Why is it way so harder to get profit on US offers? (15)
There's a lot more of competition of course, but there're a lot more of users too.
Anyway, I yet have to be profitable in US, but I'll keep you posted..
I'd be interested to hear from some of the bigger guys about running in the US UK CA AU
I've made a fair bit of money in all those geos except AU, although rarely with very broad campaigns (and those tended to be targeting a particular weakness in a bidding system or similar).
One of the reasons, in my experience, why the US and UK are generally harder to crack is the increased level of media and advertising savvy. Most advertising tactics hit those demographics first, and the general level of advertising, particularly online, is very sophisticated. After all, the volume's huge and the payouts are high, so all the top advertisers in the world are targeting those geos.
As a result, particularly on broad angles, CTRs tend to be lower thanks to increased banner-blindness. That's really what makes the campaigns harder to crack.
Interestingly, I've not found the same to hold true on niche angles. Indeed, I'd say that specifically niched campaigns tend to perform better relative to the baseline CTR than they do in Tier 2 or 3 countries.
That's a pretty generic statement because there's so many factors involved. My biggest profitable campaign at the moment is in USA for example, and I'm running in 25 different countries.
If I had to guess some reasons:
- Competition from other affiliates. Most affiliates hate translating text / landing pages, and hate running in languages they don't speak in general. It might be easier to make money internationally because there's just less competition on average.
- Competition from big brands. This is evident especially towards the end of the year when they're trying to hit their big numbers. The CPC's and CPM's can increase across the board. If you're doing adult for instance, you have competition from many of the big porn sites. They probably don't care as much about advertising in Spain.
- More rules and regulations.This is especially true in mobile. Some of the shadier offers / angles we can get away with in Mexico or South America, but absolutely not in the USA.
Plus sides of running in USA:
- Massive Scale. Looking back at the history of affiliate marketing, most of the guys who were doing $100k+ revenue a day were hitting USA big time.
- Familiarity. I can spot landing page grammar errors. Whereas international I have to trust that the onehourtranslation guy did a good job. (pro tip for bigger campaigns, I have the translations checked by two other translators)
If you're so sure that USA is tougher, then perhaps try to make it work internationally. Cut your teeth there, then come back to conquering the states.
made a thread not too long ago that had a good discussion on running in places like USA. worth a read
http://stmforum.com/forum/showthread...ping-campaigns
Most of our activities come from those geos. Although Asia is growing a LOT faster for us, still, the majority of our activities are currently derived from these more competitive and more mature markets.
In these much more competitive and mature markets, scale matters a lot.
Also, as a french affiliate, I can tell you that french affiliates are far away from the level you can see while reading people here. And by far, I mean REALLY FAR.
I guess in non english markets, english speaking affiliates leave the space to non english ones who are globally less performant.
In the adult market, big tubes where completely absent from the french serps in Google 3 or 4 years ago. Now they have taken a lot of space with basic website translation (only the categories names).
I've started to work on the english based market in adult since 6 months now. As far as I can see, I make 11.6 times more money of the same amount of traffic in french geo than traffic from the USA.
But when it came to scaling possibilities, that cannot be compared...
Given identical campaigns, I've found that US versions will under perform against my INTL campaigns in every measurable sense. The only thing that makes up for it is the payout and scale.
Originally Posted by dr_ngo
I make a ton of cash in the usa everyday but i run things with a twist.. not doing what 90% everyone else is doing
Originally Posted by dr_ngo
When I reach the point of $100k a day, it'll almost certainly be because of US traffic.
Originally Posted by coalission
When I reach the point of $100k a day, it'll almost certainly be because of US traffic.
A picture is worth a 1000 words.
US is no different then any other country. People make a TON of $ in the US with CPA offers. It's not about the country, thats the least important factor usually.
so then does the US just require a much larger up front testing budget?
Originally Posted by constantin
Originally Posted by constantin
It certainly can be done, but basic laws of microeconomics imply that the greater the level of competition, the harder it will be to sustain profits.
It is a little like this:
Suppose you want to play football at the World Cup level.
You can either try out for German national team or for the San Marino national team.
In order to even have a chance at the German team, you will have to have lived and breathed football from the age of 4, and have been trained every year afterwards in a highy regimented and disciplined training programme that cuts poor performers ruthlessly.
In order to play for the San Marino national team, you pretty much just have to sign up. Their national team consists of accountants, a guy who own a bar, another guy who is a plumber, even a 35 year old dude who works in the HR department of the local hospital. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/foo...nked-team.html
Had a similar debate with my girl when we first started, and we came up with a pretty accurate analogy.
Since there's no entry requirement to running in the US, and you won't get cut no matter how bad you perform as long as you have money to burn, it all comes down to the type of person you are and what you want out of affiliate marketing.
Pretend all universities dropped their entry requirements, and you could get into any as long as you have the money. The US is Harvard, strictly international is going to your local community college. Do you want to deal with heartache, get pushed to your limits, spend more money, but cut your teeth competing with the best and ultimately emerge a machine, because you KNOW you aren't gonna give up halfway through when things get tough? Harvard/US is the easy choice.
If you just want to make a decent living at first and are willing to put in some effort, but want small risk and small wins until you build your confidence because you don't quite believe in the whole thing yet but eventually see yourself making big money, or even if you can't afford Harvard yet, then Int'l/CC is the way to go. Passing CC won't mean you could get through Harvard, but finally getting through Harvard bruised and beaten means you'll breeze through CC.
At the end of the day it's a personal decision and both have merit, some people start a new video game on Legendary mode right off the bat and take longer to beat it, others like starting on Rookie Mode and working themselves up.
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