This morning as I was reviewing affiliate applications in our clients‘ programs, I had to dig into one specific affiliate’s feedback (it was a ShareASale-based affiliate program, and they equip their advertisers with this great feature). It was their negative score that raised a red flag. This affiliate positioned himself […]
Setting Violator's Commissions at Zero Hurts Other Affiliates Read More »
As Google Affiliate Network (GAN) is shutting down its operations, many are attempting to “monetize” on this. Affiliate networks are fighting for the attention of GAN advertisers, OPM agencies are extending their compelling migration offers to soon-to-be-former GAN merchants, but one company’s approach really stood out to me. As of
Free Paid Search Monitoring for Google Affiliate Network Merchants Read More »
Earlier this month @SMNWebcasts tweeted: Naturally, I was among the first folks to request the whitepaper; but only now I’ve finally found time to blog about it. The case study starts by quoting some sobering statistics from an analysis by Artinsic Interactive of “hundreds of advertisers”: There are no hard
Case Study on Affiliate Brand Abuse in PPC (SEM) Channel Read More »
Over the past few days I have reviewed over a hundred of affiliate applications into a program I manage, but 3 particularly stood out. One of them was from the UK, one from Serbia and one from Indonesia. These applications can be gathered into one group, because all three had
Trademarks in Affiliate Domains: a Cause for Concern? Read More »
It isn’t unusual to see the following affiliate paid search policy set out and enforced by a merchant: In the vast majority of cases the above PPC policy is one of those best practices that every affiliate program should implement. The reason is obvious: such affiliate activity adds no value
Affiliates, Domain Names and Trademark Violations Read More »
A friend, and fellow affiliate marketer tweeted: If you are looking for tool to monitor affiliate (and competitor) bidding on your trademark, AdGooroo does seem to have a free option offering a “24/7 monitoring of 6 search engines in 20 countries” with a “deep analysis of over 155 ad servers
Free Tool to Monitor Paid Search Trademark Violations Read More »
A merchant has just asked: I have an affiliate that just registered “trademarknameproducttype.com” and is going to start marketing our new [trademark name] product line. Is this acceptable? I know he’s doing marketing for us, however he’s using our trademarked name. The intent of the above-quoted affiliate is obvious —
Trademarked Names in Affiliate Domains Read More »
While parasitism in affiliate marketing frequently being synonymized only with downloadable applications that intrude with the end user’s shopping experience with a purpose of facilitating cookie setting/swap on the customer’s machine, the term should really include everyone who is extracting wealth from merchants/advertisers without assisting them in any way to
Trademark Violators — a Type of Parasite Read More »