CPA Beginnings
Right now, about
80% of internet advertising falls into traditional categories such as PPC. This means that so far only
about 20% of advertisers have started some
sort of CPA program, but these numbers are quickly changing. That's because CPA is rapidly becoming the most
effective way for publishers and advertisers alike to
make money, especially in this difficult economic
period.
Drastic conditions require new and innovative strategies for tackling the consumer market.
Why Are CPA Networks Booming?
CPA network
offers provide advantages to both the publisher and the advertiser in a tough economy. Many consumers
aren't willing to buy things as easily as before, and so pay-per-sale offers are harder to convert for publishers.
However, a consumer might be more willing to hand out information that an affiliate advertiser can used to market to them later, and that provides some value to the advertiser, too. So publishers find a CPA offer is easier to convert into income in a recession and an advertiser finds that he can still build a great contact list and get visitors more involved in his products and services by using a CPA offer.
Let's take a quick look at a traditional online marketing strategy using PPC offers, to understand why CPA networks can be perceived as having a higher value. When an advertiser decides to implement a PPC campaign, they target a bunch of keywords that a search engine like Google will use to serve up a bunch of ads to people who search for those particular terms. Those visitors then go to a site where the ad is being published, click on the link, and go to the advertiser’s offer. However, the advertiser doesn't know who has clicked, has gathered no information on that potential buyer, and can only hope that the click converts to a sale. Even if it doesn't, the advertiser will still have to pay for the clicks and many advertisers simply want a little more for their money.
Add to that the frustration of click fraud and campaigns that run over-budget with few ways to determine how much they actually impacted sales, and you can see why some advertisers are beginning to opt for CPA offers that cost them less money and will, at the very least, generate a lead if not a sale.
However, it's not just the advertisers who are getting additional benefits from CPA network offers. Publishers are finding that the offers are much easier to implement and the payouts can be higher than a traditional PPC campaign. At rates of $1 to $50 for an offer that generates a valid lead, and with conversion rates of 20%, the take for a publisher can be higher with much less stress and worry. That's because publishers do not have to create landing pages for a CPA offer if they don't want to; additionally, they don't have to research keywords, grab traffic to their site first, and then send them on to the affiliate. Instead, they can go directly to where the biggest traffic sources are online and post a link there directly to the CPA network offer they are promoting. In many cases, the legwork to get a CPA offer up and running is minimal, when compared to a PPC campaign.
How Do I Apply?
Applying to a CPA network can be very different from applying for other traditional programs because there is a greater degree of verification within the network both for advertisers and publishers alike. Don't expect to be accepted automatically just because you fill in the application form, because this is just the just the beginning of the process rather than the end. You will be investigated much more carefully than with a PPC affiliate type program. They will make sure you are the person you say you are, even going as far as to check ownership of websites and contact information you gave on the application form to ensure everything matches. Be as accurate as possible when applying to CPA networks as they are very selective about who they accept.
The CPA network employs people who know how to spot deception in an application by cross-checking one piece of information with another. For instance, if you give one name on the application form but the owner of the website in the WhoIs record is someone else, they may decide you're not being honest with them. Also, if you give out a phone number or email address that you never respond to it will be an automatic red flag that will kill your application, so be prepared to answer the phone and/or email promptly to speed up the approval process.
Cross-Checks And Double-Checks
Now that you understand the process a bit more, let’s review the items you need to make sure are consistent and accurate on your application form.
l Your Website(s) – You don't necessarily have to own a website with a CPA network to be accepted, but it does help. Make sure you are listed as the owner of the site, as they will verify this is a match.
l Your Country of Origin – They will check your IP address to make sure it is coming from the country of origin you are claiming you reside within. If you outsource the application process, make sure it is to someone within the same country where you live. Otherwise, it will look very questionable, and have no doubt that they will reject you based on that alone.
l Your Contact Information – Throwaway email addresses are an automatic reject. Unlike traditional affiliate programs, you can expect to receive a call from an affiliate manager of the CPA network using the phone number you provided. Be available to take the call, as they do not call twice, and they will reject your application if you don't answer. They will also check the area code to make sure it goes to the state of residency you claim on the application form. Make sure it matches.
l Incomplete Applications – Don't uncheck boxes that they've checked, like a box typically saying “incentives” for your advertising method. It's their hint that's what they want you to use.
The Single Most Important Question
Expect to be questioned on how you intend to promote or drive traffic to the affiliate offers, if you are signing up to be a publisher. This is the single most important question and your answer will greatly impact whether your application is accepted or not. If you don't have a clear idea, it will only prove to the affiliate manager that you are not a valuable affiliate partner to include in their network. Make sure you have a good answer for this question.
Many people have made an immediate favorable impression by suggesting they are doing PPC to CPA offers. There are some more stringent rules for people who are using Google Adwords campaigns to publish affiliate advertising links, but it's still doable. There are two URLs you can add in an Adwords campaign; one is a destination URL and the other is the display URL. The display URL now has to match the destination of the site. In other words, you can't mask the offer showing one URL to the customer that takes them to a different destination than what they were expecting. Along with that, there are restrictions on the landing page destination URL; it must have the same domain name as the display URL. This can be tough to do if your affiliate CPA offer doesn't want you to allow the publication of their top level domain in the offer. Many of the advertisers are aware now that they do have to create landing pages on their sites to overcome this new policy, and this will probably come back to benefit both publishers and advertisers. Thus, you can still use PPC-to- CPA methods, but you will need to be careful which offers you try this with and keep to the policies instituted by Google.
If you are unsure about how you are going to attract traffic to offers, check out Chapter 3 for some real world examples. You don't have to be a genius at Adwords campaigns or even know much about Internet marketing to make this work. Don't be intimidated by this question, just have an answer prepared that proves you know what you're doing.
No Website? That's Okay!
Even if you have
no website, you can still get accepted into a CPA network. You might think that sounds ridiculous, but
as long as you can prove that you have the means
to attract traffic
to a CPA offer, that's really all they care
about.
There are people out there making money with CPA offers who don't use their own websites to promote the offer or even have a single landing page of their own. They use the advertisers’ landing pages and they just scoop traffic up from one area of the Internet and take it to another. It's really that simple.
In Chapter 3, we're going to discuss four different ways to set up CPA offers and attract traffic from popular sites to your own offers. Some will not require you to produce a landing page and others will, depending on the policies of the portals that you visit. If you have a popular YouTube Channel, for instance, and you have thousands of subscribers, you can make a case for having a way to market those people with CPA offers. That's even though you really don't have a website of your own, it all belongs to YouTube.
What If I Get Rejected?
Even if you don't get a call the same day you submit your application, don't assume you've been rejected. It can take up to three days (or more) for an affiliate manager of the CPA network to contact you by phone, especially if you submitted your application over a weekend or during a holiday. They typically
do try to make contact within the first 24 hours, but this is not always possible. If you haven’t heard anything after three days it's possible your application has been rejected, so you need to be proactive to see what types of problems might have been spotted on your application and work to overcome those objections.
First, you will
need to know what affiliate manager has been assigned to you; look for their name in the email notice
you receive when you first apply online. Once
you know whom to contact, you can email them based on the email addresses on your CPA network website or
use AOL messenger if you have that available. There is an online list that has most affiliate
administrators ‘names.
It's a great list to keep nearby as you're awaiting approval because it also shows you when they are online. They are interested in getting people who can provide value to their advertisers on board, so don't hesitate to make contact and ask the status of your application.
If they say it is denied, find out why. In many cases, they may accept additional proof or documentation to reverse their decision and grant you approval to join them. Even if you get turned down, use it as a learning experience. There are literally hundreds of CPA networks out there, and one of them is bound to say “yes.” Just put your best foot forward and be available to answer any questions they might have about your application.
Offers
There are numerous factors that make a CPA offer the right one for you. You are bound to see great offers that many other people are clamoring to publish, but this doesn't necessarily mean they will work for you. One of the biggest issues is that the audience you are marketing to can be significantly different than anyone else's audience; if this is the case then the offer needs to be appropriate for you own special niche if you are going to market it successfully. In other words, don't follow the crowd; instead, analyze your own position on the Internet and seek to exploit the traffic that's at your fingertips.
Demographics And Niches
Whether you are article marketing or answering questions on a forum, you have special knowledge that attracts people to your postings. This is your niche. Your niche will likely attract people of a particular demographic to your posts, so the more you know about these folks the more highly targeted you can make your CPA offers. After all, someone who is elderly is not going to be interested in the latest electronic video games, so match the needs and interests of the demographic to the offers you choose to make.
You can set up different websites for different niches, or try to build audiences for specific niches by focusing on one topic over another in a forum. Just be clear about each site's demographic so you can have a better idea of which niches might be successful there and which are likely to fall flat.
If you have just
started and don't have a group following you already, you can just opt to focus on very hot niches
until a demographic naturally clusters around
it. Right now, hot niches include foreclosure prevention, debt consolidation or elimination, Internet
marketing, and frugal topics. Use the Google Keyword
Tool to research popular keywords
and potential new niches.
Hunting Down Those Great Offers
To find great offers that will provoke people to take the action required by the merchant so you can receive payment into your account, place yourself in the visitor's shoes. What are they looking for? What problems are they having trouble solving? What will they be willing to do or not do? Compare that to the average earnings-per-click that is published for the offer to see if it is worth your time and energy market the offer.
Here are the elements necessary to review, in order to determine the value of any CPA offer to your bottom line:
l Earnings Per Click (EPC) – Initially you may be tempted to go only for the highest paying offers, but this can be a mistake. How well an offer converts to a paying action is what really determines whether the offer is suitable for your marketing purposes. Take a look at the EPC for the offer, but don't let that be the only factor in your final decision. An EPC of $50 isn't better than one for $5, for example, if nobody actually follows through to do the action requested.
l Request for Credit Cards – If the offer requires that a visitor input their credit card information, keep in mind that most people are not willing to do that right up front. These kinds of offers generally don't convert well, no matter what the EPC might be.
l Exclusive Offers – If an offer is exclusive to a network and you manage to be accepted in that network, then there will be less competition on the Internet for that offer. An exclusive offer is almost always better for you as a publisher than a non-exclusive offer.
A Little More On EPC
Just looking at the EPC for a particular offer can be a bit misleading. For one thing, the posted EPC is not necessarily the only EPC for that offer; it may be available on a different CPA network for a different EPC. If the offer is exclusive you can be confident in the posted EPC, but if it is not exclusive then you may find yourself competing with other publishers whose offers may have a different EPC. The reasons for this can vary, from inattention on the part of the advertiser to varying campaigns to see what works best. Either way, don't think you’re necessarily going to score with a high EPC if there is a possibility that the offer is structured differently on another networks, making it easier to market or convert for the same product or service.
The EPC also has a specific time frame in which it is calculated. For instance, when a new offer first goes out it might have a terrific average conversion for the first seven days and then drop off as competition becomes stiffer. However, if the EPC is only shown for that first seven day time frame it can be misleading; again, you might end up earning less per click than the posted average. The best thing to do is look for EPCs that are based on longer time frames, like a month. That way you get a clear idea of how well the offer is converting and how much you can safely assume you will make with it.
Understanding these intricacies, the general rule of thumb is to opt for lower EPC offers that will tend to convert at a higher rate; this may be because they require less information to be input, the desired action is simpler, or something similar. Don't let yourself be swayed by high EPC offers because they don't always convert better. Also, always look for offers with cash payments and then try out a few to see how they go.
Cost Versus Profit Potential
Hopefully, you aren't doing CPA offers just for the fun of it….you want to earn MONEY! That's the bottom line, but there are a number of different strategies you might use to make money, some of which cost money up front to begin with. At the very least, it costs you valuable time to code and run CPA offers, so whether it is time or money there is an upfront cost to create an ad campaign that eventually leads to profits.
Profits, though,
aren't just net income. To get a true idea about how well an offer might perform for you, you have to
take into account the costs to implement
it versus the expected profit potential. Once you deduct the costs of implementation from the gross income you
will have the profit potential, but you’ll probably
still wonder how to tell just how much net income you might
make if you choose to implement the offer. There are several ways to come up with a fairly solid estimate, especially if you have a good understanding of your unique traffic and the typical conversion rates for that traffic.
First, however, let's take a look at the potential costs to consider before deciding on an offer to implement.
Your Costs
If you want to try leveraging a PPC campaign with a CPA network ad, then you will have upfront costs to buy the Adwords campaign. You will also have to spend time researching Google keywords and determining the average traffic for the keywords that you choose. An easy way to do this is by using the Google Traffic Estimator located here: https://adwords.google.com/select/TrafficEstimatorSandbox.
This handy tool lets you figure out the average clicks per day for the keyword you’ve selected so you can then put it into the estimator; the best way to do this is to add the keyword but leave the CPC option blank. Don't forget to choose the country to which your offer will be targeted.
Now click “Get Traffic” and see what pops up. The estimator will generate a list showing your keywords and the average clicks per day for each one. You can even sort the list so that the higher traffic ones show up first.
Your Potential Net Income
Now that you have this important bit of information, it is easier not only to figure out what you are likely to pay for an Adwords campaign, but also what you might stand to gain using arbitrage from a PPC campaign to a CPA campaign by comparing the traffic statistics to the EPC stated in the CPA network ad.
Costs here are going to depend on what you are willing to spend for using particular keywords on specific campaigns, and that's entirely up to you as the publisher to decide. Let's assume for now that you find a CPA offer worth $10 per click and you do research on keywords to use it in a PPC-to-CPA campaign. You find several keywords that offer a traffic count of 100 clicks per day. The potential maximum net income would be $1000/day! Of course, you aren't going to realize the maximum every day, but you have a good idea of what the maximum would be if you implemented this ad for this offer. If you decide you are going to use it for a 30 day campaign, the most you can make is $30,000.
Your Potential Profit
However, to run the 30 day campaign
on Adwords, you might end up spending
$1/click for your campaign, maybe limiting it to 100 clicks. That's $100 per day. If you convert 20%, you might get 20 conversions a day, for a total of $200 per day. However, you spent $100 per day on clicks so your potential profit is more like $100 per day. In this scenario your total profit might end up being just $3,000 for the month. However, you know that the more people you get to landon your ad the more people you will convert so it’s reasonable to assume your number of conversions will go up if the number of people you attract to the offer goes up as well. Thus, you can raise your daily limit of how much you want to spend for a campaign and increase the CPC value to attract more advertisers. If you convert more people you can generate more profit, but you also spend more in upfront costs, too.
Not Sure? Test It Out!
If you're still
not sure how much traffic an offer might generate, test it out for seven days to see
what happens. Start small and work your way
up; if you see greater than expected demand for the
offer you can always extend the test period. However, if you see less than expected
demand for the offer you can end the
test quickly so you don’t spend too much money upfront without generating enough profit in the
end.
How Much Is Your Time Worth?
When figuring out the upfront costs for a particular offer, be sure to include the value of the time you spend on research and implementation. Remember, your time is valuable so you don’t want to just throw it away and not get the return that it’s truly worth.
It’s also
important to find any bottlenecks in your work process, and to try automating as much of the work process as
possible; when you smooth out these
kinds of obstacles you increase the efficiency of your work efforts. No matter
how much you try, though, some methods are going to be more work intensive than others; in other
words, these methods require
more upfront
“money” than some other.
In general, writing articles is very work intensive is you do most or all of the writing yourself. Consider hiring a freelancer to ghostwrite articles for you; in most cases you will come out money ahead just in the amount of time and
effort you save yourself. The same holds true for the actual posting of articles; if you don’t want to spend lots of time doing this yourself, hire someone else to take care of it for you. This frees you up to spend more time finding and evaluating hot CPA offers, which in turn helps you generate more income from the entire process.
Generating Cash
Clearly there are a great many ways to make money with CPA offers; however, in this chapter we're going to focus in on four of the best ways to be successful and make money without spending a lot of capital upfront. Whether you are operating on a shoestring budget or have a bit more money to spend, these are still great ways to find terrific CPA offers and set about making money for yourself.
Blogs
A blog is a web log that is updated frequently, displaying the latest post at the top. Depending on how it is set up, you can include a great many features (such as search capability) while still leaving room for advertising in the sidebar or even within the body text of your posts. The only caveat is that you can't do this if your blog is located within a blog community that limits your ability to advertise.
Wordpress.org is the resource most commonly used by bloggers just starting out; there is also a healthy community of bloggers located at Wordpress.com. However, keep in mind that these sites do not allow you to do your own advertising within your blog, so you cannot add CPA offers to your blog site. This pretty much defeats the whole purpose of even having a blog, so you’ll need to look elsewhere for blogging space.
A good alternative is a company like hostgator.com, where you can get hosting for a WordPress site; they will even set the whole thing up for you if you want. This approach requires a minimal cash investment of about $7.95/month, but for that money you are guaranteed that 1) you don't have to know how to set up Wordpress.org yourself, and 2) you can advertise your own CPA offers within the blog.
A blog isn't really recognized until it is at least three months old. If you are just starting, you can opt to have someone write three month's worth of postings and then back date them when you post them to your blog. It will make your blog appear to be older than it really is, plus attract more traffic and fewer hassles with people evaluating your blog.
Once you have a
blog it's just a matter of getting people to your posts by commenting on other people's blogs and
bringing them back to your own with a backlink. The more subscribers you get, the more advertisers you will attract.
Until that time comes, though, you can put up your own CPA offers within the blog posts and also on the sidebar.
Article Submission Sites
Here is a great way to get traffic for practically nothing, other than some of your time. You can visit article directories that are home to free content from all over the web. Generally, they have a large audience of people who are looking for free content to use for their own purposes or who have an interest in a particular topic or niche. At the same time you provide content, you can set up links to your CPA offers and brand yourself an expert author too!
What To Know About Article Submission
l Shorter Articles Are Better – You might be tempted to flaunt your expertise with very lengthy articles, but that’s not a good idea for a web audience that is used to multitasking and flitting from one site to another. Instead, create articles that are between 250 words and 500 words long. You can go up as high as 700 words, but even that's stretching it a bit.
l Use White Space Effectively – People who read online don't want to see a page full of text with no bolding and very little white space; it's just way too tough on the eyes. So don’t be afraid to use plenty of white space, along with specific bolding and italicizing, to draw the reader in and to keep them interested.
l Bulleted Lists Work Well – Like this list, you can create very short articles that highlight specific points and are easy to read on the fly. People are grateful when they can just scan an article and read only what interests them.
l The Resource Box Matters Most – As
an Internet marketer, the only thing
that really matters to you is the resource box found at the bottom of the article. It's there that you
will be allowed to place links to yourself
or, possibly, an outside CPA offer. So be sure you have a snappy message there that begs the reader to click on your
links!
l Submit To More Than One – You may write just one article, but you can submit it to MULTIPLE article directories. You can even automate this process by using software or third party services that provide this option.
The more articles you post out there, the greater the likelihood they will generate more traffic for your CPA offer.
l Keep Your Links Short – Use a service like http://www.tinyurl.com to shorten affiliate links. This will help to improve the number of clicks on the offer because longer links tend to scare people away.
l Your Articles Can Be Rejected – Just because you write an article does not mean the directory has to publish it. Don't worry, though, because you can modify the article to make it publishable or you can try a different directory. Often it's just a question of violating some small rule that the directory asks authors to follow, like avoiding links within the text of an article itself.
Yahoo! Answers
Yahoo! has a forum where anyone can ask or reply to answers posted by the web community. It is a great place to add your CPA offers, whether you do it as a question or an answer. You’ll want to first review potential keywords for your offers so that you know how to best write up your question or reply with an answer.
Asking A Question
Did you find an intriguing offer? Maybe it's too good to believe? You can post a question asking the community if that offer is “for real” or not! You can even ask opinions on the type of offer it is and what may or may not work for your audience. You will find if you write the question in such a way that it stirs the curiosity of the reader, they will find themselves clicking on the link just to see what you're talking about!
Whatever you do, don't be explicit about the fact that it is a CPA offer. Keep it a little mysterious, focus on the content of the offer and the potential benefits it provides. This way, you aren't going to turn off readers who will realize you are posting just so to get people to click your CPA offer.
You may end up getting some negative comments to this effect, but just ignore them. There will be plenty of others who genuinely review the offer and give you their opinion of it. Either way, you know that these people clicked on the link to see what you were talking about and then had the potential to convert if they were the least bit interested.
Replying To A Question
Another way to use the Yahoo! Answers forum is to post replies to other people's questions. You have to try to find questions that relate to your CPA offer. It might be a solution to a problem someone is having or just an extra resource that can help someone make their life easier. Don't try to hard sell the offer; just provide your opinion on it and how it might be of use to the person who asked the question.
Yahoo! Answers are indexed by Google and popular answers can come up to the top for a particular keyword. If you want to see if that's the case, just enter the keyword in the Google search engine and see if a Yahoo! Answer comes up. If it does, open it up and see if you can use that one with your CPA offer.
The same way you
found that question is the same way other people will find it. This way you can leverage Google's
indexing to expose your CPA offers better, having
found some postings in Yahoo! Answers that already have a high search ranking.
Public Web Forums
There are so many web forums and groups on the Internet these days that you can’t possibly post to all of them even if you wanted to! However, they are a great way to easily locate groups within your offer's niche because they categorize people by their interests. Some are just for Internet marketers and web masters, but others, like Yahoo! Groups and Google Groups offer forums for various other topic niches from religion and spirituality to politics and beyond.
What you are most interested in, with any of these groups or discussion forums, is whether the group's policy allows you to post a link to a CPA offer in your post or as part of an automatic signature. If that's the case, then go for it! If you're not sure, check out other people's posts to see if they are using any links either within the post itself or as a part of the signature that gets posted automatically.
Create your own definitive signature for links back to your websites or offers. You will want to update the signature as you promote different offers. Keep it fresh and interesting; don't just say, “Click here.” Instead, put in a lead that will make people want to click the link.
The nice thing about using discussion forums and groups, besides the instant categorization, is that you can search these groups for specific subtopics. This will help you find the posts that you can reply to that fit your CPA offer niche better. Even so, if you just answer people's postings and use a signature line, it won't matter if the post was about your CPA target niche or not. It will just appear on the bottom of the post as part of your online identity.
Another great thing is that you can post any time you want. It doesn't have to be exactly when someone else posts to the site. This is not chat, it is a discussion forum and people will go back and read postings that were placed a day or so ago, especially if they subscribe by email to the group and receive automatic updates.
If you are going
to be joining multiple discussion forums, it's a good idea to organize your user names and passwords
into a system to keep track of them all.
It will be a very hard thing to remember every single one if you've taken to posting
in at least 10 sites or more per week.
Networks
The basic
structures of CPA networks are all the same. There is a place for advertisers and publishers, while the administrators of affiliate accounts
(called affiliate managers)
try to keep both groups happy. In that respect, you're not going to find huge
structural differences from one CPA network
to another.
However, every network does have different pay structures and policies to facilitate the basic function of CPA affiliate advertising. These policies can have a huge impact on potential benefits to you as a publisher.
Another aspect that greatly differs from one CPA network to another is the size of their network and the type of affiliate offers they are promoting. There will be small, medium, and large networks; the larger ones tend to be more selective because they can be, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're going to be better suited to your purposes. The different CPA networks will tend to categorize their offers to make them easier to search and the number of categories and the types can also differ.
Since there are more than 100 CPA networks out there right now, and the number grows daily, it pays to check out what each might offer you. For this chapter, we can only include a few; please remember that these are not endorsements as much as a way to expose the reader to different types of CPA networks. It doesn't mean they are the best for you or your niche, just that they are representative of the various types of CPA networks out there. If you want to see more, you can Google CPA networks and find any number of them on the Web on your own.
Azoogle
Start with the largest CPA network out there, Azoogle.com, which can be very competitive and highly selective. They claim to already have an estimated 38,000 publishers in their network alone. They offer a tremendous number and variety of CPA network offers to keep both their publishers and advertisers happy. This network is very stable and highly credible, which is a plus for publishers who want to be sure they are going to get paid.
The types of offers can range from ringtones to freebies for a form submittal. Since these are popular offers for the Internet with a high conversion rate, a publisher can do well getting into this network.
Affiliate
Another great site is Affiliate.com. They offer many of the same things as Azoogle and also have a very large publisher network. However, one of the nice things about Affiliate.com is that they make weekly payments so you don't have to wait too long for a payout. In comparison, other networks may do different payment options ranging from every 15 days to every month. This can be a really long time to wait for publishers who want to get paid as soon as possible.
Another feature of note is their Data Overdrive service. This service provides solutions for email campaigns. While email campaigns haven't been discussed as fully as other options, if you already have a large email list of subscribers it can be an ideal way to market CPA offers. This is for people who may already have taken the time to build a targeted group of subscribers and already gotten permission to email them. Don't set up this service for spam or you can end up being fined by the government. Always make sure that you have permission to email someone, especially if you are soliciting them.
This CPA network comes with many other types of features from mobile interactivity (a feature called Mbmobileinteractive) to domain services (called Dynamic Dolphin). If you want a one-stop shop for CPA network and web service, it can be a very helpful CPA network to join. Just keep in mind that the prices may not be as competitive as other places, like hostgator.com.
You may also be charged a security fee before you are allowed to get into the network, so there are some upfront costs.
NeverBlueAds
One of the
leading forums for webmasters often mentions this particular CPA Network. NeverBlueAds.com gets kudos for
excellent customer service. It has a friendly user interface. One of the biggest advantages, though, if you are
a
non-US resident is their willingness to take international advertisers. Not all CPA networks will work with outside advertisers, but this network is willing to do so. There are some restrictions, like a requirement for spoken English from the part of the applicant and promotion of ads only on English sites.
For publishers, this is a very friendly site for newbies. It can be a lot more complicated for advertisers because they will be required to know many aspects of developing creative content and graphics for their campaigns.
The site does limit advertisers to specific niches. In particular, they ban adult or gambling sites from their line-up. Other people have noted that they are lenient with people who don't own websites, so if this is an issue for you it would be a good CPA network to try.
HydraNetwork
This network advertises that it will beat the payout on any campaign that is offered elsewhere. That isn't the only incentive that they use to try to differentiate their services. They have carefully crafted a rewards program to attract people and they encourage people to be top money-makers. There are cash prizes available as well as non-cash prizes. Don't be surprised to see a plasma TV or a Hawaiian vacation offered for the rewards program for specific performance based incentives.
If you are looking for exclusive or unique campaigns, HydraNetwork.com strives to include as many of these as possible in their line-up. The reasoning, they suggest, is that more exclusive or unique campaigns will translate to higher conversions for publishers and advertisers. That's actually quite true, as we stated earlier, in that you are not competing with other publishers who may have already saturated the market. It also keeps advertisers somewhat honest in that the EPC is for a particular network and won't differ on another network, since it is exclusive.
ClickBooth
One way to make
money that hasn't been covered in the previous chapters is through referral bonuses. Multiple tiered
programs where your referrals create income
and their referrals can also contribute to your bottom line are the most sought after by Internet marketers. For
ClickBooth.com, there is a very good referral
program available for those people that get accepted into the network. It offers a 2% gross credit for life
for signups under your affiliate
referral id.
That's just the start, as you also get a $10 signup bonus for every person that you refer. Just remember that the 2% is for credit, not cash. It can, however, help you to fund your own advertising campaign if you choose to go that route.
As we discussed
earlier, it's harder to get paid in some networks than others. A Net 15 schedule is a very common way to
pay publishers. It consists of being paid
15 days after the end of the month in which you made money. This can mean that you wait nearly a month and a
half to get paid if you made money near
the beginning of the previous month. They do offer a Net 7 schedule, which is like being paid every week, but that's
only for people who make
$5,000 or more per week. CPA networks do build incentives in for their high performers and once you get into that group, you will see they are willing to work with you in different areas, including payment options.
The minimum payout is $50. If you don't make $50 in a single pay period you have to wait more than a month and a half to get paid, and in some cases more like two and a half months. The income will be credited to your next month's balance and won't be scheduled for a payout until you reach $50 in any given month.
MaxBounty
This site is mostly for merchants right now. They allow advertisers to enroll in multiple campaigns and do all the payroll functionality for them. The network fees are low for advertisers, in order to attract more of them. The fees are 20% right now, and they claim to have 4500 affiliates in their network.
They may be more
selective with publishers, as they are more interested in getting advertisers right now. Even so,
you want to try to get in if you are blocked from niches in other sites like gambling. MaxBounty.com will let people
advertise for gambling
sites. They do have a large range of categories.
XY7
Strange name, but easier to remember than the one they had before: ROIdealsdaily.com. Knowing that, XY7.com can be seen as an improvement. However, if you didn't know that they had changed names you'd probably be wondering how stable it is and whether it is a startup. Don't fret; it is actually seven years old. The network already includes thousands of publishers, too.
FluxAds
This quirky site with a quirky name is highly innovative and worth a look. FluxAds.com has an interesting rewards program paid out in Flux Bucks. The way it works is that publishers can earn Flux Bucks for different things they do. One way to earn a Flux Buck is to simply make $5 of commission. They will then give you 1 Flux Buck for your account for each $5 made. This is their way of encouraging their publishers to be high performers.
What can you do with Flux Bucks? You can buy things from their seven-tiered program that offers prizes at different levels, depending on the number of Flux Bucks you have to spend. It's not hard to get started, either, because FluxAds.com will give each publisher 500 Flux Bucks just for joining up, putting them on the first rung of the seven tiers. Different prizes are offered on different tiers and you can decide to spend your Flux Bucks or attempt to get more commissions to raise your Flux Buck account to the next level. The highest level is at 500,000 Flux Bucks.
As for the types of offers you will see on FluxAds.com, you will see tons of freebie offers which convert well. You will probably even spot some that work well on MySpace type sites. If you are looking for something fun and out of the ordinary, sign up to this site and have some fun while doing your Internet marketing.
Where To Find Additional CPA Networks
As we stated earlier, we can't list all of the available CPA networks in this ebook. There are far too many! However, you can go to places like WarriorForum.com and get recommendations on different CPA networks if you want to join more of them. It is recommended that you do try to join quite a few so that you have an idea which will work best for your niche.
Some of the features
you want to compare
are:
l Payout Schedule – Are they on a weekly,
Net 15 or monthly schedule? How long is
too long to wait for your paycheck?
l Referral Bonuses – Do you get paid for
referring other people? How much is it and does it count
to your minimum
payout?
l Referral Programs – Is the program
multi tiered, paid in cash or credit, and how long
do you make a commission on sub affiliate
payouts?
l Categories – Are your categories or
niches represented in the CPA network or do
you need to go elsewhere?
l User-friendliness – Is it too hard to locate offers? Can you locate someone to help you? Do you have a contact number for your affiliate manager?
Once you have a
list of other CPA networks you want to investigate, be sure to compare them one to another and focus
your attention on those that benefit you the most.
Systematizing
Now that you have a good idea how to make money with CPA networks, it's time to create a system that will take your process to a new level. A good way to do this is to create a flow diagram of the process you use to create income. You can use this diagram to find potential bottlenecks or to help identify where you can automate the process. You can do this with any idea you have about generating cash with CPA networks.
PPC-to-CPA System
When you attempt to make money using a PPC-to-CPA strategy, you have to have some money to start with for the Adwords campaign. The amount of money you have will limit the exposure you get in your PPC campaign, which will ultimately limit your CPA campaign, too. If upfront money is a bottleneck for you, you might want to opt for a different strategy that doesn't require upfront capital.
You are going to
take that money, shove it into a PPC campaign after you search for appropriate keywords and CPA offers that match. You are going
to do an estimate on the amount of traffic and plan out how much money you want to
make and spend at the same time. You will diagram this out for each campaign and then you are going to see if
there is any way to increase the initial PPC campaign or the
backend CPA campaign to get more leverage.
Maybe you can
use other people's money to run a PPC campaign and then pay out a share of the proceeds, if you are
confident you can make it with your profit.
The idea here is to know the system inside and out and then try to create a system that you manage that
doesn't necessarily need your own time and
money to run. It might be outsourcing some of the research, getting tools to find things
quicker, or organizing your work so that it runs more smoothly.
You are going to decide whether you want to buy or use software tools that help you to pinpoint keywords faster, as this is a significant bottleneck for this strategy too. You are going to run some short run tests and you are going to put some campaigns in place after that. Once you get the hang of it, all you do is continue to do the same thing over and over.
Email Marketing
One of the ways
you can organize and automate your CPA network offers is through automatic email campaigns. If you already
have a list of subscribers to some websites or blogs you own, you already
have a means to do an email
campaign with CPA offers. This approach also lends itself well to doing a “hands off” system approach that can work behind the scenes to generate cash, even when you are asleep.
When someone
signs up to your website or blog, you are going to add them to your email list and send them a notice
that you recognize their signup. The fact that
they signed up means they are now in your sales funnel and they've given you permission to send them information via email. If you know which niche
each site or blog is marketing, it’s easy to create separate email lists for different demographics. You then regularly look for offers on the CPA networks for each of those niches and create a listing of all CPA offers that you can use.
You can start to
market people immediately when they sign up. However, you don't want to do a hard sell. The best way
to start marketing people on the first email
where you thank people for signing up is to send them a free infoproduct that can be helpful to their demographic.
Inside that infoproduct you will place links to your CPA network offer
whenever it is appropriate.
You should have campaigns set to promote specific offers at certain times during the year, too. You want to be constantly in touch with your subscribers and offer them as many opportunities to see those CPA network links as you can. You can even place them in your email signature files so that when you are in contact with someone in this way, they get another link.
You can also set up autoresponders so that when specific products are bought on your site they get a backend CPA network offer asking for their opinion on a similar market niche after the sale is finalized. There are so many ways to include links to your CPA network offers via emails that if you have this option, it can be a great way to generate income and have it done automatically through autoresponders and automated email campaigns.
Articles, Postings, And More System
As mentioned earlier, you can submit articles and put a CPA network offer in the resource box. You can submit those articles to multiple directories. Who, however, wants to spend all of their time submitting article after article? It can take quite a bit of time to retype those keywords, resource boxes, titles, or whatever else differs from directory to directory. You don't really have to put yourself through all that pain as there are numerous ways to get this done without having to do it yourself.
One way to do this is to sign up to an article submission service. They will charge you by the article to submit your articles to many different article directories at once. It can be a little expensive, but it also saves tons of time. If it costs $35 for each article per month to go to 25 different sites and you plan on making $1000 from those articles, then it's a small percentage of the profit. Since each article submission service will charge differently, it's not possible to really say for certain what it will cost you. However, you should look up several article submission services and then compare the cost versus what you get.
Another way to automate article submission without paying a monthly charge or a per article charge is to get software that automates the submission process. You can get software specifically for article submission and others that do a whole range of things, from multiple forum postings to Yahoo! Answers too. The more features you get with a software package, typically the more expensive it is. One package that does quite a number of things discussed in this ebook is Web Traffic Machines.
Set Some Cash Goals
In order to test
the effectiveness of any system, you have to set up some objectives and metrics to see if your system meets your
expectations. Since the goal of Internet marketing is to make money, that's your primary objective.
The metric is going to be the amount of profit you make in a set time frame. Before you start, however, you want to set some cash goals. How much money do you really want to make each month? Of course everyone wants to make tons of money, but it's always better to start with smaller, achievable, goals that can help build up your confidence first. Otherwise, if you set yourself a goal of making $100,000 the first month and you don't even know how to make a single dollar a day you simply set yourself up for failure. While it's commendable to be that confident, you don't want to create obstacles to your success from the start.
Be Realistic
The purpose of introducing you to the traffic estimator is to have some
way to realistically measure your
potential profit before you even start setting up the system. If you see that your chosen keywords or niche keywords
typically only generate 10 clicks per day, it's completely unrealistic to hope to make
$100,000 on a CPA network offer that pays $10 for that niche. At most, you could make $100 per day or approximately $3000 per month. Some people will suggest that all you have to do is be confident and think positively, but that doesn't take into account planning your strategy to succeed. If you really want to make that $100,000 you better have a good plan in place that makes this goal realistic, otherwise it's going to be mighty disappointing when your $100,000 doesn't show up.
Now, let's say you opt for the $3000 and you only make $1500. Is that a failure? No, because you've learned that it takes two such campaigns to make the goal that you want. Instead of giving up on the first campaign, you just add another similar one and you've met your goal. Of course, in all likelihood, you will be running multiple campaigns and generating income from various sources. You will then need to keep track of how each one is working for you so you can duplicate the winners and eliminate the losers.
Your Cash System Is Unique
What you will find after all this is that your cash system is unique. That's because your demographics and target niches are unique. You may follow a cookie-cutter template cash system at first, but then you notice that certain types of keywords generate more cash. Maybe you even find that misspelled keywords work better than correctly spelled keywords! You may find that article marketing doesn't work for you, but email marketing has created a mountain of cash for you. If that's the case, you want to focus more in the area that makes you money and tweak that system until it is generating cash in ways that you never thought were possible.
You may even stumble across software that does something simple, but nobody has used it quite the way you're using it. As long as it is making your system more efficient, you don’t need anyone else's permission to use it. You're the boss! There are no set rules for your system because it's unique to you!
Keep Track Of Everything
As you build a system, you aren't just working for someone else; you are creating financial independence for yourself. This comes with a certain responsibility to oversee that system and make sure it complies with all regulations and policies of the people with whom you do business as well as appropriate government entities. That's why most business owners are managers, not workers. They farm out the work to other people so they can manage the system and make it work efficiently and in accordance with the law.
You are going to have to keep track of your income for two purposes: 1. To tweak your system for winners and losers, and 2. To pay your taxes. As an Internet marketer, you are a business owner and you have to keep track of your earnings. This is why many CPA networks demand that their affiliate partners be stationed in the United States. They may require your social security number to report your income to the government. If you don't live here, you don't have a social security number, and it can cause tax problems.
Keep track of your income and your expenses. You are going to have to pay taxes on your income and also self-employment taxes, if this is what you do for a living. The more you get used to keeping track of your expenses and income every month, the easier it will be at the end of the year. It will also be better for you to be proactive modifying the system to create more income and spotting the failures before they become major expenses.
You will want to keep track of the fees that your CPA networks are charging too, as these will eat into your profits. You will want to keep track of which offers and which networks are more successful for your niche as this also impacts your bottom line. Your system doesn't just consist of the details of how to place an offer; it also includes your affiliate partners and networks. Evaluate them with a keen eye to make sure you aren't providing more benefit to them than you are getting in return.
If you track the
income and expenses of each of your networks and offers within the networks on a spreadsheet, you can do some
really nice
comparisons. You
can compare one network’s total income or expenses versus the rest. You can compare
one type of offer in one network to all the other types
of offers on other networks for income and expenses. If you add estimated traffic and conversions based on
that, you might even begin to see which offers are more appealing to your demographic and shift your attention to those. The key is to find the right set
of elements in the total system that will generate
the maximum amount of cash with the least amount of effort from you.
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