Direct Linking…hard to find!

July 25, 2008 on 4:29 pm | In Questions and Comments | 3 Comments

Tony,

Hey. Hope your move went well.

Question 1: I’ve joined multiple Affiliate Networks. What I’m seeing is that very few have Merchants that allow direct linking (allowing their URL in the Display URL). Can you point me to a network that is more “direct linking” friendly? Maybe you could offer suggestions?
Question 2: Can you state whether 301 redirects from my domain to merchant’s domains is OK with Google? Getting lots of fuzzy answers on that question.

Thanks!
Loopster

3 Comments »

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  1. Loopster,

    The move had a few glitches, but not too bad.

    301 redirects are – generally – okay with Google if the final destination matches your display URL, but this might not be okay with the program advertiser if they don’t allow direct search.

    As for direct linking friendly networks, the situation today is that most – but not all – programs on all networks disallow direct search. CJ probably has the most that still allow it, even though more than half disallow it.

    Keep in mind, Amazon.com still allows direct search, and they sell almost everything these days.

    Tony

    Comment by Administrator — August 13, 2008 #

  2. Hi Tony

    I’ve been looking at google, their traffic estimator and their keyword search.

    Let’s say you did a search for dinner plates. You got 2 million results. Now you go to the google key word search tool to get ideas. Dinner plates gets you a result of 500,000 and a shaded bar that is full under the advertiser competition column. A little further down, you get a key word called green dinner plates. The advertiser competition bar is only a quarter way full and the voume coumn is at 60,000. The traffic estimator says on average you might get 2 – 3 clicks a day. The estimated cpc is 40 to 60 cents and the estimated ad positions are 1 – 3. The cost of the plates are in the $30 to $60 range and the advertiser is offering 10% on each sale. Would you place an add on google with these numbers in mind???

    Thanks kindly

    internal_calm

    Comment by internal_calm — October 10, 2008 #

  3. I would certainly try it.

    If you really wind up paying 40 to 60 cents per click, you’d have to convert somewher around 10% of your clicks to slaes (which isn’t realistic), but I have good news too… The top ads for those searches are probably paying WAY less than that. If you focus like a laser beam on your ad text, you should be able to get your CPC way below 40 cents.

    You won’t know how low you need to get it until you see how the clicks convert, but that is what you need to focus on… Lowering cost and improving volume by writing better and better ads.

    By the way, I like Google’s traffic estimator and keyword suggestion tools, but you can get a lot more detail from a paid service like KeyCompete.com , and it won’t cost you much, either. I made a lot of money before I ever discovered these guys, so you don’t NEED them, but in today’s tougher market the edge they can give you might make the difference.

    Tony

    Comment by Administrator — October 17, 2008 #

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