Is it OK to drive traffic to affiliate pages of a site with adsense

The landing pages themselves do not show adsense but other pages do

[Automotive site]

The site shows adsense on most pages but not on the pages with reviews of affiliate products. So is it fine to bring traffic to review pages with Adwords? What if people come land from the ads to the review page and then move on to another content page on the site and click on an adsense ad.

I want to promote affiliate products that are related to my niche but don't want to create landing page on a different domian. I would rather use existing site to review the product.

Remember, I won't show adsense on the landing pages (review pages).

[Clarence]

You can send traffic to pages with Adsense on them! Even Google Promotes using Adwords to drive traffic to pages with Adsense. They even send Adsense Advertisers $100 Adwords Coupons to promote their websites on Adwords.

As long as you're not doing Adsense Arbitrage "buying cheap click, putting a lot of Adsense units at the top of the pages pretending to be content to get clicks on higher paid ads".

Google and the advertisers don't care about the source of the Traffic "Organic, Facebook, Email, etc" they only care about the quality of the traffic. And if you're bidding on related Keyword terms and spending your own money, they will be super happy "but you will probably lose money, because search ads will cost more then the earnings on the content ads".


So yes you can bid on Adwords to send traffic to your Affiliate Review, and if a user visits another page, and if they click on a related ad, it won't be a problem at all, but you will lose money on the ad clicks. You will probably bid $0.50 per click and earn $0.25 per click.

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.
Fourth. It was never Legally successful. Most of the people who had successful were bidding on Trademark Names and pretending to be the brands.

But I would test it in your niche, but don't be shocked when you lose money and give tons of FREE "Paid for by you" traffic to your Affiliate programs.

[ember]

Actually, when I was using Adwords to promote a site with Adsense on it, Adwords slowed my traffic and then stopped it. Adsense was not on the landing page, but it didn't matter.

[Automotive site]

"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.

[Automotive site]

"You're quality score will be crap making you spend a ton."

My understanding is that quality score is determined by conversion rates, relevance of ads to review page,etc. Just because you bring traffic to a review page of an affiliate product, why should that alone reduce quality score?

[netmeg]

Quality score is heavily influenced by your campaign organization (every single keyword in your ad group must be 100% relevant to the ad) and your CTR, which means you might have to bid a little higher at first to give you a jump start.

You can use AdWords to send traffic to a site with AdSense (or affiliate links) on it. I've done it quite successfully (and I've made money at it too). But it's time consuming, and a lot of pieces need to fall together. I was in AdWords for a couple years before I started up with AdSense, and that probably helped. And your landing pages need to look like really good content that just happen to have an ad or a link on them, and not pages with ads or links that just happen to have a little content on them.

Good luck.

[Automotive site]

"every single keyword in your ad group must be 100% relevant to the ad"

Can you please explain this a bit more. What does this mean in its simplest terms?

Thanks

[Automotive site]

Regarding the arbitrage, its almost impossible. Say you drive 20 people at a cost of 20 cents each, that's $4. Even if you then get a 20% CTR (very high) i.e. 4 clicks with each click being worth a very generous 30 cents, you are still out of pocket by $2.80 cents.

I was more on about whether it was in principal against Google's TOS to send traffic with Adwords to sites with adsense.

In any case, it would be pretty stupid to show adsense on a page where you are trying to sell affiliate product(s). Every click on adsense lowers your conversion chance for your product.

[netmeg]

Well yea, of course. I don't put AdSense on affiliate sites, nor would I ever put it on an ecommerce site (although even Walmart and Target do that now).

I dunno how much plainer I can say it. Every keyword in your ad group must be directly relevant to your ad.

So if your ad is for Blue Widgets For Sale, make sure that your keywords are all about blue widgets for sale, and not red widgets for sale, or blue widgets for rent, or just plain yellow widgets, or blue widget maintenance or widget repair. All those other keywords might be relevant to what you're doing, but they're not relevant to the *ad*, so group them into your ad groups according to strict concept.

Even just plain "Blue Widgets" might be too broad (the number one problem I see with client PPC accounts is that they pick keywords that are way too broad) for a Blue Widgets For Sale campaign.

You have to think of the entire process as a kind of flowing path - the keyword leads to the ad, which teases, promises or asks a question that is perfectly answered by the landing page. Any time you veer off that path, you risk losing quality score.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

(although even Walmart and Target do that now)

ebay does it too, no site is sacred.

As for promoting affiliate offers through adwords, good luck with that. Possible small returns that can be turned off at any time vs huge probability of losing money... that's not ideal.

You have to find a more stable price source for traffic if you don't own the product, Facebook works for some.

[Automotive site]

"I dunno how much plainer I can say it. Every keyword in your ad group must be directly relevant to your ad."

I understand what you mean now. But do all the keywords in the ad group actually have to appear in either the landing page or the ad copy? If the keywords are extremely relevant to the product, they don't have to match exactly, right?

"As for promoting affiliate offers through adwords, good luck with that. Possible small returns that can be turned off at any time vs huge probability of losing money... that's not ideal."

Well, I am going set a bar on the cpc so I can get an x amount of traffic using my daily budget ($20-$30, let us say) and see if I can get a 2% conversion rate. Even if daily budget (pretty small) gets used up without converting, its not the end of the world. I will experiment further for a bit longer, and if its still doesn't work, I'll give up.

FB advertising doesn't work. People there are not in the mood to buy. The best way to make use of FB is to promote your site to the crowd and build relationships but not advertise.

[netmeg]

But do all the keywords in the ad group actually have to appear in either the landing page or the ad copy? If the keywords are extremely relevant to the product, they don't have to match exactly, right?

At this point you should probably take the discussion over to the AdWords forum. There's no one set answer - it depends on if you're targeting search or display, whether you're using broad, phrase or match type (and which type of broad match) and so forth.

I don't know how much experience you have with PPC, but it's a lot more complicated now than it used to be.

[Clarence]

Automotive, With Adwords you can't guess from the side lines. Start a few campaigns and start testing.

But remember this: "I told you so".

Good Luck.

[Automotive site]

Why do people think an affiliate cannot make as much success from getting traffic through adwords compared to product merchant? If anything, sometimes people gain greater confidence having read a review then going on to the merchant site because they don't always trust the merchant to tell the truth.

The only way I suppose they could do that is if they restrict certain keywords to their affiliates.

[netmeg]

Because many affiliates who use AdWords are thin affiliates, which Google does not consider to be a quality site. By definition, almost every manufacturer or merchant site is going to be considered more authoritative than an affiliate site.

If you are running a quality site that has a few affiliate links, you shouldn't have a problem.

But all you can do is test it.

[Clarence]

I make more from Affiliates then Adsense, but the strategy you use has to be very different.

Direct linking doesn't work, nor does second click linking.

If you're advertising, but you don't own the product you don't have any control. Control over the price, quantity, landing page, etc.

The user most click your site, read some stuff, then go to the affiliate site and make the purchase. If a person is searching to buy, they don't want a middle man page, they want the Cost and the ability to buy.

People will click your ads, read a little and press the back button.

Affiliate income seem to only work when your site has some type of relationship based on adding value, not capturing buy keyword from Google "Unless you direct link to the merchant website and/or product page".

Now you can make a ton of money direct linking, but you have to find an Affiliate program that allows it, "or cloak you traffic so they won't know you are.

[Automotive site]

Interesting you say that, Clarence. I have been on various affiliate forums and they all say a good review/landing page is a must for increasing conversion rates. Yes, of course, owning the product (be it physical or informational),is better, but you can't just create a health product that people use for treatment and things of that sort. You could perhaps make information products and and list it on Clickbank, for example, but being in the health niche, its not easy to create a product other than informational, which is actually one of my to do lists for 2013.

Also, when you say people will just read a little and hit the back button, you could say the same thing about merchant's product page where people read a little bit and then hit the back button. But of course we know teh successful merchants convert at a good rate hence they use ppc campaigns.

Also, some affiliates may allow you to link directly to the payment processor page from your review page. You just need to perhaps mention under the 'buy button' that they will be taken to the merchant partner site.

I don't think Adwords, Microsoft Adcenter allow direct linking to merchant's page.

Whichever way look at it, affiliate marketing is huge and is growing every year. Affiliate partners therefore are selling. I know list is probably the best way because the subscribers are opted in so may like what you have to say.

Why would Adwords or Adcenter not allow linking directly to merchant page. Merchants link to their product page they are advertising through Adwords? How would Google know that you mightn't be a merchant partner? Is it the affiliate link?

As for cloaking, do you mean linking to the merchant page in the destination url in Adwords so is hidden? If so, this would result in instant closure of the Adwords account if they find out.

[Clarence]

From the sound of it, you don't have much experience with this.

I would say: Do it your way, Try it, and spend some money learning. The best way to find the truth is by experience.

So go for it!