This review comes a little too late to be taken seriously. Some upstart blogger offering his two cents on one of the darling networks of 2009? Most affiliates will tell you straight up that C2M is a candidate for being the top daddy dog network in the business – and well – I agree. It’s pretty hard for any network to maintain a squeaky clean reputation given the amount of shit that gets slung at the walls on forums like Wicked Fire. Somehow Convert2Media has dodged the bullets and walked out strong as the network that 99% of affiliates refuse to criticize.

It sounds like I’m building up to an attempted put down, but I’m really not. C2M have earned their stripes and you’ve gotta respect them, even if Ruck’s berries don’t tickle your fancy. These guys know CPA affiliate marketing better than most.

What Makes Them Different?

C2M is what I’d call a very affiliate-centric network. I’ve registered on networks in the past and instantly been left with the impression that I’m a mere stat in a pool of bigger stats. Maybe it’s because it takes forever to get in touch with an affiliate manager. Maybe it’s because when I do, she’s cakefaced in to shape and doesn’t know her pixels from her eyelashes. Oh the eyelashes. I think that’s how most networks get Shoemoney. Take your pick for eye candy from this bunch:

I’ve worked with two affiliate managers at C2M and both of them have been insightful, helpful and to the point. There’ve been occasions where they’ve looked at my situation and told me honestly that it’d be worth testing an offer with a different network. Makes no sense from a business perspective, but somehow it does. They treat their affiliates with the respect that we’re not going to swear blind loyalty to a single network. I’m a busy guy and I appreciate not being tapped up on AIM every 5 seconds and asked why I’m not running offer XXX.

If you want to find out more about what truly establishes Convert2Media as a unique network, I’d recommend checking out Andrew Wee’s podcast with Ruck. An excellent interview.

Offers & Payouts

The timing of this review is quite important in terms of scoping the variety of markets covered by C2M. They’ve been hot on acai, colon cleansing and bizopp for as long as I’ve been active with them. But more recently, I’m seeing a lot of micro niche offers rolled out. You’ll find rebills for combating flu, getting to sleep, quitting smoking…all significant verticals that I personally see a lot of money in over the coming months.

As I understand, the guys are rolling out a bunch of cost-per-sale promotions in the very near future. Just this morning I received a network update announcing a backlog of over 25 offers that are about to go live. Clearly the advertisers are lining up to work with these guys. That says a lot for C2M, but also for the quality of the affiliates.

Private payouts are offered to the most successful publishers. You will generally need to be pushing over 100 sales a day to be considered for a bump. I’d imagine they will probably shake this up in relation to education and insurance type leads where a bump may come with quality traffic.

Either way, the street payouts are strong. I rarely see a rebill offer pushed for less than $35. Some can go as high as $45. For a street payout, that’s pretty damn impressive.

What You Need To Know

I was going to write a whole post dedicated to “things you could do that would probably piss Ruck off”, but I can summarize nicely here. Basically, you need to understand that the C2M guys are former heavy hitters as super affiliates in their own right. They don’t hide the fact that they’ve tried many of the darker arts of promotion that newer affiliates would consider new and clever. If you’re planning on black merry hatting your way to riches and fame, I dare say you could find an easier target than C2M. I haven’t met the dude, but I get the impression that Ruck eats guys like you for breakfast.

Steve also knows a thing or two about fraudsters. Just check out the video below.

I know the guys are big on getting their affiliates compliant and safe under the scrutiny of the FTC. If you’re serious about staying on the right side of the various advertising guidelines, C2M are happy to school you. When I was pushing bizopp traffic, I would regularly ask them for pointers on keeping my landing pages FTC-proof. I would suggest you do the same. They have a lot of helpful insight which you would do well to listen to.

One of the things I’ve noticed about larger networks is that too many of them will encourage you to break whatever advertising boundary in the name of a conversion. Maybe it’s because your affiliate manager hasn’t had his balls scraped for liability when the federal officers come calling. Either way, you’ll be told when you’re pushing the envelope. If your morals haven’t already disintegrated completely.

All of the staff send out regular bulletins – helpful bulletins. So many networks get lazy and list out the top performing offers expecting affiliates to do shit with it. We could have gotten the information by logging in 9 times out of 10. C2M are particularly good in this department. If they have new offers going live, it’s quite common to receive tips in your inbox explaining methods of promotion. Don’t expect a campaign to be dropped on your lap, but there’s enough hints to get your brain ticking.

If there’s one area I’d like to see them step up their game, it’s in transferring some of those creative ideas to the newer offers on the network. The niche markets that we’re all stumbling blindly in to. If C2M can sell me a viable promotion method for anti-aging pet cream – I will run that shit in to the ground as a mark of respect.

The Application Process

This is dangerous territory for retards. I remember not so long ago, C2M actually had to close applications to provide better support to their existing affiliates. It’s a small network, but it’s growing fast. The floodgates have since been reopened and you can now submit an application. Get in while you can.

If the video above taught you anything, it should be to hang the fuck up if they start talking to you about ninja optimization. Standard procedures apply for getting approved. Don’t be afraid to chase them up if you haven’t heard back from an application. It’s clear that they spend most of their time pissing around on the phones to India. If you take the time to call them, you’re probably doubling your chances of getting accepted just through effort alone. Or if you’re unlucky, you might disrupt another YouTube outtakes video and end up blacklisted for life. In all the videos Steve has posted on his YouTube, I can practically smell the silence. This from a network that preaches the grind.

Overall Thoughts

Convert2Media receive enough praise from experienced affiliates to make this review totally pointless. They’ve built up an almost untouchable reputation for dealing with affiliates (and advertisers) fairly and transparently. I’m not personally running much traffic through them at the moment but I always read their bulletins.

If I need to find the hottest offer in a rebill niche, C2M is normally the first place I check. They have a ridiculous number of campaigns in hot demand verticals like acai, bizopp and teeth whitening. The signs are promising for finding a hot new niche given the recent influx of exclusive offers.

I would recommend Convert2Media to any affiliate – but particularly to those slinging rebills. If you need a good selection of marginally different landing pages to test, C2M is literally packed to the rafters with good shit. Go and sign up. Just remember to deny all existence of SEZero.

Submit an application on Convert2Media