What are CPA networks
Marketing is about attracting customers. It originated at the end of the 19th century, and lectures at universities began at the beginning of the 20th. The development of this direction led to the emergence of affiliate marketing.
Affiliate marketing is the sale of other people's goods or services for a commission. That is, it is not necessary to have your own product at all: you make a profit for selling another. A perfect example is Pepsi. Any seller participates in affiliate marketing.
Now about what affiliate programs are. CPA marketing is one of the special cases of affiliate marketing, with only one difference:
CPA marketing is receiving payment for a specific customer action, lead or application.
That is, CPA networks are an intermediary between the client who wants to receive targeted actions and the performer who provides these targeted actions to the client. CPA networks provide:
- Attracting advertisers and performers.
- Selection of advertising platforms.
- Accounting for transitions and targeted actions.
- All the work involved in paying for the actions.
That is, the CPA network bears quite a lot in terms of organizing the relationship between the advertiser and the webmaster/arbitrator. And the exclusion of such an “intermediary” from the chain can deprive both parties of the guarantee of fulfillment of their obligations.
How to make money on CPA networks and affiliate programs
Despite the huge number of types of earnings online, in large areas the following scheme works:
(Product + People who might buy it) & Tell these people about this product = $
This applies to e-commerce, arbitration, information business, etc. - that is, the virtual segment of the business.
Making money on CPA networks is an excellent example of how this scheme works. You register on the site, choose interesting offers - this is a product. Next, you analyze the target audience that this product may be suitable for—these are people who can buy it. Next, you talk about the product using tools, present an advertising offer and turn ordinary people into leads.
All the ways in which you talk about a product can be called tools. And it doesn’t matter what it will be: an advertising campaign, articles on the website, teaser blocks or personal correspondence. A simpler scheme:
Product + Tool = Profit.
The main advantage of working with CPA networks is profit. With the right approach, you can get more from a website than from advertising. But for this you will have to try: create thematic sections, approach the creation and design of articles correctly, understand which target audience a certain advertisement will suit.
Paid traffic sources (traffic arbitrage)
The arbitrator’s task is to find the most successful combination of two factors:
- A product that exactly fits a specific target audience and solves its problems;
- A way to generate traffic that attracts exactly this audience and allows you to get the greatest return on your advertising budget.
For different offers, you can use targeted advertising on VKontakte, MyTarget and targeting on Instagram. Ads are shown only to those audiences that meet the specified parameters (gender, age, interests, marital status and other data).
Advertising in Push mailings for some GEOs allows you to get cheap traffic and, with the right approach, converts well. Teaser networks are suitable for any affiliate program, but working with them requires setting up black lists. This can only be done with large budgets, so this method of advertising is not recommended for beginners.
Who can earn money from affiliate programs?
There are two large categories of people who can make money from CPA affiliates: people without a traffic source and with a traffic source. Let's talk about the latter first.
People who have their own source of traffic are always looking for how to monetize it - that is, turn visitors into money. Even with the best intentions, like creating useful content, everyone is looking for ways to make money. And CPA marketing is one of the options for how you can monetize your traffic source.
The following can be considered as a traffic source:
- Own website/blog. You publish useful
Where to look for product offers to make money?
Of course, in CPA platforms these are intermediaries who have their own percentage for each transaction. This is where advertisers post their sales proposals (offers). Arbitrators can only choose one of the ready-made options.
But not every network allows you to find a suitable affiliate program. Some large Admitad aggregators work mostly with online stores or are designed for completely different niches.
Exclusively product marketing can be carried out in the following networks and affiliate programs:
- Actionpay;
- Advertise;
- Everad;
- LuckyShop;
- Shakes;
- Terra leads;
- KMA;
- M1-shop.
It is recommended to register with all of these CPA and product affiliate programs in order to have a large selection.
List of the most interesting Russian and foreign CPA networks
Choosing the right affiliate program is one of the most important stages of working with CPA networks. If you choose a bad company, it is quite possible that you will not receive a profit (at best), and at worst, you will simply be blocked without explanation. Therefore, choose only proven sites from the list, carefully read the rules and work “in white”:
- Admitad.
- kma.biz.
- Leads.
- M1Shop.
- CityAds.
- ActionPay.
- Gdeslon.
- AD1.
- SalesDoubler.
- Shakes.
At first you will have to work exclusively with the CIS segment. It’s better not to enter the European market without large budgets. There, it costs affiliates over $10,000 to test one offer, and webmasters are no less versed in attracting traffic.
Choose several sites. Working with only one of them will not be very convenient: different offers are divided into different categories, different opportunities are provided for webmasters and affiliates, payment for attracting a lead is different, call centers - the work of which DIRECTLY determines how much money you will receive.
Earning money from offers: step-by-step instructions
Step 1. Selecting a partner platform.
Quite an important step. Choose a site from those suggested above. Register for several, get access to offers, see what you can work with.
Don't be afraid to register on new sites. This is a great opportunity to get started: there will be fewer restrictions on the number of offers and more freedom.
Step 2. Selecting specific offers.
At first glance it seems easy. However, an experienced webmaster and arbitrator can make a gold mine out of an exhausted offer, but a beginner cannot do this.
Try to choose either very popular offers from a topic that is in active demand, or chase new offers.
A striking example of the obsolescence of offers is computer games. As soon as a new project has been released, users have only heard something about it, and they are not tired of advertising, you can “break the bank.” As soon as 6 - 12 months pass, interest will dry up, and you will have to try to squeeze at least something out of the game.
For those who have a source of traffic, it is important to choose an offer that is close to the topic of your resource. Nobody needs online games on a serious personal finance portal.
Step 3. Analysis of the target audience.
Probably the most important step on this list. You need to understand who your audience is, what they want from the product, and how you can make them think that the product is what they need.
Many books, articles and magazines are devoted to analyzing the target audience. Initially, this will be enough for you: go to the affiliate program, look at the breakdown by region, age/gender, and try to form a picture in your head. But then you will have to improve in this area: study psychology, marketing, copywriting.
Step 4. Configure the traffic source.
If you have your own source of traffic that has been working for some time, by changing something, you may lose regular visitors, and therefore the opportunity to earn money.
But if you don’t change anything, in the future you will make less profit.
We need to find the weak points of the target audience, hit them with a specific offer and show that this particular product will solve their problem. And it doesn’t matter what it is: a weight loss cream, an online game or a banking product - the scheme is the same.
Step 5. Attracting clients.
After setup, you can start attracting clients. If this is your source of traffic, place links, advertisements and banners on it. If you want to be an advertiser, then work with an advertising campaign.
Step 6. Additional twist.
For example, you did everything right and even made some profit. But stopping there is the height of stupidity. You need to constantly improve to get more money. A client clicks on one of 3 advertisements in your personal account? Remove those two and make others. Does a client click on your ad but not stay on the site? This means we need to make another landing page.
You can increase advertising almost indefinitely. You can play with posts, create feature articles on the site, watch how the audience reacts to different banners, etc.
Working with CPA networks is not about creativity. This is about tough, constant analysis, additional development and endless mathematics.
Step 7. Making a profit.
This is the simplest step: you received the money and put it into circulation. You can proceed to step 2 again. The main task of working with affiliate programs is to establish a work cycle so that everything is like a well-honed mechanism:
Waste of money - leads - profit - waste of money.
These 7 steps sound very simple. In reality, everything is more complicated. Each stage can be completed, improved and looked for additional options for earning money.
How to choose an offer?
In the catalog of popular CPA platforms you will find more than 50 offers. Agree, it’s easy to get lost among so many. Don't panic. I have several recommendations to help you make the right choice.
Take the time to open Excel, write down your preferences, collect your analysis, and compare your options.
Think about what niche you would like to work in. There are plenty of them. Online games, weight loss products, air tickets, hotels, etc. I advise you to choose a direction where you are the target audience. You will be able to understand: what you like, where the extra information is, what advertising is catchy.
Don't be fooled by high commissions. Such offers have complex targeted actions. You will need experience to earn money from them. Focus on offers with simple actions: registration, subscription to the newsletter.
Expensive and complex products are rarely purchased from teaser networks.
Choose offers with a wide geotag. Not all traffic sources are configured for a specific region. Visitors from countries that do not fall under the terms of the offer may enter.
Checking the offer for profitability and demand
If the product is not interesting, then there will be no money. It’s easy to check an offer for attractiveness to the audience.
Google, search in Yandex by the name of the product, online store. If there are a lot of advertisements at the top, there is demand. Disadvantage: you cannot find out the conversion percentage or sales level.
Look at Google Trends, just Yandex is not enough. Enter the name of the goods and see the level of demand for the goods on the chart.
The safe book from AliExpress has not yet gained popularity, although there is a lot of contextual advertising.
You can add another product for comparison at the top. I decided to find out what is more popular: goji berries or a safe book. As you can see, trading berries is more profitable.
Search in Yandex. Wordstat. The number of requests will show how popular the offer is.
You can also find out about the seasonality of the product in the “Request History” section.
In April and after the holidays, belts and diet pills sell well. Girls dream of losing weight a few weeks before the beach season.
But watches and curling irons are eagerly purchased at any time of the year. The number of impressions is always from 100,000 to 200,000.
Region influences demand. Please take this into account when choosing an offer.
Create a seasonal calendar of goods and make a profit all year long.
Borrow from competitors. The Publer service in demo mode will show what is currently being played on the teaser network, VK and myTarget. There you can view competitors’ advertisements and analyze them.
Go to the offer website. See how easy it is to complete the target action. If you can’t figure it out in 5 minutes, then the potential client will get confused and close the page. There will be no profit.
Pay attention to eCPC, conversion, rating and approval.
eCPC – average earnings per click. Example: a webmaster has 100 clicks and 10 downloads of an application for 5 rubles. We calculate: 10 downloads * 5 rubles / 100 clicks = 0.5 rubles. eCPC is too low.
Choose offers with a conversion rate (CR) above 1.1%. Calculation formula: (number of leads / traffic) * 100.
Judging by the conversion rate, AliExpress is in great demand. And the cost per click is decent.
Look at the rating in the catalogue. Webmasters give asterisks to offers.
It is advisable to work with products whose approval is above 30%. In the catalog of affiliate programs, the indicator is often referred to as AR or the number of rejected and accepted leads is written, so you can count it yourself.
If you have any doubts, contact the CPA network manager. Tell us how and with what help you would like to attract traffic, what kind of platform you have. The manager will select a suitable offer. It's in his best interest. Without webmasters, the exchange will have no income.
How much can you earn in CPA networks?
A beginner cannot make money without a source of traffic. Even if you are lucky, you “point your finger at the sky” and, for example, from 300 rubles in a couple of clicks you raise several thousand rubles, then in a week you will lose money. Because there is no system.
Therefore, I don’t promise mountains of gold at all. And restrictions on withdrawals from CPA networks can actually hit your budget. Because the money is spent, the profit is received, and the withdrawal still has to wait a whole week. But average affiliate traders, working alone, receive a net income of 50,000 rubles.
For your source of traffic on advertising, earnings are approximately as follows: 1 visitor per day gives 1.5 rubles per month.
Focus on this indicator first. Over time it will get taller.
How to attract clients?
There are two schemes for working with the affiliate program:
- Traffic + offer. Suitable for beginners. First, you create a platform, gain traffic, and then select an offer to suit the interests of your audience.
- Offer + traffic. For professionals. You choose an offer and create it according to its theme, sharpening the platform. To do this, you need to have a good understanding of what traffic arbitrage is.
Platforms where you can post creatives:
- social networks (Facebook, Instagram, VK, OK);
- own website (landing page, blog);
- forum;
- classifieds website (Avito, Yuppi);
- YouTube channel.
Don't know where to start and how to attract clients? Find out how to increase traffic and conversion in the “Make Money with Affiliate Programs” course. Sign up right now to get passive income from 20,000 rubles.
Where to attract traffic from:
- contextual advertising (paid);
- search engine optimization of articles, headlines, selection of the right hashtags and tags;
- targeted advertising on social networks (paid);
- advertising in other communities;
- e-mail newsletter.
Be careful! Each offer has its own requirements for traffic sources. Contextual advertising and email distribution may be prohibited.
