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Running Search Feed Arbitrage Campaigns on Native (47)

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Recently this type of campaigns has been gaining lots of traction, and quite frankly running them on native traffic is “a piece of cake” – especially when compared with the usual lead generation or straight sale offers.
As a matter of fact, these campaigns mostly run on a direct-link flow meaning that you don’t need a landing page or any pre-sell content to make it work.

But even if these types of campaigns do not require a complex setup, they do have two main constraints that might be a bit hard to deal with.

1. Getting access on networks that provide search feed links may not be as easy as it seems.
   Generally speaking, most of the search feed providers, approve only affiliates that spend at least 3-4 figures a day or more. Also, most of them ask for screenshots.
2. Conversion can be reported within a few minutes, but the revenue takes up to 36 or 48 hours to be confirmed, which makes the optimization process a bit more complex.

Anyways, in this guide I’m going to walk you through some of the technicalities of these campaigns and how to deal with them.

The Networks

If you don’t know where to source this type of offers, the following networks might be enough to get started and spend 6+ figures a month with a decent ROI.

1. Tonic
2. Domain Active
3. System1

The offer

When promoting search feed arbitrage links, we’re basically promoting result feeds of specific keywords for which someone else is bidding on search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.

For anyone who has already run search traffic, this is where search traffic buyers should be accepting clicks from these feeds.


Also, based on the search provider, these offers are usually divided in two types:
1-Click Flow – When the visitor is directly served with the promoted service/product listing link.
2-Click Flow – When the visitor is served with a pre-lander, that will send him to the promote service/product listing links.

The Payouts

Keeping present that our offer objective is to make the visitor click on the promoted search result served through our search feed, the payouts at first sight might look pretty small. You may even think it’s impossible to make such offers work since the RPC (revenue per click) might usually vary from 0.01 to $1.5 or maybe slightly more depending on the targeted country and keywords. But on a positive note, these offers tend to have an average high conversion rate. Again, depending on the targeted country and product/service behind the keywords it could have a conversion rate of 15% or even more.


The Campaign Setup

Quite often it happens that many marketers that run search feed arbitrage don’t even use a click tracker to keep track of their conversions. Instead they simply put the search feed link as their ads destination link, then keep track of the results on the traffic and search provider network. Pretty straight forward approach, but not so efficient.

One of the best approaches I’ve seen many marketers have success with, is by using a tracker for three simple reasons.

1. They can keep track of their Cost/Revenue accurately and even automate their optimization process with API based automation tools (TheOptimizer Native already has features specifically for these types of campaigns).
2. They can create multi-geo targeting campaigns in order to get cheaper clicks and improve their ROI.
3. They can split-test offers/verticals from different search feed providers under the same campaign.

Out of all the trackers out there, I personally like the following two.
FunnelFlux - It's visual builder and advanced features can help a ton in any type of campaign. But for Search Feed Arb specifically, I love the ability of not having to necessarily fire conversions back to the traffic source when manually uploading conversions.
Voluum - It has a pretty straight forward interface, and multi-geo targeting can be easily setup using flows, plus having custom conversions gives us the ability to correct the revenue of the search feeds once they are confirmed.

Single GeoTargeting - Simple Flow
This one is pretty straight forward, your funnel is pretty simple, all you need to do is to add one offer to the flow and you’re done.

FunnelFlux:



Voluum:




Multi-Geo Targeting - Advanced Flow

When targeting multiple geos under a single campaign, we will need to add some IF/ELSE conditions to our visitors flow. This way we'll be able to send the visitors to the correct search feed.

FunnelFlux: All we need to do is to add some IF conditions to the funnel builder to check visitor's countries.



Voluum: When creating flows, we will need to create a path for each country targeting and another one for untargeted country traffic.




Single GeoTargeting - Simple Flow

With such campaigns its not needed to play with the usual high bids that we're used to see on ecom or leadgen campaigns. Instead depending on the country we can start bidding even with pennies for these campaigns. Obviously the targeted countries, play a big role in deciding the bid, however even on US you can get things rolling with $0.10 CPC.

The Optimization

Considering that we're playing with an average low payout, when optimizing such campaigns, we will need to be pretty aggressive when it comes blocking publishers or playing with the bids.
For example, when promoting a search feed with an average RPC of $0.65 we can easily block a low conversion rate / low roi widget on a $1.5 spend.

So, in terms of metrics to keep a close eye on, I'd say the Conversion Rate, RPC and ROI are the most important ones.

Also, like with traditional campaigns, even with these campaigns the widget/publisher CTR is pretty important, but most of the time this is visible in the search feed network provider.



Tip: Any insights from your account manager in regards to a specific search feed average CTR is extremely helpful. They see the data on the network level, so they are able to give us a pretty clear picture of what should be our average goal.

As you can see from the above screenshot, these campaigns tend to have an averagely high CTR and Conversion Rate. And this is what gives these type of campaigns a great potential.

The Boring Manual Work
Even though these tasks can be easily automated using the API of the search feed provider network and your tracker, until you get deep into these types of campaigns, you will need to upload conversions manually when they are confirmed. So as bad as it may look, you will have to systematically download the confirmed revenue CSVs from the search feed network, then upload them back to your tracker in order to update your correct revenue.

Furthermore, when uploading conversions manually to your tracker, you'll need to make sure that you're not posting conversions to the traffic source twice for the same conversion. This can result in giving the traffic source optimization algorithm false information, that can negatively impact the performance of the campaigns.

When manually uploading conversions on Voluum I am always forced to temporarily disable/remove the postback url (maybe its my fault that I haven't paid much attention for a better solution), whereas with FunnelFlux I can easily choose to fire my traffic source postback URLs when uploading conversions or not.



Automatic Optimization

As always it is pretty hard to make a fortune with a single campaign, on almost every traffic source. So dealing with such low payouts and aggressive optimization approach, automatic optimization plays a big role into getting search feed arb campaigns in shape. Not that the main propose of this guide is to pitch theOptimizer, but some of the features that we have on the platform, have been adopted to meet search feed arb marketers needs.

Automatic Revenue Update

Since you'll be uploading your revenue regularly to your tracker, you can setup a schedule on TheOptimizer where you're practically telling the system to pull your campaigns data every day at a specific hour for Yesterday, Before Yesterday, Last 3 Days or Last 7 days. This way, knowing when you usually upload confirmed clicks revenue, you can schedule TheOptimizer on when to pull these stats.



Automatic Rules

Given that we now have both the cost and revenue flowing in systematically to our automatic optimization platform, we can easily create automatic optimization rules for our search feed arbitrage campaigns. Also, as I mentioned earlier, the payouts for these campaigns tend to take up to 36 or 48 hours to get confirmed, so an extremely important functionality when using automation to manage these campaigns, is the ability to exclude the last 1 or 2 days from being taken in consideration when executing block actions.

Here are some basic rule examples:

Block Widget Rule 1
Considering data from: Last 14 Days / Excluding: Today & Yesterday
IF Traffic Source Spend is greater or equal to $X.X AND ROI is less than -40%
Run rule every 10 or 20 minutes

Explanation: Considering that the revenue takes 36-48 hours to be confirmed, we are excluding Today & Yesterday stats from being taken in consideration. Optionally we can add a conversion rate condition to avoid blocking potential profitable widgets.

Block Widget Rule 2
Considering data from: Last 14 Days / Excluding: None
IF Traffic Source Spend is greater or equal to $X.X AND Tracker Conversion Rate is below YY%
Run rule every 10 or 20 minutes

Explanation: Considering that we get the conversion events reported within a few minutes, we can run optimizations including today by taking in consideration the conversion rate.

Tweaking Bids
Considering data from: Last 7 / Excluding: Today & Yesterday
IF Traffic Source Spend is greater or equal to $X.X AND ROI is greater than YY% AND ROI is less than ZZ% AND Hour of the Day [select 3 specific hours in a week]
Set Bid to 80% of the EPC, then do not allow the bid to go below $x.xx AND not above $y.yy
Run rule every 1 hour

Explanation: Here we are tweaking widget bids 3 times a week taking in consideration the average EPC of the last 7 days. This way we can push the campaign to a more steady ROI.


Obviously this guide focuses more on the generic approach to these campaigns, but if you have any specific scenarios you'd like to discuss, make sure to post your questions in the comments below.

Update: Added last night's webinar replay where I tried to cover a few more details



Cheers!

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Thanks for this post @platinum!

I was actually just getting started with search feeds so it was quite appreciated

If anyone is getting started with it as well or is already running it and wants to discuss it feel free to send a pm

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I think one of the harder challenges with search arb is the long payout and low margin that requires quite some capital

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Very timely @platinum ! We've been getting into these the last few months and are finally starting to really double-down and really immerse ourselves in it at this point.

At first I didn't enjoy these camps as much as lead-gen (just more fulfilling actually convincing someone to enter their information, if you know what I mean), but it is really starting to grow on me now. I just love that you can run anything anywhere on earth basically, as long as it's profitable (although that's not easy - the vast majority of verticals we try don't work, just like with regular offers).

I also really like search arb with Taboola because it provides such a massive amount of conversion data for the SmartBid to work with

Great job putting this together! Highly appreciated

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Wow @platinum strikes again! This is a tremendously valuable post!

More than worthy enough to be included in the weekly newsletter!


Amy

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Dunno how I missed this thread, but it's pure gold! Thanks for sharing this platinum... arbitrage has been on my mind for a while and you just clarified quite a few things for me!

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Thank you guys, I'm really glad you found this guide helpful!

Indeed, you may have to wait a month for the payment to be processed, but on the other hand such campaigns tend to be less risky than the traditional ones.

At first I didn't like these campaigns neither, however, after a while I noticed that the risk involved with this campaigns was way lower than the traditional ones. It could look a bit complex in the beginning considering the manual upload of the conversions, etc, but on a the other hand you can easily see if a campaign has potential or not at $100-$200 ad spend, yet have an roi not lower than -50% by day 1.

These campaigns tend to work great on both Taboola and Outbrain, while getting traffic even from tier 1 publishers for just a few pennies or cents a click. So, as soon one gets to a point where they have reached the limit on either one of these traffic sources, it can be quite easy to have these limits lifted just by telling them the type of campaigns you're running. Can be useful for other campaigns too

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I've stickied this thread - should have done this earlier!

Thanks again @platinum!



Amy

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I'm honored

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Hey @platinum, thanks for this post. Re offer sources, when you mentioned Tonic, is it the same as the domain redirect company formerly known as dntx or a different firm?


Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums mobile app

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anyone else getting SSL error when trying to register for theoptimizer webinar?

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No, it works for me

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Works good for me too. Would you mind send me a screenshot of the error you're getting on PM?

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Thanks a lot Platinum for this information.

One thing that I've mentioned already several times when in contact with you guys: I think it would make much more sense to exclude data for a specific timeframe (3 hours / 12 hours / 24 hours etc) rather than "today or today&yesterday"... Should be easy to implement for smart guys like you are as well, and makes much more sense...

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Thanks for the feedback @osmiumman!
I forwarded this to our dev team and they are alread evaluating the possibility to make it happen. Will need to wait on their update/confirmation on this topic cause even though I try to stay up-to-date on technical stuff as much as possible , our backend is far more complex than I can understand.

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Update!

Just updated the original post by adding last night's webinar replay.

Besides the details shared in the original post, I went over some additional details including spy tools, live offer browsing, as well as optimization best-practices and rules.

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This is one of the best posts about search arbitrage!

I'm aware of challenges most of publishers are going through running the arb. campaigns.

If you you into search arbitrage, here at Aka-Ext, we provide our publishers with direct SERP from Yahoo and competitive payment terms.

High volume publishers get net+15, net0 and prepayments - depends on volumes.

A few notes for those who are getting into this vertical:

1. It's important to have a direct deal or "as close to a plate as possible". Re-brokered feeds with 2+ companies between you and Yahoo mathematically impossible to optimize.

2. Payment terms are not so good as in other verticals. For most of the cases Yahoo pay net+45 or net+30.

3. You have to make sure that the company you chose to work with has a good 'source TQ'. Basically it's their quality score. If their overall TQ is low it will affect RPCs in a negative way.

4. Also, ask your AM to give you the list of top performing kws with some metrics. Ideally ask for TQs and RPCs per each kw.

5. There are dozens of categories you can run. Don't jump straight into all categories. Pick 1-3 categories to test.

Please feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

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Just to be clear, are you using your own domains or are these provided by the feed providers?

And if you have your own domains, do you buy domains per country?

Dentalimplantsitaly.net for Italy
Dentalimplantsgermany for Germany
etc..

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Actually the only domain you need for these kind of campaigns is the one used by the tracker. Otherwise you can use the default tracker domain.

As mentioned above campaigns on the tracker are setup as direct-linked campaigns, so no landing pages are present in the flow.


Anyways, I'm currently working on a case study that I will publish pretty soon, so stay tuned.

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Thanks

Did some more research after this and know exactly what you mean.

Looking forward to the case study!

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2x!!!

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If anyone needs intros into these networks I can help with that. Been in search since 2001. I now do some biz dev. To be honest your intended revenue needs to be at least 50k a month before I can dedicate my time to this with you. Thx

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Looking to try this out! I tried finding Domain Active but couldn't come up with any results. With System1, I'm assuming you emailed partnerships@system1.com to inquire about joining.

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Just got the permission from Josh to paste his email here, so here you go

Josh Fishman - josh@system1.com

He’ll be able to get you onboard and help on anything you might need to get started.

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Thanks Losid! Him & I had a nice convo and got more insight on search arb campaigns.

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Hi guys,
Does one of the feed provider have a better rev share or it's all the same?

anyone experience?

Thanks,

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What I can tell from my experience is that some providers may be stronger than others on specific verticals.

Better get started with one of them, then expand with the others too.

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Can you please share domain active's website as I am not able to find them

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https://www.domainactive.com/

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Hi @platinum I saw this post on your blog, https://blog.theoptimizer.io/610/how...-using-voluum/, And I wanted to comment on the same post but I can't, so I would like to know if I can do this but with Binom and how could I do it?

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That post is from a long time ago, and in theory this is something that can be done with virtually every tracker. However trackers have evolved quite a lot recently and I believe Binom tracker has a built-in feature for bot detection. Maybe @twinaxe whose very experienced Binom tracker can give you some guidance for that.

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We also have a section here on the forum dedicated to Binom, try to post there if you need assistance with this tracker: https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?282-Binom

Or send a PM to Binom guys directly : https://stmforum.com/forum/member.php?14592-roman-binom

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I reached out to Tonic and Domain Active 6 days ago and yet not even a response. Only on System1 I'm progressing with Josh now thanks to the contact you provided @platinum. Would surely love to progress with Tonic and Domain Active too. Anyone got a contact maybe?

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Hi guys, I'm having issues to get account to start promoting as well.

So if you find or know others network please let me know.

Thanks,

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Tried the recommended publishers

1. Tonic - Hard to get accepted
2. Domain Active ( passed 2 weeks no reply)
3. System1 (more easier to be approved but i dont like the search feed layout , they have a big privacy policy window that will have a huge impact on bounce rate)

Im trying now sedo parking, because im seeing other guys using it on native, but i just made a small test with family and coworker phones and computers with 5 clicks to check the payouts, and they are paying just 0,04 per click for (high pay keywords like banking, loan, finance )

On other blog i use normal adsense ads i receive 1€ per click for these keywords, its normal sedo and godaddy parking pay very low cpc? i believe they are taking 95% from the google profits.

I got aproveed on Bodis, but didnt tried yet.

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Check with your account manager if you're correctly setup.

Bodis doesn't accept paid traffic. If you send paid traffic to them, they will ban you and hold any revenues generated so far.

They also seem to have a pretty ugly approach for when they think you are clicking your ads to generate revenue - no notifications, no nothing. They'll simply ban your account as if one could make a living by clicking on their ads

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When running with DomainActive (although I'm sure it is so for other networks as well), RPC tends to fluctuate quite a lot (I'm over 300$ daily in revenue), anyone know what is this impacted by and how can improve it?

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Keywords- ask your rep to check if it needs some new keywords.

It is a matter of demand side and competition on Google side.

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Keywords look the same. Looks like demand and competition on Google. When RPC swings, it tends to change drastically from the end of one day to the start of the next one (PST), RPC could drop by 50% or so for the whole day and then increase back up the next day.

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Happy to chime in here, been running search arb for about 12 months now, managed to get to the good numbers 100K perm month, but its hard work and very very complex. Currently scaled back down to the 30/40K mark. RPC can vary wildly campaign by campaign and almost all the verticals go in swings. You might have one stick for a few days, or for a few weeks but ultimately they come and go in cycles, still have so much learning to do on the subject, and always feels like i go 2 steps forwards 1 back, happy to chat wtih anyone about it.

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@platinum, do all search feed providers pay on monthly net 30 schedule or are there any good ones who also pay faster?

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Know a lot of ex nutra bros that went this way, the smart ones at least who didn't blow all their easy cash on bottle service and strip bars.

This is high barrier entry to 99% of people, you need mega cash on hand to float the ad costs, because they pay 15 days after the previous month ends at the 'good' places.

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@slava adexpertsmedia Stop the promo spam.

I deleted several of your posts already and you received a warning.

To continue with the promo spam and post exactly the same text again in a thread where I already deleted the post isn´t the best idea.

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I am also starting with N2S. It would be nice if I could talk more with you via skype: live:kvision.value

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hi send me your contact in private chat

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hi How can I contact you in private chat?

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hi could you share the contacts of bodys and sedo managers?

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