Do you take steps to protect your brand in search marketing? Are you equipped to handle something that threatens to compromise your brand’s integrity? If you aren’t optimizing to get positive brand information, then you’re risking feedback that may negatively affect your reputation.

Protecting your brand is an ongoing job, and those who keep up with the latest methods of doing so, enjoy more rewards and higher revenue than those who don’t. Does this describe how your business handles its branding?

If you’re interested in learning more about protecting your brand in search marketing, then you’ll want to invest about 20 minutes to listen to this edition of the Chaos Makes Sense podcast where your host Kimberly Henrie interviews Matt Frary, Chief of Chaos from SmarterChaos and Preston Holland, Sales Manager for BrandVerity about this topic.

Some smaller companies think that branding does not apply to them. Yahoo! Small Business Advisor* says that a personal branding campaign is crucial for career advancement, even for smaller businesses. This interview is an opportunity to learn how protecting your brand when using search marketing benefits your business, regardless of its size.

Protecting Your Brand in Search within Affiliate Marketing

The episode kicks off with Matt explaining the latest happenings around the SmarterChaos offices, including a Nexus for sales tax in the state of Colorado, where the company is headquartered. Matt plans to talk more about this deep topic in a future podcast, including an incident that caused him to put on a suit and head to the state capital.

Next the conversation turns to how big of an issue brand protection is in search, within affiliate marketing. Matt explains what percentage search makes up in any good affiliate program, and Preston chimes in about how protecting your brand affects your ability to drive traffic.

If this sounds confusing, and you aren’t sure how protecting your brand affects your bottom line, then you’re potentially risking lower revenue and eliminating rewards.

Bidding in Search and Affiliate Marketing Programs

Next Matt explains why ‘affiliate’ is not the vertical that drives traffic to you, and shares what things do help you accomplish that. He also answers the following questions.

- Why is branding a big part of my affiliate program?
- Should I allow affiliates to bid in search in my program?
- What kind of guidelines should I put on affiliate bidding?
- How can smaller advertiser programs shift their budget?

Now ask yourself two questions. Do you know the best way to cover the search landscape? Are you aware of how using different types of keywords, and other strategies affect traffic? If your answer was no to either, then it’s time to reevaluate the relationship between affiliate programs and bidding in search.

Tools for Protecting Your Brand in Search Marketing

Then Matt and Preston segue into a conversation about negative elements in search. Preston explains who, besides affiliates, are trying to drive traffic, and how BrandVerity is helping their clients go above and beyond in protecting brands in search marketing.

Both agreed that keeping a tight and clean brand image is important in affiliate marketing. Brands that use tools to help accomplish this, like the one offered by BrandVerity, can skip the complicated process of trying to do it themselves, in favor of comprehensive reports.

When entering into the world of search, it’s crucial that you cover all the bases so that your brand has the most protection possible. Your competition is using these tools to protect their brands…why aren’t you?

The episode wraps up with an explanation from Matt about why it’s a bad idea to allow people outside your affiliate marketing program use and promote search terms that should be exclusive to your brand.

Are You Ready to Take Control of Your Brand’s Protection?

Are you aware of the risks for problems using search? Do you want to know more about protecting your brand in search marketing? Listen to the entire podcast now. If you have questions or comments after the show, please share them in the section below. We’d love to hear what you have to say!

SmarterChaos manages multi-channel ad campaigns and handles all aspects of performance marketing relationships to drive your sales. Contact them to learn how you can get the best possible ROI for your affiliate marketing budget.

Website: http://www.smarterchaos.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SmarterChaos
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smarterchaos

Learn more about Poachmark, the tool discussed in this edition of Chaos Makes Sense:
https://www.brandverity.com/poachmark/

You can reach Preston Holland at BrandVerity:

BrandVerity, Inc.
705 2nd Ave, Suite 510
Seattle, WA 98104

*http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/advisor/5-ways-personal-online-branding-increase-digital-foootprint-043508796.html