I was investigating a company named Doba that offers a drop shipping service for online businesses…but the real story is not Doba - it is what I found in the 1st page of Google sponsored results when I searched “doba”…
Doba is doing a terrible job at protecting their brand in search engines. I was looking for some information about Doba and I saw a ton of negativity and competition. There is lots of search engine real estate being occupied by Doba competitors and Doba haters…real estate that could be occupied by Doba affiliates. I did check - and Doba does have an affiliate program. Where are the affiliates? If I was Doba, I’d send out cease and desist letters to all my competitors (or call them on the phone and just ask nicely, if possible) and demand they stop bidding on Doba trademarks. I would also encourage some of my trusted affiliates to help the situation by bidding on Doba trademarks themselves. What would you do?
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7 responses so far ↓
1 Matt // Mar 9, 2007 at 12:10 pm
I like the stategy byte. What sets the price your affiliates would be willing to bid on Doba trademarks to help bump out the negative publicity? Also, how do you influence unpaid placement on search engines?
2 Todd // Mar 11, 2007 at 8:59 pm
If Doba had a strong base of active affiliates (it seems they don’t) - those affiliates would/could be all over the paid and organic search results. Some of their competitors do seem to have a nice number of active affiliates…some if which were bidding Doba trademarks in my Google search example…
3 Jeremy Hanks // Mar 12, 2007 at 6:45 am
You’re right on with your thoughts. We just received our final trademark registration documentation from the USPTO about 3 weeks ago. Our first step was to get Google to stop people bidding on our terms and using them in their listings (as far Google will enforce it). We have in the works plans to do exactly as you suggested which is to send some ‘friendly’ letters to people bidding on our terms. And I will double check with our affiliate manager, but I’m sure we have plans to work with our affiliates in this regard too. Again, great thoughts!
- Jeremy, CEO Doba
4 Todd // Mar 12, 2007 at 6:54 am
Jeremy, it’s great to see that you are monitoring what bloggers are saying about Doba! I appreciate the comment…best of luck to you.
5 Nathan // Jan 2, 2008 at 7:04 am
I’ve had some white knuckles - working hard as a rookie affiliate. I picked Doba because I use doba. If more Doba users Spread the word with good cause it would help…
Doba has been OUTSTANDING with guidance toward affiliates. Doba’s Affiliate manager was a great help for me…
6 Todd // Jan 2, 2008 at 9:07 am
Hi Nathan, thanks for your comment. I’m glad to hear you’re doing great with Doba…perhaps the affiliate manager has been a new addition since I posted this in March of ‘07?
7 Mike // Jul 11, 2008 at 5:32 am
The new affiliate manager at doba is top notch. Hes been great help getting my camapign bumped up to a new level.
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