I don't think its a decision 'on principle', it's a decision that needs to be based on the business they bring in.

Are they just cannibalizing your customer base (real or potential), or is their freedom and imagination reaching new customers that you would otherwise not be getting?

They will inevitably be targeting the same audience to some degree (they picked your program because they clearly share that audience with you), but they might be extending the customer base quite significantly, and selling where you might not have been.

Rather than 'all or nothing', any problem may be better managed by tweaking the commission, or the terms.

And I'm sure there's many other issues that I've not thought of; it's not an easy question!

I am more than happy for the affiliates to reach new customers and even target the same market. What I am not so keen on is their optimising their pages for natural search using our brand name. I am happy to have them employ all sorts of creative methods or even have them optimise for high frequency or generic keywords. I am not so keen on them dominating the SERPs when someone searches specifically for my brand, though. Does anyone have any agreements in place with their affiliates for brand terms in natural search? I know we have something for paid search and was wondering if it would be unreasonable to request they follow a similar route with organic search.

It seems you are prepared to risk losing your best affiliates because a few of them are doing better SEO than you?

It does depend on your market, but as a potential affiliate for any decent product, I think your proposed restrictions are unreasonable; I would not join such a program unless it was the only one in town - or paid much, much better than rivals.

Interestingly, most affiliate schemes insist that affiliates DO mention the parent company, thus SEO-ing the brand on a well made site. Arguably, every promotion of your brand will benefit the brand. And therefore benefit you.

A better solution would be to invest in quality SEO for your site, knowing it will be paid for by increased profits from (obviously) savvy, quality, ambitious affiliates.

Every restriction you place on associates is ultimately a restriction on your business; be sure that's what you really want to do. Fighting with your friends makes life easier for your rivals.

[edited by: Quadrille at 10:06 am (utc) on Aug. 27, 2008]

Fair enough. The company has only just started an SEO initiative (hence my being here as a contractor for their SEO and being asked about the affiliates). Having not worked closely with affiliates in many years I wasn't sure how to respond to this.

Am I the first person to have trouble with affiliates getting the lion's share of the SERPs where the brand terms are concerned then?

Am I the first person to have trouble with affiliates getting the lion's share of the SERPs where the brand terms are concerned then?

Well first, I wouldn't call it trouble. You might want to think of it as an opportunity for the brand site and affiliate sites to dominate the SERPs. If a user for whatever reason decides not to buy from the brand site, at least it will be getting a cut from the one he or she does buy from.

Unless a brand is truly major with an almost unlimited marketing budget (think McDonald's, Coca-Cola, etc.), it really can't hope to directly address all the possible market segments the brand might appeal to, i.e., regional, language, age, income, lifestyle, niche interests, etc. Many good affiliates don't try to compete head-to-head with the brand, but tend to exploit different market segments where they give buyers (better) reasons to buy through them.

It might help to think of good affiliates as an expanded marketing agency giving the brand exposure in areas it otherwise couldn't reach.

In the meantime, there's no reason at all for the sponsor site not to rank for the brand and other major search terms. Again, the brand site can't cover everything, but the affiliates will fill in the blanks. ;-)

a few of them are doing better SEO than you

That's the root problem here.

The solution is for the parent company to get smarter about its own SEO, and non-affiliate promotion in general. If affiliate pages are the only thing ranking in searches for product names, the company needs to get better at its own online marketing.

Remember that few search engines will give a single site more than one or two spots, so even if the parent company's SEO improves enough to ensure top ranks the front page will still have several other spots to fill.

If you do anything that restricts affiliates from ranking well for your brand names, you could easily end up with search results that include negative things like competitor reviews or whiny forum posts complaining about your products. That would not be an improvement!

Let affiliates do what they're good at, and approach the "problem" from the positive direction of improving the company's own SEO, and beefing up marketing in general.

I think the downside to the Affiliates using the brand for leverage in SERPS is that if you then click on the affiliate link it will go to a page featuring our brand as well as our competitors. After reviewing everyone's tremendously helpful (thanks so much for taking time to respond) insight and in writing this I think I may see if agreements can be reached in terms of brand optimised page journeys to ensure that competitors get minimal exposure on brand term search landing pages with the affiliates. Surely this should be find since it still allows creative scope for affiliates with high frequency keywords.

If you restrict SEO-savvy affiliates from mentioning you on the same page as they mention competitors, you could easily lose as much as you'd hope to gain.

There's a good chance that such affiliates rank well for competitor names as well as your own, and for every user who sees a competitor link because they found the page for your brand name, there could be someone who sees your link because they found the page for a competitor name. Do you really want to give up such well-targeted exposure?

Again, the answer here is for the parent company to improve its own site and its own SEO, not to impose paranoid restrictions on affiliates. If your site offers better value and a better user experience than the competition, you should be welcoming exposure that lets users compare you directly to the competition, not trying to hide from it.

What about if your competitors are offering better deals?

That's for YOU to fix, and it's no reason to penalize the affiliate.

it will go to a page featuring our brand as well as our competitors

What about if your competitors are offering better deals?

It's starting to sound a bit like you might be talking about comparison-type sites, if even in a limited form. Or maybe what we would call "thin affiliates," those that offer little added value to drive sales you might otherwise make.

If so, then you do have some decisions to make. You probably have to site down and do a thorough analysis of what these types of sites are contributing to your sales, then go from there.

If I were you I would would focus my attention first to the optimization of your own website. Due to the nature of affiliate sites and the way they are treated by the major engines, you should not have much trouble out ranking them for your major terms, assuming your site has a few years under it's belt. Also, there will be much more money in it for your company if you optimize for the long term. In most cases, if affiliate sales are that large a portion of your sales, assuming your are an ecommerce site, then you have bigger problems to deal with.

If your affiliate program has been established for some time, you would most certainly see a decrease in sales by dropping the program or not allowing affiliates to use your brand. If you do this, your competitors would certainly get the sales over your site!

Branding itself is a big part of marketing, let the affiliates help you market your brand. You should still be making money on the sales affilaite drive, so focus your time on improving your site and let the affiliates do their thing. (I'm not suggesting letting your affiliate program run wild, it does need to be controlled)

[edited by: MadeWillis at 4:34 pm (utc) on Aug. 27, 2008]

Me to fix? I am not in charge of pricing or prduct as I am just there as a temporary contractor advising on basic SEO. I have been asked about this issue with the affiliates and being unsure how to approach this have simply gone to seek advice. If these affiliates are not bidding on PPC for brand I figured I would see if anyone else had advice regarding the most sensible route with SEO.
Perhaps I should point out that SEO is painful as it is a massive group of legacy sites making basic changes tricky so SEO is moving along at a snail's pace at the minute which isn't helped by the fact that the competition is fierce and the targets steep. And yes,, we mainly seem to have "thin-affiliate" comparison type sites and they are really slamming the SERPs with the company's brand but when you get to our brand page it is plastered with ads of our chief competitor who is running a better deal. Not an ideal scenario as I am new to this particular industry (having done SEO traditionally in publishing and recruitment) so am in a bit of a pickle and am keen to get a balanced perspective on what to do.

Me to fix? I am not in charge of pricing or prduct

Sorry, I didn't mean "you" personally, I was thinking of "you" as the company. I should have worded it better. However, you personally can make sure those in charge of your company's pricing know about the deal the competitor is offering.

SEO is painful as it is a massive group of legacy sites

Look on the bright side ... that means there's lots of room for improvement which could end up looking very good on your resume. :)

featuring our brand as well as our competitors

when you get to our brand page it is plastered with ads of our chief competitor

There's quite a difference between those two comments. If the page that ranks for your brand name is indeed "plastered with ads" for the competitor, as opposed to simply mentioning the brands in a reasonably even-handed way, then yes it might be reasonable to ask the affiliate to tone down the competitor's presence on that page.

Before you do that, though, try to figure out where the competitor ads are coming from. Do you think the affiliate might have placed them deliberately, or are they coming through an ad network that has automated targeting? That might make a difference as to how you'd tackle the issue. If the affiliate has a lot of pages, and some ad placements are automated, it's entirely possible the affiliate isn't aware how that particular page looks from your perspective.

I don't envy you the problems, which are clearly the companies, not just yours.

Bt the solution has to oe that solves the root problem, and not one that risks reducing sales or slowing brand expansion.

By the sounds of it, the company needs to invest more in the site - not just in SEO.

A strong affiliate presence for additional key words and phrases can only help the brand, and it's the company site that has the problem, not the affiliates.

Weakening the affiliates weakens the Big Picture.

Good Luck!

we mainly seem to have "thin-affiliate" comparison type sites and they are really slamming the SERPs with the company's brand but when you get to our brand page it is plastered with ads of our chief competitor who is running a better deal

One thing I'd like to clear up to avoid any confusion: Are these comparison sites those that joined the company's affiliate program and run relatively small sites? Or are they the major comparison sites where the company pays PPC in order for its products to be listed.

Just being picky, but in this field pinning down the language can be important.

Cheers, for the considerations re: affiliates' ads and pages, Buckworks. I have been trying to get in touch with the agency dealing with the affiliates to gain a better idea of the affiliates themselves. As for pricing and competitors, the company are behind competitors with regards to natural search which is why they've brought in contractors which has enabled them to gain a view of what needs to be done but it's now a matter of joining all of it up and executing which with a monolith company chock full of legacy sites, old clunky CMS and a dev team in India (we are UK based)it is a bit slow going implementing SEO changes.
I am not trying to penalise or weaken the affiliates by any means and am keen to ensure conversions grow and improve. All of the feedback has made a lot of sense and will help. Thank you all so much

ensure conversions grow and improve

The goal of improving conversions is worth a great deal of thinking and testing and tweaking. It will increase profitability for the merchant's own promotions, and will also make the company more attractive to affiliates.

The most effective way to get affiliates to feature you prominently is to be the company that puts the most money in their pocket for the traffic they send. From an affiliate's point of view, closing a better percentage of sales is worth just as much as paying a higher commission.

>>when you get to our brand page it is plastered with ads of our chief competitor

I really have to stress that there are companies who do affiliate sites of their own, that belong to them, or to one of their employees - or possibly to their affiliate manager or OPM.

I've seen it myself, and verified with someone "reliable" who confirmed it, the first time I caught it. It's a merchant who's with a major network whose affiliate site has pages with links to all the competition, but it's very clear who's actually being "promoted."

If this is the case here, they're poaching customers using the brand name - but in a way that isn't really covered by the affiliate program's TOS.

Find the top ranking site for your brand name, and then hire the owner to SEO your corporate site on an consultancy fee (for the work he'll do directly for you) plus incremental sales basis for sales he'll get you (e.g. if you now make 10k sales a year from organic SERPs, after he worked with you a year you make 15k sales - pay him a commission in line with the other affiliates on the 5k).

Don't mess around looking at companies. You have someone in your SERPs who has the knowledge and connections to do well in your sector. Reward him!

vince, first off, batgirl13UK *IS* their SEO, she's in there on a contract basis.

>>Find the top ranking site for your brand name, and then hire the owner to SEO

If the top ranking site for their brand name is a comparison site that's pushing buyers on the biggest competition, chances are that top ranking site belongs to the competitor, or an "agent" of theirs.

>>You have someone in your SERPs who has the knowledge and connections to do well in your sector. Reward him!

But what if that owner is actually their competitor?

Marcia; you may be right - then again you may be wrong - don't know until you contact the owner and find out. And batgirl13UK is a temporary contractor to sort out the basics - and if a good long term SEO strategy for the company is to use someone who knows the niche inside out - then I'd say it's entirely within the remit of sorting out SEO basics - then again I may be wrong ;)

Generally I have found that it is fairly easy for the brand site to outrank affiliate sites.
Are all your organic seo ducks in a row?
If not, address your own site before fussing about those affiliates outranking you :)

And, generally, you need to look at your affiliates as bringing you business rather than stealing percentages. If it really seems that way to you (assuming they aren't literally stealing :)) then you may want to reduce your percentages or increase your prices?