Moose on the Loose

Do you partake in PPC direct to the merchants website from paid search engines using an affiliate link?

Do you feel that your keyword databases are a precious commodity?

If your answer is yes to the questions above then read on …

Therefore, what are your thoughts to merchants being able to see / analyse not only the referring url of sales or clicks, but also glean the keywords you use from direct to merchant advertising from paid search engines? As this could be a dilemma we have been facing for a quite a while. Now, granted a merchant can already access this information via their own logs since the creation of the internet.

Unless, of course you send the traffic via you own site first through a redirect i.e. google adwords / adsense > affiliate site redirect > merchant, this can be prevented some of the time but not all the time, I guess it depends on how it is initially set up.

We need some investigation into what networks allow merchants to see on the interface from the client side & some direct answers from a network if politely asked. These will then be cross referenced by asking merchants we know & trust what they actually see from their side. I do wonder if any networks don’t actually have the ability to prevent this from being seen or haven’t stripped out the most important part of the search string … that being the keywords.

Not only that, but also the networks have this information at their disposal, there is bound to be one or two less scrupulous aprties whether it be networks / merchants / agencies / even member of staff who will use these keywords for their own material gain, whether to pass on to clients on a consultancy basis – or have their own bid management tools they have developed themselves or acquired (which has happened recently in acquisitions) to use the keywords to block off ppc for affiliate programs entirely – or pass on to their own closed groups – or insist on restrictions on certain hybrid or generic phrases that they wouldn’t have previously known.

Perhaps we might even need the extreme of networks signing a non disclosure for the use of our keywords.

Anyhow back on track, I guess this can be stopped some of the time but not all of the time or can it?

Maybe one way which is near 100% fool proof is to land on affiliate page and click … as automatic forwarding can sometimes send the information along … however … you can add a slight pause or load an image on forwarding page that stops the referrer from passing across, hey you could even pass the search string along saying “bugger off” or maybe more suitably “tut tut tut” or “oh no you don’t”. Going through a redirect is also better if you have bid management tools or monitoring data, etc. There are slighly more advanced methods.

One downside a network may argue, is that they need information for detecting fraud or there could be some comeback with a network not liking you hide your traffic source … “Well sorry Mr Network, we are not participating in this & my keyword database is a lot more valuable asset to me than any unjust accusations you may wish to through at me”. I appreciate dealing with fraud affiliates is maybe one of the hardest most time consuming jobs going, but surely there are other ways & means of detecting these? If so answers on a postcard, please.

Charity begins at home, I don’t think we are telling all the fraud affiliates how to hide stuff more than what is solved, because they probably have more advanced ways of hiding their scams anyhow.

At the end of the day, the ball is in your court …

Question 1: How precious a commodity is your keyword database?

Question 2: By not having the appropriate redirects in place, are you happy about handing things on a plate to your competitors?

What prompted me to write this article, well it’s something I have been meaning to post for a while but more recently I saw some sales on a network get rejected by a merchant, because I suspect they came from adsense adverts according to the referring URL’s the merchant provided.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 21st, 2007 at 2:55 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.