MaxBounty Campaigns - I Need Help, Am I Doing This Completely Wrong??

Hey there,

My situation is, I'm very new to CPC and Affiliate Marketing, but I got approved, got some hosting and got a site set up to create landing pages for campaigns, and now I'm very interested in creating Microsoft search ads as my main traffic source.

However, the campaign I've been focusing on the most (done lots of research on it, bought a domain themed around that one brand specifically etc, basically invested a lot of time and some money), I've just found out today that they are already doing their own search ads and spend waaayyy more than I do of course.

So I'm stumped, does this mean I should stop trying to bid on their brand name specifically (e.g. "JohnDoe Toys")? Am I doing all this completely wrong? Just stop the search ad approach altogether because of this?

Mainly, I'm just confused that they're offering money per search ad lead conversion, yet making affiliates basically compete with them to get their landing page and tracking link to be seen and clicked instead of the full official site's ad? Am I thinking about this all wrong?

Please Help, I'm very new to CPC affiliate stuff, and also new to posting here

Generally CPA networks have a rule not to bid on brand keywords. It might get you banned.

microsoft said:

Generally CPA networks have a rule not to bid on brand keywords. It might get you banned.

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Ah Okay, I was not sure as MaxBounty's wording on this confused me, and I thought they meant competitors' brand names. Do you have any other knowledge you could possibly share with me? Anything at all is appreciated