Affiliate BizDev | Finch Sells

ZeroPark Does Not Want Clean Ad Spend

Oct 20 2015

I have had hundreds of campaigns rejected over the years; many quite rightly.

Today marks the first time I have had a campaign rejected for the reason:

“No monetisation”

Yes, ZeroPark rejected a campaign because I had made no attempt to monetise the traffic that I was buying.

There was a good reason for this lack of monetisation on my part.

The site in question was an online magazine — not an affiliate website — and I launched it three days ago.

Naturally, I contacted support, thinking it should be pretty easy to resolve.

I was pushed to provide more information:

Hi,
please let us know how you plan to monetize the visits you send to this landing page.
Best,

To which I reply…

I have no plans to monetise the traffic.
I launched the site three days ago.
I wanted to test xxx related keywords to see if these users would stick around and engage with the site, hence the Google analytics in my tracking code.

Sounds pretty reasonable, right?

No plans to monetise the site, but wanting to test ZeroPark traffic to see if its users would engage with the website.

Sounds like normal brand advertising to me.

Not so…

“Hi,
such a campaign will not be approved on our network.
If there is no monetization whatsoever then it makes absolutely no sense to send visitors to a website.
Best regards,”

Now, call me a cynic, but is this not the most retarded ad policy in the history of self-serve advertising?

I’m not allowed to buy advertising on ZeroPark, for a completely legitimate white-hat website with no tracking link… because ZeroPark is concerned that I won’t make money from it.

Take a bow, lads.

Take a bow indeed.

A shit experience, with a platform I like, backed up by some astounding logic that I will never forget as long as I am buying advertising:

If there is no monetization whatsoever then it makes absolutely no sense to send visitors to a website.

UPDATE:

ZeroPark have since contacted me to explain their reasoning behind the ad rejection:

Links pointing at innocuous pages are a common footprint of cloakers and unscrupulous advertisers spreading malware — of which there is no shortage.

An affiliate announcing that he has no plans to monetise a campaign is likely to trigger a red flag. And, it appears, in this case it triggered many.

ZP accepted that the campaign should have been approved, and that the back-and-forth emailing shouldn’t have escalated as it did.

For my part, I regret blowing my gasket in public.

If there’s something we can all learn from this moment, it’s that “it makes absolutely no sense to send visitors to a website“.

(I want that on a t-shirt.)

Convert The Unconvertibles

Oct 14 2015

There’s a lot of advice in the affiliate marketing world about how to build profitable campaigns.

Some good, some bad, some as healthy as a fist in the balls.

Much of this advice shields affiliates from the elephant in the room:

That no matter what we do, only a small percentage of our campaigns will end up profitable.

Probably something like 10% for most affiliates.

20% if you are well prepared, or exceptionally lucky.

From those winning campaigns, an even smaller percentage of the traffic turns in to leads and sales.

Let’s say you have a 10% success rate in campaigns launched.

And for a successful campaign, you have a conversion rate of 2%.

90% of your campaigns end up in the bin.
Of the remaining few, 98% of the paid traffic is left to rot.

The unconvertibles.

Users that you paid for but will never see again.

What can we discern from this colossal wastage?

There isn’t an affiliate marketer in the world that converts more traffic than he loses.

And what else?

We seem to be okay with that.

Affiliates tend not to worry about the traffic that got away.

Especially when they are winning.

When they are making money.

This attitude is embedded in a testing philosophy that goes like this:

Launch campaign
Ask: “Is it profitable?”
If yes, carry on.
If no, ask: “Will it ever be profitable?”
Continue in loop until answer is “Absolutely fucking no.”
Proceed to forget about campaign.

There’s a famous myth that the average human uses only 10% of his brain.

(It’s not true.)

In affiliate marketing, the data is your brain.

And I’m afraid the myth is all too true.

We have a natural bias to focus on the bright spots of campaigns; the 2% of conversions in the 10% of campaigns that whisper, “Money not wasted.”

And forget quickly about the failures.

Pretend they never happened.

For our sanity, it’s better to focus on turning 2 conversions in to 3, lifting a CVR from 4% to 5%; bumping a CTR from 20% to 25%.

This work occupies the brunt of our day.

We call it ‘optimisation’.

But the numbers suggest that a quantum leap in performance is only possible by asking questions of our zeroes column.

Which is precisely the column that most affiliates ignore.

The traffic that doesn’t convert, has never converted, and still wouldn’t convert if you took names, addresses and helicoptered each user in to personal submission.

What can we do with unconvertible traffic?

I’ve spoken a lot over the years about what I call ‘dual-purpose campaigns’.

My belief is that one of the greatest competitive advantages an affiliate can obtain is the ability to filter traffic intelligently.

We don’t always have control of the traffic that we buy.

But we do control where it ends up.

By filtering it well.

Affiliates seeking profitable campaigns by monetising 2% of their paid traffic are at a massive disadvantage.

When a rival learns how to monetise 3% of the same traffic.

The problem is, you will never obtain this quantum advantage if your business is 100% guided by creative optimisation.

The hard labour.

Changing landing pages.
Testing new banners.
Doodling new calls-to-action.

These actions are only effective within the parameters of traffic that might have converted in the first place.

And that is the minority of your traffic.

So tackle a different problem:

How do I increase the overall percentage of traffic that is convertible?

And the answer?

Use your imagination.

Like every successful affiliate.

Recommended This Week:

A shameless sales pitch, that’s what.

I released A Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing two weeks ago. I didn’t know how much interest to expect, but it has smashed my expectations out of the proverbial nutpark. The feedback has been immense.

Thanks to all who snapped up copies.

And those of you who didn’t?

Grab one now, sit back, and put your eyes out with 370 pages of enough filth to drown a medium-sized kitten.

OUT NOW: A Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing

Sep 24 2015

In case you thought this blog had died and gone to ~~Heaven~~ Hell…

Nope!

I’ve been scribbling away in the darkness and I’m relieved/delighted to finally announce:

A Complete Guide to Affiliate Marketing

The book has just dropped in my store.

First question, how is it different from the Premium Post series?

This is a cohesive start-to-finish, step-by-step guide to affiliate marketing.

It is a 419 page beast that tackles the complex issue of how I would teach somebody to make money from our industry.

There was an amazing response to Premium Posts Volume 2015, but the biggest criticism it faced was that people wanted more structure.

They wanted less nuggets, and more actionable advice.

I’ve had numerous requests for coaching, mentoring and private consulting along these lines, all of which I have refused.

I’m not interested in coaching.

What I can offer instead is this guide: a one-size-fits-all breakdown of the skill sets, philosophies, and challenges you will face if you wish to become a successful affiliate. And how I deal with them personally.

The guide is roughly split in two.

The first half gets newbies and rank beginners up to speed.

The second half ventures in to advanced marketing philosophies that should prove useful, and lucrative, for any affiliate.

I have included some of my own campaigns as examples.

You will see the logic behind their conception, the launch process, the optimisation process, reaching profit, and how I go about scaling.

Update: Unsolicited Feedback Since The Release:

No affiliate trust testimonials, right?

Here’s some unsolicited feedback I’ve collected since the launch of the guide.

ACGTAM

What’s in the guide?

74,314 words, 419 pages, and a lot of swearing.

The Reality of Life in the Affiliate Marketing Trenches

A sweeping look at the affiliate industry; the different business models; the personality disorders affecting us all… and everything you’ll need to succeed.

Intelligence: What You Know, Who You Know, and Why It Matters

A map of the dynamic relationships that will affect your success (or failures) as an affiliate. How to build an intelligence network that massively increases your chances of launching profitable campaigns.

A Complete Guide to Offer and Vertical Selection

Every major vertical in affiliate marketing analysed and assessed for difficulty and potential reward. Insider tips for promoting each vertical.

Going Mobile: The Biggest Moneymaking Opportunities Revealed

Everything you need to know about the Mobile revolution and how to run successful campaigns on the mobile web. Offer types analysed, best practices revealed.

Essential Types of Traffic: How to Make Them Work

An assessment of the major traffic types (and their various traffic sources), rating each for scalability, difficulty, barrier of entry and more. Recommendations provided for each.

The Creative Mindset: How to Turn Hits in to Conversions

A massive sweeping assault on the moneymaking process behind successful landing pages, banners and creative funnels.

How to Develop a Successful Campaign Optimization Philosophy

How to go from losing money (or breaking even)… to making money and laughing like a maniac. A practical look at how I optimize my campaigns, including the order of testing priorities.

A Template For Launching Successful Campaigns

The checklist behind every successful campaign I launch. (In my opinion, the most useful content I’ve ever released.) I’m including it, in its entirety, from start to finish. Follow every step and your chances of making money will improve dramatically.

3 Campaign Launch Examples

100 pages of follow along examples where you can sit back and watch what happens as I launch three campaigns on three different traffic sources — examples include campaigns for display traffic, popunders and native ads.

The Principles of ‘Super Affiliates’

How do you take the next step and become a super fucking duper affiliate? I’ll show you the key principles and what you can do to make the jump.

Moving Up: Thinking Big and Beyond Affiliate Marketing

This is the long-term strategizing that many of us ignore. How can you leverage affiliate marketing to build a successful career for the next 30 years?

Finch’s Extensive List of Affiliate Marketing Resources

It was already a monster list. It’s now updated with even more tools and resources for 2016. A genuinely fat burden on your hard drive.

Want Extras?

That’s good, I prepared some for you.

You will also receive:

Cheat sheets detailing each traffic type.
Cheat sheets detailing each vertical.
An editable copy of my Campaign Launch Checklist for you to use, improve and abuse as you so wish.
A special 170-page ‘Best of Premium Posts‘ compilation, including previously unreleased material.

What’s in the Premium Post Compilation?

Here are the contents:

Revealed: The Pay-Per-Call Gold Rush and How You Can Blow It Up
My Tips For Cost Efficient Testing
How to Win a Traffic Bidding War
1 PPV Dating Angle That Magnetizes Eyeballs
CraigsList Marketing: A Shameful $XXX/Day on Autopilot
Jesse Willms and the $467 Million Dollar Landing Page
A Guide to Local Slang (and Super High CTRs)
Rules Psychology: How to Make It Pay in Every Niche
Agents of Persuasion: The Path to Skyrocketing Conversion Rates
Profitable Angle Creation Made Easy with The 7 Deadly Sins
How Laziness Destroys Campaigns And What You Can Do About It
How to Build a Performance Marketing Agency

Altogether, that is over 100,000 words and 590 pages of highly flammable affiliate marketing advice packaged in to the most comprehensive guide on the planet.

You are welcome to scour the web for a better introduction to affiliate marketing.

I’ll bet my left bollock you won’t find one.

Enjoy the read!

Cheers,
Finch