I am a member of clickbank and promote products in Adwords. I have looked at PayDot.com CJ.com, and Linkshare to expand my business. Do these companies work like the ClickBank/AdWords combination, or do I need my own website? If I did need my own website where do I start? Thanks!

Do you mean you're interested in developing a merchant-type/advertiser account as opposed to a publisher?

L.T. I have not used PayDotCom but all of the others I use on a regular basis.

Clickbank is probably the easiest to direct link with and even now track conversions down to the keyword level to know which keywords are actually making you money. Actually, CJ and Linkshare both provide this Sub ID ability and I love that.

Each of these networks work the same and provide links you can direct link with in Adwords or other PPC engines. (I am guessing you are hoping to be able to direct link with them too like with Clickbank.) You can direct link, but keep in mind that you are going to be dealing with less of a commission percentage on CJ and linkshare since the majority of the products their have larger overhead for the company being physical products.

In CJ and Linkshare though you need to pay attention to each individual merchants PPC rules for many of them will not let you bid more for certain keywords or use trademarked phrases. Clickbank is much more lenient about that. You don;t want to find yourself bidding on a trademarked phrase that pulls you in a ton of commissions only to have it reversed and never paid. Merchants will not pay you if they don;t have to so you need to pay attention.

With CJ and Linkshare you also may or may not be accepted by a merchant. Some only want a certain kind of traffic and frown upon those of us who powersell with adwords. :-)

If you need anything more please give more info and I will see if I can answer better.