Sweepstakes 101 - Part 0 - INTRO & INDEX (30)
Introduction
Since the success of the first "What's Working in Affiliate Marketing" report last year, I've been wanting to come up with more ways to collaborate with industry leaders to achieve a win-win-win, where:
-STM can provide more value to members.
-Members can get more value from their STM subscription.
-Vendors and super-affiliates can get more exposure (and thus more business, or more traffic to their blogs).
Since one of the most popular FAQs of all time is:
"Which vertical should I choose and how can I master it?"
I thought it would be beneficial to write a guide for every popular vertical - starting with the sweepstakes vertical, as it's one of the most popular verticals for newbies and veterans alike.
At first I wanted to write this guide myself.
But because it's been a couple years since I last ran sweeps, I'd have to get back into the vertical and do some massive testing before I'd be able to write a comprehensive guide. That would take too long.
Remembering what we did to produce the "What's Working in Affiliate Marketing in [year]" reports, I got thinking: Why not just interview industry experts and compile all the advice?
That way it'd be fast and efficient, and more importantly, we'd benefit from the diverse experience from different areas of expertise - e.g. aff networks vs. advertiser vs. affiliates, pop/push vs. FB vs. email, etc.
So I set out to contact super-affiliates, affiliate networks, and direct advertisers that have a main/sole focus in this offer vertical, to "get the dirt" on how to maximize success with these offers.
Everyone I've had the honor of interviewing has been most generous with their tips - words can't express how appreciative I am for giving me their time and knowledge. Some of them I hit up multiple times with further questions. And every gold nugget I picked up from an interview made me mega-excited - for you, the reader! The more experts I interviewed, the more eager I was to get this guide written up and delivered to you.
Experts Interviewed For This Guide
Credits are often left until the end, but I want to do things differently by putting these at the beginning.
Please don't skip this section! Just like how religious people would say grace before a meal, please join me in sending gratitude to the following individuals for the tips you're about to receive. Doing so will create positive energy that will aid in your success.
(Note: Contact Info for networks/advertisers will be in a subsequent post.)
Here they are, listed in alphabetical order by last name.
Emil Alexandru, @blackemil, Affiliate
Website: Adsvertising.co.uk
Emil is an affiliate from Romania that has been in the industry for almost 9 years. Started in the industry in 2011 with SEO, and did well until Google's animal updates in 2013. In 2014, started running adult paid traffic with partner Robert Andrei. 1 year later, attended STM London in 2015 where the main discussion was pops. Being tired of adult creatives reaching ad blindness after 3 days, Emil and partner jumped into pops, which was where they hit their first big campaign with iphone sweeps by using a new angle. It was Emil and Robert that invented those moving facebook comments on the landing pages. They rode the pops wave for 1 year doing xxx,xxx in profits before deciding to jump on FB, which remains their focus to this day aside from a bit of Google.
Taiwo Balogun, @cashmoneyaffiliate, Affiliate & Blogger
Website: CashMoneyAffiliate.com
Self intro: "My name is Taiwo Balogun, and I’m based in the UK but spend most of my time travelling. I’ve been an affiliate marketer for over five years now and also run an affiliate marketing blog cashmoneyaffiliate.com. My favourite vertical at the moment are Sweepstakes, and the main traffic sources I use are Facebook, Google Ads and Push Traffic."
Neill Burton, Head of Account Management, Zeropark
Website: Zeropark.com
Description: Zeropark is an OG RTB traffic platform, around since 2012, and like a good whiskey it only gets better with age. Offering as 56 billion ad impressions across Pop and Domain traffic monthly, and now with the addition of 400 million Clicks from Push, in short - if you cannot find a fit for you campaign with Zeropark you will not find it anywhere.
Shay Fodor, Senior Account Manager, Mappstreet
Website: Mappstreet.com
Description: Mappstreet (formerly RingtonePartner) is a leading online performance-based advertising network. Established since 2007, our company has a strong background in mobile advertising and marketing. Our core verticals are sweepstakes and download/VOD offers with email submit, pin submit and credit card submit flows.
Liad Frydman, Head of Display & Push, Creative Clicks
Website: CreativeClicks.com
Description: The world's leading data-driven marketing platform for mobile and beyond.
Stephen Gelber, Director of Media Buying, Fluent
Website: Fluentco.com (Note: Please do not contact Stephen directly as he does not deal with affiliates. An affiliate contact from Fluent will be given out in a separate post.)
Erik Gyepes, @erikgyepes, Affiliate, STM Moderator
Website: ErikGyepes.com
Self intro: "Hey! I’m Erik, from Slovakia, living in Thailand with my wife and 2 dogs. I’m a solo affiliate marketer and in the business for 5+ years. I also moderate STM and blog at https://erikgyepes.com. I like to stir things up from time to time. Last year my focus was mainly on adult nutra vertical and adult display traffic sources. This year I rather focus on mainstream verticals like sweepstakes. And when it comes to traffic sources I mainly work with push traffic now."
Vincent Jouvin, Senior Business Developer, Big Bang Ads
Website: Big-Bang-Ads.com
Description: Big Bang Ads is an advertiser for lead gen SOI sweeps offers since 2001 with 145 employees based in 3 offices across the globe. We own the lead gen funnel from the landing page creation to the data filtering until the user monetization... from A to Z! We are active in over 20 countries worldwide. Affiliates mostly promote our offers with social, push, display or email traffic.
Tim Konijn, @stickupkid, Affiliate & STM Moderator
Self intro: "Hi there, I am Tim from Alkmaar (small town near Amsterdam). Been in the affiliate game for 10 years or so! My main focus is Facebook Advertising, but got some decent knowledge about e-mail marketing, SEO and online marketing in general of course."
Arthur Kruijssen, Head of Monetization, FRST Media
Website: FRSTMedia.com
Description: FRST Media is a Sweepstake advertiser, active in 25+ countries with own on-house sweepstake pages on CPL, CPA and/or RevShare model.
Peter Leung, @itzpeter, Affiliate
Peter started affiliate marketing in 2017 and hit his first 4 figure a day profit in summer of 2018, mastering facebook as a primary traffic source. He utilizes a special technique introduced to him by @stickupkid - which is running camps with no tools!
Find Peter's success story here.
Gijs Liekens, Head of Network, VIP Response
Website: VIPResponse.nl
Description: VIP is an exclusive performance network with deep expertise in affiliate marketing, leadgeneration and data monetization. Our top verticals are: CC Submits, Nutra, Casino and Dating.
Fabrizio Manese, Managing Director and Partner, Gotzha
Website: Gotzha.com
Description: We are specialized in mobile content, casino, credit card submits, lead generation and apps. As industry experts, we have the market knowledge to let you reach your goals.
Mitesh Muley, @miteshmuley, Affiliate
Self intro: "I am Mitesh from India (Pune). I am in this industry for almost 13+ years. I had taken a break for a few years and explored SEO/SMM and tried my hand again at AM around 6-7 years back. I am running whitehat offers: Nutra, Crypto, Sweeps. Mostly I focus only on Facebook and Google."
Andrew Payne, @Mr Payne, Affiliate & Agency Owner
Website: AffiliateSuccess.com
Self-intro: "The STM community knows me as Mr Payne. I have been a digital marketer since 2007 with some experience in the affiliate side early on in those years but only returned to the affiliate industry 2.5 years ago. I work with most of the traffic types but my focus has primarily been with pop and push traffic. Working in many verticals including lead gen, dating, nutra, streaming/media, sweeps, etc. No real limits on verticals."
Asta Smagurauskaite, Publisher Account Manager, Maverick Media
Website: MaverickMedia.eu
Description: A performance marketing company based in Barcelona, Spain, active since 2012. Focuses on CPL/ CPA performance campaigns for desktop and mobile. Offers in-house sweepstakes that convert on credit card submit in tier1, tier2, tier3 geos, as well as in-house customization services: custom designs, domains and white labeling.
Bobby Verlaat, Head of Publishers, Sinum Vendo
Mathijs Kortland, Sales Director, Sinum Vendo
Website: SinumVendo.com
Description: SINUM VENDO is the go-to hub when it comes to sweeps, VOD, mobile subscriptions, gaming and lead gen. We want you to excel and make the highest profits possible, therefore we look at EPCs and ROIs rather than high payouts and scrubbing tactics.
Ivy Villezas, Senior Account Manager, Wewe Media
Website: WeweMedia.com
Description: Wewe Media is a leading affiliate network headquartered in Singapore with a strong focus on 4 core verticals: Nutra, Adult Dating, and Sweepstakes (Leadgen & Trials) and App Installs. With our 10+ years of experience in the industry, we are not here for the quick win, we are all about longevity, sustainability and solid relationships.
What This Guide Consists Of
Aside from all the golden advice from these experts, I've also asked for lists of the best offers from the networks and advertisers, which I'll be linking to from this guide.
Plus, I'm working on adding more landing pages to our new LANDER DEPOSITORY to help you to run these offers.
Furthermore, I've taken screenshots of ads from Adplexity and MagicAdz to provide you with inspiration, just to get your creativity going.
In short, we want to give you EVERYTHING we can to help you conquer the sweepstakes vertical!
So let's get right to it! Here's the 8-part series that make up this guide:
Part 1 - What Exactly ARE Sweepstakes Offers?
Part 2 - Affiliate Networks & Advertisers
Part 3 - Traffic Types & Sources
Part 4 - Targeting & Optimization
Part 5 - Tips on Quality
Part 6 - Ads & Landers (1)
Part 7 - Ads & Landers (2)
Part 8 - Peter's System
Even if you have zero experience with this vertical, with the help of this guide, you could be running sweeps offers like a pro within a short time.
But please keep in mind that nobody can do the testing FOR you! This isn't a step-by-step guide, so you'll need to fill in some of the blanks yourself.
But with the vast amount of tips and tricks provided to you, you have every reason to give this vertical a go.
I did my part by bringing you the best tips from the best experts. The rest will be on you. 
I look forward to seeing you succeed. Have fun reading!
Amy
Hi everyone! I'm so eager to get this guide out, I thought I'd post the intro first.
Still writing the last couple posts - aiming to finish them by EOD today.
After that, will need to let all the interviewees look over them in case there are misinterpretations.
Will be posting the rest of the guide over the next week or so - please stay tuned!
Amy
Yay! I've been waiting for this!
Can't wait to read it all
Can we block this from being published please? Too much golddddd 
Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums mobile app
Originally Posted by stickupkid
Maybe just send the guide to some lucky person's inbox. *wink wink
Can’t wait to read it. big thanks Amy
Sent from my iPad using STM Forums mobile app
Whoa whoa whose this Peter guy? and what is his system? I'm so interested!
Originally Posted by stickupkid
Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums mobile app
Too late though - there's this guy named Tim K***** who has written like 10 posts on STM to give away his system. Amy
Looking forward do this.
Will this guide only be focusing on Facebook traffic? Or other sources, like Push?
Originally Posted by summitview
Amy
Originally Posted by vortex
I have been eyeing push w/sweeps so this is good timing, but I was actually aiming to start asap. I have a reasonable understanding of how a campaign is put together and no technical challenges, and a good budget, but I'm wondering if you could give me a quick tip and tell me what affiliate networks would you recommend to start with (preferably easy for someone w/o history to get into), and *push* traffic sources?
This is going to be gold!
Let's see what you got Amy
Originally Posted by summitview
Please see the first post above for networks and advertisers that have contributed to the guide.
Here are more:
And here are some push networks:
(Disclaimer: STM does not endorse affiliate or traffic networks. Please join at your own discretion.)
Amy
Thank you both so much for your contributions! I just finished writing the draft - will send it to you guys for review when I wake.
Amy
What a wonderful idea! Looking veeeery much forward to share with the team here as well for some extra dose of sweepspiration 
Ieva Gasmobi
It's finally here!!! I'm struggling with Sweeps on Pop after your 40-Day Tutorial, but no way to convert... with this first post I think we are going to move from pop
Thank you Amy!
Alessio
THANK YOU! Been looking forward to this
I' m into the 40 days tutorial you wrotten and i can say you're a genius.
I' cant wait for this other series!
Thank you
Sent from my SM-N976B using STM Forums mobile app
Great timing, Amy. Will be setting up my first sweeps campaigns through the 40 day tutorial very soon.
Part 1 posted! The rest are all done - just putting on the final touches - will follow in the next few days.
Amy
Part 2 posted also.
Amy
Hi @vortex, when can we expect other chapters of Sweepstakes, Eagerly Waiting
Originally Posted by mahakal
The rest of the parts are all done in terms of content - I just need to style them to improve readability. I was side-tracked by some urgent issues (business + personal) but will get them posted ASAP - most likely first thing on Monday.
Apologies for the delay - I know you're all expecting them and I'm literally DYING to get them to you. Will happen soon enough I promise!
Amy
Originally Posted by vortex
The rest of the parts are all done in terms of content - I just need to style them to improve readability. I was side-tracked by some urgent issues (business + personal) but will get them posted ASAP - most likely first thing on Monday.
Apologies for the delay - I know you're all expecting them and I'm literally DYING to get them to you. Will happen soon enough I promise!
Amy
Originally Posted by stickupkid
Amy
Hi Amy,
is there any image at your first post? I see different things on firefox and chrome. In firefox, it seems as if there are images but I cant see them, in chrome, there is nothing but text.
Originally Posted by cyphercore
Best to read these from desktop.
Amy
No, I was viewing from Desktop.
But Today , accidentally, I entered forum through VPN set to PL, and it allowed me to see images
What I see in first post real ? 
Originally Posted by vortex
But Today , accidentally, I entered forum through VPN set to PL, and it allowed me to see images
Amy
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