Check out this months featured money maker. 
Many of you asked in the Ask a Question post if I use a landing page for every campaign or if I use direct linking. AND if I use direct linking, when and where do I use it.
This is possibly the most asked question I get.
For those who do not know, Direct linking is when you advertise in a pay per click search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Adcenter and in the "destination url" you put an affiliate link.
For example: Say you're advertising Shoes.com. You make an ad on google for the keyword "buy shoes" and your display URL would be: shoes.com and your destination URL would be: shoes.com/?affiliate=jonathan.
Let me answer this flat out. Yes, I use landing pages. I direct link, at most, 1% of the time.
I actually wrote a post about this a while back which I think answers the question pretty well.
You can check it out: Easiest $200 bucks I've ever made Direct linking
I use landing pages for a couple reasons.
1. It converts way better MOST of the time.
2. While direct linking, if anyone else tries to direct link the campaign, you're screwed. Google Only allows 1 Ad to Display per domain. Now you're having to fight for your traffic.
3. It gives you more control over conversions and tracking.
4. Etc, etc.
The list goes on.
Eventually I'll post a bit more about affiliate landing pages and hope I can shed some light on that.
~Jonathan Volk
Hi Jon,
You are right, most of the time Landing pages are the best approach, hey we can make a better pre sale page than the merchant.
Vijay
Yeah, but the user still has to decide to go the merchant page and for certain offers, landing pages just kills it. One of the reasons why direct linking is not prefered is becuase Google will be quick to slap you, but there are methods around that. Direct Linking is not dead, there are still people making a killing off of it. And of course if its not quite working on Google, Yahoo don’t quite mind it….
Jonathan:
I just discovered your blog a couple of weeks ago and I want to thank you for the great information.
I am relatively new to pay per click marketing and I need a bit of direction. I have a pretty good understanding of relevancy (from keywords to ad to landing page) and how to drive targeted traffic. Where I struggle is with conversion (the landing page).
I have the following two questions for you: 1) Do most CPA merchants provide a lander that you can use on your own domain? and 2) Is there a certain style of lander (e.g. review) that you use or is there a particular “method” or template that you follow to create your own landers?
Thanks Jonathan.
Well, I usually use landing pages, but I spend lots of time designing it, because I just can’t think of anything.
But when it comes out, it comes out good. 
Good post i was just thinking about that myself. I mostly practice direct linking but that’s because i’m too lazy and don’t really know what copy to put on a landing page. Direct linking makes me a lot of money but i’m sure to get more control (ie better conversion rate, better cpc) using my own landing page
One other important thing to use landing pages are not all advertiser allow direct linking (for PPC)
[...] Volk has an enlightening post on why he Uses Landing Pages. I’ve been trying direct linking so far, but I’m planning on moving up to landing pages [...]
Good post Jonathan. This seems to be a hot topic right now.
Despite the url display policy, it appears that it would still be okay to direct link provided the destination url is essentially considered a tracking url (http://mysite.com/recommends/verizon-ringtones)
Otherwise, yes, I totally agree… direct linking is not profitable in the long term.
I wondered why my campaigns were never successful. I will have to focus and spend some time setting up landing pages for my campaigns.
Do you have any examples of what the landing page should look like?
[...] Next, some pretty great news is that Yahoo Search Marketing is now allowing direct linking. Wahoo. That’s pretty sweet! For campaigns that I direct link on, you can read my post on “the easiest $200 I ever made direct linking” and “affiliate landing pages.” [...]
Hey Jonathan.
Been reading your blog for awhile,
I’ve recently picked up affiliate marketing,
and so far I’ve made about $300 the past week and a half with two campaigns that I’m using to redirect. Most of my traffic has been through yahoo because I don’t have a landing page to get into google search and I haven’t found out the secret of the content network yet.
But,
my question to you is,
which would greatly help me in moving forward with my affiliate marketing journey.
Is…
I know there are a lot of websites and things that talk about landing pages and whatnot, but so many of them are outdated, the internet world is always changing.
Do you know of a good guide of a start-to-finish landing page, or a website that offers free/cheap templates that could also be helpful. Anything to guide me in the right direction to begin using landing pages.
Thanks for your help.
Kevin
Hi Kevin,
I have just read your post, and I have the same question about landing pages. Did anyone reply? Can you help me or direct me to someone who can help.
LandingPages are the way to go.
@ Kevin:
If Jonathan don’t mind me saying, or if no1 can help you with this, stop by my blog and leave me your contact. Maybe I can help you with that.
Regards, Pedro.
What do you mean by :
“Google Only allows 1 Ad to Display per domain.”
in No#2 above
(2. While direct linking, if anyone else tries to direct link the campaign, you’re screwed. Google Only allows 1 Ad to Display per domain. Now you’re having to fight for your traffic)