Automotive_site - 1:04 pm on Nov 26, 2012 (gmt 0)

"Also, some advice from experience, the plan you're going after sucks!
Bidding for Affiliate product usually loses money because:

First. You're quality score will be crap making you spend a ton.
Second. The product owner themselves will forbid bidding on any good keyword terms and the available will be terrible.
Third. The conversion rate will suck, and cookie stuffing sites, tool bars, and adware will steal all of your commissions."

Firstly, there are some people who do this very successfully whereby they drive traffic to landing pages they create for an affiliate product and convert at a rate good enough that its quite profitable,a nd for a few who really know what to do, even very profitable. In fact, I would think most affiliates use ppc to drive traffic. The other popular method is list building.

I have already discussed with the various merchants (4 of them) and none dissuade their affiliates from bidding on any keywords. The affiliates, in some cases, bring in up to half of their sales and a few actually rely almost completely on their affiliate partners.

I am already converting at 1% for two of the products off search traffic simply by linking to the merchant product (without review), but I thought bringing more traffic on a review page will lead to higher conversions.

I have had no problem with cookie stuffing, tool bars, adware, etc. Thus far I have had all sales credited to me.

Google recently reported that conversion rates are above 2% for many areas, and even above 3% some others, with as high as 6% for education, so clearly Adwords works hence people use it for advertising.

Finally, if PPC doesn't work for me, then so be it. I am willing to lose a few hundred dollars (around $400 to $500) in trying at least. I would regret not knowing whether it works or not.