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The Role of Search Affiliates

March 4th, 2007 · Comments

Thanks for visiting the Affiliate Tip blog. Subscribe to my RSS feed or enter your e-mail on the top right to get updates by e-mail.

How do you view search affiliates? Are they cannibals and leeches who abuse your brand, or valuable strategic partners who take risks and deserve rewards?

Bob Heyman, Chief Search Officer at Mediasmith, covers the issue in SearchInsider in an article, Search Innovation Spotlight On Affiliate Search.

Heyman presents both sides and concludes…

However this controversy plays out, it’s always worth paying attention to what the search affiliates are doing. You’re probably bidding against them.

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Tags: Affiliate Opinions

Viewing 7 Comments

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    I always thought all affiliates were search affiliates. Isn't search affiliate the same as someone who uses adsense to get traffic to their site?
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    Hi Chris -

    The article was about those affiliates using Google Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing, etc. (the ppc search engines) to bid on keywords.

    That's a popular type of affiliate, but definitely not the only one. You've also got data feed sites, e-mails, content sites, rewards sites, bloggers, coupon sites, etc.
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    Hi guys,

    I'm working on a ph.d. at a business school in Spain in the topic of affiliate marketing. My focus is how the sponsors of affiliate marketing programs control the actitivites of affiliates. I think it's useful to make a distinction between affiliate "business models" such as data feed sites, bloggers, coupon sites, etc. and "promotion tools" such as email, search engine marketing, banners, content, etc. Curiously, search engine marketing is both a business model and a promotion tool, since some affiliates only use search while others use search either as a way to get visitors to *their* site, and/or in combination with other promotion tools.

    Cheers,
    Paul
    www.viajeria.com
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    Hey Shawn,
    I just found this post by searching for "working with search affiliates " in Google. The previous entries on the results page were not helpful.

    I'm wondering if you have any updates or advice around this topic. I'm in a situation where some of my affiliates are asking to bid on brand terms or it's just not profitable for them to be apart of our program.

    Is there a way to incorporate search affiliates into our strategy that is mutually beneficial and how on earth can we make sure we're not being taken for a ride?

    Thanks for your time,
    Kirk
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    Hi Kirk -

    Personally, I think the best approach for a company that has a brand is to award a few affiliates with the right to bid on trademarked keywords.

    This would be under the condition that they are working the long tail and investing their time and money to put together a big campaign.

    Allowing affiliates to bid on trademarked terms with no ground rules is just crazy.

    You can do that yourself.
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    Thanks for your advice Shawn.

    I wasn't clear if you were talking about trademarked terms as in a company's brand like Home Depot or if you were referring to the trademarked brands that Home Depot carries for example.

    We have campaigns going for some of our top brands and we don't want to compete with search affiliates, but is there a way to "share" these terms for an overall strategy? I'd like to allow some of our key affiliates the right to bid on our key brands.

    When you say ground rules what specifically should I (we all) make absolutely clear so there is no confusion down the road?
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    Hi Kirk -

    Regarding the trademarks, it would be both the company name and any brands or product names sold by the company.

    You can certainly permit affiliates to bid on anything, so long as they're not driving up your own costs.

    Some companies will cap the amount their affiliates can bid on certain terms, so they don't get in bidding wars with their own affiliates.

    The ground rules vary from company to company, depending on their own search campaigns, size of their brand, etc.

    There can be broken down to three options:

    - no bidding on trademarked names at all
    - some affiliates have permission to bid on trademarks
    - free for all with no rules
 

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