Direct linking, in terms of affiliate marketing, is linking your PPC campaign directly to the offer page. This cuts out the intermediate step of stopping at a landing page. I did a post a long time ago about when to try direct linking, if you are interested in more info.
The question came up in the comments of a recent post when discussing landing pages versus direct linking. Can you even direct link anymore? The answer I have found is yes and no.
Yahoo and MSN are still not very aggressive with their policies towards direct linking. For the most part you can set up a campaign today, drop your affiliate link in the destination URL, and be up in running in no time. After a while you might get an email that your ads have been inactivated – or you might not. But in most cases, you can direct link with no issues.
Google is very strict about direct linking. They state clearly in their policies that the destination URL must match the display URL. If you get past that one, they have another policy to only allow one advertiser per URL to an offer. So most of the time if you try to set up a direct linking campaign these days, you will instantly find your ads inactive. I recently tried a new direct linking campaign and half the ads got shut down right away, but half continue to run no problems. I also have some older campaigns that have been direct linking for many months.
Like everything in affiliate marketing, you have to test to find out for sure. But I have found direct linking is still possible. How about you?
It works for a certain time on Google sometimes, if you’re not raising a red flag with the ad text already. Although it’s pretty risky. If you’re violating their guidelines too often they will send out a last warning sometime, and being in that situation is a bit sucky, you really have to think about what you do then. They don’t care about your volume here, at least in Europe they’re strictly enforcing their guidelines lately.
I have several direct linking campaigns still making me money on google as well as yahoo and msn right now so it certainly can be done still. There are definately some tricks and strategies needed, especially for google. The biggest problem I have with direct linking on google is the quality and relevant of the advertisers LP in regards to the keywords I am bidding on but even that can be overcome.
Thanks again Chad! If I could ask again (and without asking to give away too many secrets) but generally, what niches currently tend to have the most “Direct linkable” offers? (I had posted as AC in that previous Comments section)
Also, if Google catches you DL’ing, will that screw up your account or QS if you’re running PPC-landing page offers in other campaigns/niches?
Its hard to say which niches work better, you really have to test out each offer.
As far as quality score, if you are concerned you can run your more experimental campaigns in a “test” account.
Direct linking makes me some nice dough everyday. MSN doesn’t really give enough traffic, but it is there in Yahoo. They are pretty lenient about it.
Justin Dupre
Deeboo.com Webmaster, SEO, and Internet Marketing Community
Ive found DL in Google still works well if you can grab a good QS via a good CTR. Of course there are lots of factors that determine your QS, but often times a good account history and good performance on the keywords/ads will get you a working DL campaign. 8/10 QS (and sometimes higher) is certainly possible with DL when all the other cards are in place.
I don’t think Google has any categorical problem with direct linking. In my experience, they treat the affiliate hoplink in the destination URL as a tracking url, which is perfectly acceptable as outlined in the TOS. As long as the tracking URL takes the user to the display URL, which is exactly what your hoplink does, you’re fine.
Do you consider redirecting your own domain directly to the affiliate link to be the same thing? What about an iframe redirect where your domain stays in the address bar?
I tried to setup a direct linking campaign in yahoo after reading they are easier to get going, the problem I found was that every ad got declined
Is there any advice people have to overcome this problem?
Thanks
I have been able to do a small amount of direct linking on Google, although the biggest issue I always find is that their landing page isn’t optimized correctly.
And of course, my ad doesn’t even show half the time because their are other ads with the same url.
It works in Google! Try more!
Several weeks ago I was going to setup a direct linking campaign in yahoo. I choose yahoo as somewhere have heard it is easier to use. But the DL is still not setup because the major problem I faced is declining of each ad.
so…im new and toatlly dumb when it comes to aff mar. but i want to dir link to lp. how can one do this . dosent this make the most sense? and how the hell do you get a landing page…please help a newbie out!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Direct linking definitely still works but its competitive. For google, you can have better chances direct linking on the content network, there is a ton of space out there so your less likely to bump into competition. Conversions are lower on content so its a tradeoff.