So: 1) Pick a niche in ClickBank 2) Do not create a website 3) Fire up AdWords where landing page would be your CB affiliate ID for some specific product 4) Make profit Does that work at all?
If you mean direct linking, as in just providing a hoplink instead of a pre-sell landing page-then yes, it does "work" but google has some policies against it and it lowers your quality score. But conversions are always much greater with a pre-sell landing page of some sort (either review, testimonial or whichever). Landers aren't that hard to make, with blogger or even a .info domain that comes for .99$.
I got no PPC experience but in order to make ANY money online, you really need to presell any prospects you find. Direct linking doesn't presell and won't convert too well.
It kills me to see the gurus talk about Direct Linking. I have never met an affiliate marketer that is successful with DL (with clickank long sales letters). I have tried DL for the last 9 months in many different niches. I've never seen it work. Now I've gone from affiliate to publisher/vendor with a top selling clickbank product so now i get to see both sides of the fence. As a product owner i see hundreds of affiliates sending my sales page a ton of traffic. I currently don't have any affiliates who are profitable with DL, and lots that are very profitable using Landing Pages. I think the only reason you can find people doing DL is that there is a never ending stream of affiliates who come and go trying to make it work. And give google tons of money. And I have one of the highest converting sales pages in a competitive niche. So there is enough traffic and conversions are strong. But not for DL. And i've seen the same thing in so many other niches. The math doesn't make sense. When you have a hop/click ratio of 45-70% it seems to make sense that 100% would bring more sales. But it doesn't. If anyone reading this is having success with DL with clickbank products, then i'd like to hear about it. Or even if you know someone who knows someone. I network with some of the top online affiliates out there and I don't know a single DL clickbank success (long sales letter style). And i've asked some of these top affiliates and they didn't know any successful DL marketers. But I'd love to be proved wrong. Believe me, if I can get DL to work, I'll be all over it. Byron Walker
I agree that it COULD work however turning your campaign into profitable will be much much harder than with a landing page. If you don't have money for your own hosting etc. (then you obviously don't have the money for PPC neither but that's another question) then you can use Squidoo or something better for landing page just to presell your stuff and make conversion better, however QS will be low and CPC high.
Direct linking does work, I do it all of the time....the problem is that most CB affiliates are not advanced PPC marketers. (part-timers looking to make a quick buck) They bid too high, they target too broad and their PPC ads do little to qualify their clicks. In addition, most dont' have well funded PPC accounts with a long payment history so I can usually pay much less and actually rank higher for my ads. Because of the above, most people need a landing page to further qualify their poorly targeted and expensive PPC traffic. Regarding pitfalls....Google will "slap" you for using this tactic if you use the same display domain as another ad. They will also slap you if you use your own domain and immediately redirect or have just a simple "bridge page". I hope that helps...
Unfortunately, that is against Google's TOS. You can try it but it will get delisted eventually. Once you are found out they then watch your account a lot closer....thereafter.
I should clarify on the techniques i've used and why DL doesn't work. I know the very best converting keywords for the "build solar energy guide" niche. I've been a top affiliate selling over 75 per day and know the market inside and out. I have a mature google account and ridiculously low CPC compared to other marketers. The problem with direct linking lies with the conversion rates being so low. With a landing page, conversion rates are normally around 4.5% from the LP and 2.2% when you look at the total click to sale ratio. But with DL, the conversion rates are usually around 1.1% - 1.5%. So it really comes down to the conversion rates being so much lower, not the CPC. While I haven’t experimented with every niche, I have done DL with over 5 different niches and none of them have converted well with the typical clickbank long sales page. What do you think makes a good scenario for DL to work? (assuming the CPC is low) Byron Walker
It used to be possible when affiliate marketing was still dawning way back around 2k3. A lot of people actually made tons of money with this kind of promotion. Back then, it was a gold mine. Try to look for Gurus whove been online since that time, they'll be able to get give you a tip or two.
People, I'd just like to clarify that I'm not planning on implementing this. I am simply asking. There's one question though: you say that the conversion rate is lower than actually having the landing page. Why? If I link to the product's HopLink, the visitor will also be redirected to a landing page - an LP of that particular product! Isn't simply one step skipped (a visitor visiting my website, then clicking on a click to visit the vendor's website, then purchasing the product)?
Because not everyone is looking to pay to receive information. Most people who click on these links are only looking for free info and don't actually want stuff badly enough to pay for it. Your pre-sell page will get rid of most of the freeloaders, but the ones that WILL pay will need to be suitably impressed by the credibility your landing page will give them. Otherwise even the paying traffic will read the copy, and still search for "product name review" or "product name scam" before buying. The pre-sell takes care of these doubts. The aim of a landing page is to clear any remaining doubt in a visitor's mind, let him know his search for a solution is over, and let him know that the product will give him exactly what he wants. You shouldn't lie, but take snippets off the merchant page and elaborate on them in either a comparative or single review or testimonial.
Thanks for sharing the details. What you are experiencing is a "false positive". I know DL works in my campaigns but it is true that it does not work for all products. The most successful are national brand products. The problem with CB is that the vendor's landing pages are often poor performers at less than a 2% conversion rate. The avg. site conversion rate (according to MarketingSherpa) is between 4-5% across the web. I wouldn't expect that high of a rate for CB products but 2% should be doable. The issue is usually that they are too salesly or lack credibility in some ways. By having a landing page(especially a product review style page) you add more credibility to the product. This additional step isn't necessary for high quality or brand name sites/products. You can test this by putting up a simple "bridge page" that says..."Interested in product XYZ?...then click here". You will see the net conversion rates drop significantly. This may seem like common sense but this experiement makes insertion of "a landing page" the only variable. Add some useful content to the page and the conversions will go up...the variable then is your content/recommendation/comparison which could easily be added to the vendor's site itself. This merely points out why DL works sometimes and sometimes it doesn't so no definitive decision can be made about this tactic until it is tested on the product. This is a good thread....with healthy discussion....hopefully it can help some folks.
A simple trick is to use an iframe, there a tiny bit of code to upload to your site and there you are, the affiliate site cloned on your domain. Then you won't get slapped
I have occasionally hit upon a few products that I have made a long term profit with using direct linking but as a general statement using a landing page will increase your conversions. It also opens up routes to promote alternative products for instance: "Hey check out product X it is the best PPC marketing ebook out there, but if you want something more basic a general guide to make money can be found at product Y".
Welcome google slap. If this would work i would be out of business You always need your own site, your own URL.
My experience is exact opposite of the majority of posters in this thread. I do a lot of direct linking and it works awesome for me. I see ROIs as high as 200%... But I don't use Adwords... I use only Yahoo Search Marketing. And it's a well known fact that YSM converts better than Adwords.. Maybe I should test doing pre-sell pages with YSM.