Product Review or Affiliate Program? The Better Choice

[gotabiz]

I was recently contacted by the president of a major food product manufacturer/distributor who is quite interested in my site. I had a chance to view the company's website via the link provided in the email and I was quite impressed because I see their products in the supermarket. The company president said that our target markets overlap ( I operate a physical fitness, nutrition, healthy living website and that company sells food products) and that it would be good to work together. He suggested several ways this could be accomplished including link exchange, product review or affiliate programs. Because this is a major company I'm not interested in link exchange, my site is for profit so I have to earn money which is why I allow advertisements on my site (mostly Google Adsense).

I'm leaning more toward product review but I must have control over content. By this I mean, I must be allowed to write honest product reviews that will give the facts about the products; I will not compromise my site's credibility to satisfy advertisers because in the long run if my site were to lose credibility I would have no visitors to eve see ads from advertisers. Also, product review would pay more money than affiliate programs which is commission only and may earn me very little money while the food company makes a profit from the traffic they receive from my site.

Because the president of this company approached me that provides me with some advantages in negotiating a business deal.

My question for anyone who has experience in product reviews and/or marketing is this: what were the pros and cons of both options? How much would be reasonable to ask for in payment for product review? I know that their are some websites where people sign up and write reviews for such and such product and they get paid X number of dollars for the article BUT the company wants total control of the content. I do not like such sites. In this case I was approached by a company which sent email directly to me so I believe that this is different and I would be taken more seriously.

Thoughts and opinions are welcome.

[catchcheater.us]

Find out the going rate for the products you are to review! If the stuffs selling like hotcakes and you get a lot of traffic to your website like you say! Maybe setting up an affiliate program through them would be worth it. But then again im always worried if there's no 3rd party tracking it like Clickbank. Who's to say they wont rip you off. Must be a reputable company you trust. You said you run a fitness website so id imagine there would be a good profit margin through an affiliate link. But like you said who's to say you wont make more on a ppc basis like your Google adwords. Id prob do the ppc through them first just to get my feet wet but id also keep the option open of taking a commission off each sale that is generated through your website. I'd make that perfectly clear to him. We'll see where it goes. As far as writing honest reviews let him now that if your products are what you say they are- you have nothing to worry about. I don't know too much on getting paid through writing reviews, unless its affiliate marketing related then I'd have to say I know a great deal. Pretty cut and dry optimize Seo-Great Keyword rich Title= 1st page on Google for your chosen keywords. My advice to you would be just try both and see which one is more profitable. This guys offering to pay you so try to work out something that will benefit the both of you! Good luck I hope you do very well.