Direct linking (also referred to as the Google Cash method) is where you use pay per click advertising to drive targeted traffic to an affiliate program. But instead of sending them to a landing page that presells, you send them directly to the merchant’s website.

There was a time when this method worked VERY well. But like anything, affiliates caught on, competition increased and now it’s a lot harder — but it can still be profitable as I’ll prove to you here.

For most of my affiliate life I’ve sent targeted PPC traffic to preselling landing pages.

Well, I started experimenting with direct linking campaigns using Google Adwords and Clickbank because my Wealthy Affiliate membership has a tool that shows me which Clickbank products are hot.

So I started setting up quick campaigns using real small adgroups and laser-focused keywords. Keywords such as the product name, “buying” keywords and longtail keywords — this is important especially when using Google Adwords because of their strict quality score measurement.

Here are my rough stats:

I ran a report in my Clickbank account for the past 60 days and about 17% of items sold over this time period were from direct linking campaigns.

• Total commissions for my direct linking campaigns equaled $1,800.
• PPC expenses to make this $1,800 equaled $400.
• So profit equaled $1,400.

I also spent another $100 on direct linking campaigns that resulted in zero sales. Overall, not too bad considering I spent practically no time on the campaigns other than the initial set up.

What you need is a tool that shows you the momentum of various affiliate programs — most affiliate networks have this to some extent.

Clickbank, for example, has the gravity number which gives you a general idea of how many affiliates are making money — the tool I mentioned above gives me the gravity fluctuation so I can see if a certain product is starting to sell like crazy.

Here’s what I plan on doing moving forward — and maybe this will give you ideas for your own campaigns:

I’m going to continue to throw up small direct linking campaigns for the products that are selling — I’ll then create a presell landing page for the ones that are profitable for me.

My line of thinking is, if the product is profitable using direct linking, it SHOULD be an even bigger success using a landing page.

After all, landing pages (when done right) are your best bet — they’re just a bigger pain to get set up!

Talk to you soon,
Ryan

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Tags: Clickbank, Direct Linking, Google Adwords, Landing Pages, Pay Per Click, Preselling, Wealthy Affiliate University