Web Affiliate Marketing Blog

I have successfully been running a campaign on Google Adwords and Microsoft Adcentre for the past 3 weeks for a closed merchant on the TradeDoubler network. Last week, the merchant insisted that people used only the banners they provided and no text was to be used either as linking or text, or next to the banner which was a little strange. I know at times the finance sector can be, and have to be, very stringent on wording such as ‘Best’, ‘Cheapest’ and rules are even tighter when mentioning APR Rates, but this merchant is health related.

Last week I fired off an email to TradeDoubler asking whether I should continue to PPC the merchant or stop. It was agreed to leave it in place until TradeDoubler approached the merchant and got their official stance… today I received the following bad news;

Hi Chris,

I hope you are well. I have some bad news. I have been informed by the client that we cannot use search on the xxxxxxxx campaign. I understand that it will be difficult to drive traffic, but the client promised to come back shortly with approved texts that we can use on integrated placements.

So, at the moment, we are only allowed to use banners. I will keep you in the loop as soon as I have more news from the client, In the meantime, can you please stop search activity?

Now what gets me is why do merchants not like PPC’ers. I understand and agree to any T&C’s such as brand name bidding, however some of the keywords and mispells, I am the only one bidding and my stats show these are driving leads. Why is it some merchants are against PPC altogether?