How to Police Terms and Conditions

From Wiki

The terms and conditions of a programme must be added in the listing details. These details will inform affiliates and potential affiliates what they are, and what they’re not allowed to do on the programme.

Example restrictions may include (but not be limited to):

• Will not work with particular types of affiliates
• Does not want to appear on sites with particular content (such as adult or racially motivated)
• Does not allow brand-bidding within PPC (see the PPC Policy document for more details)
• Has strict guidelines for using their logo or brand name
• Does/ does not allow direct linking
• Pre –approve solus email broadcasts

How to monitor your programme

Not working with particular types of affiliates

If you do not allow a particular type of affiliate to work on your programme it is advised that manual approval of affiliates is set up. This is a good tool as it allows you to screen affiliates when they apply for the programme and gives a better understanding into how they operate.

If you have an affiliate apply for the programme that you have stated you do not work with, you can decline them for this reason and inform them of this by completing the “reason” box.

It is important to remember that this is only their primary type of promotion, many affiliates use more than one promotional technique and have multiple URL’s, so it is always best to check their profile page or contact the affiliate before you decline them.

If your programme has auto approval for affiliates, speak with your point of contact at AWin and ask them for more information about the manual approval of affiliate’s tool.

Not appearing on site with particular content

This should be tackled at migration. However, should this be introduced, take a careful look through the programmes active affiliates and look at their sites. If you are not happy with how they are displaying the programme, inform the affiliate and work with them to ensure the programme is being advertised in the correct manor.

Does not allow brand-bidding within PPC

Our Snoopy tool is an automated 24/7 brand monitoring and PPC detection service. Snoopy is Affiliate Window's internal tool for monitoring paid search terms on all the major search engines including Google, Yahoo and MSN.

The tool is designed to help Affiliate Window's account managers ensure that a merchant's paid search restrictions, as set out in their terms and conditions are adhered to. If a PPC policy is in place, please supply your point of contact at Affiliate Window with no more than 10 keywords. We can add these to your pre-defined list. The tool will search for these keywords across all the search engines and reports back if it finds any affiliates bidding on restricted terms. If any brand bidding is detected Affiliate Window will receive a notification and will follow this up on your behalf.

Snoopy operates at random intervals throughout the day, and patrols search engines for adverts appearing against restricted terms; enabling merchants to feel confident that their terms and conditions are being enforced even outside of work hours.

If you do suspect any brand bidding please refer to the “how to tell if an affiliate is brand bidding guide".

Has strict guidelines for using their logo or brand name

Again, this is a migration check. This restriction should be added to the sign up email and when new creative is made added.

It is important for the account manager to monitor the active affiliates (especially the top 20) to ensure they are not breaking any of these guidelines.

Direct linking

The reason a merchant may restrict direct linking is because it could clash with their own campaign(s). Google only allow one ad per search term to use any one URL, so if they are running a campaign using their URL, an affiliate doing so would be in direct competition. This would potentially drive the CPC up for the merchant, or even result in their ad being removed altogether.

This is hard to spot and you would have to be suspicious in order to detect this. To give you a better understanding I have included some examples below:

EXAMPLE #1 (direct linking) – An affiliate bids on the brand name ‘Subside Sports’ (with permission from the retailer) as a search term on Google. Within their ad they use the official URL for Subside Sports to send traffic directly to the website.

EXAMPLE #2 (direct linking) – An affiliate bids on a product code ‘32PFL7782’ as a search term on Google. Within their ad they use the official URL for Currys and (with permission) sends traffic directly to the specific product page on the website.

In terms of a merchant’s policy, this is important to note where they do not allow direct linking/use of their URL. In such cases the below examples must be employed by affiliate.

EXAMPLE #3 (landing page) – An affiliate bids on the brand name ‘Dyson’ (again, with permission from the retailer) as a search term on Google. Within their ad they use a landing page URL to take the traffic from Google to the bespoke landing page before then sending it on to the Dyson website.

EXAMPLE #4 (own site) – An affiliate bids on a generic phrase ‘credit cards’ as a search term on Google. Within their ad they use their own URL and send traffic to a relevant page of their own site which is populated with multiple, relevant, product links.

If you are suspicious of an affiliate direct linking, you should run a HTTP header search. More detail about this can be found in the “how to tell if an affiliate is brand bidding" guide .

Solus Email Approval

If you require sign off on solus e-mail creative it is important that you remind affiliates of this when they join the programme. It is therefore a good idea to add this term into your sign up e-mail and state that all solus email copy should be sent to yourself and your point of contact at AWin for approval.

General Awareness

The account manager of the programme should be familiar with the top 20 affiliates of the programme and the exposure they are providing the merchant. This could be onsite, PPC, email etc.

When any sales anomalies occur account managers should challenge these. eg

• Sudden sales increases
• New entrants driving value
• High click to sale conversion rates
• Quicker than average click to sale time

If you feel wary of an affiliate’s activity you should check the affiliate’s site and ensure they are not braking any of the programmes terms and conditions.

It is also important to look at their PPC activity and ensure they are not brand bidding on any of the merchants search terms.

If you are unsure about any affiliate and their promotional techniques, you should speak to your point of contact at AWin who can help you with this.

After all of the above checks have taken place, contact the affiliate. Keep the first communication brief, you don’t want to seem too forceful.

Explain to the affiliate this information will be useful for you as it will help you to understand the affiliate’s needs and how you can work closer together.