First off, do NOT do the direct linking. It may work in some cases but that is not the norm plus you have no way of building a list. take that advice and ignore it.
Secondly, you should build your landing page doing a review or personal experience of the product. Then you need to create an free offer in exchange for the email. Your free product, obviously should be niche related. If you can not write a free copy (I recommend you dont) you can simply search on Google for "your niche+plr) and you will find nice eBooks you can give away and they cost like $6.00
Once your user signs up direct them either to a thank you page letting them know their copy is on the way or to the affiliate offer. if you use a thank you page make sure to have a link saying something like "to learn more click here".
You will also want a drip mail set up promoting your offer over the next few weeks.
You could also directly send them to the affiliate offer after they sign up...you will have to test which works best.
The reason you do NOT want to direct link is that in a year from now you will have to still pay for ads while people who build a list can slow down on the paid advertising and promote offers to your list, which do not cost you anything and results in a much higher ROI.
I spent the first 4 years of my affiliate career direct linking and when someone ask me if i could start over what would i change....my answer is ALWAYS that i would have started to build a list instead of the direct link method.
Best of luck
Ryan
