Opening Your Program Up to Search Publishers
by Sharon Uselman, Senior Account Manager
Why work with Search Publishers?
Merchants frequently work with search Publishers as a way to manage their existing search budget. If your search budget is limited, allowing search partners into your program is a great way to get additional listings in a search engine. Publishers can also fill in the gap in your search strategy by bidding on certain terms, geo-targeting and/or day-parting. Some merchants allow bidding on expanded variations of branded terms.
Trademark Terms
Typically search Publishers struggle with non-branded terms due to the extremely high CPCs and competition on those terms. They need some volume from branded terms in order to support their efforts on non-branded. Publishers will have a much greater interest in exploring the partnership if some form of trademark bidding is allowed. If you decide to work with search Publishers, you will have the most successful partnerships by both allowing them to bid on branded terms (or variations) and clearly defining the limitations they will need to follow in your terms and conditions.
Why do Publishers want permission to bid on trademarks?
- Trademark keywords convert significantly better than generics
- This traffic usually isn’t as expensive as generics because most of these terms are regulated by the trademark owners
What are the benefits to a merchant?
- Reduction in competitors bidding on their trademarks
- Publishers will be able to drive more traffic from non-branded terms by investing some of the profit from branded into non-branded.
What options does the merchant have?
- Allow all trademark bidding
- Allow trademark bidding to only a select number of affiliates
- Allow bidding on certain, pre-approved trademark terms
- Allow only variations and/or misspellings
Search Policy
Once you are ready to explore partnership with potential search affiliates, clarification on your search policy is essential. Below is a list of common questions and items you would want clearly spelled out in your terms and conditions, should you move forward with allowing search affiliates in your program.
Are partners allowed to direct link to your site?
If they cannot direct link and use the Advertiser’s URL as the display URL, are partners allowed to use the Advertiser name as a sub-domain?
Are there geo-targeting restrictions?
Can partners bid on branded terms? Can partners bid on misspellings of the branded terms? Can they bid on variations of branded terms?
Can partners use their branded terms in the ad copy (as long as they don’t mention “Official Site”)?
Next Steps
Now it’s time to ask your Account Manager to suggest names of affiliate partners based on your search policy. Most affiliate search partners will provide you with a customized presentation of the benefits of working with them. Compare your options and select several partners with whom to begin testing.
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