New Release: Bing Affiliate Monitoring is Live!

August 21, 2009

As you know, we have always provided trademark and competitor monitoring on Bing. Now, the Search Monitor also supports Affiliate Monitoring on Bing!

This is a big deal because The Search Monitor is the first and only vendor that has been approved by Bing to offer affiliate monitoring – an important element in assisting brands to gain control over the paid search marketing channel. It means that we can track direct linking URL hijackers, other types of affiliate compliance violations, and your competitors’ affiliates on Bing.

If you have ever attempted to monitor Bing by hand, then you know that Bing encrypts the destination URLs for each paid advertisement. You need to see the destination URL to detect affiliates. The only way to view the actual destination URL is to click on the paid search ad. The problem is that to click without permission is a violation of Bing’s terms of service and could create billable clicks to advertisers – such clicking is commonly known in the undustry as ‘click fraud’. With the authorization that we received from Bing, The Search Monitor is the first and only vendor with permitted access to monitor and view the actual destination URLs of paid search ads without causing any issues for advertisers.