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how do this site make money? found in adplexity (27)

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guys
see this site gnd couple of times already in adplexity, really not sure how they make money?

not adsense arbitrage, not ecom or CPA, affiliate offer. not even a link

https://gnd.com/family-adopts-tiny-p...6-3b5f0aef8279

https://prnt.sc/mv537h

my best guess is native ads arbitrage?!

https://prnt.sc/mv53v9

i see no placement in my country IP

but, revcontent traffic and arbitrage works!?

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You need to look at it from a USA IP address.

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I don't see ads there too, could be a GEO problem or poorly configured ad serving script.

But yes, it looks like an arbitrage site ... it also collects push permissions, so that's extra income. There is a FB page attached to it, so an extra chance at building audience to work with later.

Another option would be that this is just a safe-page that is used as part of their cloaking setup and adplexity was detected and sent to it.

The safe-page option looks more likely to me as the design of the site doesn't really look that good in terms of arbitrage.

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This is not a case of cloaking since the image /headline is related (the same) to the article: https://prnt.sc/mv537h
They can cloak the LP but there isnt a way to cloak the image serverd to the users.

I think they are using the sites to grow their facebook pages. There are a ton of different pages promoted through those ads, and all of them are managed from 9 persons from Israel.

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True, I missed that, you have a point there. But this would be a very expensive way of growing a FB page, so I don't think its the main motive. On top of that, there is a google+ link on the page, which is a service that's being taken down... looks weird to me, that's why I suggested the cloaking possibility. On top of that, I've seen lot's of cloaked ads leading to aggressive landing pages that had NOTHING to do with the ad. The goal was just to get the cheapest clicks possible, then they used scare tactics and "you have a virus" tech support offers.

It's also possible someone is simply testing something that they found out there and wanted to replicate it ... but it might be a failed attempt. People are trying all kinds of stuff.

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Interesting stuff here 🧐.


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums mobile app

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I have noticed a trend for this type of ads prior to any important elections. I have noticed that first on the USA elections and again before Brexit referendum. And this time might be cause of the EU parliamentary election. So i think it is done before starting the fake news campaigns. But its just a hunch though, cause i didnt collect data on the previous occasions.

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I asked this exact same question a month or two ago on here lol. Can't find the link right now but should be easy to find if you're curious

GND is owned by Media Force I believe, which is a company based out of Israel if I'm not mistaken, which does a variety of IM-type stuff. I think they also own comparisons.org, and are behind the ubiquitous Weekly Penny listicles that us native guys are always salivating over (at least me!)

I believe they have some sort of custom made traffic-buying algo-thing going on, and I think they also sell some ad placements. I would imagine these GND articles that they buy traffic to probably contain ads linking to their own funnels as well as ad space they are selling.

Super, super smart company from everything I can tell. They seem to be absolutely killing it on native, google display network, facebook, etc. Definitely a good case study in how to grow upwards and outwards via performance marketing.



Note: If any of that is incorrect my apologies- just basing it on responses to my own post wondering about the gnd articles plus looking at their website/adplexity/so-on, and only sharing the info in the spirit of admiration/so we can all learn from the 'best practices' approaches we see.

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Thanks Jack
I dig deeper to media force and to the site url comparisons.org
And came to my surprise (or maybe not)
That their review site “affiliate link” are dead link

http://reviews.comparisons.org/debt/

You can go in here and click learn more button and it will be a dead link .... wth ?

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The link you put up above works fine for me as do all the links on the page. I think it might be your location (or any number of factors).

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Links work for me as well (Spain).

Quite like their comparison pages, there is something clean and simple about them.

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I like those weekly penny articles. I remember you said you were trying them, any luck so far?

I did a Google search: site:weeklypenny.com and I found some lander gold

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It's definitely some form of a more complex setup Would really love to find out what they are up to with this ... will try to dig in deeper when I find the time to waste on it

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Well I've definitely tried a lot of listicle's that have been inspired by their's. Not identical but similar definitely.

They are very difficult though... every single offer needs to have a high epc, there's tons of stuff to split-test, you need a good creative, etc.

I think their success is partly from getting super high payouts since they can do so much volume and probably go direct with all the vendors, mixed with their traffic buying expertise/program/etc.

My first few attempts failed pretty badly, but the last two iterations have had some success, and while I wouldn't call them profitable yet, I'm definitely up to 500+ conversions so I finally have some decent data with which to optimize based on. I'd say most important things are 1) excluding low epc offers, 2) experimenting with which offer page(s) to link to if you have multiple choices, and/or creating your own 'secondary' landing pages to link to from the listicle that then link to the offer after warming up the lead a bit, and 3) getting access to good offers/decent payouts.

Hoping to get my current iteration profitable and scaled up so we'll see what happens

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Hi jack
I am exactly on the same boat
Imitate some setup from them and some other publishers and arranged listicle via giddyup, ( btw where else did you find e-commerce offer ?) and using revcontent brand only. ( I don’t have enough budget and didn’t use optimiserIO to automate blacklist widgets ID).

Were you using topics target level ? And blacklist widget ID to optimise the campaign ??

Still awaiting revcontent to approve my campaign and they are always very slow...

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Hey gritaction-

The only ecom offers I've ever run are from GiddyUp. I believe there's some other networks that have some but GiddyUp is the only network I'm aware of that really specializes in whitehat ecom stuff.

As far as Revcontent yes, there's a myriad ways you can run things and I've tried most of them.

If you aren't using an optimizer I would definitely stick to Brands though, that's wise. If you do topics and have it set to blacklist then you are opening yourself up to spending a ton of money on bot widgets (until you get them all blocked, of course).

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thank you for reconfirming my strategies.
i am just curious though, theres two way to run natives
1. run with brands, so that you dont expose to bot widgets ( at least that we believe ), and we can ensure most of the budget spent it on real traffics and we can tick one variable factor away from the verticals

2. run with topics and exposes to bot widgets and uses automation tools or manually blacklist them. but in the long run you get more whitelisted targeted widgets

in your opinion whats the pro and cons comparing the two? is it correct to say, the second method in the long run will have a lower CPC compared to strategy 1? and for a serious marketer that plans to do it in the long run should always go for method 2?

thanks !

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Yes

You nailed it. That is exactly how I would describe the pro's and con's of the two

And it doesn't have to be a binary choice... you can do both... or change over time... or any number of combinations...

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thanks Jack. honestly your sharing have encouraged me to keep on trying in native.

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on the side note
GND guys have expanded their game in native and its all over the place.


https://prnt.sc/mxctqw
https://refererhider.com/?https://gn...7-6cda013b8399


https://prnt.sc/mxcu30
https://refererhider.com/?https://gn...d-2c558613eee0


theres much more

really want to know what game they are playing at.

the domain of gnd is registered since 1995. , with estimation of 1.2m traffic, my personal guess is they can sell the domain with a much better price if they boast the traffic hits?

OR

they use this article to drive traffic to their own sites
which is making a PBN
https://prnt.sc/mxcwqz

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Hey Jack,

So the basic setup is to
1) create a listical with links to affiliate offers - say list of hot gadgets ...
2) buy traffic from revcontent
3) hope someone that's reading the article will end up purchase one of these gadgets

I'd imagin the rate of people read the article and then buying is pretty low - What are the numbers typically look like in order for this to work?

give you an example what i m asking, i never ran native ads, but ran a ton fb ads on e-com dropship. here will be my typical math -
impression -> ads -> landing page -> purchase

typically for a breakeven campaign, this is what the number could look like
impression(CPM) is at $10
click through rate:


Hey Jack,

So the basic setup is to
1) create a listical with links to affiliate offers - say list of hot gadgets ...
2) buy traffic from revcontent
3) hope someone that's reading the listical will click the link to the offer page, and end up purchase one of these gadgets.

I'd imagin the rate of people read the article and then buying is pretty low - What are the numbers typically look like in order for this to work?

give you an example what i m asking, (i never ran native ads, but ran a ton fb ads on e-com dropship). here will be a typical math in fb ecom -

funnel: ads -> landing page -> purchase

typically on fb when launching a e-com campaign, the number could look like this:
impression(CPM) is at $10
click through rate: 1%, which puts CPC at $1
unoptimized conversation rate is typically at 2%,
this roughly put the CPA at about $50

so if I see an offer with a CPA at $35.
I know the lander need to convert at 4% ($25) to make me about $10 (35 - 50/2).
if i can get CTR to up to 2% then I will be making $22 per sale. 35 - 50/2/2

I’m curious what will be typical math on native end for the native funnel you described(ads -> listical -> offer page -> purchase). I’d think everything needs to be a lot cheaper in order for this to work out.

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Hey cawovt-

Well again, I've definitely not yet mastered listicles by any means... but yes, that's about the same math.

I'd say your average native listicle, whether ecom gadgets or lead-gen offers or a mix of the two, probably has an average CPA of about 35$ (although anywhere from 15-90$ depending on the specific offer).

So if you had a 1% conversion rate and 25 cent clicks you'd be profitable, or a 2% conversion rate and 50 cent clicks, etc.

One offer on the listicle might have a higher conversion rate but lower offer payout, another might have a low conversion rate but super high offer payout, all depends on what you're doing.

So many possibilities and permutations... which is one of the things that makes them hard, but also rewarding...

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I think one thing you could do with listicles is cut the list of products down?

So you start with the 23 best gadgets and you might end up with the 5 best gadgets based on conversions.

Or am I stating the obvious now?

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Yeah there's a million ways you could do it... that's definitely one..

On a tangent to that, I don't know if longer listicles with more items do better than shorter ones, presuming all else is equal in terms of the epc of the individual offers... but yeah... would be interesting to split test.... its amazing what a big difference rather subtle changes can make in performance with them.

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Thanks Jack,

would you mind breakdown a typical number by steps for me?

ads -> listical -> offer page -> purchase

most curious, I wonder how much a drop typically expects from listical page to offer page, assuming offer to purchase is a typical 2%. back to the math, if a typical CPA is $35

CPA $35
then the max cost per offer page view is at $0.70
then I assume you will see at least 90% drop from listical -> offer page, (because the clickbaity type of title, you bring in a lot of unqualified buyers), so that puts the max cost per listicle page view to just $0.07.
That number seems to be very low. and require your ad to have a hell of CTR to make this thing work.

But again, that's just my assumption; i m curious to what your breakdown actually looks like,

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Hey cawovt-

Sure.

So on Wednesday my listicle on Revcontent had 290k impressions > 374 clicks at .45$ cpc > 121 lp clicks > 7 conversions averaging 40$ each (split between 5 different offers) = 280$ revenue over 167.19$ spend.

That was a good day, and an illustration of how a listicle can be profitable.

On Thursday, on the other hand, the exact same listicle had 292k impressions > 414 clicks at .45$ cpc > 156 lp clicks > 2 conversions averaging 40$ each = 80$ over 185.77$ spend.

Since my volume is somewhat low its not that odd for one day to be really good and one really bad like that... but those two days are good illustrations of the math.

Basically it just comes down to what sites its running on. One site on Revcontent/Outbrain/Taboola could have a 3% conversion rate whereas another very similar site could have a 0.2% conversion rate... even on the same site two different widgets could have that wide of a discrepency... it comes down to a massive number of variables including the demographics of the readers of the site in question, the loading speed of that site, the location of the widgets on the page, the % of clicks on that widget that are accidental, etc. It seems to me as though the successful media buyers on native ruthlessly select for the best placements and just dispassionately block any that aren't profitable (often using an Optimizer), and that that is the main way of achieving profits (along with constantly testing ads and landing pages of course and getting them as optimized as possible).

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He might no monetizing site right now, looks pretty interesting. Maybe he want to aggresive monetize later?

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