Affiliate Keyword Policy: Things To Remember

Pay per click marketing is the most popular way for affiliates to promote merchants’ products. Pay per click marketing is easy to implement and can be used to test affiliate ideas very quickly, but most new affiliate marketers make the mistake of stepping on the toes of their merchants and feel their wraths.

One mistake that many affiliate make is bidding on their merchant’s branded terms without asking permission. Google does its best to prevent you from doing so, but many affiliates use sneaky tactics such as adding other characters to the beginning of branded terms to bend the rules ( e.g “@CNN”). The truth is most merchants have other channels that are way more successful than the affiliate channel. One of those channels is probably the PPC channel. There is no question that the average cost per sale or acquisition is much lower for branded terms than no branded terms, and the reason for that is the low level of competition for those terms. But if you jump in as an affiliate and start pushing the bids higher and higher, the merchant is going to feel the paid in the PPC channel. Besides, a lot of merchants have valuable brands, and they don’t want affiliate to mess with their brands.

It is essential for new affiliates to read the bidding policy before starting their PPC campaigns. But more so, you should contact your affilite manager and ask her about what’s allowed and what’s not. I can tell you that some merchants have open bidding policy, but a lot of experienced affiliates don’t even bother bidding on branded terms as they assume it is forbidden. Asking is always the way to go. Remember, your affiliate manager is there to help you succeed.