What you can doWhat you can do

The reply from your network's partner team says, “We've asked the publisher to stop.” Your validation window closes tomorrow. Both are true, and they're about different things.

The email deals with future ads. The commission on yesterday's orders is still pending, waiting for a decision that's yours to make, by a date that won't move.

Here's the order to work in. Each step starts from something you saw and ends in a specific question.

Start with the terms that applied

Your case rests on the programme terms in force when those clicks arrived, so find that version and its date first. The clauses that hold up are specific. Brand search and your terms covers the background.

• “Bid on or appear on”, not just “bid on”. Broad match reaches searches related to a keyword, and close variants apply to every match type with no way to switch them off, so an ad can appear on your name without your name being its keyword (Round the edges).
• Your brand, its misspellings, your web address, and your brand with any other term (“extended or hybrid” searches), code searches included. Network guidance adds “including but not limited to”.
• Your brand as a required negative keyword across all paid search, with its variants.
• No direct linking from paid search to your site, and no use of your domain as the display URL, without permission (Looks like yours).
• No use of your trade mark in ad text, and none in subdomains.
• Sub-networks responsible for their publishers and required to identify them (Behind the network).
• What follows if the terms aren't kept: commission declined or retained, suspension, removal.

Rule out the ordinary first

Most sightings have a plain explanation, and several are yours to check before anything is sent.

• Your own agency, or another team at your company, runs a campaign that shows on your brand search.
• An approved partner or reseller has permission you'd forgotten, or an old campaign is still running.
• The publisher joined before your paid search clause, or a sub-network's member never received your terms.
• A mistake: a broad keyword, a missing negative, an ad group copied from another account.

If one of these fits, the right email is a short one. If none does, carry on.

The evidence to keep

Record each sighting so someone who wasn't there can check it.

• A full screenshot of the results page, not a crop of the ad.
• The search as typed.
• The headline, description and display URL as they read.
• The advertiser Google names in “About this advertiser”, with where it's based and whether it's verified.
• The date and time, with the time zone. Google Ads, GA4 and your network can each run on a different clock (Out of hours).
• The location and the device.

Then corroborate it in the Ads Transparency Center, Google's library of ads from verified advertisers. Search the advertiser or your web address with the region set to the United Kingdom, and note the advertiser id (it starts with AR) and each ad's “Last shown” date.

Don't click the ad. Under parallel tracking, a click only shows how your own visit was treated, it costs the advertiser money and it can set tracking cookies.

Before validation closes

Validation, or the validation window, is the period in which you approve or decline each tracked sale before the network locks its commission. It varies by network and plan.

• One defaults to 30 days, after which a transaction can no longer be cancelled or adjusted.
• One suggests your returns period plus seven days (37 days for 30-day returns), up to 67 on its entry plan, and approves automatically at 60 days for advertisers on auto-validation.
• One recommends locking 27 days after the end of the month a sale was tracked, after which commission is final.
• One allows no adjustments after its auto-lock date.

So send the observation now, with the matching order references and publisher IDs, and ask the network to identify the source and deal with the commissions before they lock. Let pending sales auto-approve and you're asking for a reversal instead, and on one network paid commission can't be reversed on any plan. Don't plan around recovering money already paid.

Where your records confirm paid search your terms prohibit, decline the matching sales through your programme's process, with its supported reason. One network expects every decline to rest on a clear reason, and lists paid search activity among them.

Choose the lever with care. In older network guidance, suspending a publisher disables its links, while setting its commission to zero can leave its ads running unpaid, its clicks still able to overwrite other publishers' cookies.

Google's routes

Google's Unfair advantage policy lists, among what it doesn't allow, “Affiliates that advertise on Google Ads against the applicable affiliate program rules”. Google gives notice at least seven days before suspending an account under it. Your programme terms connect a sighting to that line, so attach the clause.

1. On the results page, open the three-dot icon beside the ad (the info icon on mobile) and choose “Report ad”. You can also report it from your recent ads in My Ad Centre.
2. Or, in the Ads Transparency Center, search the advertiser's name or your web address, select the ad and choose “Report this ad”.
3. The form asks for a reason, the ad's link and comments. Google says to get the link by right-clicking the ad and copying it, which doesn't open it. In the comments, give the observation and the clause, and name Unfair advantage.
4. Add your email. It's optional, but you need it to appeal the outcome. Google says it reviews reports over the next several days.

Neither route needs you to follow the ad to your shop.

The trade mark complaint, and what it can't do

A trade mark complaint is a separate route with a narrower reach. Google's Trademarks policy doesn't restrict trade marks used as keywords, or in the second-level domain of the display URL (the name before .co.uk). It can restrict a trade mark written in the ad text, where the use comes from a direct competitor or is confusing, deceptive or misleading. The mark has to be in the ad, not only on the landing page.

Complaints now name specific advertisers, identified by their URLs, in the countries and industries where you hold rights. Google stopped accepting industry-wide complaints on 24 July 2023, and phased out older restrictions over 12 to 18 months. A restriction generally covers every ad with the same second-level domain in its final URL.

There are exceptions: pages mainly selling the trademarked goods, pages whose main purpose is information about them, an index of search results related to the mark, and descriptive use. A deal page about your brand may fall within them.

The way in is the Google Ads Trademark Troubleshooter, which can also authorise an advertiser to use your mark. The complaint form now leads to “Report content on Google”, which asks you to verify your email first. Keep this route apart from your programme complaint: it can take your name out of someone's ad text, but it can't stop them bidding on it. Your terms do that.

Checking again

Get the remedy in writing: what was done, and from when. Then recheck the original search under the original conditions, and look wider than before.

• The same advertiser, on the same search and the code searches beside it.
• The same ad under another name: ad text can carry over word for word, typos included (New name, same ad).
• The evening and the weekend, not only office hours.
• Other places and devices than your office (Not where you are). Ad Preview and Diagnosis shows results for a location and device you choose, without adding impressions.
• The advertiser's ads in the Ads Transparency Center, and any “Last shown” date after the remedy.

A promise to stop needs a later observation beside it. Put a recheck date in your reply to the network, and send what you find either way.

Seeing it in Godotoro

Godotoro keeps each search separate. For brands on its schedule, the bare name and “yourbrand discount code” run every four hours by default, from 00:00 to 20:00 London time, so six times a day, nights included. “Voucher code” and “promo code” run weekly, and a check refreshes whatever is out of date.

Who's bidding lists, per search, the advertiser Google names for each ad, its Ads Transparency id, how many checks it was seen in, and when it was first and last seen. A moon marks one seen only out of office hours. The address pane lists the advertisers the Ads Transparency Center shows for UK ads using your web address. The brand page keeps windows of 7, 30 or 90 days with a mark for every check, so the later observation is there when the promise arrives.

Godotoro never clicks an ad. It describes what was seen; what it means under your terms is yours to decide. To start, check your brand.