Damn, I am really pissed off. I have been an affiliate for a popular site for a long time. I have been using the site's name ever since I started my campaign 3 years ago. Today my ads got disabled because I was using the trademark in the ad. I replied to adwords support telling them that this site knows perfectly well that I am doing that and they couldn't care less since I am sending them loads of leads, but no solution, my ads continued to be denied. Wow... I guess I will have to jump over to Overture now
1 weeks ago , i got probem too, my website affiliate... using pop up, and i must contact admin , and google support.... that make me stress... ohhh now about trademark... and what after that...., fryman .. maybe ur problem be next my problem too...
I was told that Adwords only denies trademark terms at the request of the trademark owner. Some companies are doing this to be able to advertise themselves without any competition (no bidding against others) from affiliates. Perhaps the company has had a policy change in the last few days? If the trademark owner will give you written permission to use the term, I believe google will allow you to run ads. I own several Federally registered trademarks (over 10 years old) and I know google allows ads to be run as I have never requested that they don't. Overture has a similar policy as google. There are thousands and thousands of trademarks and as they are granted on a classification basis, it would be virtually impossible for google to try and make a determination on what is infringement and what isn't. I was recently granted an exception on a term trademarked by Palm. While I was using the term, it had nothing to do with the Palm product, and thus had no trademark protection. I was also granted an exception on a trademark term when I proved I was an authorized seller of the product. I would contact the owner of the trademark to see what they say and make sure they didn't complain to google.
I believe the G policy is to only enforce this if the trademark is used in the content of the ad body or title. They will Not enforce it if you are just bidding on the trademark as a keyword / phrase, this is when the trademark holder is responsible for contacting you, etc...
I would guess the TM owner complained. Google, at least according to this page, says they will not "arbitrate trademark disputes between advertisers and trademark owners." fryman, do you see any other ads (by affiliates) running that are using the same TM term that you're getting denied for?
Same happened with a new campaign I was setting up this week. Very annoying, but you can still get good traffic without using the TM.
I got an experience with trademark words that I want to share here: I will change the real trade word to "Windows" to avoid problems to tell you the history: I had about 360 text ads with "Windows" text on my ads, so I saw at a business forum that all we competitors has that they were complaining that "Windows" word was not allowed anymore. 3 weeks after this, my 360 ads begin to be disabled one by one and I became crazy due to this. But I became perplex due here in Brazil (my ads is in USA) that Brazilian were free to use the Word "Windows" to sell pirate version of these products on Ebay here. I tried to negotiate this with the AdWords guy due I has a very powerful argument: or you deny all AdWords users to use "Windows" or you let me use it. After some negotiation, I was almost going to the press to tell my history and so the AdWords guy told me that I could use the "Windows OS" word (with a OS) and I said OK! But after this I became free to use "Windows", "Office", "Excel", "Access" (all these words are examples) and a lot of other related products words that I am sure that my competitors can not use! I think that after the negotiation he gave some kind of free access. Not all words due yesterday I had the word "Sony" denied. Conclusion: I don't know if I have flag set in my account that I can use some words (I'll not ask this to them ) or after some time some words become available. just keep trying to use the words that you want, try to negotiate with them, because if you convince a operator there they have a way to give you specific rights to allow specific words.
Me too. I removed, better say, I was unable to run ads with tm but I found way to attract visitors. Personally I would do the same with my company name. For me it is fair game. Fryman, You still can use keywords, and that is most important. Make strong ad and maybe your CTR will be even higher.
Actually just last week I was warned by several of my affiliates for using their TM in my campaigns although I do not use the name in any of the Ad body itself. I only use the Keywords. Their policy is that you cannot use the TM or the TM.com, in anyway or variation, misspelling, etc, etc. (some specify specific product TMs) So in this case Google will not step in but the TM owner will withhold any funds you have generated The rules seem to vary, some allow you to bid with them as long as you bid only a certain amount like no more than $.25, etc. My issue is that I am trying to drive traffic TO them not divert it to a competitor or something (this should not be tolerated). I think they should be happy that I'm willing to spend MY advertising dollars to drive traffic TO them, only to get a small percentage in return.
I don't understand why a network would care if you are using their TM to promote their business and help them earn more.
There are several reasons I can think of. 1) Some advertisers use another products name in there description to advertise a competing product i.e. Tungsten (a trademarked term by Palm) don't even sell the Palm, rather another brand or sell the Palm, but are an unauthorized dealer. This is why an exception can be granted for some or all authorized dealers. 2) Palm has an affiliate program but also runs their own adwords campaign for direct sales. By eliminating anyone else from being able to advertise "Tungsten Palm" they eliminate competition and see a higher click through rate (and lower ad costs) because they are the only ones able to run adwords with "Tungsten Palm" in the ad copy. They not only lower their ad costs, but keep the sale in-house without have to pay an affiliate commission - or give the sale to a retailer who only pays them wholesale for the product. I know of a fairly large watch manufacturer who does this. While they do have hundreds of brick and mortar retail dealers, they want all online sales for themselves so they prevent anyone else (even most authorized dealers) from advertising their product. In this case, they have a couple of dealers whom they allow to use the trademark, but these sites are what they consider the "cream of the crop" and feel it protects their image from trashy affiliate sites offering their product as they are very concerned about their image. They allow Nordstrom to use the trademarked term, but not "Joe's Watch Emporium" which buys their watches on the grey market and has a cheesy site that they feel would hurt their image. It's also a method for getting large accounts to carry a product (we will give you an exclusive right to use the trademark online). This company also has a policy against discounting their product, so they don't want anyone advertising their product at a reduced price. Another company does it to be able to have more control over the type of sites offering their product - protect their image by not allowing sites they feel are nothing buy spam portals thrown together in a day. Some affiliate programs are willing to pay a commission to sites that send them business from their sites natural traffic, but if the site has to use adwords to get traffic to their site for that product, then they are just creating adwords competition for themselves. I don't sell any ebooks, but I've read the TOS for some and they do not allow the name of their book to be mentioned in contextual ads, but have no problem paying 50% out for natural traffic sales.
Just curious, but why would you "jump over" to Overture? If you are making money from the traffic generated by Adsense it would seem to me that you would want to get traffic from Overture and MSN also.