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Glossary · P

Also called Paid-search affiliate

Letter
P
Related terms
4
Guides
6
Lessons
2
In one line

A publisher that earns commission by running its own paid-search ads, on generic searches or, where the terms allow, on a brand's own.

Most publishers send shoppers from a page of their own. A PPC affiliate buys the traffic instead: it runs Google Ads campaigns, pays for each click, and earns commission on the sales that follow. Its margin is the gap between what the clicks cost and what the commission pays.

Some send clicks to a page of their own, such as a comparison or a list of offers. Others use direct linking: the ad's final URL is the brand's site and the network's link sits in the tracking template, so the ad shows the brand's address. Both are ordinary in many programmes, on the searches the terms allow.

  • Generic searches, such as “running shoes sale”, are where most programmes allow paid search.
  • Searches for your name, and your name with “discount code”, are where most terms draw the line, and where negative keywords matter.
  • An ad from a PPC affiliate carries the advertiser Google verified, which can be the publisher's company, or a member's behind a sub-network.

Google's Unfair advantage policy lists affiliates advertising against their programme's rules, so your terms are what Google holds them to. The guide to paid-search rules sets out the clauses.

Sources

Google's own help and policy pages first.

  1. Advertising Policies Help: Unfair advantage
  2. Google Ads Help: Path
Related terms
Guides that use it
  1. Who is bidding on your brand? How to find outSix places to see which advertisers show ads on searches for your name, what each can and can't tell you, and how to look without skewing your own ads.
  2. Why “your brand + discount code” searches matterWhy searches for your name with “discount code”, “voucher code” or “promo code” are their own auctions, who advertises on them, and how to count them.
  3. Auction insights for brand campaigns: what each column meansHow to read Auction insights on your brand campaign: each column, the segments worth using, a worked example, and the auctions it can never show you.
  4. Paid-search rules for affiliates: the clauses to writeThe paid-search clauses a programme's terms need, why “bid on or appear on” matters, how Google's matching shapes the wording, and how to roll it out.
  5. Negative keywords for affiliates: the list to ask forWhich brand negatives to ask affiliates for, how each negative match type works, where they sit in Google Ads, and the gaps they leave that you have to cover.
  6. Should you bid on your own brand? What the studies foundWhat the field experiments on brand search ads found, why their answers differ, and how to run a fair test on your own name before you switch anything off.
Lessons that use it
  1. Brand search and your termsWho searches your name, how Google's auction prices those searches, what its policies cover, and what your programme's terms need to say.
  2. Round the edgesOne negative exact keyword can keep an affiliate's ad off the bare brand search you check, while it stays eligible on your code searches.
Related terms
  1. Direct linking
  2. Brand bidding
  3. Programme terms
  4. Sub-network