I think you are misunderstanding me. There is no lesser service to the customer if they click http://www.amazon.com/product?id=12345 or http://www.amazon.com/product?id=12345&affid=98765 Same landing page, same product, same price to the customer, only difference is G charged you $5 for the click and only charged Jeff Bezos 25 cents...... If what SunShyne says is true then that is preferential and uncompetitive practices as far as I'm concerned. Heck, maybe Google will soon get itself in the Antitrust Ringer a la Microsoft soon. Their anti-Evil mantra may soon appear to be a bit .... Evil. ... my 2 cents (unless of course you are viewing this post from 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway then in that case my $5)
You're right, but that's not what happened. I can assure you that he did not receive a $5 minimum bid because of an affiliate link alone, there's more to it than that. Hell, from his post, I got the impression that he was direct linking and not using a LP at all.
Google is far from Antitrust ringer It works fine and just the way it should work. People who try to get low CTR and good quality score without putting any time and effort in their campaign building can not understand this.
So what's so bad about direct linking? I mean, if you are willing to pay the competitive bid prices for search traffic, why would google penalize you for sending them directly to what they are looking for? I know when I type "Sony LCD monitor" in Google, I want a "Sony LCD Monitor" and I want to make the least amount of clicks I can to get there not some web site with reviews or some convoluted hyped up cheesy landing page with a bunch of fluff. I guess I just don't get it.
There are not thousands of people competing over his signature There are lots of people willing to pay good money for Adwords traffic. speed100's point was "step up or go home" Joobz, looks to me like you're just arguing for the sake of arguing...I would argue with you, but it looks like it would do no good
Nope, I was asking a direct question and you answered it with some valid logic. You are correct. He is not competing with thousands of others. Thank you for clarifying the fact that was an apples - oranges comparison.
I just want to make it clear that I wasn't trying to inject anything snide or confrontational towards speed100. I am inexperienced in the ways of affiliate marketing and it is so hard to filter out the real information from the B.S. that is available all over the net. That is why I have been so inquisitive. I would hate to have my direct questions be be interpreted as argument. The last thing I want is for questions not being answered because of comments being misconstrued: My apologies to speed100.
I didn't say that direct linking is bad.I have some direct linking campaigns,but the thing is,you will have to find the right offers to do direct linking. Lets say you found some nice sony product on amazon.com and you want to do direct linking. There is no chance,any chance,that you can do direct linking to amazon.com if amazon is bidding for the same keyword.Why is this? Because Google only accept one display URL for keyword and there is no chance for two competitors with same display URL to be listed for the same search term.In this case it's better to have landing page with some content on it.
Apologies if I came across sounding negative - that was unintentional. It is not easy to make money putting up blogs. The reality is it takes anything from 2 - 5 years of dedicated work to establish yourself in already over saturated industries. Except for the very few lucky bloggers, who simply got a lucky break. No hard feelings - "blog salesman". Its pretty common to have people draw traffic to their blogs by playing on human greed and announcing grandiose figures they made. But the "real" winners in my eyes, are those that really care to share the steps they took along the way. Its not easy for the majority of folks to come up with bottomless credit cards, unless you have a rich benefactor... So it's a bit of a lifelong mission to find those exceptional marketers who take the time to "really" educate, rather than brag. What's more alarming is when completely inaccurate strategies are at times posted on such blogs (no direct reference to the Affiliate marketer who started this thread), and simply because that magic 4 word figure is imprinted in the mind of the reader, they follow without question. I was hoping this young marketer would take the time to share what he did to raise such monstrous capital, especially at the ripe old age of 20. I'm certain our colleagues in 3rd world countries, who are exceptionally talented coders, designers etc. would love to know if there was a way to raise capital using their talents and years of swatting for a Masters degree .. ie. like designing and selling 10 page websites, or perhaps taking on some article writing, or taking on paid "backlink" work for the bigger IM's etc.
It took him years to figure this stuff out...and it probably also involved a ton of failed campaigns. Knowing that, why in the world do you think he would be willing to spill the beans in front of thousands of money-hungry webmasters he does not know? If you want to do what he's doing, you need to put in the time and effort...That's what he did. I've been doing PPC/AM for about 4 months now. I don't know one of those "top shelf bloggers", and I didn't get any secrets...I've just been doing hard, honest work, and this month I'll be close to $30k through Azoogle alone. I also didn't start with what I think was an unbelievable budget or a sky-high credit limit...I'm a full time student in college It's possible, but don't expect somebody to hand it to you on a silver platter. This is the reason that I always hesitate to put up success stories, because there are always so many people who want to take advantage of other people's success. Sorry to steer your thread off-topic, Jonathan, congrats to you for your success...Keep it up
You guys have valid points. Although I provide a ton of information on my blog about my campaigns, I'm not going to just hand you my years of hard work and testing on a silver platter simply because you want it. What I'm saying is that while I could provide you with campaigns, keywords, and landing pages you'll still not be able to make any money until you get the strategies behind them. What my blog is for is to help build up that strategy in your mind so you can find your own campaigns and do well. Hope that makes sense. Thanks Everyone! And for anyone wondering my blog URL is: www.jonathanvolk.com Oh and for anyone with affiliate marketing questions, I have a "ask a question" post going on my blog. The post is still open for questions even though its a couple posts back. I'm going to answer all the questions in great detail on the 14-24th of Feb. when I'm gone a trip to India. I'm cutting it off at 50 questions.
Freakin sweet. Congrats on that. Bet it's nice not to worry about those student loans when you get out.
Can i get only the keywords? I don't want nothing else,no whole campaigns,no landing pages,just some keywords.