What is trademark abuse?

Trademark abuse in affiliate marketing refers to any unauthorized use of your brand name, logo, or protected terms by an affiliate in their ads, landing pages, or promotional content.

The most common forms are

Using your brand name in ad copy : An affiliate runs a Google Ad with your brand name in the headline or description without permission. This inflates competition on your branded keywords and drives up your cost per click.

Using your brand name in the display URL : An affiliate uses a URL like yourbrand-deals.com or shop-yourbrand.com as the display URL in their ad. Users think they are visiting an official brand property.

Bidding on trademarked terms : Beyond your brand name, affiliates may bid on trademarked product names, campaign slogans, or other protected terms associated with your brand.

Using your logo or creative assets : Affiliates reproducing your logo, product images, or brand creative in their own ads or landing pages without authorization.

Why it matters

Trademark abuse erodes brand trust, confuses customers, and creates legal exposure. More immediately, it inflates your paid search costs and generates commission payments on traffic that belonged to you already.

What to do with a trademark abuse case

Start by documenting the case in adment. Every detection includes screenshots of the ad, the display and destination URLs, the full redirect chain, and any affiliate parameters found along the way, so you have a complete record of what ran, where, and when.

From there, most cases follow the same path:

• Identify who is behind the ad using the advertiser name and, where available, the affiliate ID and tracking platform.
• If it is one of your affiliates or partners, contact them directly with the evidence and ask them to take the ad down. Most cases are resolved at this step.
• If the ad continues, escalate: withhold or reverse the commission, and terminate the partnership if the behavior repeats.
• If the advertiser is not a partner, your options are a trademark complaint with the search engine and, for persistent cases, a cease and desist through your legal team.
• Keep monitoring the advertiser after the takedown. Repeat offenders commonly return under a different advertiser name or domain.