It is an interesting question that is asked many times, especially by those new to Affiliate Marketing. The majority of Internet Marketers will tell you that it is best not to do it that way, but really do not give a definitive "no". Having a domain with hosting seems to reflect the shop (hosting) and the domain (shop window) where you can exhibit your products. Obviously when you have a product of your own to sell, this is the only route to go, but you do not have the same restriction with an affiliate product. It is not essential to show the product on your site, just to promote the affiliate link directly to the merchant's sales page and get paid the commission for the sale. Even though it is true that having your own website can greatly improve your chances of success with an Affiliate Marketing Business. Can it can be done without one? The answer of course is "yes" and if money is a stumbling block when you start an Internet Business, then it is a viable alternative to the normal methods in order to get started.
The affiliate marketing process in itself is very simple. The affiliate link provided by the merchant for you to promote will issue a cookie that tags the person who clicked on your link and the tag will follow them to the merchant and if they buy, it will tell the merchant which affiliate to render the commission to. Other than promoting the affiliate link the affiliate does no more. The merchant has the responsibility to take care of the actual sales page, along with the payment and delivery of the product.
In actual fact there are some drawbacks to directly promoting Affiliate marketing links, as indicated below:
1. There are some people who search for products on the Internet, but for some reason do not like buying through an affiliate link. 2. There are quite a lot of unscrupulous people on the Internet and they go one step further by removing your affiliate ID and replacing it with their own. 3. If you promote the affiliate link within Google Adwords for example, they are degrading duplicate domain root names, which are shown in each affiliate link generated. When there are a lot of affiliates in competition for the same keyword Google will place the highest bid on the keyword in the higher listings while the others are demoted to the very lower level of the listings. 4. You cannot generate an opt-in list - the merchant gets all these benefits. 5. Although the product is good quality, in your opinion the sales page will not convert well, there is no way of remedying this without a landing page on your own domain.
The above is the list of negatives for this method of promotion, however, there is only the one positive which is your costs are reduced.
There is no restriction to sending traffic directly to the merchant's sales page through your affiliate link. There is however, a reduced number of Affiliate Marketing methods of doing so. Google Adwords now frown on ads for the same keyword that have duplicated root domains in their links and only one will show in their lists. The conclusion is that there is nothing to stop you promoting your affiliate link directly, but the sooner you can redirect through your own domain, the better.
Derek Jones - helping online businesses get started as well as growing existing businesses into successful entities. For more information why not sign up for our free weekly newsletter at: