The Legal and Economic Implications of Brand Bidding: How Monitoring Tools Can Protect Your Brand

Let's start by telling you what an auction is and why this procedure is needed. When a user enters a search query, Google Ads automatically sorts ads and selects those that match the keywords. Next, materials that are not suitable for the user or do not meet the minimum requirements are filtered out, taking into account: targeting, GEO, design, absence of software errors, etc. Malicious or prohibited materials and spam are also eliminated at this point. After that, the ads with the highest rating are selected, the rating depends on the match of the search query and the size of the bid. The level of competition is of considerable importance: the more applicants there are, the more difficult it is to promote your ad. 

There are practices in digital marketing that can damage your brand and lower its reputation. You may not notice the malicious impact, as counterfeiters act covertly, so it is recommended to use the brand bidding monitoring tool, which will allow you to identify violations in time and reduce financial losses. Affiliate brand bidding (BB) is becoming more widespread; partners using this method increase their traffic, but harm advertisers. Thus, BB is a threat, so companies take the time to produce specific keywords and develop a policy to combat intruders. It turns out that partners can cause no less damage to your company than competitors. We will analyze this fact in more detail further, and define the main methods of combating violations. 

How Affiliates Can Harm Your Brand

Entrepreneurs participating in your affiliate program (AP) may be playing a dishonest game. They can bid on your branded keywords (BK) without telling you about it. Google Ads will sometimes put their ads above yours, in which case your potential customer will click on the affiliate’s ad. You will have to pay a commission to the partner for this lead, despite the fact that this client was already looking for your company. This practice is beneficial to the affiliate, but clearly not profitable to you, since you are paying money that you might not have paid. In this way, the partner can increase the click rate and boost his traffic. In other words, the members of your AP become your competitors, since you have to bargain with them for the right to show your ad after the client's request. So you need to work out your strategy, you can read more about it on LinkedIn.

You need to keep an eye on your affiliates because they may violate trademark rights by using your brand name, images, slogans. There are more frequent cases when the company name fits into the domain name. Also, crooks can attract customers with similar signs, this is also considered fraud. The worst thing is if the client searches for your organization, clicks on a false ad and gets a negative experience. In this case, your company's reputation will decline and the brand will be discredited. In order to stop illegal activities against your company, you first need to track down the offenses and collect evidence to file a lawsuit. You can read more about advertising fraud on Statista. Let's look further at what legal problems violators may face.

Legal Consequences for Violators

You can sue affiliates if you have collected the necessary data, later we will tell you which monitoring services are better to use. Unfortunately, it is not always possible to bring counterfeiters to justice, as they can act within the law without violating trademark rights, but bidding on your BK. In this case, you can file a complaint with Google by filling out the form and attaching the necessary data. If violations are found, Google will fine the affiliate or sue him. It should be remembered that the Google Ads policy differs from the legal norms, since it is a private organization that forms its own rules. Let's look further at one of the effective tools for tracking BB and identifying dishonest partners.

Few Words About BluePear

It turns out that you can get full protection of PPC ads from BB. Modern AI-based solutions will help you. You can request the trial version and use it for free. As a result, your marketing budget will grow due to increased traffic volume. Affiliates use fraudulent schemes to hide their activities, but the BP tool will find violations even if the counterfeiter has set up targeting and changed the GEO. Note that it is very difficult to detect skillful scammers manually, so you will have to use professional online tools. Getting started with BP is very simple: enter keywords and list the countries to track. You can view all the collected information in one panel; you will see not only the ID and other data of the dishonest partner, but also screenshots of his ads. 

The collected data can be sent to Google, and the data can also be useful in court. The program works 24/7 and does not require your intervention. Now you don't need to hire a team of specialists who will look for inappropriate affiliates. You can pay for BluePear monthly or annually, receiving a discount. Try BP for free to identify violators today and protect your affiliate marketing budget. Keep in mind that after detecting and removing dishonest affiliates, the costs of your search campaigns will decrease; you will pay less for ads and receive more traffic. Knowing that you are using a monitoring tool, your new partners will not try to deceive you. BluePear will also help you identify competitors and those who used your BK by accident.

Security Policy

Recently, almost all companies that receive traffic through affiliate marketing have their own security policy. This is a set of rules that govern the actions of personnel in case of detection of malicious actions. It is not necessary to immediately break off contact with an affiliate, if he has made up his ad incorrectly, you can send him a warning letter. If the advertiser's requirements are ignored, then he has the right to no longer cooperate with the affiliate. If you have clear instructions then the work of employees in your company is optimized. Be sure to familiarize new affiliates with your policy: make sure that your security policy is published on the official website. Do not set too strict rules, create acceptable conditions for cooperation so that bloggers and webmasters join your AP.

Conclusion 

Not only competitors and intruders, but also affiliates can cause financial and reputational damage to your company. To reduce financial losses and increase the volume of new traffic, it is recommended to use special monitoring tools, such as BluePear. This service provides round-the-clock protection, collects data on violations. The online tool has convenient operation, all control buttons are located on one dashboard, where you can also view and organize data. Individuals and companies that violate trademark rights are administratively liable and may be blocked after contacting Google Ads Support. Do not forget to develop a company's security policy to minimize harmful actions against your brand. You can try the trial version of BluePear right now, it's free.