Keeping up with the Adultians (9)
Stackers, how can you make adult work in mid 2014? August, you hear? It's August, its already halfway through the year. Are you ticking off those goals?
You've gotta start thinking about gaining that extra edge. Adult a few years back, money central, go back even further and it was a stupidly lucrative market but now with the low entry barrier and easy ability of spying the market has become a lot harder to make profit in.
So what are some tactics you can use to keep alive in this rapid paced industry? You need to keep a few steps ahead.
A story all too familiar:
Joe Aff goes to a network, grabs their ‘best’ offer, spies around and rip some common landers and banners, chucks it straight up on Trafficjunky Video A and he is making money…….. wait a second, are you for real? this is not 2006 anymore the hungry competition of affiliate marketing has pushed for evolvement and many of the easy exploits have vanished.
You’re going to need to do what others don’t want to do. Work more, work harder, work smarter.
So how do you gain that edge?
1. Relationships: If you’re working with a direct advertiser or a network, maintain communication. Before you jump straight in, ask the source of your offer itself, what are they looking for, what is the most common practice to getting higher payouts, higher caps. By not making the same mistakes most do, you already have a step forward in the right direction in what they’re looking for. There is almost no way better to get ahead of the pack, then getting ridiculous rates or caps. Mix of 2 is the end game for your competition.
I’ve mentioned in another post that many of the guys in the US adult wap game, established great relationships with advertisers in the beginning and have been riding this money wave for a long time. They may get up to over $3 a lead, exclusive landing pages, exclusive offers, unlimited caps. How is an affiliate supposed to compete at $1.10 vs $3? Not going to happen. Build your networking. A friendly conversation focused on expanding your longevity will not only uplift your mood but keep your pockets lined for a long time ahead.
Having a good affiliate manager is a strong foundation for your affiliate business. Keep close with them, keep in contact. If you’re working with networks make sure you’re getting feedback whenever possible from the advertisers/merchants themselves. But also a good tip for adult is not to jump the gun in asking for pay bumps. If you ask too early before the leads have time to mature you will get the boot straight away.
Finch also just wrote a brilliant post on the RevShare route of relationships
2. Traffic: There are so many different adult traffic sources out there, Trafficjunky, Trafficforce, Trafficfactory, Pimpads, Exoclick, Juicyads, Reporo, Star-advertising, adxpansion, traffic broker, adult sense, trafficmack, crakmedia, trafficshop, traffichaus, etology, gtsads, adbucks, blacklabelads, adultadworld the list goes on!
How many sources do you seen in the follow alongs of this forum, how many sources have you tried on your own? I see very little.
Have your thought about contacting the sites/placements you’re profitable on, or close to profitable on to see if they will sell you direct flat rates? This alone can dramatically cut your fees, the middle man is no longer. I haven’t touched self serve networks for some time now as I can get traffic for 30%+ cheaper from buying it direct, and the quantities available will make your head spin.
Test more sources, test the ones not commonly heard. If you’re profitable or close, see if you can cut the middle man.
3. Masterminds/Partnerships/Teams: I recently had breakfast with cmdeal in Melbourne and we had a really good discussion on the space of affiliate marketing and the difference to other industries. Affiliate marketing is a very lone wolf game, I don’t know why exactly it developed into such a secretive space but many people working on their own for crumbs have maybe overlooked the cakes right in front of them. We always talk about masterminds here on STM and the most simple take off from it, is not making the same mistakes. If you have a team of 4, vs 4 individuals. is that the 1 mistake made by the 4 is only made once, but if working alone the same mistake can be made by all. If you work as a team, you’re already 75% ahead then if you were individual.
Maybe instead of holding your own empire, joining forces with other major players you can literally begin to dictate the terms with the advertisers. it also creates real value, in terms of your business. Direct/exclusive relationships. Direct/exclusive partners = Value.
4. Think outside the Box: 300x250 video placements are not the only placements available. If you’re on a low budget, I would not even bother with them. Still to this very day I hear of 500-700%+ roi on campaigns, this is awarded to those who have acted on a different path. How many of you have tried skyscrapers on Trafficfactory, how many of you have tried tier 2 or 3 countries for these placements? No? Not making money? Close this thread and get to work.
There is life beyond 300x250 and 315x300. 150x240, 280x210, 284x92, 300x100, 300x320, 305x99, 338x235, 468x60, 180x1030 just to name a few 
Big affiliates get there by working more, working harder, working smarter. Stackman split tests more then anyone I’ve ever met a standard campaign for him begins with 25 lander variations it blows my mind. TEST TEST, money is there. Affiliate marketing does not mean autopilot money from little no work, well at least in the beginning. Its a real business, there are real struggles, there is real time commitments, there is real sacrifices, but the reward will be worth it, not to mention the skillets and mindset advantage over your peers.
Test every idea possible, there is not a single day that affiliate marketing does not remind me to expect the unexpected. Test all offers, like I said in this post testing a web offer on mobile turned out to be a big game changer for testing options for me, and profits.
Bonus Tip: You can create some great longterm campaigns by Googling around for fetish websites that are very poorly monetised. http://www.pornmd.com/live-search allows you to see a live feed of search terms, the Angles are virtually LIMITLESS. You think Juicyads is easy for spotting some great buys? I’ve had campaigns running for over a year from scouting google for some obscure fetishes, getting in contact with the webmaster getting traffic for next to nothing and building out banners/landers to match the fetish site.
Gold Maynzie ! Pure gold 1
Awesome nuggets in that there post, its given me a few ideas and some fresh thinking 
Golden advice here, thanks Josh.
You wrote this topic after seeing my follow along yesterday, right?
If you don't mind, how do you set up a direct buy? I mean, technically.
Do you use an adserver? Do you use some in-house solution you've coded yourself?
How can you split test your banners and deal with all the GEOs on the sites when you go direct?
As for the terms of the contract between you and the site owner, how do you reduce the risks of buying a weak spot?
I hope you can answer these questions
Awesome advice! I'm quickly learning that in order to profit, you have to go against the herd. “Its Better to Destroy the BOX than to Think outside the BOX.” - some smart guy
You wrote this topic after seeing my follow along yesterday, right?
If you don't mind, how do you set up a direct buy? I mean, technically.
Do you use an adserver? Do you use some in-house solution you've coded yourself?
How can you split test your banners and deal with all the GEOs on the sites when you go direct?
As for the terms of the contract between you and the site owner, how do you reduce the risks of buying a weak spot?
I hope you can answer these questions
Do you use an adserver? Do you use some in-house solution you've coded yourself?
I was recommended EPOM by a few dudes on this forum, I am possibly one of the least technically experienced people on this forum there is no chance I could self code anything I have always tried to keep things as simple as possible and focus on my strengths, technical stuff is not one of them hence outsourcing is what I do.
As for the terms of the contract between you and the site owner, how do you reduce the risks of buying a weak spot?
Ask for a few days trial, don't enter right into a monthly buy
Solid post man. I have been getting campaigns profitable on adult over the last couple months and have been trying to figure out how to take it to the next level. This definitely gives me some ideas.
Gold mine!
"Still to this very day I hear of 500-700%+ roi on campaigns, this is awarded to those who have acted on a different path. How many of you have tried skyscrapers on Trafficfactory, how many of you have tried tier 2 or 3 countries for these placements? No? Not making money? Close this thread and get to work. "
what are tier 2 and tier 3 countries? any help? thanks.
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