I've never run an affiliate site before but i understand it serves no purpose as a pit stop on the way to the real product. I understand you need to provide something additionally, and i can definitely deliver that throughout the site. I guess my question is more of curiosity than anything else.
What do you think are the best ways of running an affiliate campaign via Adwords? Do you simply create the best landing pages that you can, and hope customers click over?
Has anyone considered the concept of not even having a website, doing strictly PPC based affiliate marketing? I don't know the guidelines involved with it, but i wonder how effective an ad would be that simply points to the company first rather than your affiliate site.
Overall, it seems that since commission is based on a percentage of the sale in many cases, your margin for error really decreases. If i were to run an affiliate site or program, it would have to be based on high-priced items i would think.
which are you?
how effective an ad would be that simply points to the company first
It can be effective if your targeting is good and you can get clicks cheap enough. That's harder than it was a few years ago, though.
Bid prices are generally trending up. Not only is there more competition from other affiliates, more businesses in general are discovering PPC ads.
When you're working on an affiliate's margins, it will be difficult outbid regular merchants. Your best edge will be to be really, really good at targeting.
One big issue to consider with direct-to-merchant PPC is that those promotions do nothing to build your own brand equity. They can be useful to have in your mix but always have some things to work on that will build durable value for yourself.
I actually run an in-house SEM campaign for a company, and i am in the process of desiging an affiliate site. My questions concerning direct-merchant PPC were based from curiosity. I appreciate the feedback.
