Site as (seemingly) unbiased product review or blatant sales pitch?

pondering the benefits of both...

[winterspan]

I'm new to this game only have a month or of experience as the majority of my projects are building sand castles.
I'm wondering if you've had more success utilizing a product review format for your site or if you are more successful using the stereotypical affiliate format.

I continue to see so many affiliate sites with the 14pt bold text, flashing images, personal testimonial / narrative approach, text such as "THE ONLY AMAZING WIDGET DIRECT FROM A CAVE IN AFRICA!"
or "THIS WIDGET WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE". Usually they funnel you into clicking thru to the merchant after the index page. I'm wondering do these blatantly "used car sales" type pre-sales actually work? I'd have to assume so since its so prevalent all across the internet.

[Porkchop]

I would probably click out of curiosity. :-)

[rfung]

I'm more of a review guy, because that's what i look for when I surf online. However, many other people 'fall' daily for that type of overhyped (erm...I mean, convincingly effective) sales pitch. I confess I've went on through to some checkout screens over some obvious sales letter products.

[brickwall]

My first marketing mistake was to assume that the people Iam selling to are just as critical and just as "intelligent" as I am. I was fresh out of college and was hired to promote a rather high end consumer product. I failed miserably but quickly understood that an effective selling technique is aimed to suppose to touch customer emotions rather than appeal to customer logic.

An application of this principle is what you are seeing so prevalent on the internet right now.