Affiliate Marketing and Affiliates who Bid on Trademarks on PPC Engines
In my opinion this is a very easy topic to deal with. Affiliate marketers who bid on a company’s trademark are in the wrong unless specified in the Affiliate program’s Affiliate guidelines. If it is identified in the Affiliate program’s terms of service, then the Affiliate Marketer (Publisher) is in the wrong.
However, if the Affiliate program isn’t managed, and the Affiliate marketer gets away with it over a period of time, then I don’t feel past sales should be stricken from the Affiliate marketer. The advertiser is responsible for managing their program, and if they aren’t then they deserve the foul practices that will occur from a poorly managed Affiliate program.
If the Affiliate program is managed well and the Affiliate uses PPC and bids on the trademark name, which is clearly forbidden in the program’s rules, then I feel the Affiliate should get one warning, and the second time they do it they need to get the boot. It is stupid in my opinion to ever let the Affiliate bid on a company’s trademark, but you need to make mistakes as a business to succeed.
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“It is stupid in my opinion to ever let the Affiliate bid on a company’s trademark, but you need to make mistakes as a business to succeed.”
That’s a very general statement. I can see cases where it’s bad, cases where it’s good, depends on the merchant.
I don’t think you would say it’s wrong to let affiliates bid on products? Sometimes the merchant is the product they sell. Roomba, Dell, Ugg Australia, Gateway, etc. If I were to do ppc for them, I would want as targetted keywords as possible. Not vacuum cleaners, computers, shoes. But Roomba vacuum cleaner, Ugg Australia boot, Gateway computers etc.