The most difficult merchant for affiliates to promote in my experience has been Apple. Just do a Google search for "macbook air" and check how many ads you see, and the display URLs. In fact, it took a string of 10 emails for me to convince CJ and Apple to let me into the program! They tried to warn me about how difficult it is to do search marketing to promote Apple. Damn, they were right!

Currently I have relationships with 141 merchants (on CJ alone) and I have promoted every single one of them in one form or another, so I have a fair amount of experience with other merchants to compare them with. Apple is EXTREMELY protective of their brand and that makes promoting their products very, very difficult for affiliates who want to do search marketing. Here are some of their rules:

• 1. No bidding on any of their massive list of trademarks
• 2. No direct linking (aka direct-to-merchant, google cash, etc. I got a pre-warning for doing this almost immediately.)
• 3. No trademarks in your domain! (this is huge)
• 4, Affiliate sites cannot resemble the look and feel of Apple's sites

As you can see all the items listed above are geared toward brand protection. After all, their brand is what allows them to command such healthy retail prices for their products. Given all this, I'm surprised they even allow Wal-Mart to sell iPods.

Still I remain undeterred and have set in motion the wheels of success. After all, they are a 5 bar merchant on CJ (despite a mere 1-2% advertised commission) and if a few out there are doing it so can I. Apple customers are fanatical and I intend to use that to my full advantage. In fact I look at Apple as my pet project. Given the stringent guidelines, I am even more motivated to make it happen. I know that if and when  I am successful with Apple, then I can be with any merchant

Affiliate Marketing