CJ Protected Keywords

[SEhunter]

Hi Experts,

I am one of the CJ Affiliates. I just want to know What Happens if I bid on Protected Keywords in PPC engines.The Merchant I am prompting, has their website name in the protected list and I have bidded on them and I am getting good C.R. on those keywords.

Considering this is my first experience with CJ, I am not sure if i will get paid.

[justdave]

It depends on a variety of factors.

1. Does the merchant already have good ranking organically for the term?
2. Does the merchant have a PPC cmpaign which you are directly competing with?
3. Have you been contacted by the merchant?

I manage an affiliate program and I have had to warn off a few affiliates that were bidding on ur branded terms. Are you actually bringing new traffic to the site? The reason we don't like affiliate bidding on branded terms is that we already bring in that traffic on our own.

I have had to drop affiliates that won't abide by the rules. Everyone gets a warning from us before being dropped. If you get dropped, chances are good that you will be reported to CJ and, possibly, dropped from the CJ network.

[hannamyluv]

It use to be that affiliates bidding on brand names did bring a value, which was basically warding off the competition and putting many different offers in from of the searcher. With the new rules, this is not the case. If you are only bidding on the proper brand spelling, you are pushing the merchant out of their spot.

You can add value, if you do a very extensive mis-spelling research. I find that many merchants think only of the proper spelling of their domain and fail to realize that the world is not as enamored with their brand as they are and do mis-spell it. But I have also found, that once they realize what you are doing, they take the mis-spellings for themselves and shut you down.

I don't want to tell you to break the rules. But I will tell you not to depend on that money. They will find you, eventually. They always do.

[skibum]

If the merchant says you can't bid on those keywords and you do, you'll hear from them eventually. You might get a warning, your might get kicked out, you might get paid, you might not.

I think there is value in allowing affiliates to bid on brand keywords as long as they keep their bids low (well as long as their ads don't appear above ours on brand terms we really don't care what they bid) and they don't link directly to the site on the brand terms and displace our link.

This helps to create a big buzz around the site when people search for the brand. Despite coupon sites in the organic listings and some on the paid listings, the majority of people click on the in-house ads and make purchases through them. The affiliate channel caps costs at what is frequently lower than any other marketing channel. In the end it seems worth it to possibly pay a little more than necessary for goodwill, more buzz, and more dedicated affiliates, than if no one could do anything with the brand.

Sometimes a merchant will let you use their trademark in paid ads if you contact them directly and it is clear that you won't violate their keyword bidding policy.

Giving affiliates some flexibility and a little "easy money" for the few who leverage the brand helps to draw in affiliates & get more people to join the program. To many restrictions on affiliates seem to dampen the overall promotion efforts.