Finch Sells | Affiliate Marketing Blog

Too Many Fish In The Sea With PPV

May 13 2010

Once upon a time, PPV was the new craze for affiliate marketers. Less guidelines to stick to, less slaps to run from…but now unfortunately, a whole lot more competition to bid against. Over the last six months, I’ve highlighted two different approaches to profiting from PPV:

Laser Targeting Your PPV Campaigns
Shock Marketing Tactics For PPV Profits

Another tactic I’ve read about on other blogs and forums involves “brand bidding”.

Brand bidding? The art of matching a branded CPA offer to a branded web page and hoping against hope that the margins stack up in your favour. The problem, as I’m sure most of you will have realized by now, is that they rarely do.

When I first got in to PPV, I saw zip and email submits as my gateway to riches and infinite private ball massages. A life of luxury by pushing offers that pay out, what, $1.30? The problem with matching PPV to these type of offers is that you don’t have as much margin to play with as you think you do. Throw in an element of scrubbing and people quite frankly not giving enough of a shit to wait for your pop-up to load from it’s shared hosting – you’re almost back to square one.

Brand bidding can actually be quite effective, but let me give you an example that probably isn’t going to out anybody who’s making more than 47 cents a day.

Here is your stereotypical iPhone email submit:

For a PPV virgin, it’s easy to get carried away and assume that a free iPhone offer is going to attract the interest of just about anybody browsing a domain with apple.com in the query string. And maybe it will. But if you’re going to master the art of brand bidding, you ultimately need to filter the crap first.

Direct brand bidding will swamp you with a large amount of traffic. From my experience, the profitability of bidding on a full domain just isn’t going to be sustainable 95% of the time. And even if it is, you’re using such a primal form of marketing that the next retard is waiting in the wings to bid $0.01 higher.

To take this iPhone example, the possibilities are endless for brand bidding – particularly if you ignore the temptation to bid on the actual Apple brand. I’ve always advocated “laser targeting”, particularly if you’re working with a low payout. A good method of brand bidding, less likely to attract tramp traffic, would be to dig out some links over on the o2 website. That’s a phone network for you yanks.

Take a URL target like this: http://shop.o2.co.uk/promo/iphoneindex/Pay_Monthly/3G_S/White

It’s a step forward in the sense that contrary to targeting apple.com, we know a few things about the visitors to this page:

They’re thinking of buying an iPhone.
They’re already in “comparing mode”, weighing up the pros and cons of the various deals.
o2 is a possible point of purchase that they trust.

So where does brand bidding come in to the equation? There’s no sign of o2 on our direct linked landing page.

The next step would to create a landing page that bridges the gap between the URL target and the shoddy email submit we’re about to hit them with. I would suggest a landing page with a header along the lines of “Can o2.co.uk Match Our Outrageous iPhone Giveaway?”

I would not want to be creating separate landing pages for every last phone network on the web so the “o2.co.uk” would have to be dynamically inserted.

The header is designed to portray relevance. It’s almost a “brand extension”, particularly if you design your landing page using the same colour scheme and font selection. It also exploits the fact that we know the user is already in comparing mode. You can use this to your advantage by listing some existing deals on your landing page, and then dumping your free iPhone at the top of the list in fancy flashing lights.

Of course, the problem with these type of campaigns is that you’ll never find the same volume that you would in spreading the net far and wide.

Another way to play with brand bidding is the classic bait and switch. A few months ago I had a very profitable campaign targeting just one single page on the Plenty Of Fish website. The concept was to deliver leads to a free dating website (Zoosk and Mate 1). What better way to target fans of free dating websites than by hitting them where they already congregate?

Of course, you could pitch a dirty great pop-up for Zoosk on the front page of POF. But you’re going to run in to several problems.

The sheer volume of users accessing the root domain “plentyoffish.com” every day will be too great. By targeting the top domain, your pop-up will show not only when somebody goes to sign in, but when they reply to a message, when they browse a profile, when they see who’s viewed them. You’re simply catching too many fish to ever be profitable.

The second problem was a lack of targeting. POF has a relatively balanced mix between males and females. How can I spring a pop-up that appeals to both genders? With a dating offer, it’s essential to break down your demographics. You also need an offer that accepts traffic from the 18+ crowd.

So instead I targeted just a single page – the “Who Viewed Me” section.

The concept was again pretty simple. I had a landing page and a header reading “Getting Viewed But Not Getting Messaged?”

I plugged the image of a depressed singleton, a screenshot of an empty inbox and then the complete opposite under the brand logo I wanted to promote – “…Why not try a dating site where our sexy members aren’t afraid to say hello?” You can probably piece the rest of the idea together in your head. I’m not going to spell it out. Needless to say, my version was a lot more provocative.

Much to my surprise, this simple PPV campaign – with just one target – produced a nice ROI in the first few weeks. I soon realized though that my pitch was getting lost somewhat. Most women on POF are already getting messaged at every waking hour, so it wasn’t as effective considering a large percentage of my page loads were falling on female eyes. You can probably guess what I done. I used the same concept to target niche websites where gender wasn’t a factor. Examples aside, this kind of laser targeting is my preferred method of making money with PPV.

Brand bidding has it’s merits and can be used to good effect with the right offer. You will undoubtedly get conversions. But the challenge is to get those conversions while weeding out as much other traffic as you can to make it profitable.

There’s a huge misconception that PPV traffic is the cheapest on the market. I think that’s pretty much bullshit. It may be the cheapest in terms of what you’re paying for a “visitor”, but that doesn’t always equal good value. A good CPM campaign can drive the cost of a click down to as little as a few cents. And when a user has clicked, you know you’ve grabbed their attention. Yet with PPV, you’re paying around $0.02 for the loading of a pop-up. Most people hate pop-ups. Some won’t even wait for them to load. You do the maths.

If you’re promoting zip and email submits, it’s quite likely that the best tactic is good old fashioned CPM bidding on the content network. That’s a post for another day though. There’s a bandwagon rolling past claiming that PPV is the future for affiliate marketers. If you’re going to jump on, don’t be turning your back on the other opportunities that surround you.

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An Affiliate Marketer’s Guide To Site Flipping

May 03 2010

Time and time again you’ve heard me rattle on about the need to build long term assets to survive. Traffic brokering is a volatile gap-market to be working in, and if you’re not setting some time aside to expand in to other ventures, you’re going to run in to a brick wall at some point.

Site flipping is something I’ve never posted about before, and yet it’s probably one of the most interesting areas for an affiliate marketer to work in. It’s a chance to leapfrog your way to those long term business assets without needing the creativity, time or technical know-how to build them yourself. It’s the art of investing in a good concept. Something any self respecting entrepreneur should be able to appreciate.

And it’s a very simple concept to get your head around. There are many websites for sale on the net. Some of them are untapped goldmines of potential revenue that a lesser webmaster simply hasn’t thought to monetize properly. As affiliates, we’re typically a long way ahead of the average website owner when it comes to finding ways to drive profit from a site.

By scouring various online marketplaces, it’s possible to buy websites that have already been developed with outstanding content. We can then choose to apply an affiliate’s touch. Hopefully to raise the revenue being generated by the site with a view to selling it on at a greater price – “site flipping”, if you will. Of course, you can also choose to bag the redeveloped website for yourself and keep it as one of your long term business assets.

Nothing says “well diversified” like an affiliate with a few dozen automated and high-quality websites earning him a few hundred dollars each every month.

Unfortunately site flipping is one of those areas where if you go in unprepared, you’ll end up getting mislead in a market where there are 1001 tricks that a seller can use to artificially inflate the true value of a website. This post should hopefully warn you against a few tricks of the trade.

Ten Commandments For Successful Site Flipping

Behold:

1. Become a dirty great cynic. – Whenever I visit a website marketplace, I’ll make sure I’m already feeling cynical. Maybe I’ll play Radiohead in the background and pound myself in to a state of doom and gloom. The reason being because there’s simply so much bullshit that a site seller can attempt to get more money for his creation. If you go looking to buy a website with the attitude that you’ll snap up the first bargain you find, prepare to be burnt. Be super cynical and don’t be afraid to ask for whatever necessary data you need before agreeing to a sale.

2. Don’t trust the seller’s traffic stats on face value. – So you’ve stumbled across an excellent looking website and you’re salivating at the thought of 65,000 unique hits/month in a high profile niche. With a 1% conversion rate, that’s 650 sales, right? Don’t be such a retard. You need to know exactly where that traffic is coming from, the countries of it’s origin and whether the traffic will be sticking around after your purchase.

I’ve seen websites for sale boasting 20,000 unique visitors/month, but what the seller isn’t keen to disclose is the fact that nearly all of them are triggered by a pop-up on his own high traffic site somewhere in Ethiopia. Oh, and that he’ll be removing the pop-up after the sale. Get smart about it. If the seller is currently driving a shitload of low quality traffic through PPV, for example, you can pretty much disregard any value he attributes to the current traffic levels.

Assess the website as it’s own little standalone business. Is it well diversified with organic traffic being driven from a number of different sources? That’s what you should be looking for.

3. Adsense is for amateurs. – If a website is boasting Adsense as it’s main source of income, your little affiliate ears should be standing on end. Adsense, with a few exceptions, usually means that the webmaster is pretty clueless when it comes to monetizing his site. Why would you plaster ads over your website for OTHER affiliates to use your own high quality content for their own gain? Remove the Adsense, replace with your own banners, and you could flip a profit in the space of a lunch break.

4. Look out for licensed software platforms. – I got duped by this trick last year. I purchased a website built on the CubeCart platform, but I failed to check how the long the license would last. Contrary to our agreement, the motherfucker deactivated the license after a month and I ended up having to pay more than I set out for the actual site just to renew the license.

If you’re buying a website built on licensed software, make sure you nail down the terms of the transaction so both parties are clear who owns the license, how long it has left to run, and any other bullshit escape clause a slimy dealer might use to shaft you over. This includes the site domain.

5. Ask what has been spent on the site so far. – Of course, you want to know what percentage of the site’s traffic is being delivered from paid traffic sources. Otherwise you could just build the same damn site for yourself. But it’s also important to find out if the seller has paid for any banner placements, directory submissions, classified listings…anything that you might potentially have to replicate to maintain the current levels of traffic. If it’s not free, and it’s not automated, you need to know about it.

6. Is there any work required to maintain the website? – If the site involves distribution of any kind of physical goods, you need to be considering the implications of what an actual “brick and mortar” business involves. Basically, asking yourself “Am I too much of a lazy motherfucker?” If the website is selling something, make sure that the sales funnel requires absolutely minimal processing at your own end, or ideally none at all.

I only bother investing in websites selling virtual goods. You should be careful not to end up site flipping your way in to a position where you’re responsible for a dozen small businesses that each require your time and care. Automation is key, and it will dramatically increase the number of potential buyers if you choose to sell the project on.

7. What are the hosting requirements? – If you’re purchasing a very bespoke website, it may come with specific server requirements. These can be a Grade A pain in the jacksy. Nothing will frustrate you like having to purchase a brand new server to recreate a specific hosting environment for a site that currently only makes $47/month. Make sure you can handle your new baby, or that it shows enough potential to merit such an investment.

8. What are the reasons for the sale? – This sounds petty. Well, I’m a petty man. I like to know exactly why a website is being sold. My logic being that if there’s a reason for selling, there’s probably a reason for not buying. In cases of turnkey sales, my mind rests a little easier. But if a seller is boasting an automated website providing $500 of profit per month. Why would he sell it for $800? He only has to wait 6 weeks to match that ROI by keeping it. Explore the reasons for selling and compare them to your own reasons for buying. Don’t get stuck looking after somebody else’s wobbly dying donkey.

9. What do I know that the seller doesn’t? – I specifically like to find websites that are developed by passionate fans of their chosen niche. Firstly, it guarantees a level of excellence in the content. I like value that a marketer wouldn’t be able to replicate without outsourcing. But secondly, by targeting these kind of websites, you often have a raft of knowledge for monetizing the project that would dramatically increase the website value. I like to use forums as an example. Most forum owners create and develop their communities because they like to play God. Their ROI comes in the form of members and posts.

If an affiliate marketer can get his dirty hands on hours of work where the content really is king, his task of monetizing it becomes a whole lot easier. Look to buy what you cannot build overnight.

10. Sleep on it. – Hey, listen. It’s better to miss out on a promising looking website than it is to jump the gun, buy it now, and end up waking in the morning with that bitter taste in your mouth. You know, the “why the hell did I just buy a website about the culling of trees in the Amazon rainforest? Oh yeah, just because it mentioned acai in the footer” kinda taste. Yes, site flipping is a competitive business. But there’s plenty more competition for being a retard with a bunch of failed investments in your portfolio. Think before you buy, eh?

Finally, here are some marketplaces to check out for site flipping galore:

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Finch Sells is the anti-typical affiliate marketing blog, designed and written for real affiliates. If you’re interested in reading more and grabbing the odd tip, follow me on Twitter. I don’t sling you shitty ebooks but I do talk about my balls. So you’re morally obliged to, okay?

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The Advertiser Didn’t Like Your Traffic, Now What?

Apr 28 2010

Over the past month, I’ve had a few emails landing in my inbox that I wasn’t used to receiving until I made a few key changes to the way that I approach my campaigns. These were emails from affiliate managers telling me that certain advertisers were really happy with my traffic.

“Is there anything we can do to help you scale up the volume?”

Woah woah, hold on a second. What did you just say?

An advertiser… is happy… with my leads? You sure you’ve got the right email? They want me to send more traffic? Dude this is where you’re supposed to halve my payout and tell me to aim for an older demographic before I get shafted off the offer and in to oblivion completely.

It’s actually quite refreshing to be told that the leads you’re sending are backing out for the advertiser. It filled me with a sense of “Oh my god, maybe affiliate marketing CAN last longer than 5 minutes”. It also gave me the warm fuzzy feeling in my balls that what I was doing was actually working for all parties concerned. Clearly I was happy since I was still getting paid. The advertiser was happy with my leads-to-sales ratio. And presumably some creep was happy with his sparkling members’ access to one of the more shadier dating sites on the web. Everybody’s happy.

This is a stark contrast to the emails I used to receive when I started with lead gen offers. Back then, I never really stopped to consider the implications of scraping the barrel for whatever and whoever would be willing to submit my form. All I cared about was the ROI.

Unfortunately, when you’re working with CPA networks, that kind of attitude is probably going to have you jumping from offer to offer, systematically burning your bridges and relying on quick bursts of profit until an advertiser shuts you down. It’s about as stable as a wooden raft on the high seas.

And if this is you, it’s probably a good time to stop and think about why you’re getting shafted on such a consistent basis. Advertisers can be shady little shites, make no mistake about it. They’ll scrub and shave and do everything in their power to make the little man – that’s you – pay for their failure to break even. And in some cases, they can be downright greedy to the point where they’ll dick on you just to top up their Christmas bonuses.

That said, many advertisers have entered the CPA industry looking to play a fair game. They’re willing to pay for quality leads, and they do respect the work of affiliates who deliver the right traffic. It’s important to work WITH the advertiser, even through gritted teeth at times, and avoid burning those bridges that pay for your beach house.

The best way to avoid getting removed from an offer is to stop scraping the barrel. If a dating offer is open to both males and females over the age of 21, how many affiliates take that as a green light to flood the advertiser with 21 year old guys? Sure, the offer description didn’t say you couldn’t send this type of crowd to the offer, but you should probably be taking a little more responsibility and mixing it up with demographics that are more likely to produce sales. It might not matter to you – you’re paid by the lead, right? – but if it doesn’t make somebody money further up the chain, you aren’t going to be promoting it for long.

Another way to boost your “quality score” is to cut the bullshit. Don’t say something is free when the final call to action isn’t going to be free. It took me a while to axe this from my own campaigns, but it’s fundamental. Sell the trial factor to your audience, but don’t mislead the user in to thinking that the whole slice of pie is a no strings attached freebie. That isn’t good marketing.

Cutting out the “FREE” hook may lower your conversions slightly, or even dramatically, but consider this. It’s better to be running at 50% ROI for six months, than it is to be running at 100% ROI for one week.

Another factor that will influence the quality of your leads is the traffic source. Nobody can really explain it with a logical reason. But on some offers, a user clicking through from MSN will be much more likely to convert for the full shabang than a user clicking through from, say, Yahoo.

I’d love to say there’s a way to predict how certain traffic sources are going to perform on a given offer, but it’s close to impossible. I’ve been removed from offers that were backing out excellently on one traffic source, but bombing on another.

The only way to deal with unpredictable traffic quality is to ask for feedback directly from your affiliate manager. I think many marketers are shy of hassling the advertiser for an assessment of their leads. I say shy, it’s probably more like shitting bricks at the thought of doing something so potentially suicidal to their business. Perhaps you’re scared the advertiser will wake from a slumber, check over your stats, and realize you’re blowing a bigger loss than Iceland blows ash. Before you know it, they’ve shut you down and a profitable campaign is dead in the water, right? That’s rarely the case.

Simply asking the advertiser for some feedback on the quality of your leads will show that you’re serious about your job. But it also gives you some tasty knowledge that you can exploit if you’re clever. I managed to get a rough idea of my leads-to-sale ratio on one particular offer. I did a little research, found a program where I could work directly with the advertiser on a CPS basis, and it actually worked out more profitable. The only way I would have bothered to explore this avenue was by finding out that my lead quality was good and that the advertiser was happy.

A happy advertiser generally equates to solid sales. You can take that information and split test in a CPS campaign. If an advertiser is offering you significant pay bumps to provide more volume, the chances are excellent that you’re going to make more money by abandoning CPA altogether and raking in money by the sale.

I don’t think there’s a single affiliate who hasn’t suffered from lead quality issues at some point, or that won’t in the future. But if it’s happening too often, you need to shine a light on why. Jumping from offer to offer will only work for so long.

Wouldn’t it be nice to know that if affiliate marketing died tomorrow, you’d still be able to make money for a company? You know, by actually fulfilling the simple premise of connecting the right people to the right products? It’s easy to see why affiliates are often tarred as the lowest level of marketers, even if they’re some of the richest.

Being the delivery guy who delivers empty boxes just isn’t going to last forever.

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That’s what I thought.