However, I’m talking about adding a negative to brand terms that like Chris says, may show up on an exact term without you knowing.

There’s 2 schools of thought on this:

1) Like Chris says, Its up to the search engines and therefore not something to worry about.

2) Affiliates can accept that this can happen and regardless of the cause of the ad showing, accept the Ts and Cs and add an exact match negative.

It won’t mess up your generic campaign and the ad won’t show on exact brand terms regardless of search engine settings.

I agree, it’s not you directly breaking rules if it happens, but then again it’s not the merchants fault either. If there wasn’t a simple solution then I could understand it being overlooked. However, one exact match negative and you are covered as to any changes in the way the engines work.

Keiron, it doesn’t upset me – I’m just a bit baffled as to why its such an issue to add an exact negative and help minimise merchants blundering in with accusing emails.

Don’t take all this the wrong way, I’m just sticking by my views!

Matt

This is no longer the case. If MSN or Google think that your advert is related to that search term, unless you turn off advance something or other, they may decide to show it without your knowledge! However, as Kieron said to me “thats down to the search engine, not me”.

Never been kicked off a campaign? You should hand them over to me ;)

I don’t brand bid on ANY brand terms as I’m not allowed to. However I do bid on generic terms such as “credit card”. I then send users to my website which has a big old compare table on the homepage with about 30 credit cards listed.

Obviously as the term “credit card” is set to broad match then my ad will show up if people search for “egg credit card” or “MBNA credit card” etc. It will NOT show up however for terms like “MBNA” on its own as I don’t brand bid.

So a merchant comes along (lets say MBNA) for an example and asks me to add MBNA as a negative term to my ads. Do they have a right to do this? I don’t think so and I never ever comply. If they then want to remove me from the program them fine, they can, their loss.

Sorry if that upsets you but thats my stance and I’ve held firm to it over the years. Funnily enough I’ve never ever, not even once been kicked off a program because of it.

For example, if I bid on “SHOES” as a broad match, then my advert would appear on a “NIKE SHOES” search term. NIKE is the brand and is trademarked, however NIKE SHOES is not the brand and is not the trademark. Some merchants and networks jump to the gun that affiliates are bidding on “NIKE” when infact you aren’t. If my advert then showed for term “NIKE SHOES” I am infact breaking no T&Cs set out.

In recent developments with more than one network, I am no longer resting on my lorals. If there are exemptions in place on a program, I will now add all these exemptions (specific match only) to a negative keyword list. This is purely because I am fed up of being accused of brand bidding when it actual fact it is ignorance on the networks part to blame.

This is where clarity is required from the merchant/network and where skills are obviously lacking that need to be addressed.

I’m with you on the over-zealous t’s and c’s. I personally think requesting the brand as negative is acceptable (and from experience managing programmes, it has helped keep things clear), however, when we get into mis spells then it’s ridiculous.

I was just surprised by Keiron’s comment about never adding negatives thats all. Its a fair enough opinion so long as the programme is not promoted. If he’s signed up but refuses to add a negative, then that is not a good example to newer or smaller affiliates who have no choice but to adhere due to a lack of reputation.

Anyway, I agree with all other points on this post and its something we’ll take notice of at R.O.EYE.

However, what does put me off is when a merchant introduces T&C’s and then weeks down the line decides to change them. Not only is this a pain in the ass for us PPC bods, but also I suspect they may simply USE us affiliates to see what keywords are best performing.

As long as a merchant stipulates from the beginning then the choice is mine as to whether to promote or not.

Even if it’s in the rules? Or will you just not promote the programme? It’d be interesting to find out if those terms actually put off affiliates from a programme.

Going back to a previous comment we made on Frosties blog wrt to Anne Summers

http://www.webaffiliate.co.uk/blog/seo/microsoft/you-cant-ppc-seasons.html

“Easy solution. Find a generic term they are bidding on then append your brand name i.e. “Lingerie + Your Brand Name” .. try various options until their ad appears, then tell them to stop bidding on your brand or variations or to put negative keywords of you brand into all they paid search campaigns, then face the other way, drop your draws and illustrate to them where the sun doesn’t shine.”

By the same token we could insist that network informs the merchant to put in Negative keywords of ALL affiliates brands & URL’s

When Affili.net first set up, I thought they really had a dream team in place, albeit the people in the company we know are very pleasant, it’s not a company we want to a considerable business for obvious reasons.

There are quite a few aspects of MSN Adcenter that are different to Google Adwords and even MSN Adcenter are not aware of a few of the few broadmatches that are thrown up.