OK ...I thought I would give it a try, not as a vendor yet but as an affiliate. My first sttempt was with the standard hoplink builder and using relevant keywords. Its good the way you can customise the ads. Big problem is that you get links to a lot of very scammy looking websites. So I thought the way to go would be to set up the hoplink to just one site of my choice. I can make a nice customised link on my site to attract attention but every vendor landing page I have looked at is about 3 miles long and has that "Scam" look about it, webpages I would normally give a miss if browsing the web. Have I got to search further to find some nicely presented vendor sites, I do not want to link to unprofessional looking websites, my website visitors would not appreciate it
Those "3 miles long sites that have a scam look about it" are proven to work, over and over, and really do the job of selling to the customer. The customers really react well to those pages. Short sales pages might work as well, I have done a few successful short sales pages, but in most cases, the typical long sales letter is the way to go.
Its early days for me and I have a lot to learn. I set up just 3 pages of my website, I know that my main sort of visitor is the middle aged housewife so I concentrated on weight loss, healthy eating and dieting. After one day and approx 80 hoplink impressions no sales at all, maybe they thought I was saying they are all fat. I will experiment a little further and will be patient, time will tell.