Top 5 objectives to recruit Brand Compliance Monitoring services - Protect what's important

When you read, you already know and would have pictured the most popular brands behind them. You know by the logo what service or product these brands offer, which is what branding is all about!

When you read, you already know and would have pictured the most popular brands behind them. You know by the logo what service or product these brands offer, which is what branding is all about!

46% of customers are willing to pay more for the brands they trust. In today's competitive world, brands are in the race to attract customers, and digital media is the most popular medium post-covid-19. Digital advertising spending worldwide amounted to 521.02 billion U.S. dollars in 2021; by 2026, the spending would reach 876 billion dollars.

With the ever-increasing shoot in digital ad spending, fraud risk has risen manifolds. In a report published by Statista, It is estimated that the costs related to digital advertising fraud worldwide would grow exponentially within the four years between 2018 and 2023, from 35 billion to 100 billion U.S. dollars.

Along with increasing digital reach, brands are equally investing in implementing fraud prevention solutions to ensure brand compliance and the safety of their customer's online shopping journey.

You will learn about brand compliance, monitoring and protecting the brand, and why it is required in today's digital era.

What is Brand Compliance Monitoring?

Brand compliance simply means ensuring that the brand value delivered through various marketing channels aligns with the brand identity and image. Marketing teams use different channels to boost a brand's reach and sales, including websites, social media, email marketing, print media, events, affiliates, and search engines. Maintaining the brand's identity and conveying the same brand value to the end users across multiple marketing channels is of prime importance for marketing teams. Statistics also prove that presenting a brand consistently across all platforms can increase revenue by up to 23%.

As a marketing leader, you can adopt the following strategies to ensure Brand Compliance:

• Create Specific Standards

  Companies can avoid misleading information or false perceptions by creating clear and specific standards for their brand compliance. Once these standards are in place, the companies can communicate to all their external and internal communications team, agencies, affiliates, and branding partners.

• Centralized and Informed Brand Resources

  Digital asset management companies make it simpler for companies to manage and store all brand compliance resources in a single location. Marketing teams map all campaigns and communications with these brand resources to ensure uniformity and consistency.

• Monitor Brand Compliance

  Continuous monitoring of all brand communications, promotions, and marketing campaigns help a brand to maintain the consistency of brand compliance. Virus Positive Technologies Brand Protection Solutions help marketers monitor affiliate networks and paid advertisements across the web and protect against fraudulent activities.

  Brand compliance monitoring is thus a broad term used to control a brand's identity, narrative, and public perception by ensuring consistency and preventing misuse of a brand's name. Brands create a unique identity for customers to recognize and remember the products or services offered. As it is vital to create a brand image, it is equally essential to protect the brand from abuse.

  Marketing teams can either have internal monitoring teams or hire specialized agencies to track and monitor how their brand is being used for promotions over the web. In the marketing world, brand abuse is carried out by either affiliate using the brand's name to attract user traffic and earn commissions or competitors.

Below are five main reasons why brands need to hire brand compliance monitoring services.

1. Detect & Prevent Brand Infringement

   Along with increasing the customer base to boost sales, the marketing teams also hold the responsibility of protecting their brand's image. Publishers and competitors use a brand's name to earn commissions and steal the brand's loyal customers. There are laws protecting a brand's intellectual property, but continuous monitoring of the web and other digital mediums ensures eliminating brand abuse.

2. Ensure adherence to compliances

   Brands issue guidelines to promote their products or services in a specific way. Certain countries impose policies to protect end-users from online fraud. Brands must monitor their network to ensure compliance with their internal and government procedures. The most known ones in the affiliate marketing industry are:

   • Federal Trade Commission (FTC) - The FTC enforces federal consumer protection laws that prevent fraud, deception, and unfair business practices. The Commission also imposes federal antitrust rules prohibiting anticompetitive mergers and other business practices leading to higher prices, fewer choices, or less innovation.
   • General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) - GDPR governs how companies use, process, and store personal data (information about an identifiable living person). It applies to all companies within Europe and those supplying goods or services to Europe.
   • Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) - COPPA regulates the site operators to allow parents to review all the information collected from their children.

    

3. Stop Customer Journey Hijacking

   The malicious affiliate who intends to deceive brands and their customers to make money tries to interrupt the ideal customer journey by injecting ads and diverting users to competitor websites.

   While the customer goes through various stages of their online purchase journey, the threat actors take advantage of the vulnerability of the user's system and browsers due to access given to the affiliates via cookies. The affiliates can hijack a user session at any stage to inject the affiliate cookies and monetize the sales, hampering the brand's image and customer experience.

4. Save Marketing Budget

   According to a recent study, the industry is expected to lose over $3.4 Billion to affiliate fraud in the year 2022. The marketing teams invest money to attract more customers, while malicious affiliates use illegitimate techniques to deceive brands and earn commissions without getting traffic for their websites.

5. Protect the Legitimate Affiliates

   Brands pay affiliates to drive user traffic and increase sales. They use cookies to track the details of the affiliates and pay for each completed sale. The malicious affiliates inject their affiliate cookies into the user's browser/system and then monetize sales from the traffic driven by legitimate affiliates. This makes the affiliates driving the traffic to advertisers' websites lose their commissions and, eventually, their interest in getting business for the particular brand.