I'm jumping into promoting Clearwater Lodge with both feet.  Today I composed an ad and posted it on USFreeAds.com to see if I could prime the pump with some direct linking.  Although I understand it is preferable to drive traffic first to your own page, my theory is that while you're getting your page set up, it can't hurt to invite some direct traffic and see what happens, as writing an ad or article with an affiliate link is very easy to do.  The other thing is that because of the close contact I have with Clearwater Lodge, I can have the sales page customized to target the exact niche I'm going for, so it's probably as good as having my own landing page.  My own page will actually be a blog and it's being worked on as I write.  Oh, for great affiliate support...

But I digress.  While I'm working on my ad and coming up with more questions for Lisa, one of my pals at AOCS skypes me and tells me I just got my first affiliate sale.  My commission is $27. 50.  My Linker says my cloaked affiliate link got 42 clicks.

What's great about it is that while I worked pretty long and hard to get the campaign going, I haven't touched it for over a week.  While I was doing other things I made a sale.