markling
Posts: 2071
Joined: 13 Jun 06
Trust:
09 Jan 07 2:15 am
Sean is right. Having your own website receiving traffic gives you a much greater ability to earn money. It is possible to make money by advertising through Adwords and sending clicks directly to the merchant site, but if you can build your own site and start attracting organic traffic, not only will you be saving money, but you'll be less susceptible to changes in the Adwords market. And this isn't even mentioning that Adwords will only show one ad linking directly to the merchant site. If there are other affiliates doing the same thing, it is likely that only one of your ads will show.
And then there's the fact that it will take you quite a while to learn what works best in this form of advertising. You'll be spending time tweaking your ads, and you'll be spending money on ads that don't work. A lot of people think that this is a fast way to affiliate riches.... it's not really. And you're unlikely to make as much money as is possible by building your own site.
And like Sean said too... you're not competing with the merchant. Their job is to sell the product. Your job is to get people interested in visiting their site. How you make them interested is the big question for affiliate marketers.
Good luck!
Mark