31st July 2007

Say No! to Restrictions to on Brands in the Sub Domains & Folders of an Affiliate’s Website

posted in Affiliate Marketing |
Spread the love

Last night I was simply going through the process of signing up to a few programs on various affiliate networks & occasionally you see terms & conditions like these.

In this example we shall use AXA PPP “H“ealthcare

“Affiliates are not permitted to have the AXA brand in their URLs, display URLs, sub-domains or folders “

The part that grates me is “sub-domains or folders” when are networks going to tell merchants or their agencies, no to unacceptable “sub-domains or folders” restrictions. An affiliates website is their domain & it’s down to their own integrity, whether it be site architecture or sub-domain, folder structure, & that of the merchant or agency representing that merchant. Please, get the message that it is an affiliates property & a merchant has no claim to imposing undue restrictions upon this.

Some UK affiliates might remember the debacle for Marks & Spencers when they insisted on affiliates using the ampersand “&” rather than “and”. That was very petty. So in addition to AXA PPP “H“ealthcare affiliate program they had these little clauses too. I think there is a photo knocking about somewhere from an affiliate event with regard to Marks and Spencers. Is it the same agency which or did represent both?

“Our company name should always be written as AXA PPP healthcare (with a lower case ‘h’) and never split over two lines or abbreviated. Wherever possible, Helvetica or Arial should be used for body copy, if not then verdana. Eras demi should be used for headers.”

Cough … excuse me Mr / Mrs / Miss / Ms Agency, please get a reality check with the special conditions for the AXA PPP “H”ealth care program. Fine represent the merchant in a favourable hue, but please will they stop being so pedantic. There are other examples out there, but this one was used as actual T&C’s for illustration purposes.

Though not pertaining to this particular program, you quite often see PPC restrictions saying along the lines of “you are permitted to bid on generic terms and send them to your own affiliates site” … How gracious of you sir! – we surly say … it’s our site, off course we surely can … so go away. Will some of these merchants & networks please get a grip.

Side Note : Article working atm .. is called “Join the Dots” … It won’t win many friends & may end up as “Billy No Mates” 🙂

PS Just saw this one for Time Out … “Affiliates are NOT permitted to appear higher in the SERP than the merchant listing” … they just keep getting better .. erm well every affiliate will rank for something better, whatever that term maybe.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 4:18 AM 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.

There are currently 11 responses to “Say No! to Restrictions to on Brands in the Sub Domains & Folders of an Affiliate’s Website”

Why not let us know what you think by adding your own comment! Your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, so come on... let us know what you think.

  1. 1 On July 31st, 2007, James said:

    Can’t agree with you more Paul. Unfortunutely it’s terms like these that give agencies a bad name. I can understand HAVING restrictions to PPC (as we do one or two of our programs) but things like this are just plain stupid, IMVHO.

    In terms of the SERPS T&C from Timeout, I’m really hoping that is a joke..

  2. 2 On July 31st, 2007, Clarke said:

    Hi Billy No Mates, can’t agree with you more. Merchants putting in terms to control the position how they show on SERPS that is totally out of the control of the Affiliate is just plan stupid and completely un-enforceable. The only way for Affiliates can 100% guarantee that they don’t show above the Merchant ever is to simply not promote them and I urge every affiliate that cares about this industry not to be bullied by merchants that issue shocking terms and do not promote this type of merchant and the Networks that support terms like this, they are helping to speedily kill this industry.

  3. 3 On August 1st, 2007, Lee Mccoy said:

    I agree with you most of the way Paul.

    What merchants and agencies don’t realise that folder name has on part in ranking and filename next to none.

    They may have some legitimate claim if they thought it had an effect increasing CTR in the natural SERPS as the displayed URL takes advantage of their brand equity.

    I had a cease and dissist from Saga because i created some spam pages and had their brand on some but didn’t link to them.

    It’s my opinion that ‘Brand Managers’ are the most anal and informed of all the marketing roles!

  4. 4 On August 1st, 2007, Warrick said:

    I thought it would be worth adding my comments to this one since buy.at run the Timeout & AXA PPP healthcare programmes. With regards to Timeout, the terms that are referred to above are taken from the PPC Restrictions section of the programme description and so don’t apply to the programme as a whole. I’ll ask our account manager here to review them so there is no ambiguity in the future. We always ensure that before we launch a programme for a merchant that we review their proposed TCs and sense check what is going into them. Obviously, it would be ludicrous for us to expect affiliates to manage their listings in natural search.

    With the AXA PPP healthcare example the sub domains are from the PPC Restrictions on the programme and so aren’t applicable to the programme in general. The restrictions around how the programme should be promoted are fairly closely controlled but I think it’s reasonable for a merchant to ask that affiliates working with them respect their branding. In this instance AXA PPP healthcare may be putting a greater than normal level of restriction in place but there are always going to be some merchants that are more uncertain about affiliate marketing initially and if terms like these allow them to experiment with it as a channel and see the benefits that a programme can bring then I think that it’s a necessary part of the industry while its still maturing.

    I hope that helps clarify those programmes, if there’s anything else that anyone would like to discuss please feel free to get in contact.

    Cheers,

    Warrick
    Warrick@buy.at
    0191 2416500

  5. 5 On August 1st, 2007, Paul said:

    Hi Warrick, thank You for your reply, this was not aimed at being anything indicative towards Buy.at but something we have noticed on most networks, though it does seem that Buy.at seem to have more programs with PPC restrictions than most other networks, I will bring up the stats one day.

    There is considerable ambiguity overall. Though with purely PPC, opinion is probably more divided on the brand in the display url for sub domain or folder. However an affiliate’s website is exactly that, their website not the merchants whether they are promoting them via a affiliate link or not. How about we ask all merchants to put ALL affiliates brand names as negatives for all their PPC activity, their response would be obvious.

    WRT to “h” or “H”, this is as stated is pedantic & perhaps should maybe refer to the old threads on the forum pertaining to Marks and Spencer.

    Time Out clearly states refering to SERPS.

    Soon any mention of a merchants name will have to be in the format of javascript or image only.

    Networks appeasing merchants & over riding affiliate concerns is not tolerable

  6. 6 On August 1st, 2007, tara @ eqtr said:

    Man! Just when you think that agencies are gaining some footing!

    AXA PPP healthcare is ours. I am absolutely not in favor of setting restrictions that are outside of someone’s control as in the last case. However big brands spend big money and big time building up their brands. This is often the challenge that we face when informing merchants about affiliates – they want to be able to work with partners while keeping control of their brand so that one consistent message is being given to their customers. It would be like you agreeing to work with another website and them putting an image of a mouse on a soap box instead of a moose. It just wouldn’t be you! Also if an affiliate partner posted an incorrect name and we contacted them asking them to please change it wouldn’t they say “for crying out loud why didn’t you just tell me to begin with???”? In the end, although rigid, these types of requests bear no influence on the revenue that would be made from the programme would it?

    Lee has explained the sub-domain issue perfectly as affecting CTR. Also in the past we have seen an affiliate or two using a merchant’s brand in their sub-domain while featuring a competitor which of course doesn’t sit well as it could be confusing to customers.

  7. 7 On August 1st, 2007, Paul said:

    Man, Moose or Mouse .. hmm could be the makings of a tag line .. still it’s traffic …

  8. 8 On August 3rd, 2007, Shane said:

    what utter moosenutts ! .. I can not believe some retard (and I use the phrase with strong emphasis) at AXA has decided that this is a positive move and protects their brand.

    soon it will be “click mystery link x and see the special offer on something we can’t tell you about until you click this £1.50 a click link”

    well AXA would be ecstatic with me, you won’t find any mention of AXA at all on any our our sites in any form ever whilst this stupid policy is being enforced.

    personally I feel the only form of viable url control is the merchant saying the affiliate is not allowed to link directly to site for ppc and therefore not use the merchant url as a display one.

    apart from that scenario it’s a case of if we are prepared to spend our money at our own risk then leave us to do our job the way we know how to best effect and having the merchant in the title, adcopy and ad url boosts the clickthough as well as at the same time as discourages searchers from clicking the link who may not want the brand we are pushing or may be comparing a (in this instance) quote, they may have already got an AXA quote so are not going to click a link with AXA in it again thus saving us money on ppc.

    the moose / mouse soap box argument is flawed, we are pushing these merchants for FREE until a sale is made and no merchant should EVER forget that, it’s our sites, our adcopy and our money that is spent before they even have to cough any cash out, it’s zero risk marketing at it’s best so if they want results they should leave us to push how we know will work… if the merchant wants a meglomaniac level of control over everything then they better be offering industry leading rates

    gaah… enough of over educated yet ill informed merchants.. it’s friday I’m off for some vodka 🙂

  9. 9 On August 3rd, 2007, Paul said:

    Tonight, I have been going through programs on Commission Junction, they seem to have more programs than any other network with regard to restrictions in meta text, meta tags on a publisher’s own website, plus lengthy additional T&C’s which would required a skilled solicitor to translate, whom I doubt would pay for our legal representation to translate … and never forget CJ Network Quality who often include within their emails about removal of listings from natural search, I have lost track of the number of programs which have closed on their network with out proper notifcation.

    It makes you feel like forgetting the affiliate program & arbitrage to the full via cpc, then perhaps they may appreciate value.

  10. 10 On August 11th, 2007, Paul said:

    Latest one is More Than on OMG

    – Requesting negative match – “If broad matching please set the key words ‘More Than’ to negative.”
    – “All affiliates must display the brand in the correct manner (capitalised and containing the chevron) both within their own properties and in search ads i.e. MORE TH>N rather than More Than”

  11. 11 On August 12th, 2007, Shane said:

    I personally won’t add a merchant as a negative in this way.

    If I am buying broad match then that’s what I’m buying ..BROAD MATCH that means I’ll be paying for searches that are winners and losers so as a merchant you’ll take both types of traffic off me to your site, you can’t NOT specify to me to exclude certain search terms on broad match when I’m paying the bill !

    It has already become established that some brands are no no’s but if we let dictation become the norm it will end up with generics on broad match being specified as negatives ! We’ve seen attempts at megalomania before with the likes of interflora’s “you can’t bid on flowers” etc..

    forget that !.. if the merchant doesn’t want to work with me on that basis then fine.. no problemo there are plenty more that will.

    Agencies, Networks and merchants should understand that if they want to cherry pick traffic then if anyone is prepared to put up with strict parameters like negative on broad in play then it’s going to cost them far in excess of standard rates to find anyone capable of delivering volume who will consider doing it !

    Simply demanding an affiliate’s PPC account has specific negatives added to it isn’t going to fly .. if we do this now it’s going to get to the point where affiliates are given 53 exact matched terms to fight it out no discussion bid only on those or you are binned etc.

    I for one will not be touching programs where there is a mandatory negatives list in play.

    It needs stamping out now or it’ll be the tail that is wagging the dog !

Leave a Reply