When your affiliate TOS looks like this it’s probably time to realize you have gone over the edge and are now in an adversarial relationship with your affiliates
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Partner may not engineer the Partner Site in a manner that pulls Internet traffic away from the Example.com Site
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{ 21 comments }
It looks like the affiliates were out ranking the merchant for their own brand. Sad…
You want to sell the finest in fragrance, cosmetics and facial skin care products in the industry. Nice
It’s hard to balance things up, there are lots of people pushing too much on affiliation and that can cause the brand to be misvalued. They are being too defensive.
Seems to me like the Advertiser aren’t doing a good enough job in approving affiliates.
If you are able to work with an affiliate by consistent communication, support and advice – surely, everything they do for you will only reinforce your brand not take it away from you.
Let me guess – is this Sephora?
I’ve never understood why merchants penalize affiliates for being successful. Assuming this is a new edit in Sephora’s TOS, my guess is that other merchants will have an influx of new applicants ready to bury the Sephora brand.
It seems to me they don’t want to make money.
It is their best interest that the affiliates promote their products and sell more.
Don’t they learn anything from the Web 2.0?
Are SE results that important to ignore the human factor?
For example, if you recommend a product I will probably buy it. Because I trust you more than a SE listing.
Amateurs!
Looks like Michael forgot one iteration of example
It’s definitely tough navigating the TOS minefield. By the time you eliminate all their restricted terms, you are left bidding on garbage keywords.
It’s funny how different merchants take very differnt approaches. There’s the “dominate the SERP” with your own affilates approach, and then there’s the the Sephora approach (the SERP is “mine all mine.”
If I’m them I would much rather have an affiliate listed at #5 than Wikipedia or Hoovers at #9. At least the affiliate is trying to get you some sales.
Also, speaking of TOS issues — I saw “social media” mentioned in a contract last week. It prohibited ads on sites with any user-generated content. Something to watch.
That’s been the case for a LONG time with DirecTV.
I think Netflix does the same thing.
Kind of crappy if you ask me.
Vic
In that case, what CAN partner do?
Unfortunately, I see it time and again where the best and the brightest in a traditional retail firm are not being placed in charge of the affiliate program, and thus it begins to stagnate over time. Naturally, there are exceptions, but as companies decide that all sales should trend towards being internal, this sort of thing just happens.
The plan might be to force affiliates to rank the brand for long tail terms – maybe this brand doesn’t have a strong SEO initiative on their own site – but either way, limitations like these are negative to affiliates, and I agree… they could turn once it gets socially known.
“. . that pulls interent traffic away . . “?
My brain hurts. I think I may have sprained it trying to comprehend the mind of the person that wrote that. Forget comprehending what the statement itself might mean or encompass.
But I have a solution.
Michael, stop pulling on the internet’s traffic! Stop it, before you break the internet!
>I’ve never understood why merchants penalize affiliates for being successful.
Some of the success is not without cost. For example, how about when an affiliate steals other people’s content and wraps that in your brand?
Some types of success are dirty. Others are unique value add channels that pay for themselves.
But the above TOS…not even being able to use the merchant’s name…that is just stupid.
surely it’s a give & take relationship – their success is dependent on their affiliates’ success…and if the affiliates are doing their hard work for them, so much the better
Those terms are way over the top! How do they expect anyone to actually be able to promote there products
I have scene a lot of programs say that kind of stuff, only thing most the ones I work with say that for security.. never really actually stick with that. basically to save their arse from getting sued from an aff that was banned…..
Check out my rant on the Angie’s List Affiliate program. They are even more onerous than the ones you outline above… Many, many merchants are afraid of their affiliates and adopt a hostile attitude to them.
http://www.payingforperformance.com
Not good enough to expand marketing.
They need to start giving their affiliates the tools to sell their goods and services — why bother trying to outcompete at all times while the affiliates are really just links to your product/service? Another thing, the biggest mistake companies have when it comes to affiliate generation is that the links are CJ or linkshare links. Why don’t they just run their own affiliate programs using software such as iDevAffiliate pro?? The key to affiliate programs are SEO friendly links and it’s sad when these large companies don’t get even the simplest of ideas.
Also, I hate the whole trademark issues with PPC marketing, you cannot advertise for any term close to proximity with your advertiser. I mean review sites work of course, but you can’t target Netflix for example and their TOCs are pretty much exactly like Example.com above
The merchants that don’t want their affiliates to succeed should be left alone
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