Reply To: Google Brand Bidding – Hot Topic

Thank you both (alexpratt and nolimitvegas) for your contribution and comments.

I found the negative terms demands (based on the fact that one is T&Cs compliant that is) utterly ludicrous and futile. Lets face it, if a user took the time to type the brand name in Google, and you ad which doesn’t have any reference of the brand name searched for, happens to be triggered because you set your obvious keyword on broad and phrase in 10th position to the left of Google page, what are the chances for it to be clicked????? Looking at my stats over 3 years, I have never had one single PPC click generated in that way.

Now following your contribution and comments, I thought I’d bring up further points which force me to enter a very controversial territory, but I think it is important to raise affiliates profile and confidence when they work so hard.

I can see that operators may choose not to do business with you because they decide erratically to terminate the contract (which would clearly not be in their interests nor yours) but I recall a legal article posted on iGBAffiliate (“the Terms of the contract”, October/November 2009″ issue, which states that a change in the contract terms which would be unfavourable to the affiliate would be a breach of contract

So, taking this article into consideration and stretching its content, the affiliate would no longer be benefiting from the operators promotions from the termination effective date however he/ she would still be entitled to claim the revenue generated by the players he/ she brought up to the termination date since no breach of contract would have been committed. (I would be quite interested to know where an affiliate stands from a legal point of view, when an operator terminates a contract for no legal reason; any advise and documentation on the matter would be welcome).

Furthermore, the potential damage which this could bring to the operator is substantial. A sizable affiliate would no doubt publicly post the issue which could trigger a chain of events against the operator. The affiliate would also still be in a position to utilise the reviews and brands to attract traffic to their site which would dilute the traffic that the operator would have otherwise had. The reviews themselves could be very negative. Since no contract would remain in place, the affiliate would also be entitled to bid on the generic terms which forms part of the operators name but (that is without saying) not the trademark itself.

Don’t get me wrong, I am all for a good relationship between Operator and affiliate and this has always been the case. I will endeavour to do anything to keep a good business relationship and I work very hard. However affiliates often feel helpless and intimidated by operators who use their weight to bully, have excessive demands or act unreasonably. When this occurs (and I have been in the situation myself whereby commissions were reduced without prior noticed and applied to my existing players (i won’t be giving any names, but I am sure the operators in question will recognise themselves), I think it is vital that affiliates know what their rights and options are and stick together.

In the worse case scenario (and hopefully all can be resolved amicably before getting there), despite the fact that they may lose brands, affiliates can still intelligently use the situation to their advantage.

I want to stress again, that it is not my intention to get into any fights, but one has to defend himself when necessary.