An interesting question from Rod that I’m sure I’ve touched upon before, but this is one of those topics that does bear regular revisitation - is PPC still the go for new affiliates?

Here’s his question: -

Hi Kirsty
I stumbled on your blog while doing some initial research into affiliate marketing and was very impressed the writing is refreshingly clear and actually pointing to one of your niches (the lingerie site) is generous - I haven’t found many people who actually give examples of their sites.

If you have time (I’m sure you get plenty of questions from latecomers to AM) I wonder if you could tell me if there is still any mileage in doing PPC campaigns
- I read so many different accounts on the web and it’s pretty hard to be sure of getting current information, any advise you could give to a struggling newcomer would be appreciated.

I’ve been following Jeremy Palmers Blackink seminars in the states
http://www.theblackinkproject.com which has a lot of good information but the course is aimed mainly at people developing affiliate sites and for me at the moment this seems like biting off more than I can chew - I thought running a some PPC campaigns might be a better way to get a feel for things - do you think this is realistic?

Hello Rod,

There’s Still Money In Them Thar Hills

PPC can still make you good money. Most of my income comes from this, although I’m using landing pages and diversifying into SEO again also. I guess what you are asking is “Does direct to merchant still work?”

I say… yes it is!! If I were you, I’d be looking to try out dipping a toe in with a few direct to merchant campaigns on Google and perhaps a few simple landing pages on Yahoo.

The good thing about direct to merchant activity is that it gives you the ability to test out a market before you go spending your precious time building a site around a particular merchant or niche. Although many merchants no longer want affiliates competing on their URL in Adwords in particular, that doesn’t always mean you can’t give MSN a whirl. Also, there are plenty of merchants still out there very happy to allow direct to merchant activity.

Don’t Take A Scattergun Approach…
I will caution you though. Please, please, please be careful what you bid on!! Think before you bid 50p on the word “chocolate” or something, lol. It’s sad but true that quite a few newbies chuck traffic at a merchant and hope for the best. This is not the way to go. Really sit down and have a good old think about what you might search for if you wanted to buy your target products… base your campaign on very tightly defined terms for very specific things, and make sure you send your traffic right to the spot on the merchant site where they will find what they seek. Therein lies the holy grail - conversions!!

My Best previous posts in the keyword research area were about Keyword Research Techniques and also a bit in a broader post about Where To Send PPC Traffic & Identify Keywords.

I Wouldn’t Dream Of Creating A Site In An Untested Market…

I have based every single site I’m developing this year on a direct to merchant PPC campaign. I use them to gather information about which merchants work in which sectors. Once I know a merchant or niche can cut it, I am safe to spend my time creating a good site around them… so I think your idea is a good one.

Let us know how you get on Rod, the next thing you need to do is… something! Get into it mate!!