Brand bidding policy for affiliates (plain-English template)

If you don’t publish a brand bidding policy, you will still have a brand bidding policy — it will just be ‘whatever we decide in the moment’. That’s how payout disputes start.

This page gives you a plain-English template you can copy/paste into your affiliate terms, plus a lightweight enforcement checklist that doesn’t require an ads team.

Table of contents

• What ‘brand bidding’ means
• Default policy (copy/paste)
• Allowed vs prohibited examples
• Enforcement workflow (15 minutes/week)
• FAQ

What ‘brand bidding’ means

Brand bidding is when an affiliate runs paid ads triggered by your brand name (or close variants) — e.g. ‘TinyAffiliate’, ‘Tiny Affiliate’, ‘tinyaffiliate pricing’, ‘tinyaffiliate coupon’.

It can be harmless (defensive coverage) or harmful (stealing last-click conversions you would get directly). The real issue is not morality — it’s attribution: who deserves commission when the customer was already looking for you?

Default policy (copy/paste)

Copy/paste this section into your affiliate terms. Edit bracketed parts if needed:

• No brand bidding by default: Affiliates may not bid on [Your Brand], misspellings, or close variants in paid search ads.
• No ‘brand + coupon/discount’ bidding: Affiliates may not bid on [Your Brand] + coupon/discount/deal/promo keywords.
• No trademark use in ad copy: Affiliates may not use our trademarks in ad headlines/descriptions unless explicitly approved in writing.
• No direct linking: Affiliates may not send paid traffic directly to our site using affiliate links unless explicitly approved.
• No impersonation: Ads may not imply the affiliate is the official brand, support, or ‘authorized’ representative.
• Enforcement: We may reverse commissions from prohibited brand bidding and may pause/terminate accounts for repeated violations.

If you want a softer version: allow brand bidding only for a small set of trusted affiliates and require they use a pre-approved landing page + negative keywords (e.g., exclude ‘login’, ‘support’, ‘refund’).

Allowed vs prohibited examples

Enforcement workflow (15 minutes/week)

You don’t need to catch everything. You need a repeatable process that discourages abuse and makes decisions consistent:

• Weekly incognito check: search your brand + ‘coupon’ and your brand alone in your top markets.
• If you see an affiliate: screenshot the ad + landing page, note date/time, and the query.
• First offense: warning + require the affiliate to add negative keywords / stop ads immediately.
• Repeat offense: pause affiliate, reverse commissions attributable to prohibited ads.
• Document exceptions: if you approve a partner for brand bidding, write the terms (keywords, match type, copy rules, landing page, and duration).

FAQ

Is brand bidding always bad?

No. It’s just usually misaligned for early-stage SaaS because it converts ‘already-intent’ customers and creates commission disputes. If you allow it, do it intentionally with explicit constraints.

What’s the simplest rule that prevents disputes?

Default: no brand bidding, no brand+coupon bidding, no trademark in ad copy. Approve exceptions in writing.

Related pages

• Trademark rules for affiliates
• Brand-safe affiliate link destinations
• Affiliate approval rules (reduce fraud)
• Coupon abuse prevention for affiliate programs
• Affiliate fraud patterns in SaaS