Dangers of Trademark Bidding

Let’s face it, bidding on trademark terms-especially on major brand trademarks is BIG money for PPC affiliates. This includes trademarks for the offer you’re promoting and competitor trademark terms as well.

Trademark bidding may be highly profitable but it’s also equivalent to playing Russian roulette with your affiliate income, especially if a large majority of your sales are coming from trademarks!

Why?

Let me illustrate with 2 stories…

At Affiliate Summit Boston, I had dinner with Jeremy Palmer, John Hasson, and Ajay (all PPC super affiliates).

Anyway, Jeremy was telling me about an affiliate who made $2 million last year (no joke) all from bidding on ONE trademark term (plus misspelling and variations of course).

Well, the merchant suddenly decided to no longer allow trademark bidding for affiliates!

Now the guy who make $2 million last year is now LOOKING FOR A JOB!?! Apparently all of his income was coming from that one trademark term.

Scary, isn’t it?

There’s always competitor trademarks, right?

Wrong!

A friend of mine who was running a very profitable offer ($1k/day net profit) was forced to pause his campaign after the merchant threatened to freeze his account if he didn’t stop bidding on COMPETITOR trademarks.

Now, I’m not saying don’t bid on trademarks, I bid on trademarks all the time.

What I’m saying is don’t DEPEND on trademark bidding as your sole source, or majority of, your affiliate income.

Ask yourself : “How stable are my affiliate campaigns? Can they be wiped out by one policy change from the merchant?”

If the answer is YES, you’d better get busy!