Trying to find the optimum way to market your brand through paid search is difficult. Which is the best approach to take? Do you set up an in-house team to do it, or appoint an agency to handle the area? Do you use a direct to merchant (DTM) affiliate to get the job done or do you use both?

The industry perceptions of DTM affiliate activity vary, from those companies who swear by it to those who are reluctant to involve other companies in their own marketing effort.  If you fall into the latter group you may also be fearful that affiliates could engage in false advertising and mislead customers somehow in order to receive a greater commission. This is something entirely undesirable of course and likely to result in damage to the company's brand.

However, whilst allowing an affiliate to direct targeted traffic to your site straight from the search engine may at first sound odd to a marketing team honed in more traditional promotional forms, in practise it can actually work extraordinarily well.

A company looking to keep complete control of their URL would point to the fact that they, or their agency already advertise in Google on their brand name. They may even additionally cover miss spellings and variations, and perhaps even a list of other associated terms. Job done then?

Well, no actually. It has been estimated that by far the lion's share of the search volume to a typical website, some 70%, comes from the somewhat mystical long tail. Just because these long tail terms are too numerous to ever fully conceive and list out in a brainstorming meeting does not make them any less real. Neither does the fact that a large chunk would only ever get used a handful of times a year: once even.

In simple terms it is unrealistic to assume that because you are the brand owner you would ever be able to fully imagine them. Even if your analytics package or internet intelligence subscription can give you an extensive list of what has historically been used, people somewhat like dice in this context, have no memory. Just because one term was used to locate a merchant previously does not mean that this dictates what another person will use. Assists: certainly, defines, no.

The other common misconception here is that Google's broad match tool means that as long as your research into the appropriate root term or terms is right, your ad will show everywhere that word is used as part of a search term. Correct? Unfortunately, no, for a multitude of reasons I won't go into right now. It also means that you have given up control yourself, especially if you have not selected a comprehensive list of negatives to stop your ad showing where it should not.

Definite Benefits

So there is definitely scope for increasing coverage of a brand in the online world then, but what of the traditional perceived conflict between a DTM affiliate and an in house team or agency?

Well, this is more a theoretical battle than one real. There are some very simple techniques which can allow the merchant to reap the benefit of having more brainpower behind their brand without the potential conflict.

Core terms where it may be more cost effective to cover them via a straight forward PPC approach, (after allowing for the agency fees or the cost of the in-house paid search team) rather than a CPA can be restricted. The key here is to be clear so that there is no greyness in terms allowing a possible unintentional transgression.

Negative terms in place, the affiliate can focus on driving traffic through.

An observation worth noting at this point is that targeting terms from search and bringing them through an affiliate site* to the merchant can be roughly 50% more expensive to an affiliate (due to site dropout), than if they simply brought them direct to site. The implications for this are that a breakeven CPA will be lower when DTM PPC is allowed. Or more simply put, the merchant gets more bang for their buck!

* if traffic has to be routed via a site then one important advantage for the merchant is that they can be up-and-running quickly: typically far, far faster than the merchants themselves could do, especially with the larger companies.

A bid cap can additionally used. As only one URL can appear in the search engine results at anyone time, a lesser sum will generally be outbid in the auction process. So this prevents an ad showing for the affiliate should one from the agency already be in place. Hence an affiliate's ads are only showing where the in-house team/agency is not present: so truly incremental sales are generated.

Finally, coverage through the affiliate channel can be sought in alternative search engines if these, for whatever reason, are not being actively targeted by the in-house team or agency. Again, this is incremental traffic and hence sales.

It is clear that there are benefits then in a properly structured DTM paid search affiliate marketing campaign. But what of the affiliate to use?

Case Study - How ClickAngel works alongside an agency with one of its partners: a major UK blue chip

The structure for this is the use of restricted terms, subsequently implemented by us as negatives, and a bid cap. Analysis of the overlap between agency activity and our own on behalf of the merchant showed that where both ClickAngel and the agency were competing, the agency showed in 99.4% of impressions. This is as a direct result of the bid cap in place.

Therefore our campaign and that of the agencies competed on just 0.6% of impressions: there was virtually no overlap.

Where the advert did show, we achieved a low enough cost to get significant traffic on a sustainable basis, generating sales within the CPA model without ‘cannibalising' the existing activities. This produced truly incremental sales for the client.

NB This activity has been in use with blue chip clients as a working model for years now, so it is not so much a trial procedure but really is a proven tactic.

Selecting the affiliate to work with

Like any big decision you make with your marketing, do your research first. Does the affiliate appear transparent: do they have a website, are they Google qualified? Are the individuals working on campaigns Google qualified? Are they known in the industry - and for the right reasons!?

Talk to the network and see if they have anyone they can recommend. As a respected operation themselves they're not knowingly going to put forward a company they themselves do not trust.

Conclusion

Trusted DTM affiliates and in-house paid search teams or agencies working on behalf of the merchant can co-exist effectively to create a more comprehensive coverage in search than would otherwise have been achieved. But to reach this goal, the campaign should be properly structured. Terms where CPA would be inefficient for the merchant should be closed off in a clear fashion. Additionally bid caps can be used to fully ensure there is no overlap. Although care should be taken here not to be too stifling: this just serves to curtail creativity and will ultimately result in a poorer performance where the merchant is the main loser.