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28 Comments

Affiliate is running paid ads for my product. Should I be concerned?

I've had an affiliate program running for Divjoy for awhile now, but just realized that one of my affiliates who has driven 3 sales has been running Google ads for my product with their affiliate link (my analytics show "google / cpc" as the referring source).

Is this pretty standard practice when it comes to affiliate programs? Should I be concerned about the ad content they're running? Is there any way for me to see what the ad content is or is that private since I'm not the one running the ad?

Unfortunately they haven't responded to my emails.. but I'm also inclined to let this happen if everything is legit. Also maybe this is a sign I should start experimenting with paid advertising myself ๐Ÿค”

  1. 4

    Yes you should be concerned about him using your brand in a way that you might not like. Most affiliate programs have a clause in their terms and conditions that block individuals from doing this. It's ur call though.

    1. 1

      Thanks, this is good to know. I'll look into adding a clause like this.

  2. 3

    No, this is not good for you. Affiliates should not run paid ads. They are probably on your brand name which means you cannot do it yourself if you wanted to later on. I also learned this the hard way recently. I recommend you have strict rules that affiliates cannot run paid ads but has to be organic traffic only. This is a shady practice and I would not do business with those so called "affiliates".

  3. 3

    If someone searches for your company name having decided that it's time to sign up, the ad shows up at the top and many people will click that instead of the search result. You just gave the affiliate free money. That's why most affiliate programs ban this practice. It's abusing the company instead of helping it. Your search result would have come up at the very top of the page and instead it's being duplicated and you lose out.

  4. 3

    You're probably paying him too much of a share if he stands to make a profit after advertising your product on your behalf.

    1. 3

      why too much ? if you hired a sales man, you will pay him nothing ? I don't think so. More you pay, more they are driving revenue.
      Good affiliate programs (like berush) are program with a high revshare. It's more interesting for the affiliate to promote, and at the end, it's win-win

  5. 2

    Hi Gabe,

    I see this twofold:

    1. if competitors bid on your brand and you don't want to spend your own money to protect it, good that your affiliate is making it harder for them (he's basically taking to shot for you). Due to quality score, if an affiliate of yours bids 1 USD per click, your competitor will have to double or even tripple that to overbid them (as the competitor's domain would give him low quality score)
    2. if you yourself buy ads or wants to, including brand ads. You do need to keep an eye on that. If you want a few free scans on https://spoofdefender.com , drop me a line, we can see how often that happens or if you should just scare this guy off. [email protected] . from my experience, until your affiliate program/brand is really big, you usually just need to shut one or two guys off and you should be good for a year or two :)
  6. 2

    We always recommend our clients to avoid having affiliates running any paid campaigns (especially on Google) for you.

    It got mentioned a couple of times already but here is why;

    • It will decrease your own organic traffic (as they probably click on the paid link), they basically 'earn money on your brand success'.
    • They are driving the price up for your keywords (especially when more affiliates start doing this). So would recommend not allowing it from the start.
    • They might not have the brand style you are looking for.

    If you do like it (as you do get sales from it); only allow it with specific rules.

  7. 2

    You can lock your domain for other advertisers on google and on Facebook ... might be something to look into ... just having in your terms propably is not enough for some affiliates

  8. 2

    Many affiliate programs don't allow to make cpc with the name of the company/product.
    Mainly because it'll make those terms with a higher cpc.

    1 ad with term divjoy = less $ cpc than 10 ads with the term

    So when you'll want to make an ad campaign using the term of "divjoy, it'll be more expensive with you.

  9. 2

    cc @momoko โ€” thoughts?

    1. 3

      Yeah, most affiliate agreements actually ban the affiliate from bidding on branded keywords. Here's an example from the ConvertKit terms:

      c) Pay-Per-Click (โ€œPPCโ€) Restrictions: Unless The Company first gives you written permission, you agree to comply with the following restrictions:

      You may not bid on any of our Restricted Terms (defined below), including any variations or misspellings thereof for search or content- based campaigns on Google, Bing, MSN, Yahoo, Facebook or any other network.

      โ€œRestricted Termsโ€ means any of the following terms: ConvertKit, ConvertKit LLC, convertkit.com, www.convertkit.com, ConvertKit coupon, ConvertKit discount code, ConvertKit discount, ConvertKit promo code, ConvertKit sale, ConvertKit promo, ConvertKit sales, ConvertKit deals.

      You may not use our Restricted Terms, including any variations or misspellings as per above in sequence with any other keyword.

      You may not use our Restricted Terms in your ad title, ad copy, display name or as the display URL.

      You may not use any of our trademarked terms as part of the domain or sub-domain for Your Website.

      You may not direct link to the Site from any PPC ad or use redirects that yield the same result. Customers must be directed to an actual page on Your Website.
      You may not bid in any manner appearing higher than us for any search term in positions 1-5 in any auction-style PPC advertising program.

      If you automate your PPC campaigns, it is your responsibility to exclude our trademarked terms from your marketing and related activities and we strongly suggest you add our trademarked terms as negative keywords.

      We have a strict no tolerance policy on PPC trademark bidding. We will not enter a discussion about when the violation started and when it stopped; you will forfeit all Affiliate Fees for a minimum of the past 30 days, your Affiliate Fee balance will be set to $0 without warning, and we may terminate your participation in the Program at our discretion.

      So, yeah, this should be in your TOS @Gabe. Affiliates try this kinda stuff all the time haha.

      1. 1

        They try to get sales? I get it being an issue if you are competing against them but what's the harm in the early days?

        1. 3

          Because those customers would've otherwise landed on your website, at no cost to you, thanks to organic search.

          They're basically undercutting you. Those ads only show when people are searching for your site anyway, it's not that they're e.g. running Facebook ads for people "interested" in a specific topic, who aren't yet aware of your solution.

          1. 1

            Really appreciate the insights! Iโ€™ll make sure to clarify this in a TOS right away.

            I do wonder what the harm would be in letting affiliates run PPC ads for terms where my product does not rank in the first few pages. Maybe itโ€™s just easier to outright ban PPC ads rather than try to determine what keywords theyโ€™re targeting (which as far as I can tell is impossible, since it doesnโ€™t show in analytics)?

            1. 2

              Something you can do, but you'd want to do privately so you don't tip off competitors, is tell your affiliates which keywords they can try to rank content for. For instance, with ConvertKit, affiliates might try to rank for "email marketing tool". With SEO it's all fair game, so if you want to help them, you can do that.

              I think the big thing is you don't want them bidding on so-called "branded keywords" because they contain your name, so people searching know your product already and the affiliate isn't helping as much.

              So instead of banning PPC, you can just band words and phrases with your name in it. If affiliates want to use your name in something, it needs to be in SEO content, ranked organically. E.g. "divjoy review" or "divjoy alternatives".

              Depending on how popular the terms are, tools like Ahrefs do show you who is bidding on keywords. I've found the data to be pretty incomplete though, especially for lower volume terms.

              1. 1

                Thank you this is really helpful!

  10. 2

    why? he's paying to advertise your product for you.

    1. 1

      I guess one concern is that he's targeting the term "divjoy" and taking a cut when these users would have clicked the first link anyway. I don't see his ad, but maybe I'm not in the target group. Curious if there are any other potential concerns I'm just not thinking of.

      1. 1

        I recently saw some affiliate marketers on TikTok promoting this "easy money" tactic specifically to capture commissions on products that don't run paid ads.

        I'm not a lawyer but you may want to look into any unintended side effects around trademark, or possibly him bidding up your product name keyword prices if you want to run your own ads.

        1. 1

          Interesting! I'll do some research on trademark issues. Would definitely be annoying to have by brand name bidded up by affiliates once I start advertising in the future. Maybe better to cut off this activity now.

          1. 2

            Yeah it seems like it's not the worst thing but given that most companies who do affiliates have a specific clause in their agreement that disallows direct competing ads like this, it's probably for a reason ๐Ÿ˜…

            1. 1

              Just saw another Tik Tok video pitching this as a "easy six figure technique that nobody else is using" ๐Ÿ™„ https://vm.tiktok.com/ZMJmAWEFe/

  11. 1

    It's important to care about your brand when letting affiliates promote your product. But if they are an affiliate, you should let them promote your product in the way that works best for them. However, if they don't advertise your brand properly, then you should be worried.

  12. 1

    Hi @Gabe - responding to this post a few months late. Big fan of what you're doing with Divjoy.

    Out of curiosity, what platform did you choose for Divjoy's affiliate marketing program?
    And how did you decide who were the right affiliates to promote Divjoy?

    I have an idea for a product in this space and am seeking to learn more about it.

    Thanks.

  13. 1

    First of all do you have any rules as a vendor?
    Many affiliate programs does not allow to bid on brand keywords/company name/exact product name.
    Do you allow direct linking while advertising?- this may also take effect if one or the other advertising platform will decide they don't like your product/service.

    If there are no rules applied, then affiliate may use any advertising methods and techniques they want, and there is nothing to complain about.

    BTW as far as I understand your niche does not fall under any major advertising network TOS, so stay calm and enjoy :)

  14. 1

    Hey @Gabe, Can you provide me the keywords you want to see the PPC ads on? I might be able to see the Ad copy in my Ad Explorer.
    Let me know.

  15. 1

    For brand reasons, you should be concerned. I would allow it primarily because if they are an affiliate, you are allowing them to get the referrals how they see fit. Like I said, i would only be concerned if they are representing your brand correctly in the ad.

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