Barring affiliates from bidding on its name reduces Northern Tool ad costs

Retailers grapple with many issues in regards to affiliate marketing. Yet one of the most nettlesome is how much latitude to allow affiliates in bidding on the retailer’s brand in search engines.

Some argue that as long as affiliates are delivering sales, they should be free to market as well as they can. Others place their own brands off limits to affiliates, arguing that they should not be competing for the right to market to consumers on their own brand name. They believe that allowing affiliates to bid on their brands only drives up their own costs.

Northern Tool and Equipment Co.’s experience bears out the latter view. Late last year, Northern Tool, No. 93 in the Internet Retailer Top 300 Guide to online retailers, instituted a rule that prohibited affiliates from bidding on its own brand, Nate Miller, e-commerce manager, tells Internet Retailer. The results were almost instantaneous, he says: “We had a huge reduction in costs. It was a big savings for us.”

He says all retailers can easily establish such rules and reap the same benefits. “It’s the low-hanging fruit that absolutely everyone needs to take care of,” Miller says.