Sweepstakes 101 - Part 5 - Tips on Quality (2)
Tips on Quality
As affiliates we mostly only care about getting that conversion. Most of us are not aware of what the visitors will experience after the conversion takes place, i.e. what they go through as the advertiser monetizes them.
If the advertiser fails to monetize our visitors sufficiently to cover their costs plus commissions paid out to us (and the affiliate network if one is involved), they would obviously have to stop allowing us to promote their offer.
How well the traffic we send can be monetized, is partially dependent on what is called "lead quality". You'll see tips on how to achieve good lead quality in this part of the guide.
Ignore these tips at your peril!
Mitesh Muley aka @miteshmuley:
Target 25+ y/o on Facebook.
Andrew Payne aka @Mr Payne:
1. Keep open communication with the network/advertiser to stay on top of quality. Sources like FB are easy to do good quality. Sources like pop/push can fluctuate. Best to know what's up at all times.
2. Use an age question on your lander, e.g. "How old are you?" Redirect users that select "under 21" to some other offer type where lower age doesn't affect quality as much.
3. That will help you get higher payouts on the sweeps offer because quality is higher, and then you can fine-tune that lower quality traffic elsewhere.
4. Or work with the advertiser and send that traffic to a much lower payout offer link of theirs.
2. Use an age question on your lander, e.g. "How old are you?" Redirect users that select "under 21" to some other offer type where lower age doesn't affect quality as much.
3. That will help you get higher payouts on the sweeps offer because quality is higher, and then you can fine-tune that lower quality traffic elsewhere.
4. Or work with the advertiser and send that traffic to a much lower payout offer link of theirs.
Taiwo Balogun aka @cashmoneyaffiliate:
High quality can be achieved by asking more survey questions. I have seen that when you ask 8 or more questions, the visitors who were never really invested in the possibility of winning the reward tend to fall off half way through answering the questions.
Also, targeting over 25+ is best.
Also, targeting over 25+ is best.
Stephen Gelber @ Fluent:
We definitely look for traffic sources or audience segments that engage highly with that last step of the process (i.e. the signing up to co-reg offers).
We see higher quality:
-On Mobile (as opposed to desktop)
-Morning / Afternoon (as opposed to at night when quality dips slightly)
-Weekdays (as opposed to weekends)
We see higher quality:
-On Mobile (as opposed to desktop)
-Morning / Afternoon (as opposed to at night when quality dips slightly)
-Weekdays (as opposed to weekends)
Gijs @ VIP Response:
At least 18+ always!
No matter if you run CC submits or lead generation offers: Never target minors!
No matter if you run CC submits or lead generation offers: Never target minors!
Emil Alexandru @blackemil:
You need to be open with the advertisers, understand their flows.
One tip I can give is about the age. Targeting under 25 years old results in bad quality for advertisers.
People think: SOI - it's just a simple opt-in! But behind it is a flow where people agree to sell their data to different sponsors. So if they don't opt-in when they get there, the quality will be bad.
Don't use false claims on the landers. Telling people they've won affects the quality. Better to use words like "register to see if you qualify".
Another thing about age: The younger demographic is less likely to "fall" for our advertisements (e.g. "hey you are the lucky 1000th contestant and won an iPhone"), as they're more tech savvy.
One tip I can give is about the age. Targeting under 25 years old results in bad quality for advertisers.
People think: SOI - it's just a simple opt-in! But behind it is a flow where people agree to sell their data to different sponsors. So if they don't opt-in when they get there, the quality will be bad.
Don't use false claims on the landers. Telling people they've won affects the quality. Better to use words like "register to see if you qualify".
Another thing about age: The younger demographic is less likely to "fall" for our advertisements (e.g. "hey you are the lucky 1000th contestant and won an iPhone"), as they're more tech savvy.
Mathijs Kortland & Bobby Verlaat @Sinum Vendo:
First of all, keep in close touch with your representative at the network you run the campaign with.
You cannot ask these questions enough: What is the quality? Is my traffic matching the needs of the product owner?
Run the offer capped for a few days and ask for a quality check, to avoid any quality problems and unexpected scrubs.
Also, make sure to test multiple traffic networks, types of audiences where possible, and new creatives - to find new ways of driving high-quality visitors to the offers.
Sometimes you may be achieving great profits, but have to stop because profits are too low for the offer owner. This happens a lot. Try to come up with new angles or adapt the current one to make things profitable for all parties involved.
Lastly, be honest and transparent. Without doing so, it would be impossible to scale hard.
You cannot ask these questions enough: What is the quality? Is my traffic matching the needs of the product owner?
Run the offer capped for a few days and ask for a quality check, to avoid any quality problems and unexpected scrubs.
Also, make sure to test multiple traffic networks, types of audiences where possible, and new creatives - to find new ways of driving high-quality visitors to the offers.
Sometimes you may be achieving great profits, but have to stop because profits are too low for the offer owner. This happens a lot. Try to come up with new angles or adapt the current one to make things profitable for all parties involved.
Lastly, be honest and transparent. Without doing so, it would be impossible to scale hard.
Arthur @frst media:
For us, the main KPI for FB traffic seems to be age-related. Our data buyers focus more on 30-35+ age groups, hence this segment is more valuable for us.
Liad @ Creative Clicks:
Having good communication with your account manger + making sure you pass all necessary tracking macros (so you can exclude bad-quality traffic) is the only way.
Fabi @ Gotzha:
Target higher ages if possible - older people are more valuable for advertisers because they have money to spend and are more often in charge of the spending in the household (e.g. which electricity company their household uses). 25+ is a good rule of thumb.
Also, you can try to tell people in your prelander that they need to answer all questions (in the offer funnel) in order for them to qualify for the prize.
You can also send your sub-sources in the tracking link. For example give each adset/prelander/target group a number, and send that in your tracking link. Some advertisers can optimize based on that data - by telling you which ads or prelanders or traffic sources or campaigns are resulting in low quality so you can stop using them.
Also, you can try to tell people in your prelander that they need to answer all questions (in the offer funnel) in order for them to qualify for the prize.
You can also send your sub-sources in the tracking link. For example give each adset/prelander/target group a number, and send that in your tracking link. Some advertisers can optimize based on that data - by telling you which ads or prelanders or traffic sources or campaigns are resulting in low quality so you can stop using them.
Erik @erikgyepes:
One thing you should do is send some kind of SubID back to the affiliate network.
Based on this you can then backtrack which angle and traffic source is causing bad lead quality. Then you can investigate on your side and compare your results.
Sometimes you can do something about it, but sometimes it can be a rather global issue that the advertiser should address on their end, but in this case you will see the offer being paused anyway.
Based on this you can then backtrack which angle and traffic source is causing bad lead quality. Then you can investigate on your side and compare your results.
Sometimes you can do something about it, but sometimes it can be a rather global issue that the advertiser should address on their end, but in this case you will see the offer being paused anyway.
Tim Konijn aka @stickupkid:
I'm not sure which age range gives advertisers the best profits when they monetize the leads, but as an affiliates promoting sweeps offers, I find that 35+ y/o converts the best - gives better ROI and profits for me.
Vincent Jouvin @ Big Bang Ads:
With regards to Facebook, mostly we see affiliates promoting landing pages that bring us females below 25 years old (MAC Cosmetic is a good example). We got overloaded with leads like this in Q1 2019 and had to stop some affiliates from promoting those because we had no clients to buy female leads below 25 (I think it's the same for other advertisers). It's just super hard for us to monetize this audience, even though it look like it is what works well for affiliates on social.
We had to re-adjust our strategy towards affiliates running social by asking them to bring 50/50 gender split and an audience older than 25 y.o. (this is what our co-reg clients are looking for!)
We therefore asked them to promote male oriented landing pages like "win the MTB of your choice" as an example.
We had to re-adjust our strategy towards affiliates running social by asking them to bring 50/50 gender split and an audience older than 25 y.o. (this is what our co-reg clients are looking for!)
We therefore asked them to promote male oriented landing pages like "win the MTB of your choice" as an example.
Summary and Notes
Many of the tips above apply to most traffic types, except age-targeting isn't available on pop and push traffic (for these you'd need to use landers to segregate visitors by age).
When you promote your next sweeps offer, it would be a good idea to ask your AM for more details on how the leads will be monetized, so you could decide on your targeting and landing page to attract a similar audience, and maybe divert the less-than-ideal traffic elsewhere (a smartlink or another offer).
Note that different experts have suggested different age ranges. This is because the "ideal age" will depend on many factors, such as the particular offer and how it's monetized (e.g. the clients in the co-reg funnel or the buyers of the leads, and what ages convert the best for their products/services), the type of traffic used, and even our lander angle.
Aside from age, there may also be other requirements depending on what the advertiser wants. What Vincent @ Big Bang Ads described above regarding gender-split is a good example. What Gijs @ VIP Response said in the previous post about targeting lower-income people is another good example.
Another thing worth noting is that, while affiliate networks and advertisers would of course want lead quality to be as high as possible for them, we affiliates would not want to maximize lead quality - as doing so would often mean higher spend per conversion for us. We affiliates are always aiming to find that sweet spot between maximizing our profits while still sending leads of acceptable-quality.
In general, trying to locate this sweet spot from the very beginning may be difficult. You'd just have to do your own experimentation, and use tracking tokens to pass data to the affiliate network (such as campaign ID and traffic source ID), then communicate with your AM closely to find out what results in acceptable quality and what doesn't, and adjust your campaigns accordingly.
To achieve this sweet balance, some affiliates would even send a mix of high-quality and low-quality traffic from different sources and/or different targeting.
As affiliates, we need to be constantly trying to find out what we can and can't get away with - it's a necessary reality if we want to succeed in this business.
In the next post, we'll go into what types of creatives - i.e. ads and landers - are being used to promote sweeps offers. It's the last piece of information you'll need before being able to start testing.
Amy
Links to Entire Guide:
Intro+Index | Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8
Taking care of quality means additional work, but I'm starting to see how it can actually also lead to creating better funnels, so another win-win...
(BTW: Thank you for this amazing guide, Amy!)
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