What is the best way to use Adwords when you are an affiliate and want to send traffic to the merchants website? - I would also like to split-test / use website optimizer What is the right way to link to the merchant site so proper tracking can be done? - Visitor arrives on the landing page after clicking the ad - Visitor clicks on a link leading to the merchant site If the link forwards/redirects to a merchants site, is it penalized by Google? I am still checking through these forums and other resources, but not yet found an answer as not sure how to set up the link to the merchants site so that I would be able to track conversions and not suffer any penalties on quality score.
This answer is confusing as it doesn't address my question. I have not used adwords yet and I plan to use it as an affiliate trying to sell a product and send the traffic to a merchant website. The question is not "what words do I use to make visitors take an action"... it is: What method of linking do I need to use to be able to track it properly if I used something like website optimizer where it needs a conversion page to accurately track and report things. Would I be able to link to the merchant site by creating a php redirect? Would the redirect impact on quality score? Would the redirect pose a problem for accurate tracking? Any help is appreciated.
it depends... If your using the merchants url in your text ad then you can redirect successfully, but the merchant needs to be willing to put your conversion code on the confirmation page to pass back conversion data. If you have to use your own URL then google does not allow redirect to another website In answer to your other Q's yes but you must use the merchants display in your text ad. If other affiliates are doing the same, then whoever bids the highest gets the display of the text ad. Thus creating a bidding war No it wont google will allow this and actually your campaign will perform better and avg CPC costs will be lower as your piggybacking on the branded website. However avg CPC costs can become inflated depending on how many other affiliates are attempting the same strategy. It is possible, but then again tracking is never accurate... Hope this helps
I have my own domain and creating landing pages for it, the redirect would not be when the visitor clicked the ad... it would be when they clicked on one of the 'Call to Action' zones. for example, landing page is example.com/landing-page1.html on landing-page1.html if a visitor then clicked 'merchant link' (which redirected to the merchants sales page), that isn't allowed? Or it is allowed but would cause problems with tracking (unless the merchant added the tracking code onto their sales page.
You can have a merchant or affiliate link on your landing page and use adwords to get the visitors there, that is fine but you also have to have content surrounding it so which will also improve your quality score.
I think the best thing you can do, is setting up a new page and describing and promoting the product of your merchants and send them through an affiliate link if they are intersted to buy the product you are promoting.