Nice tips on the issue of landing page. Some people are just off the loop for it though. I guess they should read carefully, rather than learning the hard way.

I am learning and reading the stuff. I still didnt get how to make custom affiliates pages. Do they use any APIs if yes then from where to get my hands on those APIs. I can program abit and design aswell. Just need a direction from where should i start developing these kind of pages.

Yeah, if you could elaborate on that aspect of landing pages, it would be VERY helpful

Jeremy, just some feedback, I think that the posts where you give tips about internet and affiliate marketing are the best ones, its what makes your blog unique and the reason why (i guess) most readers come here.

Thanks for that.

Hi Shoe,

In line with posters #2 & 3 except in plain newbie english:

How does one create custom affiliate landing pages ( on one’s own server) instead of having to redirect to the merchants landing page?

Thanks.

You can still get a good quality score with an inline frame? That seems like you would get nailed because of the lack of content. I haven’t tried it yet though, so I don’t know for certain.

Good advice though.

“or framing in a page with nothing in the noframes tags.”

I would surmise you’d have to put some content and not just go with emptiness around the frame.

Buy a domain, get a host, get a book on HTML/PHP/CSS and create single pages for you to send PPC traffic to.

Thanks for going into greater detail as to how you “track and test,” things you’ve preached from the beginning.

I think the question here is whether or not an affiliate should use a landing page. I think Shoe agrees with me - in both cases he presents a page of different carriers and another with just Verizon. Both are landing pages.

I agree with this one - traffic should be sent to your site first (v. sending it to a merchant directly through an affiliate link on the SEs or a redirect page). And the reason for this is twofold: a) you have a chance to keep the user (via email offer) or b) you can easily swap out merchants (or have a couple of them) on the page. Obviously, done this way, you have more power over your advertisers.

Of course, the downside is that your conversions might plummet (extra clicks; site with less trust). But with some tweaking, you might actually make more.

And of course Photoshop skills combined with your HTML and CSS will help make your pages look nicer.

What’s everyone using for Statistic collecting? MBL seems spacey and Analytics crapped out yesterday on me (guess you get what you pay for). Any good suggestions?

I’ve yet to try PPC campaigns w/ affiliate deals, but there are some good ideas here that I’m probably going to try and use.

I’ve always had much better luck creating my own landing page then linking straight to the merchant (even before Google made it harder/more costly to link straight to the merchant).

Great tips. I have the unusual habit of using Wordpress to create landing pages, though you could just as easily do it some other way.

There are several one-column themes which work very well for the landing page format.

its not widely available now but many ringtone companies are offering apis now. Just ask your affiliate manager if they have any api or datafeeds. Many programs in commission junction have datafeeds. A good place to start and play is with the amazon AWS

thanks for the feedback

Whatever gets the job done!

Totally unrelated, but what time zone is this blog running at? Just wondering if it’s a DST thing or you’re no where near the East coast.

I do this with a ringtone site I’ve got, but the $state is a nice touch. Thanks for the suggestion, SM. I’m gonna go make a few changes now.

Good tips i think one of the biggest money drains people miss out on is reporting “invalid clicks” and getting that money back as even for people just starting in PPC that could mean getting a few bucks back to use the next month and for the big boys it could mean thousands!! Good tips!

Here is another reason — you own the page. Landing pages can get organic SE traffic even after PPC become unprofitable, (affiliate links can rank too but thats a whole other can of worms.)

thanks you so much shoe

[...] who I mentioned on last months post as my selling point, gave some good advice on when to make a landing page. Richard also discusses landing page relevance which is extremely important when trying to convert [...]

Some programs require a landing page, don’t they?

Wow, that geotargetting really doesn’t work on my end.

I have to fully concur.

What do you use for geotargeting though?

Shoemoney can you do a post sometime on the subject of click fraud. Specifically what invalidating criteria do Google etc. accept when you present them with the evidence.

If that isn’t the truth

I’d assume with stat trackers

$state aint working here so I don’t know if its that great

Ever tried Crazy Egg?

I like Analytics .. usually combine it with AWstats. If you don’t have a lot of traffic, Sitemeter works just as well.

[...] it here on my blog I am going to point you over to Shoemoney.com as he recently made a post titled When to Make an Landing Page - Affiliate FAQ. In that post he points on the best reasons for making a landing page which include Stats, [...]

To target the offers to foreign people (as most offers target US only) and wouldnt you rather choose what to show the visitor than just something random or worse nothing. but also to track for “invalid clicks” as in sending you traffic from australia when u only have US targetted.

That’s why I come. Shoemoney tips = more money for me.

Not only that. Just about any schmuck and give tips on affiliate marketing but Shoe’s tips are more valuable because he really does has some experience in this field.

I would like to see that info about how you detect the click fraud too, that would be a great article.

I think it’s important to test linking directly to a client’s site versus linking to a landing page and then just comparing the results, using whatever works best.

If you’re talking about a SEM campaign then some keywords might perform better with, and others without a landing page and so you can optimize accordingly.

Sometimes the results will surprise you - to me it makes sense that directly linking to a shop website will result in more conversions than making the user go to a landing page first - but this is definitely not always the case !

Shoe linked to a pepperjam article about how they do it:
http://www.shoemoney.com/2006/12/15/yahoo-search-marketing-credit-of-1000000-still-dont-think-you-should-do-ppc-analytics/

Some do but most don’t, they don’t mind it if you’re sending them free traffic.

true enough.

To bad it’s no longer EASY to make a lot with the amazon feed.

Exactly! If people listen to his advice and do their own testing and researc on offers they could make some serious cash.

Analytics, AW Stats, and Crazy Egg. I use them all together.

PPC + Affil. offers + TIME = Money
Note TIME is the biggest thing

Exactly. Every dollar counts and for something so easy to catch/report as invalid clicks it’s a no brainer!!!

Yep. I’ve noted that one of my landing pages actually got PR after only using adwords because other sites picked it up and linked to it.

MaxMind Apache + C Module

I would stress that the key to a great landing page is testing. Never stop testing. Never assume that you have stumbled upon the perfect mix of content and images, the perfect copy, etc. Use the Google website optimizer, use Crazyegg, and just never stop testing. It is our belief that no landing page is ever 100% “optimized”.

Thanks for the tips, I am definitely going to try these out

How specific is good to go on GeoTargeting? When I was living in boston it would often geotarget me ads saying “tewskbury” which isnt close at all.

same here

true dat. I feel the same man.

I got once Geotargeting scropt whith huge database of countries but now I lost it. Can someone point oit some script like this, most preferably in PHP.

my landing pages range from OK to GREAT. What are some of the other categories?

Brro, so much of this info is freaking priceless. I’ve come back to this post too many times. I wish there was a way to personalize someone else’s blog so that you could come back to your favorite posts when you visit .. get dillsy on that!

[...] When to Make a Landing Page [...]

This post is awesome. I really must read your blog more
(and no, this isn’t a spam comment even if it looks like one lol)

[...] to Shoe for the inspiration on this [...]

[...] When to Make A Landing Page FAQ: Great post by Jeremy, he answers a few questions on landing pages. [...]