Those of you who promote via affiliate links know that going over whether or not it is ok to use the term in the ad is frustrating. Google makes it worse by not even allowing any trademarked word in ad copy, even if it’s not against the terms of the affiliate program.
To get around this, people who buy Adwords must use brackets to call a trademarked keyword: {keyword}
I was reminded of this when I saw the ad being pulled on my gaming site today.
I have a hard time believing that someone from Amazon’s program would make this mistake. Could it be an affiliate? Certainly ads that are purchased by Amazon go through more review (checks and balances) before they hit the web?
Last Friday I got an email from FatWallet CEO Tim Storm complaining that some ads on my WiredDeals site use FatWallet in them but point to a different web site. I wonder how those guys got around it. I know for a fact FatWallet is a copyrighted term and Google used to not allow using it. Is casing important? The ad spells “Fatwallet” vs “FatWallet”
Yes, but it is against the law to use a trademark in any ad campaign. For example. I ran nascarforums.org, and i had an ad campaign. NASCAR complained because I used “NASCAR” in my google adwords ad. I looked it up and did some research and it is illegal to use it for any commercial purposes.
Yan, so he pointed you to a competitor’s site who he thought was you? As far as I know the only way to get around Google’s rules are to use the brackets. Possibly that’s what the site did? How did you resolve it with Tim Storm?
Digback, I appreciate your insight. I know that some companies actually applaud your use of their terms (increases their affiliate sales) and some very much discourage it. The trademark laws are something I have no knowledge of. Thanks for sharing. 🙂
He complained about a Google ad on my site that pointed to a different site but had Fatwallet keyword in it.
This was not his only complain and the issue hasn’t been resolved. I received no reply to my last email.
Meanwhile I removed all Google ads from WiredDeals.com