[Chuck Hamrick]

One of the ongoing battles that affiliates fight is trying to promote a brand name product but being restricted on using the trade mark. In my opinion this is a rediculous tentant i.e. we want you to sell our FORD vehicle but do not use the name FORD (just an example has nothing to so with FORD).

Personally I talk with many affiliates and many affiliate managers about this. For the last year I have been working with my merchants and am proud to announce that three of my merchants are allowing unrestricted PPC bidding.

[Chuck Hamrick]

Icon Fitness is the OEM for many brand named products. We market a number of their affiliate programs and they have agreed to allow affiliates to trade mark bid on all brands with the exception of Nordic Track (controlled by SEARS):

WorkoutWarehouse.com (http://workout.affiliatecrew.com/)

HealthRider.com (http://healthrider.affiliatecrew.com/)

Weslo.com (http://weslo.affiliatecrew.com/)


Working on a relaunch of Proform and a Nordic Track UK site!!

[spacedog]

Hey Chuck,

Does Little Giant Ladder still not allow PPC bidding on their trademark names (both company name "Little Giant" and product names)?

[Chuck Hamrick]

We run a lead generation affiliate program for Bosley.com through our site www.bosleyinfo.com (http://www.bosleyinfo.com/).

Here is the Bosley PPC policy:

NO TRADEMARK BIDDING on Bosley
You must bid below Bosley.com and Bosleyinfo.com.
You may use the Bosley trade mark in your ad copy.
You CAN NOT use Bolsey in your domain (page name is authorized).
You can direct link to Bosleyinfo.com but must use your own display url.
The use of the term "medical" is prohibited.
Your Google ID is requested to register with Google so you can bid on AdWords.

email me at Chuck Hamrick (chamrick@affiliatecrew.com) with any questions.

[Rollerblader]

Chuck, you can always send out bidding tips to help encourage affiliates by saying try to think of something unique to a type of vehicle or unique to ford. (I do not know if this is true, but just an example as I know nothing about cars)

Bid on like "4 cylinder hybrid vehicles made in the usa" or be specific about unique features in the products. Especially if buy or order is in front of it. Then in the ad, put a description which will make it very obvious what the brand name or who the manufacturer is without mentioning the trademark.

With a lot of the products on our site we are not allowed to tell the affiliates the stores they came from and we have to prevent some brand names from being bid on so I help them with alternate words and phrases. I feel your pain!

Just a thought.

[Trust]

Yeah, that's a pain sometimes. A long time ago I was promoting Ugg Australia thru PPC for uggaustralia.com. Then they said no TM bidding. But that's what people were looking for, so Zappos got that traffic instead. Still sold Ugg but thru another merchant. Sometimes the merchant is the brand, Ugg, Sony, Toshiba, a lot of computer and electronics merchants, clothing merchants etc.

[Chuck Hamrick]

spacedog: I have appended the Little Giant Ladder PPC policy at the end of this thread: http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?p=695108

When in doubt shout out!! We will work with affiliates directly if there is a conflict and try to find the best compromise!!

[Chuck Hamrick]

It is my intent as an affiliate manager to prove the concept that partnering with affiliates to manage brand bidding will beat the crap out of any in-house or agency run PPC program. I have been told by several famous affiliate that this is the case but the vast majority of brands don't want to hear it.

At AffiliateCrew we call it "Affiliate Scorched Earth". Why is it advantageous to let 10-20 competitors bid on your trade mark and brand terms but restrict affiliates. Affiliate are paid only for performance at a set ROI based on success. (Don't get me started)

[splinterproject]

Part of me would worry that if an affiliate had a ppc google ad that says, Official Ford Parts and a display url of www.ford.com that actually redirected to your site using his cookie then Ford may file lawsuit against you for copyright/fraud or whatever they could think of. Not too sure what the copyright laws are regarding online advertising in regards to brand names though.

[AddHandler]

Trade Marks... did someone say trade marks? Do you have permission to use that term..?? LOL...

Chuck,
Yep Trade Mark owners go above and beyond to protect their trade mark names... almost to the point of total stupidity...

You know about my recent head butting sessions with a particular trade mark... yep they won't allow me to use their trade mark for ANYTHING... They actually requested that I DO NOT SELL their products at all... BUT Google Sells their trade mark and makes millions and the trade mark owner sees NONE of that money... at least when I was using their trade mark they saw at least $10,000 a month in PURE PROFIT... but they see me as a THREAT of some kind instead of a GREAT PARTNER who is doing them a favor by giving the people what they want at ZERO cost to the trade mark owner....

GOOGLE is the BIGGEST trade mark infringing site there is... they can actually sell "TRADE MARK NAMES as KEYWORDS" all day long in Adwords, with no regard for the trade mark owners... but NO ONE stands up to them...

Competitors can BID on trade marked names and send the traffic where ever they want... but AFFILIATES can't do it EVER or get SUED.....

Some trade mark owners HATE affiliates using their trade mark for Anything... even to sell their products.. it's ridiculous....

Some trade mark owners allow cyber squatters to use their trade mark as long as they are ONLY running ADSENSE... but if you use that same trade mark to sell their products (so they actually get a cut of the money) they FREAK.... it is BACKWARDS.. the Bizzarro World I tell ya...........

[Trust]

Part of me would worry that if an affiliate had a ppc google ad that says, Official Ford Parts and a display url of www.ford.com (http://www.ford.com/) that actually redirected to your site using his cookie then Ford may file lawsuit against you for copyright/fraud or whatever they could think of. Not too sure what the copyright laws are regarding online advertising in regards to brand names though.

The problem with that is Ford.com doesn't sell Ford parts. You can run into problems if you engage in deceptive advertising.

Now if you're a merchant that does like:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-07,GGLD:en&q=ford+steering+wheel

I don't see a problem.

[Jorge - JRami]

It is my intent as an affiliate manager to prove the concept that partnering with affiliates to manage brand bidding will beat the crap out of any in-house or agency run PPC program.Chuck, I feel your pain too and been doing the same education since day one and so do most affiliates that know what they are doing in the search marketing arena and can make things happen for the merchant fast and sometimes better and zero cost to the merchant.

I can tell you a story of a merchant I talked to that spends 80k/mo themselfs on ppc and they like it that way. No affiliate sales why, well what do you think Mr Merchant.

Lately all programs I've been managing are getting in front of the line if they have no restrictions, otherwise the time spent alone educating and convicing is like what AddHandler says "stupidity..." and Google does it and merchant has no control or have to jump over hurdles to even listen but merchants see it as they can threaten affiliate easier but not Google.

[AddHandler]

I actually had to TALK to some trade mark attorneys the other day during my head butting session with the trade mark owner.... First of all they don't know anything about what goes on ONLINE... and they treated me like I was second class HUMAN...

They wouldn't listen to anything I had to say... But I did manage to ask them about GOOGLE and all they would say was "THEY HAD ISSUES WITH GOOGLE" but they wouldn't elaborate at all... Locked Lip Lawyers.... (how can anyone live like that?)

Trying to convince merchants that own their own trade mark is almost impossible... unless you can manage to convince them with the numbers... The simple fact is some people are stupid and all the talking in the world will not convince them that what they are doing is shooting themselves in the foot... costing them more money and allowing their competitors to be the only ones showing up in the PPC ads for their brand... I had rather have 50 affiliates of mine show up in the PPC ads verses 1 of my competitors....

I think a lot of it has to do with the cost of PPC ads... if they allow more people to bid on their keywords... they think that will increase the price of their keywords... and cost them even more money... when what they don't see is that if they allow their affiliates to bid on their keywords then they could cut their own PPC costs in half and let the affiliates pick up that slack... on their dime.. and only pay per performance...

BUT the MAIN BEEF trade mark owners should have is with GOOGLE selling their TRADE MARKED BRAND NAMES with no regards for the trade mark owners at all..

[splinterproject]

The problem with that is Ford.com doesn't sell Ford parts. You can run into problems if you engage in deceptive advertising.

Now if you're a merchant that does like:

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2005-07,GGLD:en&q=ford+steering+wheel

I don't see a problem.


Good point. I claim no affiliation what so ever with Ford or any of its affiliates or even the blue color they use for their logo. In fact, I promise to not ever even use the same font as they do for their logo!
I prefer my vehicles to not need monthly maitenence in order to be drivable. Not that Ford doesn't. I am sure Ford is a awesome product. Wait, I wonder if I could get in trouble for saying "Ford" too much on a public message board? Eeekk!

I must admit though, I get a kick out of the fact that vonagesucks.com is owned by Vonage! hehe... yes yes very off topic.
I shall shut up now..

[Chuck Hamrick]

Great discussion everyone. Roger if I even talked 1% about the hell you have endured it would fill volumes!!

My point in all this is that I want to show success in working with affiliates to map the landscape of paid search and drive out the competition. It is a hard thing to prove but it has been done. I want to write a case study so we can get more brands to use affiliates as a huge benefit to thier marketing efforts.

There is a huge negative buzz outside of Affiliate Marketing about affiliate marketing, I want to see that turned around. We have all worked too hard to make this succcessful and there are too many closed doors.

[PetsWarehouse.com]

Hi Chuck what do you think about this policy?

Hey Everyone-

Vann's has updated its PPC terms to match up with its internal and paid search advertising goals. Please make note of the following updates/changes. This agreement will be updated in both Shareasale and Commission Junction as well.
Please be aware that Vanns.com has a Paid Search advertising campaign. Vanns.com has implemented a list of protected keywords. Also, a set of useage rules has been set-up regarding our protected keywords and some general paid search advertising guidelines for our program. The guidelines are as follows:

When advertising with paid search providers, affiliates may not bid on Vann's brand/trademarks or proprietary brand names. This means that affiliates cannot bid on terms including, but not limited to, the following:

Trademarks:
Vanns, Vanns Electronics, Vanns.com, Vann's, Vann's Electronics, Vanns Inc., Vann's Inc., Vann com

Associated misspellings of trademarks:
For example; Vann.com, Vans Electronics, Vann Electronics, Vann com

Redundant URLs:
For example; www.wwwvanns.com (http://www.wwwvanns.com/)

Competitor's Trademarks:
For example; One Call, onecall.com, Circuit City, circuitcity.com
(Competitor's would include any online audio, video, and appliance specialists that carry the same product line as Vann's)

Affiliates should never state or imply that they are the “Official Site.” Affiliates may not use symbols such as ©, ® and ™ in conjunction with the term Vanns or Vann's.

Affiliates must include the term “affiliate” or “aff” within any paid search listings.

Affiliates may not use the following display urls: www.Vanns.com (http://www.vanns.com/), www.VannsInc.com (http://www.vannsinc.com/), www.vanns.com (http://www.vanns.com/), www.vannsinc.com (http://www.vannsinc.com/) as they are to be used by Vann's, Inc. ONLY.

Also, an affiliate cannot link directly to Vanns.com from paid search. Affiliates must link to their website first.
Happy selling!

Not sure how happy the selling is?

[Chuck Hamrick]

Bob: this is a different case!! It looks like Vanns (at least in Google) has been able to legally enforce their trade mark. If you google vanns you will only see their paid ad. Here's the kicker, google vanns.com and you will see Pepperjam!!

It comes down to the value proposition of having a legal/marketing staff that can enforce the trade mark versus affiliates/competitors. As an example google vans the shoe company and see how they are not worried about competing merchants.

[OTProf]

This is a great thread! Chuck -- I am very encouraged to hear of the approach you are taking w/clients. I agree that there are many win-win scenarios that can be crafted in the arena of PPC & trademark bidding. I think I want to look more carefully at the programs you manage now!!

[Chuck Hamrick]

Thank you OTProf.

Here's an example of one of my merchants that is very frustrating. We market Sole a high end treadmill manufacturer who is completely trade mark restrictive with affiliates. Might I state that our exisiting affiliates produce over 50% of their sales!! So google sole treadmills and you will not see any affiliates. You will however see that 1/3 are dealers/shopping portals, 1/3 competitors and 1/3 AdSense sites. So in simple math they are losing 1/3 sales and 1/3 are going to AdSense sites that represent competitors.

[laurapconnors]

Hey Chuck-

Thanks for notifying me of this thread. Vanns.com first implemented a paid search policy for our affiliates in early 2006. This policy did allow affiliates to bid on our trademarks, but the policy outlined that affiliates could not out-bid us.

To gain better control of our paid search efforts, Vann's decided to not allow bidding on our trademarks at all (thus the new post yesterday).

You are absolutely correct in stating that it is a value proposition that has to be weighed. While I don't know the specifics as to why Vanns.com implemented the switch to paid search (it was before I was actively involved in our affiliate marketing efforts), it is an interesting situation to regulate and juggle.

I personally know some PPC-based affiliates that could create immense traffic for Vanns.com (and some of them used to!) But for now, Vann's has choosen to keep things "in-house" in attempt to have a better view and better control of paid search.

Great thread by the way, it's nice to hear all these perspectives.

Thanks,

[Chuck Hamrick]

Laura, thank you for contributing. One of my secondary goals is the advocacy of the channel as it competes with other marketing departments. Affiliate marketing has been touted as the building block of many successful online retailers just to be restricted when the company grows. Its a real slap in the face to the affiliates who helped promote the brand rather back in the day.

You are correct in stating I personally know some PPC-based affiliates that could create immense traffic for Vanns.com (and some of them used to!) Those affiliates would greatly embarrass a PPC department or outside agency. And let's not forget the "long tail" affiliates who push the brand even futher.