Adwords - Defining affiliate status

[mobilebadboy]

I know Adwords require you to announce yourself as an affiliate, but what is the specification exactly? I mean I know if your AW links directly through an affiliate link to your affiliate, that's a given that you include that in your ad, but what if you have a separate site that's built around an affiliate? Is it still then required to include "aff" or "affiliate" in your ad?

Let's say 4fineart.net for example. It's got it's own site, but does eventually link to an affiliate. Would this site need to be defined with an affiliate status in Adwords?

[Chris]

Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't think so.

[mobilebadboy]

Hmm, I guess I'll need to email them. I'm close to opening a couple of new sites, but the entire sites are built solely around afilliates, one being very similiar to 4fineart, just on a more broad approach. Just trying to stay within the rules since Adwords has heped me out so far.

[chromate]

I only think you need the (aff) if you're directly linking to your affiliate in the ad itself.

Let us know the result though, because I would be interested in what they say.

[mobilebadboy]

I've emailed them. If they reply I'll post it here. Adwords support is truly beyond subpar, as opposed to Adsense support which is top-notch. It's amazing how 2 different support groups for the same company can differ so greatly.

[mobilebadboy]

Wow, for once I got a fairly prompt reply. I wish they had answered my exact questions but considering my past experience with Adwords support, I didn't even expect this much of a reply.


Hello Shawn,

Thank you for your email. I understand that you would like clarification
on affiliate status. We require that advertisers whose main purpose is to
direct traffic to an affiliate website to make a purchase specify that
they are an affiliate in their ad text. You can do this by adding the term
'affilite' or 'aff' to your ad.

<snip> removed irrelevant "form mail" ramblings </snip>

[chromate]

Sounds to me like they're quite lenient. They can always reject your ad anyway. You are a paying customer after all :)

[Mike]

Yeh, most people won't even know what aff means, so I think they're being quite fair.