Affiliate etiquette and Paysite FYI

[Blackcrow]

I have an affiliate that has been advertising one of my sites using terms such as "The Official Homepage of NitroVideo" in Google Ads, which then puts that affiliate above our organic listing in Google. This type of advertising is not really in the spirit of why we, as webmasters, pay affiliates. The idea is we pay affiliates to generate sales that we would otherwise not have, where as this cuts in to our organic sales.

This affiliate runs the ads all month then drops them during the days when we reconcile, so I imagine this affiliate knows they do not deserve payment for these sales.

Question: Do you agree I should e-mail this affiliate and tell them I will not be paying for these sales? I want to be fair about it.

Personal Message: Webmasters who own paysites should check your site often for this type of traffic skimming and check your sites with mobile too, because it seems even more common with mobile.

[John.]

Is it against your current TOS/Terms & Conditions?

[The Heron]

Originally Posted by John.

Is it against your current TOS/Terms & Conditions?

also the argument can be made for the affiliate that most paysite programs don't have the financial or man power to go after all the ad spots so they are capturing sales you wouldn't otherwise get. Though if he is targetting your name specifically just to outrank the site that's not very useful and you probably should have had that in your TOS to start with.

[CurrentlySober]

you have his details, so take a baseball bat, pay him a visit, and break his fucking kneecaps...

Then wish him happy Xmas... Best not to appear rude

[oldbrad]

You should definitely add those expectations to your TOS. Many programs, like FTV, have that explicitly mentioned to keep this from happening especially in google type ads.

[alias]

If not in your TOS you should pay for the sales, lesson learned.

[ruff]

Write up a TOS or change the one you have. Make it retroactive and you can do anything you like. Big sponsors do it all the time with no repercussions. This is the best way to take him out. Sometimes when you are competing with your own affiliates, it is best to take no prisoners. Go for the jugular and knock him down a peg or two. If you are lucky, you can get all the fuckers and leave your field wide open. Good luck with the future.

By the way, the most effective TOS changes are after the fact, when you realize that you left money on the table.

[Agent 488]

steal the money he earned because you didn't put it in your tos.

make this thread go ten pages.

profit.

[alf6300]

Originally Posted by Blackcrow

I have an affiliate that has been advertising one of my sites using terms such as "The Official Homepage of NitroVideo" in Google Ads

I may be missing something, but since when does Google accept adult in Adwords? I thought the only allowed to bid on adult keywords was www.lifechurch.tv.
I once got a warning just because the landing page of a mainstream site had too much cleavage... what's the trick to go round this? or has something silently changed?

[AmeliaG]

Off the cuff, I'd say the right thing to do is pay for sales sent, but tell that affiliate you won't be paying for joins sent that way in the future.

And, of course, really keep an eye on them, after that, and boot them at any additional sign of shadiness.

[Blackcrow]

Well, most people agree with what I was going to do. Im going to pay him for his sales then cut him off. The only problem is that if he keeps infringing on my trademark (which is registered) then I have to go after google and they are difficult. Google is too wealthy to sue. He could do that "Offical Site" thing and then link to a competitor, in which case I have a real problem.

[Tickler]

Some sponsors I've dealt with don't like affiliates advertising on Google/Yahoo|MSN/etc. using their "copyright".

Also a lot of sponsors don't have enough background to realize that there are another 100+ PPC platforms out there, plus another 100+ bulk traffic sources, plus 1000s of spot buys.

Perhaps make a deal with the affiliate about where they can advertise.

If you cut them off from Google/Adwords they may also walk away from all those other traffic sources that can bring you additional sales.

[TeenCat]

hey man because you dont understand how he is making you money doesnt mean you are something special ... get a life, treat your affilaites like a treasure ...

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by Blackcrow

This type of advertising is not really in the spirit of why we, as webmasters, pay affiliates. The idea is we pay affiliates to generate sales that we would otherwise not have, where as this cuts in to our organic sales.

LOL.

You have just announced to smart affiliates everywhere to stay WAY the fuck away from you.

The "idea" is that you pay affiliates for their sales, period. You don't get to speculate about which sales you might have gotten if the affiliates didn't out-hustle you for them. If you've got an affiliate program, you accept the risk that affiliates may out-hustle you for sales. You don't get to say "we reserve the right to sit on our fat asses and let you make sales, and then speculate that we would have gotten them if you didn't."

Or rather, I suppose you do get the right to say that if you put it in your TOS, but you might as well brand "we are idiots" on your foreheads when you do it.

Oh, well, merry Christmas!

[Tjeezers]

i agree with post above me, post 13 that is, and after reading, post 14 is super cool also.
You should be happy some affiliate learned you the tricks
Instead of saying affiliates are only here to clean up the crumbs you left on the ground, pfff... pay him his sales and hire him for your so called " inhouse traffic " plan that you do not seem to have

[icymelon]

why dont you buy that add spot? and tell him to stop.

[tonyparra]

Originally Posted by TeenCat

hey man because you dont understand how he is making you money doesnt mean you are something special ... get a life, treat your affilaites like a treasure ...

[tonyparra]

Originally Posted by Tjeezers

i agree with post above me, post 13 that is, and after reading, post 14 is super cool also.
You should be happy some affiliate learned you the tricks
Instead of saying affiliates are only here to clean up the crumbs you left on the ground, pfff... pay him his sales and hire him for your so called " inhouse traffic " plan that you do not seem to have

[faxxaff]

In preparation of launching a new affiliate program I am stuck with the same question. Since I do have a strong base of own traffic, I certainly don't want affiliates to compete for my own traffic so I will write up TOS that will eliminate certain way of using my brand such as using it's name in adwords or registering LAL domains.

The tricky questions is: how many affiliates care to read it before they start promoting the way they are used to?

[MrGusMuller]

The idea is we pay affiliates to generate sales that we would otherwise not have, where as this cuts in to our organic sales.

Do you spend money on google ads? He do.
Doesnt he generates u sales? I guess he do.
Isn't what u want? Sales? I guess it is.
If he gets a better ranked that 'organic listing' on Google, would u want to ban him for that to?...

I'm not on celebrity niche, but if i would i should be afraid of spend my best enforces to promote you.
I'm just a small guy living in a small country... so, my opinion may not be relevant.

Best regards

[Domain Diva]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

LOL.

You have just announced to smart affiliates everywhere to stay WAY the fuck away from you.

The "idea" is that you pay affiliates for their sales, period. You don't get to speculate about which sales you might have gotten if the affiliates didn't out-hustle you for them. If you've got an affiliate program, you accept the risk that affiliates may out-hustle you for sales. You don't get to say "we reserve the right to sit on our fat asses and let you make sales, and then speculate that we would have gotten them if you didn't."

Or rather, I suppose you do get the right to say that if you put it in your TOS, but you might as well brand "we are idiots" on your foreheads when you do it.

Oh, well, merry Christmas!

I would agree with this statement.

[ruff]

Originally Posted by TeenCat

hey man because you dont understand how he is making you money doesnt mean you are something special ... get a life, treat your affilaites like a treasure ...

This is exactly correct. Affiliates are golden. If you are competing with your affiliates, maybe having an affiliate program isn't for you. If my affiliates can make sales with my product, the smartest thing I can do is get out of their way and provide them with all the tools I possibly can.

The TOS is just something that can be construed any way you want it to be. Hardly any of us read those things until we don't get our money for some obscure reason, usually manufactured by the sponsors. Personally when I get a whiff of this kind of thing I move on to other sponsors quickly, but, hey that's just me.

[signupdamnit]

This kind of thing is why it often isn't worth being an affiliate at all for most programs. Especially not if you are doing anything creative. It's just a raw deal and you risk being a unpaid marketing employee for an unscrupulous company who doesn't respect you.

[Blackcrow]

Since a good deal of the people posting didnt read or do not understand the thread I will recap. If this affiliate were advertising on google using keywords which he found good deals on, that convert well, then I would applaud his creative work. Advertising as "The Official Homepage" of a site is just skimming traffic off a branded name.

[18teens]

Originally Posted by Blackcrow

Since a good deal of the people posting didnt read or do not understand the thread I will recap. If this affiliate were advertising on google using keywords which he found good deals on, that convert well, then I would applaud his creative work. Advertising as "The Official Homepage" of a site is just skimming traffic off a branded name.

How is that skimming traffic if he's sending that traffic to your program? Pay this affiliate or you'll be losing a whole lot more potential affiliates from this thread.

[loreen]

Originally Posted by faxxaff

The tricky questions is: how many affiliates care to read it before they start promoting the way they are used to?

Doesn't matter. If it's in the TOS you can cut them off easily.

[loreen]

Also, I stopped sending traffic to sites like NakedNews or fleshlight, because they have these kinds of TOSs. If I can't use any of their keywords, then screw it. I've got better things to promote

[Forkbeard]

Originally Posted by Blackcrow

Since a good deal of the people posting didnt read or do not understand the thread I will recap. If this affiliate were advertising on google using keywords which he found good deals on, that convert well, then I would applaud his creative work. Advertising as "The Official Homepage" of a site is just skimming traffic off a branded name.

No, we got that. And there'd be no problem going forward if you wanted to craft a mellow TOS provision to prevent your affiliates from using your trademark in this way you've now decided you don't like, and had a quiet word with your affiliates about it, paying them for all past work but requiring them to desist from the practice going forward.

But you posted a bunch of blather here about the "spirit of why you pay affiliates" and you're clearly committed to some mystical woo-woo idea of "organic sales" that somehow belong to you even if your affiliates beat you to them. Most of the thread is about that, and I submit that you have not comprehended the justifiably adverse reaction to it.

There is no such thing as organic sales. There are only sales. And if you have affiliates, they will be getting sales you "might" have gotten without them. If you are going to resent that fact and start thinking about maybe not paying for such sales, you should not have affiliates. And now that you have revealed such thoughts in public, smart affiliates will stay away.

And the only "spirit of why you pay affiliates?" It's because you fucking owe them the money. Because it's their fucking money. When you start waffling publicly about that, it reveals that you're, you know, not exactly committed to paying people what they're owed. Again, smart people will see that and know to stay away.

[ruff]

Originally Posted by Blackcrow

Since a good deal of the people posting didnt read or do not understand the thread I will recap. If this affiliate were advertising on google using keywords which he found good deals on, that convert well, then I would applaud his creative work. Advertising as "The Official Homepage" of a site is just skimming traffic off a branded name.

We read it and we understood it. You need a reason to shut this affiliate off, so go ahead and do it. It's your program. Why take this to the board? You could have just contacted the affiliate, worked something out or just shut him down. A lot of us see things different than you do, so if you want to put it out there, don't be surprised if you get opinions counter to your own.

[Sausage]

Better he/she is sending the traffic to you than some competitor. I would just be thankful for the free paid cpc traffic and let it sit. Same thing with affiliate programs who demand you don't take their spots for their site names. When that happens I kindly thank them, cement the site that has the top spot and send to their competition.

Fact is you don't own adwords, and you don't own google, so learn your place.

[signupdamnit]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

No, we got that. And there'd be no problem going forward if you wanted to craft a mellow TOS provision to prevent your affiliates from using your trademark in this way you've now decided you don't like, and had a quiet word with your affiliates about it, paying them for all past work but requiring them to desist from the practice going forward.

But you posted a bunch of blather here about the "spirit of why you pay affiliates" and you're clearly committed to some mystical woo-woo idea of "organic sales" that somehow belong to you even if your affiliates beat you to them. Most of the thread is about that, and I submit that you have not comprehended the justifiably adverse reaction to it.

There is no such thing as organic sales. There are only sales. And if you have affiliates, they will be getting sales you "might" have gotten without them. If you are going to resent that fact and start thinking about maybe not paying for such sales, you should not have affiliates. And now that you have revealed such thoughts in public, smart affiliates will stay away.

And the only "spirit of why you pay affiliates?" It's because you fucking owe them the money. Because it's their fucking money. When you start waffling publicly about that, it reveals that you're, you know, not exactly committed to paying people what they're owed. Again, smart people will see that and know to stay away.

I'm speechless. Perfect 10.0 post.

[bl4h]

Its not black and white

In the specific case where your brand is for example "playboy", you are number one for this term,

then an affiliate buys an ad on top of that claiming to be the official site

You'd have to be a moron to pay people to do this. That's like paying an affiliate to put his affiliate link on your main page.

but you cant just randomly come up with reasons for not paying up. Should have had it in a TOS if its not there :|

[Jakez]

Fuck you.

Merry Christmas.

[Blackcrow]

bl4h - you have a good understanding of what I am saying but let me point out that I have already paid this person for all sales and I spoke to him this weekend. He is paid and he understands that the only restriction I have on his adwords is that he can not use our trademarked name. Nobody was fucked out of anything. By cutting him off I meant just telling him "dont do that from now on." He is still getting all his payments. I have been in business for 12+ years and never kept an affiliate's payments. I reconcile and cut my nats payment myself every single pay period. I e-mail my affiliates personally and have them on ICQ.

The reason I posted this was because it seems to me that using a trademarked name as "The Official Homepage" in adwords is not something a person should be paid for and it turns out a lot of other paysites feel the same exact way. Thats all I needed to know.

And, fuck you to Jakez

[woj]

What if lets say #2 search result is your competitor or a tube site with your content on it or a site rip link? (VERY common now a days)

Wouldn't such an affiliate help you in that case by pushing down the unwanted results out of surfer's view?

[Forkbeard]

For what it's worth, now I've said my piece about the "should I tell them I will not be paying?" nonsense, I actually agree that "the official home page" adwords buy is tacky, misleading, and I wouldn't do it as an affiliate. But the reason it's wrong is deception of the surfer, not protection of the program owner's trademark.

It is essentially impossible for affiliates to promote programs without using the intellectual property the programs make available. Programs make such intellectual property available in differing degrees -- but I have never yet seen one that fully and successfully delineates in its TOS the precise outlines of which intellectual properties affiliates may use and which intellectual properties affiliates may not use. A few programs try, but most take a very relaxed approach, because anything else is sheer folly.

In my opinion it is the very ESSENCE of the affiliate arrangement that the affiliate's job is to figure out marketing angles the program owner hasn't thought of (yet). And I have very little but contempt for the program owner who reacts badly when one such angle is successful. If you didn't think of it and weren't already doing it, then you shouldn't recoil in horror and demand the right to profit exclusively from it once you see it working.

However, any good affiliate program should have a catch-all provision requiring affiliates to refrain from deceptive advertising practices, and it would be under that provision that I'd ask this affiliate to desist from buying "official home page" advertising unless he's in fact sending the traffic straight to your official home page.

[zeuse]

Originally Posted by Blackcrow

He could do that "Offical Site" thing and then link to a competitor, in which case I have a real problem.

Fingers crossed then.

[famous]

Originally Posted by Blackcrow

The only problem is that if he keeps infringing on my trademark (which is registered) then I have to go after google and they are difficult. Google is too wealthy to sue. He could do that "Offical Site" thing and then link to a competitor, in which case I have a real problem.

Yeah sue for trademark use beucase all that content on your celeb sites i am sure is 100% legit stuff in which you have full rights to use. Ok i got a laugh out of that haha. Its like when thives cry when thives steal from them.

[zeuse]

Originally Posted by famous

Yeah sue for trademark use beucase all that content on your celeb sites i am sure is 100% legit stuff in which you have full rights to use. Ok i got a laugh out of that haha. Its like when thives cry when thives steal from them.

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by woj

What if lets say #2 search result is your competitor or a tube site with your content on it or a site rip link? (VERY common now a days)

Wouldn't such an affiliate help you in that case by pushing down the unwanted results out of surfer's view?

good point.

[u-Bob]

It's your program, you can change the rules to exclude certain types of traffic. The question is, is it good for business? Will cutting a traffic source bring you more or elss income?

[u-Bob]

Originally Posted by Forkbeard

In my opinion it is the very ESSENCE of the affiliate arrangement that the affiliate's job is to figure out marketing angles the program owner hasn't thought of (yet).

q f t

[V_RocKs]

I think you handled a difficult situation in a proper manner. You have sole discretion on whether or not someone can use your trademarked name.

Google has an automated process for doing this very same thing. I cannot use the keywords, playboy, hilton, hustler, kragen, 7-11, etc because their automated system knows these words. You can have your trademarks added... Google for how ;)

I applaud that you paid him since this wasn't spelled out in your terms of service. Some programs allow this sort of advertising and have sites like, "BigTitsBabes.com" and therefor the affiliate is better able to capture alternates like "big tits hotties" or "big boobs babes" and send them traffic they otherwise would not have received. Your case is unique since your brand name isn't often associated with sex outside of its full two word term.

I have seen companies vary their response to such advertising on a site to site basis. Perhaps they have something like Anilos which is a made up term for MILF, and then Nubiles which is already an established term defining barely legal teens in the industry. One they go balls to the wall to protect and the other they realize keywords like "nubile pussy" "nubile teens" "hot nubiles" etc could be beneficial for them to have affiliate capture.

[V_RocKs]

Also, my third paragraph spelled out what inhouse traffic is all about using Google adwords...

On the term, "big boobs hotties" there might not be an ad running. However, the top 10 are tubes, tgps and a few blogs. Several run your FHG's or videos and banners, but none specifically target YOU!

Adwords is how you get not only first billing, but targeted ads to the traffic.

[HerPimp]

Affiliates focus is on getting sales. Researching terms and bidding on them is money he spent on building Your site. Ungrateful sponsors, go fuck yourself.

[Cherry7]

It would be counter productive if affilaites and sponsor were bidding against each other, driving the price up and just making more money for google.

It is not easy making a profit with adwords with clicks in the UK at £0.04 so if we found an affilaite that was doing a better job at it than us we may well agree to let them get on with it !

A lot harder for an affiliate to make it pay with only 50% than us with 100%.

At the end of the day we should be working together to maximise income for both affiliates and us film makers.