presell or redirect

[scorpion]

Which is better in the long run:

Do a lot of paid advertising, etc.. to your URL and then redirect to your affiliate with virtually no preselling (just say a link),

OR

Do nicely designed pages to sell your affiliate prog and then have them go to it?

[Drastic]

It really depends on how you decide to get your traffic.

Redirects are only going to work for ppc, not for free listings. For free lisings, you have to have content, and redirects are frowned upon.

So, the question you want to ask yourself, is do you want to play the ppc/roi game, or do you want free traffic. Free traffic takes time to build, and takes time to write the content.

[1Lit]

Affiliate programmes close down/slash their commission/begin to neglect their affiliates VERY frequently. We have been in affiliate marketing for five years and our top earners are different each year.

One thing I've just learnt is that it is better to build ones own brand and THEN send visitors to merchants' sites. That way, if the merchant begins to mess you around, you just find another affiliate programme.