Getting an ROI through your PPC campaigns

I just finished listening to an old episode of WebmasterRadio.fm's Net Income (subscribe via iTunes) with Jeremy Shoemaker (Shoemoney).  On this epsiode they took a call from a guy asking about landing pages. 

He was wondering whether his PPC link code should go directly to the advertiser landing page, should he redirect from his website, or should he create his own landing page and make the user click through to the ad.

At a first glance, most people would say, "Send the user straight to the landing page."  That is what I have always done, but Shoemoney and "The Cat" thought differently.

Shoemoney's advice to this guy was to take the information from the landing page, build your own page on your own domain (The Cat said buy a new domain for this), create a 1 page site that is just a pre-sell page for the landing page.

With this technique the visitor views your page as part of the process.  The users expects to have to click through your website to the actual advertisement that they wanted in the first place.

Here are a few benefits of this technique:

• You host the page and can change colors and layouts to match the affiliate landing page.
• You can add ads below your page and have ads that are for different, but related, affiliates.
• Hosting your own pre-sell page will allow you to track stats like you would for a normal website.
• Your users won't see a redirect to a landing page.  Redirects can cause concern and a lack of trust.

Those are just a few of the benefits of having your own pre-sell landing page for the actual landing page.  Personally I've never done it and I don't know how well it would work.

Shoemoney is highly respected in the PPC community and usually has great advice.  Is he right about this tip?

Have you ever tried a landing page for the real landing page?  Leave a comment and let me know!