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Newbie Choice for 2017: What are PINs/Carrier billing offers and how to promote them. (49)

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There are 2 main offer types (or verticals) that are recommended to newbie affiliate marketers the most in 2017, one of them is "Sweeps" and the other one are PIN submits. In my opinion, PIN submit offers are the easiest to make work right now, so let me take a closer look at what they actually are and how to promote them.

PIN submit offers are also called "Carrier Billing" or "Mobile Content" offers, the most accurate name for the would actually be Carrier Billing offers, since that's their core principle – users get billed for something (some content) by their mobile carrier (operator). The charge will either appear on their invoice or it will be deducted from their prepaid credit.

You can see quite a wide range of products that utilize carrier billing, for example antivirus, wallpapers, ringtones, videos, games, astrology, lotteries adult photos and videos ... I would say antivirus, wallpapers and adult content are the most popular ones right now.

WANT TO KNOW HOW CARRIER BILLING WORKS?

As I already said, users get billed directly by their mobile operators, but before this happens, they need to agree to get billed – subscribe for something. It can be a one time charge or recurring one, until the user decides to cancel.

There are basically two way of subscribing :

1. By clicking on something – this is the so-called 1 or 2 click flow (MSISDN Flow). For this to work, the user MUST be connected through a mobile internet connection supplied by the mobile operator (carrier).

There are always some terms & conditions to agree to, by clicking on an “Agree” button, the user accepts them and get's billed. This is the 1-click flow. In case of a 2-click flow, there will be one more confirmation required.

Both 1 and 2 click flows have one thing in common – there is no need to leave the offer page in order to start the subscription, users don't have to type in anything either. That's why this method works so well.

Let's be honest here – certain % of the users don't even realize that they are subscribing for something. That's why 1-click flow get's replaced by 2-click flow on a large scale and new and new regulations are enforced in all GEOs across the world.

2. The second way requires some more action from the user. They can subscribe either by sending a SMS reply to confirm the subscription (MO Flow) OR receiving an activation code via the SMS , which they need to enter on the offer page as a means of confirmation (MT Flow).

As you can guess, these 2 flows convert way worse than both 1-click or 2-click flows, because there are more steps required from the users and it's a known fact that any extra step will have negative impact on the conversion rate.

So why would anyone use them for their offers? A) Regulations … B) These flows can also convert wifi and desktop traffic. Even a user browsing on his laptop, through his wifi connection, he can still subscribe by using his mobile phones to send a confirmation SMS for example … Truth to be told, wifi traffic usually converts really bad with carrier billing offers, but it's technically possible.

HOW TO PROMOTE THESE CARRIER BILLING OFFERS?

PIN Submits can work with any kind of traffic, POPs, banner clicks even mobile redirects … many of them can work even without a Landing Page, thou it's not so common as a couple years ago.

There is one thing that is specific to these offers, that is not the case with any other type of products – you will need CARRIER ONLY traffic for them to work WELL.

As I mentioned already, it's technically possible to convert wifi traffic with the MO and MT flows, but the conversion rates will literally SUCK. On top of that, the advertisers have to make deals with every carrier they want to work with. Due to this, pretty much any offer directly specifies what kind of traffic they want, for example : Vodafone, Germany or Orange, France.

To take it even further, many advertisers optimize their offers for certain Operation Systems, so they might ask you to send Android only traffic for example.

In a nutshell – you need to be very precise with your targeting and only buy the proper traffic. The good thing is, affiliate managers usually know exactly what traffic segments work well for what offers and they will happily give you this information.

There are also several affiliate networks that specialize in Carrier Billing offers and they can optimize your traffic for you by sending every click to an offer that is most likely to convert it – based on a set of data they collect for every click – what carrier, what device, model, OS …

In case you want to test some of them, here are my favorite ones that I all tested myself :

Kimia (Adult and Mainstream)
Mobidea (Adult and Mainstream)
BrokerBabe (Adult) and Glize (Mainstream).

In order to run Carrier Billing offers, you also need a good tracker with proper carrier detection. My favorite one for these offers is Voluum, because they utilize a very good carrier DB.

There are two reason for this, first is to be able to properly split your traffic and send the matching traffic to the offers. It's pointless to send Vodafone traffic to an offer that can only convert Orange visitors, right?

The second reason is that even thou most traffic networks let you buy traffic by carriers, their targeting usually sucks and they will send you plenty of wifi too. By using a proper tracker, you can identify these hits and ask for a refund, demand better targeting or decide to stop working with that particular source.

A FEW TIPS ON RUNNING CARRIER BILLING OFFERS:

I would like to give you a few tips now, don't take them as rules carved in stone, but they can definitely make your life easier, since all of the tips are based on my experience with running these offers.

1. Usually, smartphone traffic works the best. Tablets are not so hot and desktop rarely works at all.

2. Android usually wins over iPhone, Windows phone is a hit or miss. For the most volume, definitely target Android.

3. Most developed Tier1 GEOs are also the most regulated ones. The most opportunity with PIN submits is in Asia, Afrika and Latam.

4. Don't be afraid to test low payout offers, especially when the flow is 1-click. I was able to make a 8 cents payout offer profitable in Pakistan

5. Definitely split test using a Landing Page and a Direct Link. I've seen both working.

PINs are still on my list of “easy to run” verticals and they are very suitable for any newbie Affiliate Marketer. The regulations are getting tougher thou, so don't wait and test them now!

Thanks for reading!

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2nd time in a few days you come with an answer to my questions and/or doubts!

So, not trying to generalise things, cause some testing for shure is needed, what you are suggesting for us newbies is to first try and approach Carrier Billing offers (1click-flow when on carrier and MO/MT when on WiFi) with carrier traffic only unless we have found our way to crack down the converting funnel in MO/MT flow. And taking in consideration that Carrier Traffic cost is way higher than WiFi, tier targeting listed here comes into play more reasonably if one of us has any doubt of that.

Thanks for the great guides!

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That's why I'm writing these guides

Exactly, forget about wifi and focus on carrier traffic first, wifi USUALLY doesnt work anymore. It used to, so don't be confused when you see that mentioned in older guides, but it's not really the case anymore ... with some rare exceptions.

Recent regulations took the prives for carrier traffic down in some tier1 geos too, so they are not that expenive anymore. But the regulations also make it harder to convert so definitely focus on tier2 and 3 GEOs more.

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Thank you, Great topic.

What traffic sources are working good with these offers?

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PIN submits can work literally with any traffic source, as long as they offer at least some carrier targeting (IP targeting works too).

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Ah thank you for this.

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You're welcome !

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I have a very stupid question that I look forward to face palming at in the future. But it's something I've never thought of until I saw your recommendation. How exactly do I direct link an offer? I assume I would just be taking my Voluum click URL I would have in the CTA of my landing page and setting that as my destination in my traffic source right? Should it be hosted to my domain and auto redirect to the offer page, or should the traffic source destination go straight to the offer URL?

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You don't want to use the "yourvoluumurl.com/click" at the traffic source, as this link only works from a 'tracked' entry into your landing page because it relies on a cookie to send the visitor to the right place.

In Voluum, you want to set up your campaign as you usually would, but when building your path/flow, there will be an option to direct link to an offer, and you could even split that traffic percentage with a few LPs as well if you want.

Then, you use the generated URL from your Voluum campaign as the destination at the traffic source, and Voluum will figure out the rest for you!!

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Directlinking an offer simple means NOT using Landing Pages. So you simply send traffic from the source to the offer, without using any intermediary pre-sale pages. You still need to use some tracking, chris_climbs pretty much explained how to do it in Voluum already, so no need to repost it Ask away if it's still not clear.

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What happens if even the carrier traffic is subjected to MO Flow?
Will carrier and wifi traffic both have equal chances?
From my understanding, wifi converts badly because of MO and MT flow right?

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Wifi will be still convert in most cases not that well on Pinflow. There are for sure other reasons as well, but on WIFI is a higher chance that the person has an empty CC or not even a SIM card at all (if you target for example also tablets)

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Yup, the more complicated the flow, the worse the CVR.

In theory, with pure MO flow offers, wifi should really have similar chances of converting as carrier traffic.

The point is to focus on carrier offers with simple flows. Once all offers will switch to complicated flows, the goldrush will be over - traffic prices will for carrier traffic will drop too.

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Awesome explanations, thanks Matuloo !

I'm trying to run 1-click offers since some days but I'm fighting to find carrier traffic... I've been through all the famous traffic sources, but each time I target the carrier I want traffic from, the amount of available impressions is very very low even if I'm the top bidder.

I got some conversions, it seems promising but I definitely can't scale it.

Moreover, I direct link to the offer because it's 1-click, so I can't optimize anything except the placements, and the traffic is not big enough to get data.

I'm ready to stop the campaign because of this, but the offer seems very very good, I don't know what to do...

I tried another campaigns on a totally different GEO some weeks ago, and I got the same problem for the low amount of available traffic.

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Hi. Any thoughts on the newbie question below please, related to the above:

1. I chose an offer which could only convert 3G traffic from a specific carrier.
2. I ran Trafficjunky traffic, using ISP targeting for that specific carrier.
3. Funnelflux confirmed all traffic was coming from that ISP. However Funnelflux can't yet separate wifi from 3G traffic (I asked them and they responded with that answer yesterday).
4. The offer owner (via Mobidea) showed most of my traffic was wifi - so wasn't compliant.
5. I asked Trafficjunky what exactly they were sending. They said they can't separate wifi from 3G and I would get a mix.

So, if neither the traffic source (Trafficjunky) nor the tracker (Funnelflux) can separate wifi from 3G (despite ISP targeting), do I just need to use a different traffic source or tracker (eg Voluum)?

I assume the answer is yes, I am just checking if I am missing something..!

Thanks

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Yup, it's harder to get traffic compared to wifi, you simply need to use all possible traffic sources. Exoclick is the best when it comes to getting carrier traffic, just make sure the offer is ok with adult traffic

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Yes, with sources that are not able to PROPERLY detect carriers and send you just that traffic ... you simply have to pass on them. In some cases, even these can work, but there has to be a large % the proper carriers in the mix.

BTW: even thou funnleflux is an awesome tool, for now, Voluum works better when you need the Carrier detection - simply because it's already part of the "package". The problem is the licensing fees for selfhosted solutions and since voluum is a hosted one, they can afford to include it for every user. I hope this will change at some point.

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I actually started by Exoclick, I was buying half of the daily available traffic, which was not a lot...

But the advertiser saw that I was sending adult traffic and asked me to stop.

Now I'm trying to find carrier traffic everywhere, without any success.

I don't understand why, the GEO is pretty big, I think the traffic is hidden somewhere. ^^

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Hm, exo usually has a lot of volume for whatever carrier, certainly more than any other common network. Can you PM me the GEO? I find it weird that you're having volume problems even on exo.

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Sure, I sent it to you some minutes ago.

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Thanks for the reply!

In some offers, they state the flow

FLOW: PIN (carrier 1) PIN (carrier 2) MO (carrier 3)

In this case - what flow does the PIN represent?

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Thanks Matuloo.

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Networks can get confusing with their descriptions, but I would say PIN would represent 1 or 2 click MSISDN flow in this case.

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Yes - I agree that networks can get confusing
What happens if the description comes out like this?



(PIN) Flow

but conversion flow is click > key in MSISDN > confirm payment > content subscribed

From what I understand, there's nothing to "key in" for MSISDN, right?

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This looks like they will send a SMS with a code (key) that the user has to use ... better ask the AM, don't want to give you false explanation.

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Thanks so much for putting together this awesome guide matuloo. The way you have broken this 'complex' topic of PIN submits makes
everything really easy to understand.

I have 2 questions if I could:

1. You said this:

"There are also several affiliate networks that specialize in Carrier Billing offers and they can optimize your traffic for you by sending every click to an offer that is most likely to convert it – based on a set of data they collect for every click – what carrier, what device, model, OS … "

I'm not sure I'm totally following this, and how to apply it. Are you saying that inside the Traffic Source (ie POPads.net) , for your campaign, you would just leave it on the
absolute BROADEST targeting possible, select ALL carriers, then send all this traffic containing all the different carriers through Voluum and eventually hitting the offer?

For example, then if you were using a MO flow AV pin submit at Glize, Glize would just supply you with an affiliate link that would be good for all carriers in a particular country, and
they would sort out all the traffic themselves? This part is rather confusing for me.

2. You say that Landers are almost a must these days. Does that go for 1 click and 2 click flow as well as MO & MT flow PIN submits?

I am planning on getting a subscription to Adplexity in the coming days to start collecting landers and get an idea of what is working in the mobile space.

Would you recommend that, and if so, can you give some tips on what types of settings to use in Adplexity to come away with some potentially useful landers?

Thanks!

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Great post Matuloo! As usual!

What I would like to ask here is what kind of mindset and angle do you use to promote this mobile content type of offers. The hardest thing for me is that you can't rely on the idea of making the users believe they need it (which is something we'd do with dating for example) so I don't know what to do beside placing cool images and in adplexity I can't find much.

Any tip about it?

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Fear, being part of a group, scarcity, desire, trustworthiness, challenge etc etc are some basics of a good angle. Try to find your answer on a higher level (neuromarketing for example) to truly understand why people think/act/behave certain ways.

Check then per geo, campaign, vertical, target group what's hot/trending/relevant etc and there you might have the first steps of an angle...

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Carrier Billing Offers never decreased in performance if it appeared to have, it was just due to vendors & advertisers who went on exploring other ways of promoting their services & products without having to share a % of the revenue with mobile carriers and aggregators and constantly dealing with regulations.

Anything (whitehat) can work with carrier billing provided of course it’s appealing to the user, compliant to the operator regulations and not misleading.

Video on Demand (VoD) was and will remain one of the biggest verticals for carrier billing, and will experience significant growth this year with consumers taking advantage of real-time acquisition and consumption of their entertainment whenever and wherever they are.

ePublishing is also expected to grow significantly in 2017. This growth can be attributed to an increase in digital book sales.

And there are a ton of a lot more.

According to Juniper Research, revenues from Carrier Billing will reach $25.3 billion by 2020, most of it generated in the Asia Pacific region.

There is a lower penetration of credit cards in Asia Pacific region than in Western Europe and North America, and the games market in China (and elsewhere in the region) is staggering. Google is still quietly rolling out it is offering in Google Play, and in countries such as Japan and South Korea, Carrier Billing accounts for 70% of Google Play purchases. I guess most affiliates didn’t know that already?

Also, the new European regulation Payment Services Directive #2 will enable companies to offer additional service transactions to take place via carrier billing. This includes online ticketing, donations via mobile phone, as well as loading of goods such as gift cards.

The benefits of Carrier Billing have been presented many times. Customers are far less likely to abandon a purchase, particularly an ‘in-app’ purchase such as a game if they can buy more bullets/guns/firepower/wizardry with one click of a button. Operators can increase loyalty by providing this functionality and app developers can increase their ‘findability’, revenue and loyalty as well.

Whatever the reason for the lack of noise about Carrier Billing at the moment, affiliates should look at it again, if they are not already.
It is, without question, a ‘win-win’ opportunity and a lot easier to work on than how to make money out of connecting chubby people to magnificent weight loss pills.
And there are tons of networks out there which are worth being mentioned.

In such a hugely competitive segment, there is NO ONE partner.
While some networks generally have the great performance in Spanish-speaking territories, others in German-speaking territory, others in Asia, It all goes down to what you believe can be your top market.

@Matuloo, I welcome you to test also BitterStrawberry.com for adult & Mobifreak.com for the mainstream traffic.

You can test both singular offers according to your preferences, make use of our dynamic performance smart link for your out of target traffic or create your own SmartLink with the offers you choose!

“Only those who can see the invisible can do the impossible”

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Thanks for this guide Matuloo!


A quick question, how can i find these pin submit/carrier billing offers on an affiliate network?
Is there any specific category?

I was trying to filter pin submit but i couldn't find anything.

I'm on Peerfly, Maxbounty, Afiliaxe, Jvzoo, ClickBank

Or maybe there is a specific network that only deals with those type of offers?

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Hi razibsh
You can find the network top1mobi which is specific on mobile content subscrition.It has lots of pin submit/carrier billing offers.
If you want to open a account on top1mobi,add my skype:afftime.
I'm the AM from top1mobi and we can help you start from pin submit.

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Try Clickdealer, Avazu, VIP response, Advidi etc etc

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You can also try BitterStrawberry & Mobifreak.
The setups are tailored based on your traffic type, you can set performance benchmarks by which specific visitors can be returned to you or sold flat-rate CPC.
You can PM me or add me on skype: tommyjohnson88

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Hello,

pretty much every network has some, they are usually tagged as "mobile content" ... but it's better to ask your AM since they can cover a range of verticals.

There are also networks that specialize in this, check these : kimia, Mobidea, glize (brokerbabe), bitterstrwaberry ... these should keep you busy for a while

Matej.

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Stickupkid already summed it up pretty nicely I had good results with using scarcity and exclusivity approach : you don't need to make any special promises or think about super complicated angles, use words like : exclusive, uncut, unlimited, limited time only, just for you, only in your GEO ... The whole idea is to make the offer seem as something special. You can base it around the point of the actual offer - for example downloadable video content - and just "tune" it up.

example: Exclusive Celebrity Videos! Download full length videos with no limits. Right now available in Brazil only!

Know what I mean?

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Awesome tips for Networks with Mobile PIN submit offers, thanks matuloo. Just signed up with Glize. Looks like they have some fantastic offers.

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You're welcome

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Yes I do! Thank you very much Matuloo and Stickupkid!

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I'm stuck with volumes in this niche. I mean... I can't generate much profit with Bangladesh or Sri lanka or any other geo. 3g + 1 click flow is converts like crazy but small amount of carrier traffic and extremely competition are not allow me to earn more than 30-50$ a day revenue.. MAybe I'm wrong? Don't understand something and somebody is doing big volumes?

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THX for the name dropping Matuloo :-)
And hello and welcome to our program dear affiliates!

Yes we do 95% this offers at Glize.com. If its not mobile flow then its CPL and its mentioned in the description of the marketplace... Recommendations you get from our affiliatemanagers when you tell them your prefered verticals and GEOs. Or simply what works in general. We produce own mobile offers since 2010 (over our sister company Brokerbabe that is adult focused), so we understand that biz and can provide you some deep insights! Most of our team members incl. me are currently in Barcelona for the MWC and after that in Sitges for the European Summit, so we answer currently mostly at night, before we get drunk with our partners But send me a PM if you need something urgently.

Cheers

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Its a hustle for the Adnetworks to get the IP ranges for this GEOs. So they detect most traffic as WIFI over Maxmind and this things.... Try to get the IP ranges Then you can set up the targeting in several networks over this IPs and not over the carrier. Good luck Its not easy to get them...

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I wonder also.

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Yup, volume is a problem in some GEOs. But keep in mind you don't have to do just pops or just banners, do both. You can also test adult sources ...

And as blueflag told you, getting IP ranges can help to get more volume too.

Someone mentioned Bangladesh - I had $XXX per day campaign in that GEO alone, with an extremely LOW payout per conversion. It doesn't work for everyone, but some people make solid amounts of money, even in smaller GEOs.

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Hey Matuloo, I see in Adplexity that there are not many landing pages for this kind of offer or at least it looks like 99% of the affiliates is using direct-linking. It is as it seems?

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I wouldn't say it's 99% but yes, this is one of the few verticals where direct-linked still can work.

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Thanks matuloo I've been reading your posts all day and this one is especially valuable because it's truly actionable. Glize looks fantastic and they do have a lot of these offers.

On traffic sources, do you think all of them target the majority of geos? I'd like to stay away from tier 1 as I'm first starting but am not sure which traffic sources to trust for best results(Go2mobi, PopAds, PopCash, Zeropark etc)

Do most of these traffic sources support pops/banners for all 190+ countries?

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The traffic volumes for each GEO can vary from one network to the next, but generally speaking, all the networks you named are global. So they will have "some" volume in all GEOs. It's pretty much impossible to tell you which of these networks you should "trust" the most, because all of them have both good and bad traffic

You should also consider adult sources like plugrush, clickadu ...

Good luck

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Excellent info thank you & many thanks for this thread. I do think PINs are a better place to start over sweeps and they cover many verticals which makes it easier for newbies to find an offer and just get started.

I've applied to a few of the affiliate networks you mentioned and have plans to start my first followalong soon mostly aimed at PIN submits and related offers. Definitely appreciate all the content you've shared on STM it's a goldmine for anyone new to this industry

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You're welcome! Looking forward to your follow along

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