Mr Green's Sweepstakes Secrets! (48)
Today I’m going to dissect the sweepstake niche!
You know those free iPhone/iPad/Grocery voucher type offers? I will uncover insights that separate the guys doing 50k/day and those of you stuck on $100/days.
Before I start digging down too far I want to briefly show the overview of a sweepstakes offer.
This is what a typical flow looks like:
- First page - the email submit (data monetised).
- Second page - more information asked for such as data of birth, area code, phone number (data monetised).
- Third page and onwards - co-registration offers.
- Last page - very dependent on the advertiser.
Depending on the advertiser they may present users with as little as 10 co-reg offers, or literally hundreds.
Typically advertisers set things up in three ways:
- They put people in a draw to win the prize after they enter their full details.
- They give people the prize after they have filled out a certain amount of other offers.
- They use a relevant mobile pin submit offer as the exit page, and pass the responsibility for the prize over to that offer owner.
Sweet, got that?! Good.
Now the big question is...what on earth are the big sweepstakes affiliates doing that the minnows aren’t?
The big guys understand how the offer monetisation works, and adjust accordingly.
Have you ever noticed your sweepstake campaigns die off towards the end of the month? Then they start picking up at the start of the month?
For the majority of sweepstake offer owners a lead is worth more to them at the start of the month then at the end of the month.
Why?
The advertisers all have caps. They can only a sell a certain amount of data per month.
Example: Let’s say a offer owner has 20 partners at the start of the month buying their data. Each partner pays them $0.50 each, meaning each lead would be worth $10 to the advertiser. By the end of the month the advertiser will usually cap out with a few of their partners, meaning their lead value could drop in big time. Then when a new month starts all the caps are refreshed again.
So why should you care if you are getting paid out in a fixed CPA?
Towards the end of the month one of three things will happen.
- You will get capped.
- You will get scrubbed to adjust for the drop of lead value (likely)
- You can continue running volume as is with no changes (very unlikely).
So what should you do about this?
Set up big ad buys at the start of the month! Timing is key here.
Alright, next tip!
The thing advertisers care about most is your RPT (Revenue Per Transaction).
Your RPT is calculated from all the coreg offers your leads fill out.
There is only a certain amount you can control here, but there are a few tricks I wrote about previously.
1. Target 25+.
- No matter how you sell to a user if they are below a certain age, the leads can't be monetised effectively. A way to get around the inability to target age on pops, would be by adding a button for say 21+ or 25+ and a button for ages under that and redirect them to another offer. With that being said…if your RPT is high but you are struggling for ROI, then contact your AM and see if you can meet half way and either agree to send a small % of younger traffic, or just simply a payout bump.
2. Your angle.
- You need to motivate every user to go through this funnel. Not just opt in, but continue down the funnel after that. Go through the funnel yourself and see what a user needs to do in order to be high quality. Making a simple current event quiz angle sometimes isn't enough. Also, it's better to make sure angle appeals exclusively to a 25+ demographic...all though Justin Bieber may have a lot of 25+ fans, you are going to have to deal with a horde of 14yr old girls that will do anything they can to get the JB prize.
3. The traffic source you are using.
- It's possible that the traffic source you are using has been saturated, which means you could possibly be delivering duplicate data. I've run into this issue before, where over 30% of the leads I sent were duplicates. The company had been fishing in the same traffic pond as I was, so I had to change things up on my end. You do not need to worry about saturation on big sources like Facebook and Adwords (unless you are targeting super tight niches that have been targeted before).
So now you have the RPT sorted.
Next is scaling as much as possible, and getting that edge over other affiliates.
3 years ago co-registration companies like Gametheory and Silverpath were absolutely DESTROYING. These companies just acted as a monetisation gateway, you had to supply the prize or offer at the end of the gateway.
Affiliates were making 50k/day from these paths, and still had no clue what they were doing. You could use nearly any angle you came up with…even “Get $500 worth of cat”.
Those days are gone…but are they?
Things are not as wild and as easy as back then, but there is still potential if you pull the right strings.
Step 1.
Prove you can send quality volume to an advertiser promoting one of their existing angles, e.g. iPhone, Starbucks Voucher, Grocery Voucher etc.
Let’s say your angle was “Are you a true Paul Walker fan?". And the gift was a Starbucks voucher. Now this is an assumption here, but I don’t think you are fully capturing the interest of Paul Walker/Fast & Furious fans by offering them Starbucks gift cards.
What if you could offer them a Fast & Furious box set, or other related prizes?
If you start thinking down this path, then the world is your oyster!
Niche targeting + niche angle + niche prize + transferable to 1000’s of niches = big money.
Having a transferable angle is key.
Are you a true Fast & Furious fan? Fast & Furious box set prize.
Are you a true Harry Potter fan? Harry Potter box set prize.
Are you a true Lord of The Rings Fan? Lord of The Rings set prize.
Etc etc etc
***disclaimer, I’m not telling you to pitch your AMs to set up offers with movie box sets prizes! You guys need to come up with your own ideas!
One offer angle that I had custom made for me was for popular local department store in Amsterdam. Typically offers cover the big 3 supermarkets in specific countries. But why not big local stores? Or even big online stores (Asos, Topman, UrbanOutfitters, etc).
Step 2.
Pitch your niche idea to your AM.
The awesome thing here is the advertiser should be able to set you up with a test niche offer without much effort on their side. They just need to tweak the first page, and redirect the exit page to say an Amazon link. You can then drive traffic to it, they can check the RPTs on their end. If it backs out, then they can set things up properly. You are now left with your very own white label offer.
Make sure you ask for exclusivity if your angle is original! (Obviously you have to guarantee a certain level of volume).
Now scale that baby!
One big advantage you have now that wasn’t around back in 2012 is the amount of countries available to promote. AU, NL, BE, UK, FI, ZA, IN, TH, US, ES, SE, ID, DE…the list goes on. It’s important to keep in mind that every country has different rules & regulations.
The sweepstake niche is one of the easiest niches to gain an edge as an affiliate. There are no limits to the angles you can create and have exclusive to yourself.
A.D.H.D Summary:
1. Launch campaigns at the start of the month! Towards the end of the month typically caps come into play, and scrubbers are activated.
2. RPT (Revenue Per Transaction) is king of the sweepstakes jungle. Pay close attention to your age targeting, your angle, and the traffic sources you are using.
3. Utilise the ability to create your own custom offer/edge!
Enjoy!
- Mr G
P.S.Never run a sweepstake campaign before? No worries! Sign up to adplexity.com, do some research, launch some campaigns. Then come back this thread!
Epic writeup. Mr green shared this method with me about a year ago and i can confirm its xxxx per day for sure.
the adhd summary made me lol.
Originally Posted by iAmAttila
Originally Posted by Mr Green
Originally Posted by Mr Green
when i read the first line i thought you are going to place some tips,
BUT when i start to read the entire post i understood what the first line meant and indeed you totally dissect it
Awesome post - A MUST to all sweepstakes affiliates.!.
That's 1yr STM subscription's worth right there!
Mehdi
Amazing post! I've two questions:
- Facebook + Adwords: I guess that we need cloaking to promote sweepstakes, right?
- Networks to ask for our own angle/offers: does this work with the regular networks running sweepstakes like Adsimilis, Affiliaxe, YeahMobi and so on?
Again, thanks for the amazing post.
Best,
Bimoca
Another Gem !! Inspiring share thank you
Originally Posted by bimoca
1. There are soome fully compliant offers around that you don't need to cloak. But if you don't want to cloak you have to make sure your ad copy is spot, and keeps within the usual guidelines of "You may win" etc. However, most sweepstakes offers on mainstream networks are not within FB and Adwords terms and conditions. You will not have an issue getting approved on pops or DSPs.
2. Yessir! Obviously it depends on the relationship the network has with the advertiser you are running. But if you are running volume, and are pitching an idea on how you can run more, then it's an easy sell!
Thanks for sharing this.
It’s a great reminder for both myself and probably many others that there’s a lot more creative fun to be had than with the cookie-cutter campaigns that 97% of us seem to be running.
Mr. Green,
Can you recommend any FB cloaker? I know that you probably won't, as not many likes to discuss it in forums.
- Anyhow, I am running a few whitelabel campaigns, making me xxx/Day, but I would love to expand more.. And also try cloaking.
I just had no idea, how would you be able to cloak the actually ad, I thought it was only the LP? I mean, does the ad not always have to be compliant with terms etc? The text, picture etc? Maybe I am missing out on something.
Great post Mr.Green really helpful joining this forum has got to be the best decision i've made since trying IM!!!
Originally Posted by rgc1608
And yes, it's not something that should be discussed flippantly, it just isn't sensible (nor is it particularly on-topic).
Originally Posted by rgc1608
These should keep you scaling all year
ZeroPark, 50onRed, Popcash, Adcash, Popads, Plugrush, Propeller Ads.
AMAZING post. As others have said, this guide's worth at least a year's worth of STM membership on its own.
Question for you, MrGreen - if you wanted to take it a step further and actually set up your own offers, then monetise the data on the backend, how hard would that be? What sort of relationships would you need?
Great post Mr. G!
If anyone wants some direct advertiser contacts to get even a better edge by having higher payouts, hit me up, have worked with all of them!
Originally Posted by caurmen
I see people mention that coreg is dead but is still available in certain forms if you dig deep, would be great if anyone could chip in with some further detail of where & what to be looking for.
Pure gold as always Mr Green!
Let's see how many digits we're gonna get from this..
Very, very interesting. Great article!
Most of the offers that I find on networks are related to win an: iPhone, iWatch, Galaxy, PS4 Xbox 1, gift certificates.
But I've never found dvd boxes and other stuff.
Are there specific networks for these offers?
the idea is that you would get the advertiser to create the reward specially for you and then you would have exclusivity. it's easier done with a direct relationship with the advertiser.
Very interesting! Thank you for taking the time to extract a bit of your juicy creative flow for us
So, if I understand well, you're basically seeing the prize as a pretext here?
The only thing we really need, is getting people going down the funnel and filling the maximum amount of fields and boxes possible, and we don't really care about the prize, is that right?
Let's say you want to test your own angle with your own funnel, before getting custom-made creatives from an advertiser and before setting up the deal between you two:
1) you take the whatever "win an iPhone" offer that is working right now
2) you don't try to sell the prize, you try to find enough reasons and incentives to get users filling the whole path, whatever the prize really is at the end...
3) you use the offer as a test to see if users fill the form or not
4) if it works, you ask for custom and exclusive creatives, so the path is smoother
Is that the way you see the whole thing?
If so, you can virtually create an infinite amount of "offers" that have nothing to do with the prize as long as there are enough users to fill the whole path, without even asking for a custom made lander. That's simply amazing... and an eye opener for me and my weak angles that can't even connect the dots from a pop to a lead.
I'm not even considering to try this strategy in order to make X,XXX or XX,XXX /day, but simply to make those damn sweeps offers working in the first place.
I'm still wondering how to crack those offers.
I'm noticing a number of email submit offers are win a $500 visa gift card to get a Free iPhone, or some variant of that.
It wouldn't be hard to use amazon giveaways coupled with a proper coreg funnel such that people who complete the various offers are sent the amazon giveaway immediately.
Question regarding:
Originally Posted by caurmen
Originally Posted by jennatalia
Originally Posted by julien
So, if I understand well, you're basically seeing the prize as a pretext here?
The only thing we really need, is getting people going down the funnel and filling the maximum amount of fields and boxes possible, and we don't really care about the prize, is that right?
Let's say you want to test your own angle with your own funnel, before getting custom-made creatives from an advertiser and before setting up the deal between you two:
1) you take the whatever "win an iPhone" offer that is working right now
2) you don't try to sell the prize, you try to find enough reasons and incentives to get users filling the whole path, whatever the prize really is at the end...
3) you use the offer as a test to see if users fill the form or not
4) if it works, you ask for custom and exclusive creatives, so the path is smoother
Is that the way you see the whole thing?
If so, you can virtually create an infinite amount of "offers" that have nothing to do with the prize as long as there are enough users to fill the whole path, without even asking for a custom made lander. That's simply amazing... and an eye opener for me and my weak angles that can't even connect the dots from a pop to a lead.
I'm not even considering to try this strategy in order to make X,XXX or XX,XXX /day, but simply to make those damn sweeps offers working in the first place.
I'm still wondering how to crack those offers.
My biggest problem in sweeps is getting conversions on the offer page. Great ad, great LP, poor offer conversion. I test different offers and I found a specific offer template that tripled my conversion, but the problem is the department store is not the best one for my angle.
So...
1. Found a great offer template
2. So-So brand on the offer
The solution is to test lots of different brands on the same template to see what hits. I've already considered what Mr. Green was saying in the past, but the problem is I would need the advertiser to make 10-20 new offers in order to find the one that hits, at least. And then constantly email them with more requests. I'm not sure they would do that.
Has anyone had success promising them the prize they want IF they fill out the Iphone (or whatever) form? Isn't that offering an incentive?
I'd be more interested in capturing the middle portion (coreg paths). Then if the value is high enough, direct them to an amazon giveaway.
Originally Posted by randomdude
Might be worth a test on a platform that offers keyword targeting. I believe Decisive just pushed that feature not too long ago.
have you thought of resolving the number 1 issue by creating and controlling your own offer?
Originally Posted by emanfrost
Originally Posted by emanfrost
For your other point with testing 10-20 different offers - we own our own sweeps products in the US and have 250+ different brands and landers (and constantly are building out more - like for the upcoming holidays as an example). Getting more offers in the mix to test wouldn't be an issue.
Cheers
Mr Green: Can you please tell what does coreg means?
Originally Posted by desertofwater
what kind of ads are more suitable for sweeps , i see everyone mention pops m how about display ad networks like adwords? does that work , is it cost effective ?
Adwords works extremely well. The issue is more so if you can get your ads approved by the big G. If you can get approved, you then have to work on getting your CPCs down with some optimizations. As for the ads - you can try to target specific brands, or go a more generic route. There are many routes you can take.
Originally Posted by cruz909
Benefits:
- Targeting Options are far superior to self serve platforms on Pop Sites
- This is the highest quality traffic you can get, meaning your leads will be more valuable than a Pop Guys leads, thus making it easier to get higher CPAs
- Consistency of performance is a lot better once you narrow down to your niche. Pop Networks are more volatile and aggressive by nature due to their lower budget and higher affiliate competition.
- Volume. Adwords just has fucking tons of volume. Yes you can narrow down and hit pockets of niches and lessen this, but you will have more access to quality volume, than on pops.
- Banner Testing (at least to me, Subjective) is far easier than lander optimization and testing.
How do you test offers when choosing the best one? Are you doing a direct linking and then create lander when you choose the best one, or are you creating LP right from the beginning, in test phase?
Thanks
Talk to your rep or the advertiser. They'll be able to give you a good idea with what offers to start with depending on how you plan to promote. Again, the promotion method helps to determine whether to start with a pre-lander or run direct...also whether or not you have a good pre-lander helps with that as well. There are always variables. Lean on your rep...or ask here. What kind of source are you looking to test? do you already have a solid pre-lander?
I have a hard time with angles with sweeps, I spy with adplexity and it's always the same thing "You've been randomly selected", "Every saturday we.." i feel like these pages are kept alive just because other noobs rip them then run them in a never ending cycle, keeping these pages on adplexity. cause i've tested them and they dont seem to work too well.
Do I use an angle that tries to make the offer look more legitimate? Like tell a story as to why they can win a brand new iphone 6s or what? Or is the plan just to get people engaged with the page and just hope they sign up for the offer with something like "take this test 90% of your friends failed, if you pass you could win an iphone" they take the test due to curiosity and sign up for the offer as an after thought?
Originally Posted by steel520
Everyone has some kind of edge, with these angles usually they it's one of these...
- They know how to acquire traffic cheaper than most.
- They know how to target better.
- They have a deal with the advertiser, or a higher payout.
I'm a big fan of micro niching on a big scale. What I mean by that is find some targeting criteria on your traffic source that you can use as part of your angle. E.g a specific handset, or keyword, or country, a combination of those is even better. Then craft your lander heavily around those targeting points. In the end you should end up with 100s of micro campaigns that most affiliates would be to lazy to execute, plus they won't be able to pick up on spy tools.
Originally Posted by Mr Green
Awesome suggestions, Mr Green.
Two questions from me:
1. What traffic type would you suggest testing first? Pops? Redirects?
2. Do you still believe that Sweeps offers are worth pursuing in 2016?
So these aren't private guides as you post them on other sites for free. This one is duplicated here: http://growthhackinglife.com/how-to-...akes-campaing/
Originally Posted by theorange
Just awesome!!!
This is gold! Thanks so much
I don't see how you guys get people to convert on pops with sweeps. Someone just randomly gets a popup ad and they feel compelled to fill out the offer?
Good stuff Mr Green! Awesome!!!
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