I promote products using PPC only. I'm good at this and do very well. I only direct link. Problem is, very few vendors make their landers with PPC in mind. Or even basic SEO for that matter. The ones that do and have a good product make $1000's/day from affiliates like me. So vendors if you want a chance at grabbing some of that PPC love, create your sites as if you were creating a deep site, full of informative and valuable info i.e. that elusive "good user experience" that Google harps on about. Make the sales page part of the overall site, not THE site. One or 2-3 page wonders don't last long before getting slapped. And their QS is usually very low. Add privacy, contact etc pages to be compliant with Adwords site requirements. Check out Google Webmaster guidelines for the basics. Do at least some basic SEO on the site such as meta descriptions & keywords. Build backlinks. If your product is good, try and become an "authoritative" site on the subject. Offer your visitor something that is of value, not just PLR or boiler room articles. The visitor appreciates this & so do the PPC networks when deciding if to slap you or not And that's just a few....
direct linking will not get good QS? Usually, you can get a good QS initially, but after a while, the QS will become 1. Furthermore, direct linking can easily get your account banned. I received warning letter from adwords recently due to direct linking or using LP to promote.
Account banned? Generally only if you do something that Google doesn't like. Such as trying to promote products/sites that are either a forbidden product (like Internet TV, gambling) or sites that Google classes as of a low QS & poor user experience. Admittedly, that probably covers the majority of CB sites, but if sites are built to Google's guidelines you wont have any issues 99% of the time. That's my experience in all the time I've been DL'ing and sending 1000's clicks/day to certain CB sites.
Well, maybe you are the lucky one. I emailed them recently. The way they replied me is just telling me that they don't like affiliate now. " 4. if the site profits off of sending users to another site through affiliate links " I am damn headache now. Yahoo and bing have too little traffic. My profit can't go up without adwords..
They're saying there that they don't like thin sites or bridge pages. Its been that way for quite awhile. That's why I direct link. But only to CB vendors that a) have a decent product b) have a decent site layout, not just one page.
'don't use direct linking!' << OK - you keep doing the affiliate thing your way and keep making your scratch in the precise manner that other DP noobs do it - and we'll see who laughs last. Those that can read between the lines can clearly see this guy knows his shit and I'll agree with him 100% here. There is no CB bible of sequences that print money, there is only trial and error, and repetition/scalability on what works, and killing what doesn't (or passing it off to DP to side track them...). If you direct link to certain pages, YES - you can retain high QS, YES you can convert without a presell, YES you can flip your media buys and scale your campaigns the exact same way you can any other way. In many ways the OP is exactly right, this IS the holy grail for anyone looking to flip quick without having to setup landers or get by G's or FB's nazi approval team... I'll hit you up OP, have quite a few offers that you might find favorable. N.