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!
trademark bidding
Maybe Amit didn’t mean it literally about the guy looking for a job, but why not try to expand a business onto other offers or spend some money for a good PPC coach?
Well, trademarks are really huge money-makers, I cannot imagine my ROI less than 300-400% with them
I just don’t find any advertisers that do allow it, do you?
I don’t think the point is how much money he made, it’s the importance of not relying on a single source for your affiliate income. Instead of trademark bidding, the same point could be made about making all income from one offer. Think about it: the offer could get pulled, the merchant could go out of business, etc.
Hi Guys,
About the guy looking for a job after making $2million last year, that’s JUST what I heard. I don’t know the details.
The IMPORTANT thing to take away is that his $2million/year campaign was wiped out overnight due to a change in the merchant trademark bidding policy.
-Amit
Remember guys, If you make 2 million per year, then you are actually living a 2million dollar lifestyle.
The costs of the mansion, maintaining the lamborghinis, even your home utility bills are going to be huge compared to the normal persons’…
All this things add-up fast and if you stop making that money, you’ll go down very fast if you’re not clever.
my 2 cents
I agree with most of you, that 2Mil should set someone for life – but …
How many lotto winners have to get a job after squandering their money away?
I used to work in a bank and seen many people who got huge settlements – in the millions, squander it away in no time at all.
So if this guy was living it up with every penny he earned he could have easily spent it.
Just my 2 cents worth!
And Amit, thanks for a great blog! Love reading your posts.
I had one friend that made more than 350K as a realtor in 2006(Nothing to do with affiliate marketing) and now works as a handy man literally.
Reason, real estate market is at south pole and on top of it, he had a divorce…
I would not really wonder if what Amit JUST heard has truth in it , atleast to some extent ….
Well maybe that guy spent 1999999 $ on PPC so why not…
This is actually one of PPC negatives, just like another Google algorythm update for SEOs. Oops and overnight your site is out of top 10 – you look for a job!
True enough Cindy. There are so many former professional athletes that have gone bankrupt because they get used to the lifestyle and don’t realize the paychecks eventually stop coming.
Amit,
Something just doesn’t make sense here. I’m a affiliate. I bid on trade marks and other terms. I make money but that doesn’t mean if lose my terms, I won’t know what to do next. I’m sure the guy must have learned something in one year.
My merchant right know is contemplating about my terms. Sooner or later I will probably get the notice to take off the trademarks terms. But that’s doesn’t mean I won’t know what to do next. I will just pick a new offer and start running that. Why would I need to go back to my 9 to 5?
The story just doesn’t make sense? I wonder if you trying to scare us to not bid on trademarks