what does it mean when a merchant says, You may not use direct-to-merchant campaigns?

[LexLegBac]

I need to know what each of these mean..

PAY PER CLICK POLICY

You may not use direct-to-merchant campaigns
You may not bid on the merchant's name or related terms
You may not use the merchant's brand name in the site URL
You may not contact the merchant to negotiate these rules

[S.B. Mug]

Let's say for that the name of the merchant is Yahoo.com

These rules only apply when you're doing Pay-Per-Click campaigns like buying traffic on Adwords.

You may not use direct-to-merchant campaigns.

- This means that you cannot link directly to the merchant's website via your affiliate link. You'll need to link to your own website landing page where you presell the merchant's product or service then link to the merchant from there.

You may not bid on the merchant's name or related terms.

- This means that you are not supposed to use the merchant's name as a keyword for buying traffic. If someone searches for Yahoo.com or Yahoo as in our example then your ad is not supposed to come up.

You may not use the merchant's brand name in the site URL.

- This means that you cannot have a domain name with the merchant's name or even a file with the merchant's brand name.

eg. http://www.yoursite.com/yahoo.htm
http://www.yahoomysite.com
yahoo.mysite.com

These uses of the merchant's brand name are discouraged.

You may try using something like http://www.yoursite.com/answers.html

You may not contact the merchant to negotiate these rules

- Speaks for itself. If you disagree with the rules then just promote something else or comply. The merchant isn't going to change their minds about these rules because they're doing it for a reason.