I have been sending traffic directly to the merchants sales page. Is there a better conversion ratio when presell pages are used?
i've never had a lead without using a presell page. just my two cents. plus, without a presell page, good luck keeping your bids low in google, your quality score will go down hard and fast without one.
A decent presell page will always outperform a redirect + you can capture your visitors' email address
Presell pages allows you to "control" your quality score - and that's without even mentioning the leverage you get using lead capture form, story telling, bonuses, or whatever. Presell pages ROCK!
Take some time and build a landing page and collect email addresses before sending visitors to the merchant's site. When building a list you can followup with useful quality information and promote the merchant several times instead of hoping that the visitor would buy the first time when sending him immediately to a merchant's page.