It has become difficult to profit from direct linking campaigns because of 3 things:

1/ If 2 or more advertisers bid on the same keyword and link to the same merchant’s page, Google will only display one ad from one advertiser. Usually the one who bids the higher.

2/ Many affiliates, and mainly beginners, create direct linking campaigns and bid HIGH because they want the 1st ranking position. Of course they make a huge mistake by doing so and the time they find out about their mistake and see how much money they have lost and disable their ad, another affiliate takes his place And the cycle continues… Too many affiliates promoting the same offers (usually from clickbank – direct linking to clickbank offers is a surefire way to lose money)

3/ We could get around this issue by registering a domain name and cloning the content of the merchant site we wanted to link to on our own site. Then we would simply link to our domain name while using the merchant’s content… But now Google also checks the content of the landing pages and if 2 or more advertisers use the same content on their landing pages, only one will have his ad displayed (usually the one paying the most).

Check this Q&A article on Google’s site, it’s interesting.

It means that direct linking will only work (well) for campaigns where you’re the only advertiser advertising a specific product. Forget clickbank, it’s overcrowded.

Of course there are thousands and thousands of products you can still use for your direct linking campaigns. But to be on the safe line I prefer to create landing pages now. So even if new affiliates find which products I’m promoting and create direct linking PPC campaigns for them I’m not affected.

The German market is without any doubt much less competitive than the US one. In your case creating direct linking campaigns might be easier.

Kind regards,
Vita Vee

I would like to ask another question if you dont mind..

Can you give the reason why direct linking became so difficult and why one has to have a landing-page today to be sucessfull ?

I am asking because I originally planed to buy GCD (and maybe Relity PPC) just for doing PPC with direct-linking (without landingpage)…

I am not from the US but from Germany. Would this difficulty also appear if I would do direct-linking with german PPC-adds ?

Thank you for your honesty!

Seeker

Currently the link redirects to GCD because Reality PPC is not available yet to the general public. As soon as they start speaking about it (3rd of December) the link will redirect to the correct location.

Thanks a lot for letting me know.

About GCD, I’m still using it. In the other comment I was saying that I wasn’t using it for direct linking campaigns anymore because it has become quite difficult to make profits with direct linking. That being said direct linking is still a great way to test a market with minimal effort before deciding to create a landing page or not.

Now I’m only creating review/squeeze/information sites to promote different products. Having a landing page gives us much more control and the conversion rate is 99% of the time (if not 100%) much higher.

About the cost, there will be 2 versions, one at $997 and the other one at $1,497. Payment plans are available for both. I will try to give more details about those 2 versions in my review very soon.

Kind regards,
Vita Vee

I klicked on your link to see what Reality PPC is gonna look like because I might be interested in buying it but the page that showed up was only about Google Cash Detective 2. Is that a mistake ?

By the way: I heared that it became harder to earn money with GCD. Is that true ? I am asking cause in another comment you also said that you are not using it anymore…

Looking forward to hear from you

Seeker

PS: Do you know how much Reality PPC will cost ?