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New guidelines target trademark cannibalization and rising CPCs with three-tiered permission models and keyword-passing requirements.
Post Affiliate Pro released a framework for brand bidding policies on October 24, 2024. The guide addresses the management of brand bidding, a contentious area where advertisers often compete against their own affiliates in search engine results. This competition inadvertently drives up Cost-Per-Click (CPC) rates. In the analysis, Post Affiliate Pro argues that standard "unethical advertising" clauses in many agreements fail to protect a brand's search equity.
The framework emphasizes that search platforms like Google or Bing do not enforce private agreements between brands and publishers. Instead, the burden of enforcement lies entirely within the affiliate terms of service.
Affiliate managers generally choose between three policy positions. The first is a full ban, which prohibits affiliates from bidding on any brand-related terms. High-performing partners sometimes receive conditional permission for specific campaigns. The third option is permission with limits. Under this model, affiliates bid on brand terms combined with specific modifiers, such as "discount" or "review."
A robust policy must go beyond simply naming the brand. It should explicitly list protected product names, common misspellings, and variations. These details prevent affiliates from exploiting loopholes in broad-match keyword targeting.
A good policy names the terms. List your brand name, product names and variations instead of writing "our brand.
The report stresses technical transparency alongside legal language. It recommends a "keyword-passing" requirement. When an affiliate directs traffic to a merchant, the tracking link must pass the specific search query that triggered the ad. Using this data, affiliate managers audit whether a publisher adheres to the agreed-upon keyword list.
Post Affiliate Pro identifies the failure to update agreements with long-standing partners as a common pitfall. Legally, new brand bidding rules only bind affiliates who explicitly agree to them.
The publication suggests a structured rollout for existing affiliates. This process includes a formal notice period. Publishers must then re-accept the updated terms within the affiliate platform. Before imposing penalties, the analysis recommends a "notice step." Managers send a formal warning to the affiliate. This provides a timeframe to pause infringing ads before the merchant claws back commissions or terminates the account.
Merchants protect their margins from internal competition by moving from vague "goodwill" clauses to specific definitions of prohibited uses, ad text rules, and display URL restrictions.
Source: Post Affiliate Pro
This article was created with AI assistance and editorially reviewed.