Brand Bidding Policy Template for Affiliate Programmes

If you run an affiliate programme without a clear brand bidding policy, you're almost certainly losing money. Affiliates bidding on your brand keywords cannibalise traffic you'd have captured organically or through your own paid campaigns — and you pay them a commission for it. It's one of the most common and most preventable sources of margin erosion in ecommerce.

This guide provides a ready-to-use policy template you can drop into your affiliate agreement, along with guidance on the key clauses, how to enforce it, and what penalties to set for violations.

Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. This is not legal advice. Have your affiliate agreement and any policy amendments reviewed by a qualified solicitor before implementation.

Why you need a brand bidding policy

Without an explicit policy, affiliates will bid on your brand terms. It's not necessarily malicious — many affiliates target brand keywords because they convert well and generate easy commissions. From their perspective, it's efficient marketing. From yours, it's a direct cost.

If you're not sure whether this is already happening to you, run a free audit to check if affiliates are already bidding on your brand. Here's what happens when affiliates bid on your brand terms:

You pay commissions on sales you'd have won anyway. If a customer searches for your brand name, they're already looking for you. They'd have clicked your organic listing or your own paid ad. When an affiliate's ad captures that click instead, you pay a commission — typically 5-15% — on a sale that was already yours.

Your own CPCs increase. More advertisers bidding on your brand terms drives up the cost per click in the auction. Your brand campaigns become more expensive, even if you're still winning the top position.

Customer experience suffers. Affiliate landing pages often don't match the experience on your own site. Some use aggressive tactics, outdated offers, or misleading claims that can damage your brand perception.

Attribution becomes unreliable. Affiliate brand bidding distorts your marketing data. Channels that deserve credit for generating awareness and demand lose attribution to the affiliate who intercepted the customer at the last moment. For a deeper look at detection methods and prevention tactics, see our guide on how to detect and prevent affiliate brand bidding.

The policy template

The following template is designed to be included as a schedule or appendix to your affiliate programme terms and conditions. Replace all bracketed placeholders with your specific details.

[COMPANY NAME] Affiliate Programme — Brand Bidding Policy

Effective Date: [DATE]

Version: [VERSION NUMBER]

This Brand Bidding Policy ("Policy") forms part of the [COMPANY NAME] Affiliate Programme Terms and Conditions. All affiliates ("Partners") accepted into the Programme are bound by this Policy. Violation of this Policy may result in the penalties outlined in Section 6 below.

1. Prohibited Keywords

Partners are prohibited from bidding on, or using as targeting keywords, any of the following terms in any paid search campaign (including but not limited to Google Ads, Microsoft Advertising, and any other pay-per-click platform):

[BRAND NAME] (in any capitalisation or variation)

[BRAND NAME] + any modifier (e.g., "[BRAND NAME] discount," "[BRAND NAME] promo code," "[BRAND NAME] review," "[BRAND NAME] alternative")

Common misspellings of [BRAND NAME], including but not limited to: [LIST COMMON MISSPELLINGS]

[LIST ANY ADDITIONAL BRAND TERMS, PRODUCT NAMES, OR TRADEMARKS]

For clarity, this prohibition includes broad match, phrase match, exact match, and broad match modifier keyword types. Partners must also add all prohibited keywords as negative keywords in any campaigns that could potentially trigger ads on these terms.

2. Ad Copy Restrictions

Partners are prohibited from:

a) Using [BRAND NAME] or any of its trademarks in ad headlines, descriptions, display URLs, or ad extensions.

b) Using any variation, misspelling, or abbreviation of [BRAND NAME] that could cause consumer confusion.

c) Implying any official relationship, endorsement, or affiliation with [BRAND NAME] that does not exist.

d) Using "[BRAND NAME] Official," "Authorised [BRAND NAME] Dealer," or any similar phrasing unless explicitly authorised in writing.

3. Display URL and Destination Requirements

a) Partners must not use a display URL that includes [BRAND NAME] or any variation thereof.

b) All affiliate ads must direct to the Partner's own website or to an approved landing page. Direct linking to [COMPANY WEBSITE URL] via an affiliate tracking link in paid search ads is prohibited unless explicitly authorised in writing.

4. Permitted Activities

Partners are permitted to:

a) Bid on generic, non-branded keywords related to [COMPANY NAME]'s products or services (e.g., "[PRODUCT CATEGORY]," "[GENERIC TERM] deals").

b) Use [BRAND NAME] in organic content, social media, and email marketing in a manner consistent with the Programme's general terms.

c) Reference [BRAND NAME] in ad copy only when the ad is triggered by a non-branded keyword and the reference is factual and non-misleading (e.g., "Compare prices including [BRAND NAME]").

5. Monitoring and Compliance

a) [COMPANY NAME] actively monitors paid search results for brand keyword activity by affiliates. This monitoring is conducted [daily/weekly] using automated tools and manual spot checks.

b) [COMPANY NAME] reserves the right to request evidence of keyword targeting and negative keyword lists from any Partner at any time. Partners must provide this evidence within [5/7] working days of the request.

c) Partners are responsible for ensuring compliance across all campaigns and ad groups, including those managed by sub-affiliates, agencies, or automated bidding systems acting on the Partner's behalf.

6. Penalties for Violation

Violations of this Policy will be handled as follows:

a) First violation: Written warning and immediate requirement to pause the offending campaign. Commissions earned from brand keyword traffic during the violation period will be reversed.

b) Second violation: Commission reversal for the violation period, a [30/60]-day suspension from the Programme, and a formal review of the Partner's continued participation.

c) Third violation: Permanent removal from the [COMPANY NAME] Affiliate Programme, reversal of all commissions for the [30/60/90]-day period preceding the violation, and forfeiture of any unpaid commissions.

d) [COMPANY NAME] reserves the right to escalate directly to removal for egregious or clearly intentional violations without following the staged process above.

7. Amendments

[COMPANY NAME] reserves the right to update the Prohibited Keywords list and this Policy at any time. Partners will be notified of material changes via [email/the affiliate portal] and are responsible for maintaining compliance with the most current version.

Acknowledged and Agreed:

Partner Name: ________________________

Date: ________________________

Signature: ________________________

Key clauses explained

Prohibited keywords list: Be specific. Don't just say "brand terms" — list them. Include misspellings, abbreviations, and product-specific terms. Update this list regularly as you launch new products or identify new variations.

Negative keyword requirement: This is critical. Even if an affiliate isn't deliberately bidding on your brand, broad match campaigns can trigger on brand terms. Requiring affiliates to add your brand terms as negatives closes this loophole.

Sub-affiliate liability: Many affiliates work with sub-networks or use automated tools. Your policy needs to make the affiliate responsible for the behaviour of anyone operating under their account, otherwise they'll claim ignorance when a sub-affiliate violates the policy.

Graduated penalties: A three-strike system is fair and defensible. But reserve the right to skip to immediate removal for obvious, intentional violations. Some affiliates deliberately bid on brand terms knowing the commission they earn will exceed the penalty if they're caught.

Commission reversal: This is the teeth of the policy. If an affiliate knows their commissions will be reversed for the violation period, the financial incentive to bid on brand terms disappears. Without reversal provisions, some affiliates will treat warnings as a cost of doing business. If affiliates are also using your trademark in their ad copy, you have additional recourse — see our Google Ads trademark policy guide for the details.

How to add this policy to your affiliate agreement

If you're launching a new affiliate programme, include this policy as a schedule to your terms and conditions from the start. Every affiliate should acknowledge it during sign-up.

If you're adding this to an existing programme, communicate the change clearly:

Send a direct email to all active affiliates explaining the new policy and why it's being introduced.
Give a reasonable implementation window — typically 14-30 days — for affiliates to update their campaigns and add negative keywords.
Publish the updated terms on your affiliate portal.
Have affiliates acknowledge the updated terms (most affiliate platforms support this as a required step before continuing in the programme).

Enforcement: How to actually catch violations

A policy without enforcement is just a suggestion. You need to actively monitor for violations.

Manual spot checks: Regularly search for your brand terms on Google and check whether any affiliate ads appear. This is simple but unreliable — you'll only see ads served in your location at that specific moment, and affiliates may use dayparting or geo-targeting to avoid detection.

Auction Insights in Google Ads: If you run your own brand campaigns, the Auction Insights report shows which other advertisers are competing in the same auctions. This won't identify affiliates by their affiliate ID, but it can reveal suspicious domains.

Automated monitoring: This is the most reliable approach. Tools like SerpAlert monitor your brand terms continuously across locations and times of day, capturing every ad that appears. When an affiliate's ad shows up on your brand keywords, you'll know about it — complete with the ad copy, destination URL, and timestamp you need to enforce your policy.

The key advantage of automated monitoring is that it catches the affiliates who try to be clever — running brand ads only during off-hours, targeting regions they think you won't check, or using slight variations of your brand name. Manual spot checks miss these tactics; automated tools don't.

Making the policy work long-term

Introduce your brand bidding policy early and enforce it consistently. The most common mistake is publishing a strong policy and then failing to monitor or act on violations. Once affiliates realise the policy isn't enforced, it becomes meaningless.

Review the prohibited keywords list quarterly. Add new product names, campaign-specific terms, and any new misspellings you discover. Communicate updates to your affiliate base each time.

Treat enforcement as an ongoing operational task, not a one-off project. Use our brand campaign calculator to estimate how much affiliate brand bidding could be costing you. The brands that keep commission leakage under control are the ones that monitor continuously and act quickly when violations are found.