Guide To Buying ADULT Traffic Via FLAT Deals – Should You Do It At All? (7)
Guide To Buying ADULT Traffic Via FLAT Deals – Should You Do It At All?
Adult is a competitive space and there are no signs of slowing down in sight. In order to survive in an environment like that, you need every edge you can get. One of the biggest factors that determine whether you're gonna make or loose money, is the price you are paying per click.
There are several ways of driving the costs down : better banners, searching for under valued spots, buying from site owners directly etc … but the method I want to talk about today is FLAT RATE buys. I'm gonna explain what it means, how it's done, what you need to look out for and … whether you should be doing it all. So happy reading 
WHAT ARE FLAT BUYS IN THE FIRST PLACE?
The standard method of buying traffic from traffic networks is based around the bidding model – the more you bid, the more traffic you get … to put it in a really simple way. The price you per per click or impression is not fixed and so isn't the amount of traffic you will receive. It all depends on the competition level and your bid.
Flat deals are quite the opposite. In case of a flat deal, you know the price in advance, because you have to agree on it, prior to launching the campaign. Traffic network gives you an offer, you can try to negotiate a bit and you will settle on a fixed price – this is usually done on the CPM model.
You also know the volume that you would receive – the options are to book everything that a site/placement has to sell or agree on certain % of the rotation. You can also do this with RON campaigns, where you choose either certain % of overall volume that is available, or a rough amount of impressions per day.
Flat deals are always closed for a fixed period of time, with the option to renew it on an ongoing basis. Most networks prefer 30 day periods, but some accept 14 days too. I always prefer to start with a test period, whenever possible, 7-10 days is reasonable in my opinion.
WHAT ARE THE PROS AND CONS OF THIS APPROACH?
Flat buys can really work out well, when planned properly, but as always … it's not just black & white, there are both and ups and downs to this approach. Do it in the wrong way and it will backfire at you in a pretty nasty way.
But don't worry, I took a few nasty lessons when it comes to Flat buys and I'm gonna tell you exactly what to expect and what to avoid.
LET'S START WITH THE POSITIVES OF FLAT DEALS:
1. Guaranteed delivery at a fixed price. Simply put : there are no surprises, you know what volume to expect and you know what it's gonna cost you per day. It's easier to manage your cash-flow this way for example.
2. No bidding wars – with a flat deal, you book certain % of rotation and that's it, it's yours, you don't have to fight for it with anyone. For as long as the deal is in place, the competition can't touch your part of the traffic.
3. Possibly lower price – the most important thing for many, with a flat deal, the price you pay per CPM can be lower than you would get in bidding. It's a simple wholesale principle, you buy in bulk, so the pricing should reflect it.
These are the 3 most valid reasons for considering flat deals. To put it into one sentence : You will get a fixed amount of traffic at a fixed price that should be lower than you would get in bidding, and you don't have to compete for it with anyone.
Such is the theory at least, it all sounds awesome, but there are also down sides that I'm gonna address now.
WHAT ARE THE NEGATIVES ASSOCIATED WITH FLAT DEALS?
1. Fixed duration of such a contract – Let's say you're pushing an offer that works awesome, so you secure a flat deal for the traffic and bang … the offer dies from whatever reason. Now you're in trouble, because you can't just pause a flat deal … it's going on, no matter what your results are.
2. Almost every network limits editing options for flat campaigns, it's understandable, because you agreed on a price for certain traffic (targeting, placements …) - you are buying in bulk, so you can't cherry pick just what works. So forget about fine tuning a flat campaign when it starts, even if you see some segment that is really poor, you won't be able to cut it – at least not in most cases.
3. Connected with point #2, you will get limited access to the campaign as a whole – adding new banners, pausing bad ones … you always need to ask for a temporary “un-lock” in order to be able to make these changes. As you can guess, some networks refuse to do this too often. Forget about messing with banners several times a day …
4. The more targeting options you want to use, the higher the price will be. It's usually possible to make flat deals for just 3G traffic for example, but the price will be way higher compared to mixed wifi+3G campaigns. When targeting very precisely, it's pointless to even think about a flat deal.
5. As mentioned in point #4, flat deals are about broad targeting, you need to be able to handle a mix of traffic … in case you can't handle this, flat deals are not really for you.
SO HOW SHOULD I APPROACH FLAT DEALS? IS IT EVEN A GOOD IDEA TO USE THEM?
I know that I wrote more about the negatives than positives, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be using the flat model at all. You just need to be VERY aware of that it means. Otherwise, you can find yourself stuck with a ton of traffic that you can't utilize and are losing money on … check this thread that a fellow affiliate started just recently : https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...US-at-Flatrate
Let me give you a few pointers on how to work with Flat deals in the right way.
Type Of Networks:
First of all, not all networks that offer Flats are equal. You will see 2 types mostly:
- Standard bidding platforms that offer Flats to large clients. Exoclick is a typical example of such a network. Flat deals are discussed with account managers, that small buyers don't even have. You can negotiate a deal with their support too, but it's quite a pain.
On top of that, networks this large have a lot of bidders in the system, so it's not in their interest to make flat deals with smaller guys. When starting out with flat deals, you should stay away from networks like this.
Since they have so many bidders, they don't offer big discounts for flat deals anyways … I'd say, they just look at what certain volume of traffic makes them now in bidding, and ask for the same amount of $ for a flat deal … I don't see much point into doing that to be honest.
- The second type of platform is focused on flat deals, the best example for this is TrafficHaus. Their business model is based on “brokering” large placements, they just ad some margin and sell the placement on a % of rotation basis.
They also have a bidding platform, but the bulk of their business happens in the Flat deals section. That's why they are willing to work on a smaller margin, in order to sell the large traffic packs quickly.
- There is also one more type so to speak, something like a hybrid Networks with lot's of bidding going on, but also offering reasonable condition when doing flat deals – for example juicyads or ero-advertising. These can be the best starting point for anyone who wants to test flat rate buys.
HOW TO APPROACH STARTING A FLAT RATE CAMPAIGN?
There are several rules you should definitely follow when working with flat campaigns. You can also choose from several strategies, when attacking the flat rate landscape. Let's take a closer look at the strategies first. :
1. Method for PRO buyers : GLOBAL ATTACK!
The key is to buy in bulk. The more broad targeting you can accept, the better the price will be. The best is to buy GLOBAL rotation – the best in terms of pricing that is If you can manage a global buy, without any further targeting … you will get rock bottom pricing.
I'd recommend to do this with TrafficHaus – they have direct deal with site owners, so I'm quite positive, they can give you the best pricing around. And they LOVE selling GLOBAL spots
But this, my friends, will be a BITCH to optimize I'm not here to give you false hopes, Global buys are cheap, but there is a reason for that. You need to be able to convert all the major GEOs and have a fallback plan for the rest.
The usual GEO breakdown comes to about 70% of traffic being from the more developed part of the world – USA, UK, DE, AU, CA … the rests comes from Asia, Latam etc … It's not so complicated to do something with guys from Germany or UK … but try to convert desktop users from Indonesia or India … not even mentioning the Japanese that have, let's say, more niched view on adult related things 
Simply put, you need to make enough revenue from the 70% of the traffic, to cover the loss from the remainders. Only very advanced buyers with a lot of optimized funnels should do this.
2. Noobie approach – TEST FIRST, THEN DO TARGETED FLATS!
If you're just starting with Flat rate deals, run extensive tests first. Pretty much any network that sells on flat deals, also has a bidding platform. Make sure to run campaigns in bidding first, and ONLY when you have profitable campaigns there … then consider going flat.
There is one good thing about adult, you can test the same placements through multiple networks at times, especially when talking about the large sites. So what you can do is to use the extensive targeting options of ExoClick first, to test the large placements. And once you know what placements are working well for you, you can secure flat deals for them via TrafficHaus.
For this approach to work, you need to target more precisely and work with networks that allow deeper targeting even in case of flat deals – most do, so it's not a problem. The basic idea behind this approach is about securing more of the rotation that works for you, while avoiding the bidding wars.
3. Method for ADVANCED buyers – MIX THE FIRST TWO.
Once you have some experience with the flat deals, you can start to mix the first 2 methods I mentioned, to get the best of them both. The goal is to start getting advantage of broader targeting, that will give us better pricing, while still keeping the risks down with extensive testing.
What we want to achieve here, is stop cherry picking just the best segments and trying to monetize the whole GEO. So ALL devices, all connection types, all OS's … For this to work, we need to be prepared to monetize every bit of traffic.
We need creatives and offers for both desktop and mobile, we need to have carrier billing offers for 3G traffic and for example leadgen for wifi. We need LPs for desktop and for mobile … To be able to manage a buy like this, you need to become kind of an expert in your target GEO. Test all traffic types in it, find out what works and then consider starting a GEO targeted flat buy.
BEST PRACTICE TIPS FOR FLAT BUYS NOW:
Let's take a look at some rules that relate to flat buys, follow them to minimize possible risks.
1. NEVER start a flat buy without doing tests in bidding first. You need to know what works with the traffic you are about to buy. Keep in mind that you CAN NOT stop a flat buy just like that. Flat deals are meant to increase and secure your volume, not to run blind tests with.
2. ALWAYS ask for a test period when starting a new flat deal. 7 days, 10 days maximum. Keep in mind that even a proven spot can perform differently when on a flat deal. You don't want to find yourself tied in a 30 day deal on a spot that isn't performing for you.
3. KEEP IN MIND that you might have to give up on targeting options and campaign settings! Very targeted flat buys are often as expensive as bidding campaigns. Standard flat buy (for the best price) doesn't support CPM for example. So expect lower CTR and lower CVR than you are getting from 1/24 capped campaign.
4. YOU CANNOT PAUSE placements in a flat RON campaign. At least usually it isn't possible. Flat rates for RON campaigns are usually very low, I got fooled by it myself a few times. But you have to keep all the placements running, even those that are performing very poor. You would pause them in a bidding campaign, but with a flat deal it's not possible.
5. NEVER START a flat campaign with just 1 offer, unless you are 1000% sure it's not going anywhere… make sure you have a replacement at hand in case something goes wrong original offer.
6. UPLOAD AS MANY banners are possible straight away, flat campaigns are “locked” once active, you have to request every change, including banner updates. It's not the same with every network thou, make sure you ask your AM about their preferred way of handling flat rate campaigns modifications.
7. TRY TO NEGOTIATE the price! Since this is the wholesale way of doing business, make sure you are getting the best price possible. Don't be afraid to submit an offer that is way below the asking price … the worst that can happen is that they will deny it.
8. ASK ABOUT VOLUME GUARANTEES! There is one specific thing about adult sites. One large site can sell traffic to almost all adult networks out there. Some of them have their bidding connected via API interface, so even if you have a flat deal for some spot, another network can get it in case of a significantly higher bid.
This is not a problem when the loss is small, but at times, this can ruin the flat deal, as you will lose the volume and the whole point of a flat deal is gone. In such cases, you want to be able to break out of the flat deal and get a refund. Make sure the network either guarantees the delivery or allows the cancellation in case of this situation.
9. DOUBLE CHECK the targeting options before starting a more targeted flat deal. The most common problem is the mixing of desktop with tablet traffic. Ask for guarantees that you will only receive the traffic type you are interested into.
10. MONITOR YOUR NEW FLAT deal campaign for the first few hours! These campaigns often require some setup related actions on behalf of your AMs, which might result into a problem here and there. Analyze the traffic you are getting and make everything is in line with what you ordered – I've been delivered totally different traffic than I ordered already, it's happening all the time – check the GEO, device ...
11. DO NOT HESITATE to ask for small campaign tweaks in case it's not performing well for you. It's not possible to change the core setup, but AMs are able to mess with the rotation a bit. In case there is more than enough volume available, they can utilize the CPM caps to make delivery more even … ask about it, instead of accepting the loss just like that.
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Let me end the article here, it's too long already anyways I would say that I covered the most important parts, but in case you have some questions, do not hesitate to ask of course.
Thanks for reading
Hey Matuloo great article as always
A few questions if you don't mind.
1. When doing a flat rate you aren't usually allowed to use frequency capping right? So to test a site before a flat rate do you try to run it at no cap to see what the ctr/cpc is going to look like?
2. I've thought of doing flat rate buys from TrafficHaus and Exoclick, do they not allow you to use their platform to change/pause banners? I always thought if I bought a flat rate from one of these guys it would be just like a normal self-serve campaign where I could upload/pause banners etc normally.
3. Do you think for Tier 1 geos Flat Rates are your only chance at profits? Or is self-serve wins still possible?
Thank you.
Matuloo, how to fill the cap for the offers (DESKTOP)? I've had sucessful campaigns in FR, NL, UK. Launched campaigns in every good placement from Traffic Junky/Exo/Traffic Factory and after cutting some bad placements I could not get past 100 conversions a day!
One person at other day told me about Traffic Factory. "Man, two years ago I could spend 1000 a day on Traffic Factory. This week I launched a campaign and could not spend 100 USD".
Originally Posted by jabong82
A few questions if you don't mind.
1. When doing a flat rate you aren't usually allowed to use frequency capping right? So to test a site before a flat rate do you try to run it at no cap to see what the ctr/cpc is going to look like?
2. I've thought of doing flat rate buys from TrafficHaus and Exoclick, do they not allow you to use their platform to change/pause banners? I always thought if I bought a flat rate from one of these guys it would be just like a normal self-serve campaign where I could upload/pause banners etc normally.
3. Do you think for Tier 1 geos Flat Rates are your only chance at profits? Or is self-serve wins still possible?
Thank you.
1. Yes, testing without a CAP will give you a better idea about the performance. However, some cap control is possible even with flat rate buys, with a small trick I'm gonna share with you
Let's say you are buying 50% of the rotation in some spot - you can ask your AM to configure the campaign so it delivers the traffic evenly across the day - and they will reach that with applying a cap 2. Exoclick will "lock" your campaign, the prevent yourself from messing with the settings, it's a security measure for them. Some features are still working, but you can't upload a banner for example. With traffichaus, you can upload banners, but AM has to approve them ... there are always some limits in case of Flat buys and they are different from one network to the next.
3. I don't think flat buys are needed to reach profits, right now I'm not using many flat buys personally for example. Last year, I did a lot of them, maybe later in this year I will again ... but it's not mandatory in any way, I actually prefer self serve by a mile.
Originally Posted by bdmmoreira
Im still using traffic factory, it's true that I used to spend more there than I do now, but it's mostly because I had to change GEOs and had to leave some large ones. It's quite normal with adult, there arent always good offers available for all geos.
Thanks Matuloo. I always appreciate you taking the time to answer my questions!
Originally Posted by jabong82
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