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Adwords question and Direct linking

easyrider
Posts: 248
Joined: 25 Jul 10
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Adwords question and Direct linking

For one of the keywords I'm targeting I have noticed that there is an Adwords ad that has a simple redirect straight to the sales page of an affiliate offer. I thought that this was against Google Adwords policy. Is this the case?
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Last edited by wollowra on 15 Apr 12 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: title
 

Greg
 
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wollowra
Posts: 869
Joined: 14 Mar 08
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You can do it, however the URL in the ad must be the same URL you eventually land on.
You may need to have permission from some merchants to advertise thier URL on adwords, however some people just do it anyway.
The thing with Direct linking is your quality score is usually crap.
If you see a direct linking ad then they must be paying top dollar to be there and if they are, I highly doubt they are running a highly profitable campaign.
You may also find that Google lets these people run the ad until they have thier ad suspended the next day.
The reason they are using a redirect is because they do not want the merchant knowing where the traffic came from.

Hope that helps.
Troy
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Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize
they were the big things.

-- Robert Brault
 
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maryt
Posts: 3225
Joined: 16 Apr 12
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Direct linking is one issue that never gets resolved simply because there is no concrete answer to this. Yes, Google made it clear that they will ban sites that do direct linking on Adwords. And currently, they also do not like "bridge pages" or pages that usually lead to affiliate offers which has little page content.

However, there are still some places where you can do direct liking. Some good places (and where traffic is quite good as well) are Facebook and PPV.

So is it okay to direct link a campaign or not? Well, there are campaigns that work best with direct linking and there are campaigns that don't (so here you do landing pages). Again, neither of these methods work unless you test it out first.

It is best that you first try to do direct linking so just you can quickly evaluate if this strategy works before you go into trouble of creating and spending money for landing pages. Try direct linking, iframing, or landing pages- whichever works best to your offer/niche. Remember that experience is the best teacher.

Good luck!
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michellerana
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Joined: 05 May 09
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Yes, there are marketers who link directly to merchant sites from their google adwords ads and other ads.

However, we do not recommend that. It is much better to have your own site and promote products from that site. Why? When people find your site useful, they will keep coming back and thus you will have multiple opportunities of selling different products to the same (loyal) site visitors.

Plus, you will also have the opportunity to build your mailing list. Having a mailing list will give you even more money-making opportunities.

Furthermore, with a website, you will also be able to establish yourself as an authority in the particular niche that you are in, and when you are an authority, people tend to follow your recommendations more readily.

Hope that helps! :)
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Michelle
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This topic was started on Apr 15, 2012 and has been closed due to inactivity. If you want to discuss this topic further, please create a new forum topic.