Affiliate Marketing Leader

I have mixed feeling about these two approaches to marketing.

On the one hand CPM is usually cheaper then PPC at most advertising venues.

I use CPM to refine an add and test landing pages, because of it is cheape then paying for clicks that may not convert well. When I find the right combination of words or the right banner, I'll sometimes convert the campaing to PPC.

However, I have had excellent results also with CPM. Some tell me CPM is for branding and won't get you much traffic. With PPC you get unlimited impressions until you exhaust your PPC budget for the day. But on the other hand, a well written ad or a good banner will get you great traffic and is much less expensive.

For example, on one venue, I can get 14,000 impressions for like 2 bux a day, but the same ad on PPC will cost .69 per click (to be a near the top bidder). That can exhaust a budget pretty quickly, even on a landing page that has a 6% or 7% conversion rate (which is high). Most don't have nearly that conversion rate.

I have been at this for some time yet never seem to find the right balance between PPC and CPM. Lately, I have been leaning toward CPM since the PPC method hasn't been as productive as it has been in the past.

I hope some of you give me your thoughts on this, I'd love to hear from you.
I still drive plenty of traffic using all the free methods, but you really get what you pay for IMHO when it comes to advertising and nothing seems to draw like paid advertising.