The 10 Affects Of Google's Trademark Policy Changes For Affiliates

Branding Hurts!

The new change to the Google's policy towards brand-name-bidding and how merchants can protect themselves is a huge move. But my view is slightly less of an knee-jerk one as some.

Ok, so Google will remove protection from advertisers bidding on brand-owners' trademarks - they still won't be able to have them present in the AdText.

But how does this really affect affiliate marketing? Well my view is that merchant's see themselves as above the law and the T&C's that the search services offer. You still won't be able to continually bid on "Figleaves" as an affiliate and get your commissions - they won't allow it.

Merchants also often stipulate that you can't bid on their competitiors' keywords. And they also often decree you can't send traffic "direct to merchant".

So what does this mean for affiliate marketing? Well - I feel it's pretty simple:

MERCHANTS SHOULD EMPLOY SEARCH AGENCIES TO PROTECT THEIR BRAND

So if affiliates bid on a brand and go via their own site, merchant's can still stipulate that they don't want that. But each merchant will have to do the calculations on their ROI between montitoring and responding to brand name "abuse", hiring a search agency to conduct a review of the possibilities and implement a solution and just letting market forces dictate the way forward.

If there is going to be mass-scale brand name "abuse" then won't this have an impact on the profitability of the channel for the merchant? Won't this in-turn have the possible result of lowering commissions in cetain circumstances?

But overall, I see the results as:

1) More affiliates randomly bidding on brands without checking what the merchant wants;

2) Merchants devoting more time to policing their brand;

3) More merchants removing their heads from their arses and invite other affiliates to compete;

4) Google earning more;

5) Some affiliates spending a couple of months to work out how best to monetise this opportunity whilst forgetting to work on their generic campaigns,

6) More affiliates using PPC to bid on their content sites;

7) If "all hell breaks loose" then commissions may be reduced by big brand merchants;

8) The cosy life that agencies have (cough) been shattered - they'll have to do some proper consultancy;

9) Egotistical, maniac, hypocritical, established brand-name bidders shit themselves as hoards of affilates start to say "it's ok with Google now remove your closed bidding groups or we'll just saturate the SERPS with adverts for your competitors".

10)People like me just plug away with SEO getting the brand traffic for free whilst the others fight it out.

Don't you just love this industry ;-)