Successful Offline Affiliate In the House but Online Affiliate Newbie.HELP...

[roveretti80]

Tweet

Hey guys I used to be a cameraman for a major network affiliate in Indy (home of superbowl 2012). I have enjoyed good enough success with affiliate marketing offline. I place ads in what you guys called old media (papers, radio).

Now I have decided to migrate to new media. There seems to be a lot of rules with marketing online by the advertisers/affiliate networks (amazon, cj, pepperjam etc).

While offline there was never any issues with keywords. However it seems there is a crazy trademark/copyright warnings.

Please help answer the question below, I have run a real life situation I am experiencing as I write.

"I marketed electronics deals via Amazon offline; I am now trying to do the same thing online but the terms say I cannot bid on Amazon or variations of the name. I do not want to ask them because I worry they will think of me as a rookie and kick me out.

When they speak of trademark terms like Amazon, do they mean that keyword by itself? Can I in essence bid on a keywords like this 'AMAZON DEALS, AMAZON OFFERS, AMAZON SALES etc'

I intend to drive traffic from the capitalized keywords ABOVE to my own site and not to amazon.com. Does it make it right that I am driving the traffic to my own website and not to amazon?"

I have searched google and seen several merchants bidding on keywords like 'AMAZON COUPONS, AMAZON OFFERS, KINDLE FIRE DEALS etc'...they are driving it to their site (what I learnt is called a landing page) and then subsequently to Amazon.

PLEASE YOU GUYS SHOULD TELL ME WHAT THE RULES OF BIDDING & LANDING PAGE RULES ARE. THANKS

[Dave_T]

Hey there,

Thought I'd pitch in seeing how no one else has responded to this.

Without seeing the full terms (or knowing anything about their programme), I'm going to guess that they don't want you to bid on anything that they might be bidding on themselves.

Even though you've seen other sites bidding on keywords like 'Amazon Deals' or similar, they might have agreed separate terms with Amazon that are completely different to yours and that allow them to do that.

If you are still unsure, ask for a list of terms that are off limits to you. Most merchants would have one for just such an inquiry. They should be able to send you more information and give you a better idea of what you can do.

If their account managers are any good, they should appreciate that you've asked for clarification and that you are paying close attention to their programme terms.

Hope that helps and good luck with the new business...