Landing Page or Direct to Affiliates Sale Page

Where to point AdWords ads?

[dbdev]

I want to sell products using Google AdWords.

What are the differences, advantages and disadvantages to directing AdWords clicks to my own lading page versus the affilates landing page.

For example: I want to sell widgets from Amazon.com

Should the Google AdWords ad land on my webpage that talks about and reviews widgets and links to amazon.com to buy the widget

or

should the AdWords click go direct to the Amazon page with my affiliate id embedded in the url.

Thanks,

Mike.

[Marcia]

For example: I want to sell widgets from Amazon.com

Should the Google AdWords ad land on my webpage that talks about and reviews widgets and links to amazon.com to buy the widget

or

should the AdWords click go direct to the Amazon page with my affiliate id embedded in the url.

Couple different issues here. First, some merchants allow direct PPC to their site, and some don't. That has to be known for certain beforehand. Then there's how many PPC can land on the same page, how many are trying, etc., etc.

Second point: for a review site I'd imagine there are different widgets being compared, with visitors being sent to the merchant to shop and choose. Are they ready to buy? Or will they be looking further to compare prices after they've made their choice? That's the point about which you'll want to look at merchant return days if you're sending them from your site.

That might be even more critical if you're doing direct to merchant PPC. If someone clicks on your ad, goes to the merchant site and then continues to look around for a couple days or a week or a month - if it's a one day cookie (as in the case of your example merchant), you have spent your money and will only get paid if the person buys the same day.

There's more to it (and I don't do direct PPC, btw), but I have a "thing" about return days with good reason.