While you’re required to have a website to sign up to the Amazon Associates program (UK, US), there’s nothing in the rules about having to use it to promote your links. It’s perfectly acceptable to pass links around in emails, or even per-per-click campaigns.

I decided to try my hand at putting some Amazon referral URLs directly into Google Adwords to see if I could make a few quid. I’ve never played the PPC game before, so I stuck £10 into my account, planning not to spend any more unless I was making a profit.

With both Halo 3 and the Xbox 360 Elite coming up, I thought bidding on “preorder Halo 3″ and “preorder xbox 360 elite” might make a few quid. While I didn’t sell many preorders, I have been making a few quid, so I thought I’d share some of my ideas. If you disagree or have any more, please leave comments below :)

The Goal is not Clicks
One really important thing when bidding on PPC is to remember that the goal is not to get as many clicks as possible. Anyone can write an advert that people will click out of curiosity, but that will just cost you money. You want to write your advert so that it will only be clicked by people prepared to buy.

Choose Specific Keywords
When trying to shift Halo 3 preorders, I deliberately didn’t bid on “Halo 3″ as a keyword. Think about how many people are searching for “Halo 3″ on Google, and what they’re after. A large portion of them will be looking for reviews, release dates, screenshots etc. Remember, we want buyers not clickers. In the end, I only bid on a few terms, and they all contained the word preorder or reserve since people searching for “preorder Halo 3″ are likely targets for ordering.

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