Affiliate Sutra

My CPA Network Experience, So far

Posted on January 31, 2010 by Amit

I have been a traditional affiliate with networks like CJ, GAN, LS. I wanted to give CPA networks a try. So I did some reading, searched the internet and applied to some of the CPA networks like ClickBooth, NeverBlue, MarketLeverage, Hydra Networks and COPEAC.

I got declined by ClickBooth and MarketLeverage and HydraNetwork which was kind of a let down, since I have been in the affiliate marketing field for a few years now, been relatively successful. I replied back to the rejection letters highlighting my experience and my promotional methods.

ClickBooth invited me back and I was kind of impressed to learn that require their affiliates to pass a test with 80% before they let you in. It was a pain to watch the test videos, though clearing the test was easy.

I still haven’t heard back from Hydra or MarketLeverage about reconsidering my application.

Affiliate marketing is just one of the many ways of making money off of a web site and shouldn’t be the only way

Now About Promoting CPA offers:

Finding a good CPA offer you can promote with conviction has been a little challenging for me. And the fact that I had my apprehensions about CPA marketing hasn’t helped. Being a traditional affiliate, I try to build long term sites catering to a specific niche, that will live even if my association with certain vendors doesn’t last for ever. Affiliate marketing is just one of the many ways of making money off of a web site and shouldn’t be the only way.  But most CPA offers seem very short term. Finding a CPA offer that caters to a long term niche is difficult.

Finding a CPA offer that caters to a long term niche is difficult.

Rebill Offers: Most of the CPA offers are rebill offers that Google(Adwords) hates. So they are totally ruled out.

Email/Zip Submits: There are many email or zip submit offers. The bounty on these offers are a few dollars and  promoting them through any kind of ppc advertising will not be feasible. Also building a new site for such offers which may not last more than a few months can’t be justified.

Health Related Offers are plentifully available on most CPA networks. They are mostly in the weight loss, teeth whitening, beauty niches. But most are free trial with auto-rebill after the trial period is over and so fall under the rebill offers.

Once I rule out all the above kind of offers, I am left with very few, which is ok. These are name brand, legitimate, respectable merchants in the shopping, technology, lifestyle niches. I found two vendors who I already promote from CJ but the offers for these vendors on the CPA network is different. Where on CJ the commission is based on sale, on the CPA network the commission is based on leads. So I decided to give a few such merchants a try since I was already familiar with them and know how they convert.

Merchant# 1

In Google Adwords, for Merchant# 1, who is in the shopping niche, I built a separate landing page based on the CPA offer and created a new ad for the same keywords I am already bidding on. And then split tested both the ads. Ad #1 going to the CJ landing page where I get a percentage of the sale. Ad# 2 going to the CPA landing page where I get a fixed amount if the user signs up with the merchant.

After running both the ads for a few weeks, I got zero conversion from the CPA landing page, when the other ad had a few conversions. As a result I stopped the CPA ad. So it was a failure.

Merchant# 2

Again in the shopping niche, name brand merchant, CPA offer is very similar to the other offer, but the commission is higher through the CPA offer. Did the exact same thing as above. A new 2nd ad going to a landing page with the CPA offer. Ran both the ads for two weeks and, guess what, the CPA offer performed better and so its a keeper. Let me see how it performs on the long run.

To summarize, I am still a bit uncomfortable with finding the right CPA offer and figuring out the best way to promote them. Oh boy, does that bring back some memories from when I was starting out with affiliate marketing. But I am ok with the learning curve.

I will stick to my rules. I will promote offers that seem legitimate to me, no rebill offers, no get-rich-overnight kind of offers.

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