Affiliate brand bidding and DTM in Social media

A fairly recent phenomena and one tied up with the subject of “affiliate marketing without a website” is affiliate posting on social media sites using brand names. Merchants usually strictly control and define the use of their brand terms with affiliates in relation to PPC and within that, DTM (direct to merchant) traffic, but now DTM rules will have to be expanded to define what is permitted elsewhere, such as Twitter, Facebook, and perhaps G+.

At the moment an affiliate posting tweets using your brand name and linking direct to your site could do very well for themselves without you really even noticing, unless you check out the performance of your own Twitter campaign and find it lost amongst affiliate posts..

This is a very “merchant” orientated post as, whilst affiliates generally behave correctly, there are always some who, like my pet polecats, are always looking for a way around things, or whom, to be fair, perhaps just think of stuff before we do.

So, to protect yourselves correctly, clearly define in your affiliate campaign Ts & Cs, in what way your brand can be used in social media by your affiliates as well as PPC.