Beginner Series: Simple Method for Direct Linking to Profits

So to commemorate the launch of my new website AffiliateSuccess.com, I wanted to share a very simple but fun method that I’ve used to quickly find profitable campaigns.

The great thing about this approach is that its quite easy to do and you can setup campaigns super quick. You don’t have to worry about ripping or split testing landing pages, which means you focus your time on gathering offers to test and reviewing your campaign data to locate the winners.

The Strategy

This method is so simple I feel like I’m not really giving you any tips. But maybe some of you will find this a great starting point that has an easy barrier to entry but keep in mind, you’re not likely to trick any huge campaigns with this approach.

The overall concept of the method is…

1. Pick one traffic source.
2. Choose one country to test offers for.
3. Select one main mobile carrier for the chosen country that has lot of mobile 1-click or 2-click offers.
4. Gather atleast 40 offers from one or more affiliate networks.
5. Setup a general test camp and direct link to the offers.
6. Remove offers that aren’t converting.
7. Blacklist poor performing placements.
8. Profit.

Pick a Traffic Source

So which traffic source should we use? Well, if you’re just starting out this method works exceptionally well with Zeropark and PopAds. That’s because these two sources have great traffic volume in many geos, PopAds even shares specific traffic estimates for the target settings you select and they show the average CPMs currently expected in the country you are wanting to test in.

Some things to keep in mind… since we are targeting mobile carrier traffic we will not be able to bid super low like you can on some types of campaign methods and offer types. There is also a more limited amount of mobile carrier traffic so when you find something that works, you will need to test and scale to other traffic sources.

Choose a Country

This part doesn’t require too much thinking. Basically any country that has 1-click or 2-click offers and plenty of them. Some of those countries are India, Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippians, Brazil and more. So don’t spend alot of time on this, just do some basic research and pick one.

Select a Mobile Carrier

Now, some countries are large enough to have several big mobile carriers and plenty of traffic for each of them. While others are smaller countries or only have one or two main mobile carriers. The last thing you want to do is get stuck trying to test and promote alot of offers that are designed for a mobile carrier who has very little market share. So again, do some basic research and choose wisely. This step is pretty straight-forward.

Gather Offers

Picking the right offers is not something you have to think much about with this method. Many of the offers you will be test you may not even know what the offer landing page looks like because you will be unable to access. While other may have screenshots of the landing page on the affiliate network you are gathering them from but even those screenshots may not be fully accurate.

There are lots of affiliate networks that have 1-click and 2-click offers. Two particular networks that I like to test with are Avazu and ClickDealer because they usually have a ton of offers to work with.

For example, if I were using Avazu I would simply log into my account and do the following steps:

1. Click Performance Ads
2. Click Mobile Campaigns
3. Click Filter By Traffic and select the country I am targeting.
4. Select Search Campaigns and type in the mobile carrier I have selected.
5. Click the Sort Tab that says Rankings.
6. You can hover over the offer and see the rankings and how popular that offer currently is.
7. Then grab the first 20 offers (or more) that allow direct linking.

Here is an example of one of the offers:

Setup Test Campaign

Next, you would add the offers to your tracker, like Voluum, and then setup a RON campaign on your chosen traffic source. You will simply be direct linking to the offer and have a flow setup to rotate several offers at once. Setup the targeting to be only your chosen GEO and the one mobile carrier you are testing.

I prefer to test the offers in batches of 5-10 but you can test as many as you would like at one time. Just be sure to allow enough traffic to run through the campaign that gives each offer a chance to convert before putting new offers in to test.

Pro Tip – I suggest that you start your bidding atleast 2x or 3x times the average bid and thats just to start. For example, on Zeropark I would run a little bit of traffic and then look at what the top bid is for some of the higher volume placements. If you are bidding $0.002 and the average top bid shows that it is $0.0075 then you are bidding way too low for the best traffic. In the beginning you will need to increase your bid to between 50-75% of the average top bid, so I would up it to $0.0055. And later you will likely need to increase it quiet a bit more to remain competitive. This is something that you will grasp better with time as you start to test and get more familiar with buying traffic.

Remove Non-Performing Offers

This is something else that varies but from my experience if an offer is hot and is going to work on your traffic source by direct linking, you will notice conversions coming in pretty quick. So if after approximately $5 spent per offer, if you aren’t get any conversions, you may want to consider replacing the offers with new ones to test. Now this estimate of what to spend will vary by GEO and offer payout but if you are testing offers in the $0.25 to 0.75 range, that should give you a good starting point to see if an offer will convert for you.

Also to note, during this phase I would not blacklist or cut any segments of traffic unless a particular high volume placement is just spending all of your budget without any conversions.

Once You Find a Converting Offer

After identifying a converting offer you will then need to remove all the other offers from your flow and just run traffic to this one offer exclusively.

Monitor its performance and be sure to quickly blacklist any placements that aren’t converting within $1-2 dollars of spend.

Profit

At that point, you should be seeing some green coming into the picture and you will start to make up for your testing budget and beyond.

Here is a quick snapshot of one simple campaign and the results I was able to achieve following this exact method outlined above.

Campaign Details

Spend: $339.12
Revenue: $572.16
Profit: $233.04
Timeframe: The campaign lasted for 3 Days

Pro Tip – Another great way to scale this campaign or to determine if using a landing page is better. After you find a converting offer, take the offer page domain name and go to Adplexity, click on the By Advertiser tab, select the Search In “All of the Above” option and insert the offer domain name and click search. You sometimes can find unique and creative landing pages that would be a good idea to split test along with your direct linking.

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I hope this encourages you to try a new and simple method. Again, this method will not likely take you to huge profit but its a great method to get started with and get some experience under your belt as you continue your journey into affiliate marketing. Plus, there are tons of countries and offers that you can test with this method.

Good Luck!