An affiliate program is great for many companies. These helpful partners are bringing in sales, growing your brand and boosting the revenue. However, it might be the case that some of these partners are secretly – and perhaps accidentally – hurting your brand.
Affiliate marketing seems simple enough: your affiliates help sell your products by promoting them independently and getting a commission for each resulting sale and a win-win situation. However, they might be inadvertently doing something that is a net negative: brand bidding.
Your affiliate competitors
To show how affiliates might be hurting your brand, imagine this: a customer types your brand name into Google, ready to buy something from you. However, rather than finding your official website first, they instead see a link from an affiliate. They use that link rather than your own, costing you not just the advertising fee – since most companies bid on their own brand name – but also the commission and all that for a customer who was already actively trying to find your website.
This is where the risk with affiliate marketing lies. The win-win scenario quickly turns into a costly exercise, making you pay extra for marketing costs and affiliate commissions.
Lose-lose… Lose?
The worst part is that there are more financial consequences: advertising costs over time will rise even further because more people bidding on your brand name, as your affiliates are doing, drive up the price for a successful bid, cutting into your advertising budget even further over time.
Many business owners don’t realise this is happening until marketing costs steadily increase or notice a drop in direct sales. This can be a silent drain over time, as it is unlikely to be immediately noticeable. Besides, sales are still coming in, just through more expensive channels than necessary.
Damage to brand name
This battle between you and your affiliates is not just about immediate financial impact. When affiliates start bidding on your brand name, other problems begin to arise as well: customer confusion, market position erosion and data issues.
When customers start seeing multiple ads and paths to your websites, this creates unnecessary uncertainty and decreases satisfaction in their customer journey. Instead of a straightforward road to your product, they suddenly see multiple options, each claiming to be you and your products, potentially even with different prices and promotions. It is easy to see how this might create unneeded wariness in the minds of consumers.
Market position erosion is another critical problem that starts to come up: when a simple search for your brand turns into a variety of options, consumer mindset shifts rapidly. Customers who were initially committed to buying from you might start wondering why there are so many different sellers. This shifts their mindset from “I want this specific brand” to “Let me check all my options.”
Finally, as more and more customers start to come in through your affiliates rather than your own advertising, you start losing important data about their buying journey, making it harder to determine what is and what is not working for your brand. Plus, you have less control over how your brand is being found and perceived.
Red flags to spot
There are several key signals that might indicate your partnerships are causing more harm than good.
First, watch your advertising costs closely. If you’re suddenly paying significantly more for your brand terms without changing your bidding strategy, this could mean affiliates are driving up prices by competing for the same keywords.
Another pattern to track closely is your traffic data. If affiliate sales start to increase but direct website traffic stays stagnant, this could be a clear sign that traffic cannibalization is occurring.
Finally, try searching for your own brand name! This may sound too easy to be true, but if you put your own brand name in the search engine and spot ads with it by others, you have instantly found the problem.
Protecting your brand effectively
The good news is that there are tools at your disposal to address these issues. Clear affiliate guidelines and regular program audits are essential first steps. Additionally, modern brand bidding monitoring tools can help track how your brand terms are used in online advertising. Many companies are implementing such monitoring systems to maintain better control over their affiliate programs and protect their online brand presence.
Conclusion
Affiliate marketing is a brilliant and useful way to grow your business. However, making sure that these partnerships work as intended and truly add value rather than intercept existing customers is key. By keeping careful watch and monitoring how your brand is being advertised online is crucial.
Remember: your brand name is one of your most valuable assets. A successful affiliate program should enhance this value, not compromise it. With the right monitoring systems and clear guidelines in place, you can build profitable affiliate partnerships while keeping your brand strong and your marketing costs under control.
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