The most common hidden conflict between an operator and an affiliate looks like success: the affiliate has great conversion, a cheap FTD and growing volume. And the operator's direct traffic is falling.
Mechanics
The player already knows the brand and types its name into search. The affiliate's ad comes first in the results, the player clicks, lands on a pre-lander and from there on the operator's site, and deposits. Formally the affiliate brought the player and gets the payout. In fact the player would have come on his own, for free.
How it shows up in the numbers
- Abnormally high click-to-deposit conversion — two to three times higher than other channels.
- A short path: few page views before registration.
- A simultaneous drop in direct and organic brand traffic.
- High-LTV players from the start, with no warm-up period.
The last point is deceptive: it looks like the affiliate is bringing in a quality audience. In fact they are bringing you your own.
Why it is not always a bad thing
There is one case where brand bidding is useful: if competitors or fraudulent clones already bid on your brand, an affiliate can buy the results page back in your favor. But this is done under written permission, with an agreed keyword list and usually at a reduced payout rate — as a SERP defense service, not as acquisition.
What to put in the contract
- The brand name and its spellings in negative keywords by default.
- The list of search queries where bidding is allowed, if it is allowed at all.
- The ban on using the brand in the domain, the subdomain and the display URL.
- The check procedure: who pulls the search results for brand queries, and how often.
- Consequence: FTDs delivered from such clicks get voided.
How to check
The simplest way is to look at the search results for the brand name from the target geo through a proxy or a rank-checking service. One-off it takes five minutes; on a regular basis it is set up as monitoring. If the affiliate is bidding, they will see it in the traffic too, so the check also has a disciplining effect.
We do not bid on the operator's brand and we agree SEO pages as a list — this is set out on the page “Terms”.
