Is affiliate marketing dead on Google Adwords? With Adwords highly enforced policies on bridge pages and comparison shopping - is there any way to still effectively promote affiliate products through Google Adwords? Google does not want you to advertise sites that are made just to link to other sites. This of course is what you need to do as an affiliate. You could get the person to opt-in first and then market to them through email, but Google does not want sites that are made just to grab people's emails either. So what are we left with? Some people may chime in here and say that everything is fine, but that is probably because you have already been running campaigns on these types of sites and they haven't found you yet. What Google claims they want are websites that offer unique relevant services to the user. I completely disagree with them on what that means, but either way, it means they don't like typical affiliate sites. Can anyone offer some specific suggestions or experience on what we can do to continue to promote affiliate products through adwords - or is this no longer possible?
You can promote virtually anything with Adwords as long as you follow the guidelines and policies. If you're just "linking to other sites" or just grabbing emails, you need to rethink the way you do things to comply with policies. Lots of others are doing it. Complaining about the rules solves nothing. You also may disagree but it's their rules and if you want to advertise on Google, you must abide by them.
Usually following Google's guidelines actually helps you in making an effective site. The way I do it is by simply adding a review about the product they are talking about - summarise the information in a different way than the company itself, and then have the call to action to visit the site itself. I'm creating unique content (which Google likes) and in the process adding another resources for users to help make their buying decision. So in short - you can promote affiliates, but do it in a smarter way.
I believe you can do what's called a 301 redirect with masking.... That's what I've done in the past using godaddy. What happens is that you take the visitor to the affiliate page but in the address bar it still shows your domain name. That's what I usually do and I havent had any problems with google yet. But don't just take my word for it. As the others said before make sure you are following their policy. I have'nt used adwords since the beginning of the year so things may have changed since then... P.S. Have you considered using a landing page like squidoo.com, blogger.com or wordpress.com? This is another way around promoting affiliate pages plus there free. Shoot, you can even use your own domain name with blogger and wordpress if you'd like (although I think you might need your own hosting with wordpress). Hope this helps...
I would never do a 301 redirect direct to the affiliate page. For 1 it's "double serving" and against Google AdWords policy (which you may not care about). And secondly it's going to be impossible to make money this way.
I've read the guidelines and it says that only escort.. etc sex services are forbidden.. have you tried to promote an adult site?
You can make a research on the industry you're promoting, and add your unique content in a prominant position on page, as MrChuckTaylor said. But there needs to be some user experience on the site, some added value. Either way you need to invest in it: research, content writing, design and programming.