Ever wondered how to use online PPC advertising for affiliate marketing? PPC is an acronym for pay per click. Almost every affiliate marketer has come across PPC or has somewhat used it as an advertising method for their websites or to sell a product directly. Pay-per-click advertising can be a very powerful traffic generating and sales converting tool when used wisely. But as the name suggests, you pay for each click. Therefore make each click count for you or you are headed for big time loss in advertising fees.

Online PPC advertising is an advertising tool which was created not for affiliate marketing alone. As such, it does not always work well. Before you begin any campaign, be sure to read the terms of service at each PPC network.

The most popular of all is Adwords so be sure to read up the terms thoroughly. Adwords do permit affiliate links in the online PPC advertising campaigns. However, they restrict the display of only one affiliate ad for per search query. This also means that if there are many affiliates promoting the same replicated affiliate site, they will only display one of them which of course, goes to the highest bidder in most cases.

The quality score of your replicated website would be low as well. This can sometimes stop your PPC advertisements from showing up. But thankfully, there is a way to work around this. Instead of sending them directly to your replicated affiliate website, send them to a landing page which is a webpage created to presell your affiliate product. It can be a simple webpage with clean HTML and content or it can be a squeeze page to collect your visitors? name and email address.

Always start with a small budget to test the market response to your online PPC advertising campaigns. Limit the daily budget so that you wouldn't blow it quickly. The purpose is really to do testing of the various ad copies and keywords. Always make sure that you get ready a set of relevant keywords, preferably in the range of 300 ? 500 keywords at least before you start any campaign.

Many affiliate marketers use online PPC advertising to do direct selling. Avoid doing so. Instead of direct selling, send them to a name squeeze page to collect the fresh leads. In the process, you are building a list that you can send your email messages to. Research has shown that it takes a minimum of 7 ad exposures before your prospects stand a high chance of converting into your customer. So when they give you their email addresses, this creates the opportunity for you to follow up closely with them to close the sales.

There is more hard work in creating a squeeze page and setting up an email series but think of the long term gains. On top of selling the affiliate product, you could possibly do some backend sales and sell them other related products. This is one big secret behind the success of many successful affiliates. So be sure to apply it!

Discover more secrets of affiliate marketing including online PPC advertising as I disclose them one by one in my free report.