I've read in several places about direct linking on Google Adwords and I understand that Google doesn't allow direct linking. My purpose for direct linking is only to test if the campaign could be profitable before I go and buy a domain or make a landing page for it. I just want to direct link it until I get 100-200 clicks so I know whether or not to move forward. But for some reason I can't get any offers direct linked. I don't know if it's because of my historical CTR or if all affiliate network offer sites are automatically given a low quality score. The keywords are relevant to the ad copies. I can't really say the same for the keywords on the offer pages since the offer pages (email and zip submits) are mostly made up of pictures. I'm sure there's a simple answer to this or maybe I am missing a major step, but I can't move forward unless I can understand how this works. The last thing I want to do is give up, but I really need this issue resolved before I can proceed. If anyone has any suggestions, please reply or better yet PM me your AIM or MSN username so I can talk to you.
That could be your problem right there, since the offer pages are mostly made up of images, keywords cant be read, so not doing much to contribute to relevancy, and possibly looking like theres not enough content on the offer pages. Even though your keywords and ad text are relevant, its possibly a case of the offer page letting you down. I know its the opposite of what you want to do, and fully understand you wanting to direct link for testing, but if you do go for a landing page, you at least have that opportunity to promote the product harder, your chance to talk them into doing what you want. I know its more work but the reward is better control over the situation.
I found that I was having the same problem, and came to the conclusion that it could be one of two things. The first is that google does not like your domain name, whether it be because of past ctr, the name itself, or whatever.(googles complicated like that). This is why I usually just make a new blogger account and use that domain as my domain(for testing purposes only of course). The second thing is for lack of words, and actual content. I have found that the best way to get around this is to place some articles from an article site on the blog. This way the google bot will go to your url and see some actual content. Make sure to place your main keywords in between an h1 and h2 tag as I believe google takes this into consideration when deciding on the relevance of your ad copy, keywords and landing page. Another tip, I'm not sure how you're direct linking but I have found that if you use your blogger domain for the display url and the exact blogger domain for your destination url...example thelandingpage.blogger.com/the-offer-page.html. and then use your affiliate link in the url spaces of the actual keywords, this helps out as well. I hope this gives you some ideas
Thanks guys. I think I'll experiment more with landing pages. Here's another question: Let's say I buy a domain specifically for direct linking testing and only keep each campaign up for a day or so (just until I can figure out the rough conversion rate). Then I'd transfer the money-making ones to a different domain where I'd set up a landing page for it. How quickly do you think Google would catch on and block my direct linking domain?