Alright, so does this work? I have not tried to do this yet, but I would like to try it. I usually make my own custom landing page, and then refer, but it would be so much easier just to use a direct affiliate link through CJ, linkshare, etc... Also, if you use this tactict, do you get clicks? Better then a landing page?
All other things being equal, the less clicks someone has to make to buy something, the greater the odds are of them making a purchase. Direct affiliate linking is fine & commonplace - and less likely to invoke a Google Slap
The problem is that the visible url should be the final page where the affiliate link redirects. This means that if there are more ads with the same visible url for a particular search, only one of them will show
There are several things you should take into account before deciding. First of all Google MAY overcharge you for your ads if you send the visitors directly to your affiliate link. This is due to the quality score. It's not always like this, but you have to watch out, because sometimes it is. Another thing is that you might want to lead your visitors to a pre-sell page, instead of directly to the sales page. You have the opportunity to give a "objective" review of the product if you write in "personal way". If done right, this can give you more sales.
As Latesem said, it is the competition that is the main issue. If you can bid higher and/or achieve a better CTR than the other affiliates (and in some cases the merchant also).. your ad will be the one showing.
Doing direct affiliate links in AdWords is hard these days because everything is very saturated. You can still make money by putting a "bridge" page that would lead to your merchant. Be sure to read AdWords guidelines as for "affiliate bridge" pages, but I was getting off with them fine when I was doing it.
I've been fooling around with this, mostly with Amazon. I had the same idea and wanted to try doing it as an experiment (it seems so easy if it actually works, right!). But so far I've spent more on ads than I've made. I will continue to experiment with this though...I am picking specific products...less saturation. Would be interesting to hear if anyone has had good results with this! Matt
Part of the adwords algorithm is that if there are one or more advertisers with the same base url, (ie hop.clickbank or whatever) there will be only one advertiser allowed for that url, for that particular search, which basically is which affiliate wants to pay the most. Quality score does count a little here, but basically you are now bidding against the other affiliate guys. Personally I would try to monetize your page however you can, and encourage opt ins, and sell more on the back end. I think for the future the straight affiliate urls aren't going to pan out, because there are just too many other affiliates coming and going all the time, and not all of them are smart adwords bidders, so you will find your ads dissappearing and reappearing. But of course, always test, and your mileage may vary Steve
I tried direct affiliate linking before but was not successful (google slap it). Just wondering how should we go about finding the relevant keywords for direct linking? Thanks