I was just wondering, what's the need for a landing page? You can just use your affiliate link with adwords and the visitor will go straight to the webpage.
Landing pages created for targeted keywords are guaranteed to increase conversions. As you know internet users are very click and go and sometimes an appealing landing page will help easily snag a prospect or customer. I am speaking solely from personal experience. Regards,
Not only that, but a landing page is essential for adwords quality score. If you link directly to the vendor, your quality score will be poor and you'll pay top dollar for bids.
I would agree with the quality score. If you do not have a landing page created then you could be paying double or even much more than that for the same keywords with the same rankings for them keywords.
Its all about testing and tweaking, I guess. Often, if you have decided to target a campaign, chances are some other affiliate will have already been-there, done-that. And given Google's single URL serving rule, you cannot afford to promote the same URL alongside him. Another reason like what they mentioned, is also the QS issue. If you've ever tried sending traffic direct to crappy merchant landing pages, you'll see bids upwards of $5-10. You should then build a landing page, and probably put in a few articles and some content to let Googlebot think your website is somewhat 'relevant' to the keywords you're targeting. Also, having a landing pages will almost always increase conversions (if done right). Eg: Those free trial offers. If you have had the chance to pre-sell the visitor on the product/offer, the chances are that they will be more apt to get the free-trial/product/eBook/etc. So yeah, thats the point of having a landing page. But then again I know a couple of lazy bums who do purely Direct Linking as they're just to lazy to do up a decent landing page.
I would certainly advise that you use a landing page for this type of promotion for the reasons previously mentioned. We see a huge difference in the success of those who have good, clean landing pages and those that use a direct link... Good luck!