Affiliate marketing has made businesses millions and ordinary people millionaires.
The more traffic you pull, the more profit you generate. That’s not an optimistic view for affiliate marketers because this is a myth. On the contrary, the biggest fact of affiliate marketing is that a lot of things can go wrong while setting up a campaign. From creatives to sources of traffic, there are 14 factors that can turn your campaign into a hit or a complete flop.
We have compiled a list of key factors that affect a campaign’s results and how as an affiliate marketer you can bend them to get the maximum revenue.
Preparation And Strategy
The first step to setting up a campaign is to prepare for it and this is one thing that a lot of marketers don’t stress on, resulting in poor performing campaigns.
Before you start buying traffic, as a smart marketer you need to know about your offer. Once you have in depth information on the product that is being advertised, the conversion type, the target region and your audience, only then you should run a campaign.
Another thing that can change the game for you is your targeting settings. The best way to go about it is to start with a broader setting and then narrowing down based on the test results. Marketers who limit their target audience before testing have a higher chance of losing their ‘conversion window’ which means that their money went in vain.
Don’t skimp on studying the offer and audience or extensive testing. A lot of preparation and smart strategies pay off.
Budget
Your budget decides the kind of offers you can work with so it becomes an important factor in deciding the further strategy.
The money you need to start can vary significantly with every offer. For instance if your budget is $100, running crypto offers will be futile since one would need a much larger budget.
If you are new to this business and don’t want to throw too much money on testing complicated offers, you can start from simpler things. Push subscription, mobile content and dating offers can be a good start.
Your experience of handling certain offers plays a big role. So following the advice of experienced professionals and the recommendation in your account is a good idea.
Offer/Vertical
Before choosing an offer you should reflect on your financial resources, optimization skills, traffic source potential and the likes.
It is best to start with an offer that has a simple flow and conversion. This way you’ll grow your operational funds and polish your skills before starting with more complicated offers and conversions.
Conversion Flow
A lot of campaign settings depend on conversion flow, like campaign budget, time targeting and frequency.
The general rule of thumb here is that the simpler your conversion is, the broader will be the campaign settings. The more complicated the conversion gets, the more precise traffic you will need which will need better optimization skills and also more money for testing.
Simpler conversions are less costly whereas complicated conversions are expensive and affiliates like that. But more resources are needed for such conversions so rushing into it is not a good idea especially if you are new to a traffic source or a vertical.
GEO And Its GEOpolitical Situation
Often overlooked, but the GEO and the geopolitical situation of the region play a part in deciding the fate of your campaigns. It is better for a marketer to know what they are dealing with.
Knowing the culture specifics of the country makes it easier to convert the users. So it is best to read about the GEO, especially if it is new to you. Being aware about local cultures can help you make the right creatives. Also you can avoid running campaigns in the “dead hours” when people are not using internet.
Having knowledge about the country’s political and religious situation can help you avoid creating insensitive ads that usually receive abuse warnings when people report them.
Language
Language is an important aspect of setting target audience and is associated with the GEO. You can select language targeting in offers that require more specific audience for conversions.
For example if you want to run an offer only for the French speakers of Canada, you can select the corresponding settings. This way you can eliminate the audience that does not perform well. Focusing on the audience that is more likely to convert will increase your revenue.
Platform And OS
Even though this target setting depends on the offer, it is important to understand that as a marketer you need a different approach to work on different platforms. Since users interact differently on different platforms, the way we address them on these platforms should also be tailored.
It is understood that users of iOS and Android will not behave alike, nor will users of macOS and Windows. You need to study the behavior of users of different platforms to get the most conversions. In order to gain information about their level of trust to offers of your kind, ability to pay and representation in the country, you will need to run tests and analyze statistics.
Browser
Closely related to the operating systems, the browser also can factor into your revenue. If you have been in the industry for a while, you already know that some offers perform better on Chrome than they do on Firefox and vice versa. So targeting users based on the browser they use can help you spend your money more effectively.
In order to know what browser performs better on your offer, you can either consult the offer owner or even run tests on your own and come to a conclusion.
Traffic Source
Choosing the right traffic source can make a huge difference on the performance of your offer. It is often tricky and you need to trust it completely before you invest your money in it.
One thing to beware of in the traffic market is frauds and you need to make sure your traffic source is verified. To not make a major mistake here, you should be able to spot such dodgy traffic source and stop buying it.
A smart marketer would know that if something looks too good to be true in terms of numbers and stats then cross checking it is a must.
Ad Format
Your conversions are largely dependent on the ad format you select. Mixing different ad formats in the starting will help you find the most effective combination of target settings. You are more likely to get expensive conversions this way.
Another thing to note here is that you should start with the format recommendations specified in the offer. Paying attention to this little detail can save you a lot of money in testing.
Creatives
People experienced in the field swear by one thing- if an offer requires creatives then that is the most important factor in the campaign’s success.
The major problem is that all creatives, ranging from push notifications to landing pages, everything gets old very quickly. So you need to constantly come up with new stuff but relying on spy tools might not do you much favor. Since once a creative becomes effective, it is picked up by others and this happens to every affiliate.
The best way out is to have a flow of new creatives while optimizing the ones you have. Your campaigns will not burn out on a particular traffic this way which is common in narrow targeting.
Frequency
How many conversions you get by the end of the day also depends on the frequency. But before you select a frequency, you need to be clear about the goal you have in mind.
For example, if you want to attract as many users as possible since you want to increase your brand awareness, then you wouldn’t want to cap the frequency. On the contrary, if you want to get a specific audience for your offer, then it is best to set a limit and only get unique audience.
Time Target
This factor may already be mentioned in your offer like if it says that traffic is not accepted during certain hours on certain days.
You can get the best performing traffic through this after your initial testing. If you see your audience is most active during certain hours of the day, you can remove some hours from your time targeting that you are buying for no reason and narrow down your window. This tool is best for optimization and should be used sparingly for testing.
Testing Period Duration
From understanding traffic performance to campaign optimization, testing period is the thing that affects everything and is thus a primary factor in determining conversions.
The testing period depends largely on the budget at hand but it is recommended to stretch it at least 3-4 days to collect data since a very less testing period would get insufficient and also misleading information.
Conclusion
There are so many factors that are deciding your conversions and you can use them to your advantage. Understanding each of these factors and where it affects your campaigns is crucial and then all it takes is optimizing your campaigns keeping in mind everything you’ve learned from testing.
