Advertiser Requiring Pre-Approval of Landing Pages?

[dogfighter]

I'm in a situation that is very foreign to me and I'd like to hear back from other AM's about their experiences with this.

I'm currently promoting an offer where the advertiser's landing page is 99% images. It's a short submit form.

To avoid getting bitch slapped by quality scores, I have downloaded their LP, added a few paragraphs of keyword-rich filler text below the fold, and hosted it on my own server.

The advertiser is saying that I can not add ANYTHING to the landing page, even though I have left their terms, conditions, requirements, policies, legalese, etc alone (all of which also already appeared below the fold). This advertiser has "Paid Search" listed as one of the traffic types they accept and has no suppression list and nothing in their campaign descriptions talking about landing page pre-approval. None of the filler text I added is in any way misleading, nor does it create any legal exposure for the advertiser. I was never informed about any such policy until recently, and they have individually praised me in the past for the quality of the traffic I have sent them via landing pages where I used the exact same tactics.

So since when is a landing page hosted completely on my server "their" landing page? Since when are paid search affiliates expected to promote offers where they are not allowed to put keywords in text anywhere on the page, or change the blank <title> tag on the landing page? Do they not realize the problem with putting jumplinks as your destination URL? I know their are workarounds for that but I'm not risking my AdWords account for them.

 

[Someone]

Some advertisers just don't get it and need to be educated by you, the affiliate, and the affiliate network hosting their offer.

A lot of advertisers are scared the affiliate is going to mislead the browser, thus generating lower quality or bogus leads.

Write your AM a nice e-mail explaining why as a search affiliate you need to add content to the landing page to appease Google's QS and how using the tracking link is just does not work. Then, ask him/her to forward this onto the advertiser.

 

[metallic07039]

I work for one of the large affiliate program networks but I know here the AM's are not very knowledgeable on SEO techniques. Most of them are from customer service backgrounds and have little experience with what you do.

The advertiser can also "unapprove" you if they think you're some sort of a risk in terms of your problem with content.

 

[dogfighter]

As it turns out, the product/company being promoted in this affiliate offer saw my landing page and freaked out to the advertiser. They then let their legal department convince them that it was my landing page that got them in trouble.

Here's some free advice for advertisers -- PPC arbi 101...

-If you haven't secured permission from Company A to use their products, name, image, likeness, etc for your offer... my landing page is not the problem.

-If Company A asked you not to use their name in any display URLs and you don't inform the affiliates or the network of this agreement... my landing page is not the problem.

-If you don't tell me and/or the network that I'm not allowed to use any images of this product (including the ones on your own LP) on my landing page... my landing page is not the problem. [ringtone advertisers figured this out a long time ago and started telling networks that affiliates couldn't use copywrited artist images]

-If all visitors who are converting to leads are only able to do so once I send them to your landing page, but they're complaining that they didn't see the offer requirements... MY landing page is not the problem

-If you are doing a zip submit where the prize is a deluxe red widget, but neglected to tell me or the network (via a suppression list or any other method) that I'm not allowed to use the words "deluxe", "red" or "widget" anywhere on my landing page or in my ads... my landing page is not the problem.