author to write about current issues that are relevent and of interest to the affiliate community - welcome to 2007