Netalot

There are two ways you can make money with a PPC campaign. You can either create your own landing page and offer or you can send the customer directly to a merchant’s website.

When you decide on creating your own landing page and offering a product for sale via this there are some points to consider. You need to ensure that your visitors go directly to the landing page. This could mean that you might have to carry the costs of a website and the hosting charges involved in that.

You will also be responsible for all the content. That means your sales copy will have to be exciting, your design elements great, information accurate, all your testimonials and information just right and the payment facilities have to work.

There are some distinct advantages and pay-off for all your hard work. You are able to use your landing page for more than selling a product. You can capture an opt-in list which means that even if a visitor does not buy anything from you at that moment, you could still contact them for future promotions. This time at least it won’t cost you for the click through.

Having your own sales page also provides you with the opportunity to test your site and make sure that you get the maximum sales from it. If you send people through to another sales site you have no way of improving that site to increase sales conversions.

Should you decide to use the merchant’s site you do have some advantages as well. You will not need to pay for a domain name nor hosting charges. You will not need to spend the time or pay for a designer to set up the site.

Besides this you will find that a merchant’s site has often been so finely tuned that sales are fairly optmised. It also allows you to test the market without going to all the hassle and cost to set up a site. By trying out the keyword and advertising copy on the link ads on another merchant first you have the chance of testing whether these products actually sell before committing to an entire sales website.

Another reason why it is sometimes a good idea to use a merchant is because buyers might feel more inclined to buy from a recognised brand rather than from a new vendor. This means that if you direct traffic to Amazon.com for instance buyers have great trust in this company to deliver the product as promised and will more readily part with money.

The biggest risk though of directing traffic through to a merchant is that you have absolutely no control over any part of the transaction. This means that if the merchant lets you down or even closes its doors without any sales, you could be out of pocket for a fair amount of money. And you would have no recourse.

In both cases, whether you have your own sales page or whether you direct the traffic direct to a merchant’s site you have risks and benefits. It really depends on what your strengths are. If you are a good copy writer and designer or have access to some you might want to set up your own site. However, if you lack these skills you might want to try out a merchant for your first venture into PPC campaigns.