How to Use PPC with Affiliate Marketing Programs
How to Use PPC with Affiliate Marketing Programs: On weblogs...."in black and white, every site I was advertising on, every keyword I was using, etc. They called the biggest referrer, a site I was paying to place ads on, and cut their own deal. They created their own PPC campaigns based on the highest converting keywords.They cut me right out of the loop. It hurt. It hurt real bad. I remember that I had to go and get a 'real' job because I had stopped working altogether because the money was so good.
The next campaign that I did, I was smarter. I used a redirect on my server to bounce the traffic from my site to the merchant's site.
Here is how you do it. You want to do a 301 Permanent Redirect. For more information see our comprehensive article on 301 Redirects (members area). Here is an example.
I would create a PPC ad or a text ad and send the click to www.mydomain.com/bluewidget/ and since I don't want the user to go to a page that they can't order on, I do a 301 Redirect that send them from /bluewidget/ to www.merchant.com/?affid
Here is how it would look in the HTACCESS file:
# Redirects (from site path to URL)
Redirect 301 /bluewidget/ http://www.merchant.com/?affid
Sometimes, if it is a big merchant, or one that also does SEO, or one that might use their affiliates as a way to do market research, I will bounce the redirect across two domains instead of one. Or, another option is to use IP Delivery to serve the merchant a different page. For example, if the merchant tries to view the /bluewidget/ page, it automatically redirects to their site so they know you are doing a redirect. However, if you use an IP Delivery system, it will detect their IP and since it is on your list, it will serve them a plain HTML page which is a 'dummy' landing page all about their product. No one sees this page but them. It is a little sneaky, but it protects your work from unethical merchants.
Affiliate Marketing is one of our biggest revenue generators. Don't let your hard work fall into the wrong hands. Protect yourself and your business. Use the 301 Redirect in all of your affiliate campaigns."
posted by Jen @ 7:20 AM
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