AM Insights - Vincent from BigBangAds (3)
The first interview in 2021 in our AM Insights Series and it´s with a little bit specific network.
BigBangAds not only has offers to promote, they are also the advertiser of the famous Planet49 sweep offers.
I´m very happy that Vince took the time to answer my questions because here you can not only get the point of view from a CPA networks perspective but at the same time you also get it from an advertisers perspective.
And here we go 
As usual please tell first a bit about you so that our users know who´s talking to them
My name is Vincent Jouvin, I am 32 years old.
I work for 7 years in the affiliate industry and always with Big Bang Ads.
I am French, I’m based in Big Bang Ads HQ near Frankfurt in Germany.
I promote the lead gen sweeps offers of Big Bang Ads, mostly for our European geos.
I onboard affiliates signing up on Big Bang Ads and I also look for new affiliates that can promote our offers.
A big part of my job is to help affiliates understand how to convert users on our flow and how to optimize their traffic towards our requirements (age, gender, etc…).
I already said that BigBangAds is not only a CPA platform, it´s also the advertiser of the Planet49 offers.
Can you please give us a rough overview about your platform?
We promote one unique vertical, its lead gen sweepstakes.
It is our core business.
We work with the technology of a network; however, we own the whole user conversion flow.
It means that we create the landing page where users register; we filter users’ datasets once the affiliate postback fires.
Once the postback fires, we segment users through questions (coregistration, etc…) and we sell the user data to clients such as call centres, banks, IT, mobile networks, etc…
If we were a classic network, we would not create the landing page, not handle to user validation (fraud and filtering) and not be in touch with clients for the monetization part.
Lead gen sweeps is known to be a vertical, which is perfect to get started in the affiliate industry.
• The flow is easy - For a SOI flow, the affiliate is paid as soon as the user filled in the SOI, the postback fires… and that is it. No need for a payment, no credit card number required or a phone pin.
• Easy to convince users - the user arrives on a landing page where he can win something and that is for free… who does not like to win? Who does not want something for free?
• It requires a lower investment to buy traffic compared to other verticals. Traffic can be very cheap to get started in tier 2/3 geos.
What about getting accepted with BBA, how can a beginner start running your offers?
Any affiliate can be accepted, newbie or senior, to me it does not matter.
Many senior affiliates signed up with us and did not show any results (for different reasons, probably also my fault!), whereas we managed to make a lot of newbie successful.
In order to catch my attention and get a proper support to get started, an affiliate should show me dedication.
He should show me that he signed on Big Bang Ads to promote our lead gen offers, have a sort of strategy, some material (script, lander for example) and that he did some research about our flow or lead gen offers in general.
From that, we can discuss further, adapt the strategy, get my recommendations on which geos to start with, get the best landing pages based on a traffic source, etc…
It’s hard for an affiliate to get accepted on Big Bang Ads when he signs up and does not know what we do (that we specialize on lead gen sweeps while he does not look specifically for that vertical). Concretely, the likelihood that this affiliate will ever start and get decent results with us is close to null.
I know that you are focused on lead gen sweeps but what´s your opinion about trending verticals?
Not easy to reply.
We concretely focus on one unique vertical; affiliates should truly see us as an advertiser working with the technology of a network.
Likely that I would promote a vertical which is not wrongly affected by the corona virus.
The less sensitive to external factors the better it would be.
What´s in your opinion the best way for a beginner to start (flows, geos and so on)?
Lead gen – Single Opt In flow – push traffic.
Poland, Brazil or South Africa to get started.
My first advice is to test the landing page as if you were a user.
That will allow you to experience yourself the conversion flow and understand what the user need to do for you to get a conversion.
This is also important since you probably will have to build a prelander based on the conversion page. The more your prelander will fit the advertiser landing page, the less users you will lose in between your prelander and the advertiser conversion page.
Probably my idea would be to start getting a good grasp on the conversion flow via a tier 2 or 3 geo.
This will allow to split test a few landers, manage the traffic source decently before moving onto the Tier 1 geos.
Regarding tier 1 geos, I believe this is where the true potential lies, where money will be made (thinking about Germany or United States for instance).
Ok, now a beginner makes first stable profits with you.
What´s next, how shall he continue?
I think whether you are beginner or more experience, there is something that should always be done is split test.
Without testing, you will not unleash the full potential of a registration page.
To scale, you need to go for a tier 1 geo.
My strategy is to take three geos (DE, IT and ES for example), three landing pages per geo, run the 9 LP’s, monitor the results and optimize in the first 48 hours.
Then, keep the one or two best performing per country, and enter a new LP in the rotation.
Yep, good and straight forward approach
What would you recommend a beginner as the best way to contact the affiliate manager?
Probably they need to stay humble.
If they don’t have any prior result to show to an AM, it’s likely their AM will not put that much trust in this affiliate until he eventually got started with some traffic.
How many registrations do you have with networks or advertisers? And with how many are you really active?
We help all affiliates showing interest to our offers.
We show even more interest once the affiliate start delivering traffic.
In terms of communication, as an advertiser we will advise and recommend certain things to an affiliate.
We will not educate an affiliate from A to Z, we are not a forum like STM, we do not provide classes or a mastermind training like Vortex for instance… an affiliate should be a minimum independent and look for basic answers by himself prior to asking every time his AM.
To provide a rough idea, I speak in average to 50 affiliates every day.
The newbie asking dozen of question every day but never starting is not the most interesting chat to have for me (my biggest default and a good quality is to be a straight forward person, no BS with me!).
As an affiliate, after signing up I would ask to get a quick 5 min phone/Skype call to get to know each other, show that you have interest in lead gen offers, get recommendations on which geo/LP to start with based on my traffic source.
Then get your postback/pixel placed and tested, start with some traffc and contact your AM to ensure the tracking is fine.
Optimize the first 48 hours, once you have genereated a decent amount of conversions, contact your AM, get new recommendations and eventually already a payout increase if the lead quality and volume provided is good enough.
Once these first steps are done I would not hesitate to get in touch every one or two days if I need something.
Don’t hammer your AM if you have nothing to show…
Else, I would not hesitate to contact every 48 hours if you are live and require help/recommendations/payout increase/quality check, or sometimes just to check if all is well, etc…
Thanks for the answer.
It´s probably rather common that the newest affiliates with low revenue have most questions whereas experienced affiliates don´t need that much time and attention from their AMs.
But what should an affiliate do when the AM takes too long to reply?
If you ask something Friday at 5.00pm, don’t be surprised to have an answer on Monday at noon…
If it’s really too long and you cannot wait to have an answer, contact someone else from this company on Skype.
If you still have no reply in the next 24 hours, then contact their info@ or contact@ email address.
How do you decide how much time you're going to dedicate to an affiliate?
Clearly, it depends on how much the affiliate is dedicated to promoting campaigns with us.
And whether he actually starts with providing traffic.
I dedicate the same amount of time to any affiliate who started traffic with one of our offer, no matter which time zone he is on, or any other criteria, etc…
Pretty common sense.
Time is limited so of course it´s wise to spend most time with the affiliates that also bring most in return.
Well, let´s talk a bit more about offer stuff
What geos are good for beginners and why?
Tier 2 or 3 geos.
For us, PL in Europe, BR for South America, ZA for Africa, MY or TH for Asia Pacific.
Traffic is usually less expensive in these geos, it would allow the affiliate to test more while not losing as much than when starting directly with a tier 1 geo.
And what verticals and flows are generally best for beginners in your opinion?
Lead gen SOI offers – not because we are an advertiser on this vertical, simply because it’s a fact that it is probably the best vertical to get going in the affiliate industry.
I can´t disagree with it, one of the best and most stable verticals you can run.
How can affiliates increase conversion quality to avoid quality issues?
Understand which type of users are of interest to the advertiser.
For example, in most of our geos, we like to get a ratio of 50/50 female/male with an average age of 30 to 50 years old.
It means that if you bring 99% of female below 25 years old, you will probably never get a payout increase!
So before promoting a new landing page from an advertiser, I will always register myself as if I was a user in order to check the requirement and the entire flow.
Avoid being too aggressive on your prelander.
Usually these users don’t take calls from our clients!
Make sure that your lander fit the landing page from the advertiser (colour, language, product, etc…), else you will lose conversions on the way and your quality will automatically be rated as low.
Bring real users, avoid any type of fraud.
Else, you will be automatically blacklisted.
What´s the best way for affiliates to find good offers on BigBangAds?
The best way is probably to get a list of offers from your AM.
For that, clearly explain which traffic type you use and how much volume you could deliver within a given period.
We also have every week our newsletter going out on Wednesday with the top converting offer per geo and/or the newest released landing page (available 24/7 here: https://www.big-bang-ads.com/weekly-offers/)
You could use a spy tool to check which landers are the most promoted.
Else, for lead gen sweeps, there are offers which will always work such as the latest iPhone, latest Samsung phone, or the most well known supermarket voucher in a given geo (Carrefour voucher in France, Tesco in the UK or ALDI/LIDL in Germany).
Promoting put you already on the safe side!
Agreed, iPhone, Samsung phones and supermarket vouchers are definitely a good choice
What do you think about fresh pffers with empty database vs proven offers that received lots of traffic already?
You will either not last or you be unable to scale on lead gen sweeps if you don’t test new offers.
While proven offers are good to ensure some revenues, new fresh offers can be the gold mine you are looking for.
Because the competition is fierce and perhaps the profits lower than back in the days when the affiliate industry was not that professionalized, the idea now with lead gen is to be able to adapt fast.
• Adapting to the seasonality:
• Xmas offers won’t work in August.
• Entry at the zoo will work less for Xmas than in Spring/Summer
You can plan the seasonality: use “win a trip to Bali” for Spring/Summer, “win a trip to see the northern lights/Iceland/Finland” during Autumn/Winter. Halloween or Easter come always at the same period of the year…
• Adapting to the external environment.
The Corona virus is a decent example.
Many affiliates made a lot of money by switching fast their landing pages and prelanders.
Some landing pages that have been converting before the Corona were suddenly not converting at all anymore (LP’s to travel abroad).
Forget about the “win a trip to Bali” landing page, it became obsolete whereas food delivery or supermarket vouchers landing pages better during the lockdown.
After the European lockdown, we saw users being way more interested in “win a camper van”, “win a swift caravan”, which materialize their new need of freedom after the lockdown.
• Adapting to a new product launch – stick with the last market trend:
• iPhone 11, iPhone 12, etc…
• PS3, 4, 5, etc…
The faster you’ll switch your prelander and get the new landing page from the advertiser, the faster you’ll make more money!
Thanks alot, probably every beginner should read this paragraph very good.
When you think about your daily work with affiliates, where do you see them struggle most, where do you see most issues and how can these issues be avoided?
On their end, I think being stable with a traffic source is hard.
Facebook gives our affiliates a hard time.
Affiliates need to be creative and adjust their creatives with Facebook guidelines and regulations.
Some affiliates struggle to understand that as an advertiser for lead gen offers, we sometimes cannot give them higher caps or accept sudden waves of leads.
On the other end, we are sometimes eager to pay more because we do not have enough volume.
Our business model depend a lot on the clients that we have on our coregistration path:
• New client can mean that we need more leads
• Lost client or external factor like the corona virus may mean that we need less leads
• Existing client may want more leads but only for male, etc…
• Seasonality (usually strong Q4 until xmas and Q1 from 15th of January) means that we always require more datas at that time of the year.
The tip that I can provide is to keep close touch with your AM.
Try to check in which countries more leads are required; which geos are less important for the advertiser, etc…
For instance, we are active in 25 geos, but 5 of them generate 80% of our revenues…
Is it surprising? Not really I guess!
So you probably try to focus on these 5 geos to get going!
Communication is with your AM is one key of your success.
Let´s switch to your most successful affiliates you work with, do you see a pattern that could help others as well to increase their revenue?
In one word - dedication:
• Our top affiliates focus on promoting lead gen sweeps offers and eventually maximum one other vertical.
But promoting lead gen sweeps offers could mean that you promote DE/ES with advertiser 1, AU/NZ with advertiser 2, BE/NL/CH/AT with advertiser 3 and USA with advertiser 4.
This requires organization that you will probably not have if you are trying out 5 different verticals…
• They are in touch with us every day or every 48 hours maximum.
• They understand our company structure, lead requirement, and payment procedure.
• We met them face to face on conferences.
• They can count on them; they can count on us because we have a trustworthy relationship.
I hope we get the chance for real life conferences again soon
Now a freestyle part, is there anything you would like to tell beginner affiliates that could help them on their way?
I think that you need to be creative.
You can read many threads on STM or other forums, follow a lot of mastermind classes, be in touch with a lot of AM’s from XYZ companies.
If you want to be more successful, copying what others are doing will not be sufficient.
You will have to test and create your own landers, add a timer on it to put pressure on the user, add testimonials below to make them more trustworthy, etc…
These ideas already exist, if you would like to be successful, find the new trick that will make your lander convert like hell!
Like the old saying "Work smarter, not harder" 
And it´s definitely true.
When you are a beginner and have to compete with much more experienced affilietas who probably also have a bigger cashflow then one of the best competitive advantages is to be more creative than everyone else.
Ok, slowly we come to the end.
Would be great if you could sum up in a few words why affiliates should run your offers.
What makes BigBangAds special, what are your best Geos and so on?
Quickly about Big Bang Ads, you will naturally be promoting our offers when you will test lead gen sweeps whether it will be through a network or directly with us.
Our strength lies in a few things:
• We will be in 2021 for 20 years in this industry. We are 160 people split in three continents. We are a stable company and we will not disappear tomorrow
• No other advertiser for lead gen covers 25 geos (APAC, EU, BR, ZA)
• We offer weekly payment and we always pay what we owe - we’re the Lannisters of the lead gen ;-)
• Our landing pages are very stable (no need to switch on/off your landing pages every 24h) – and our LP’s are known to convert like hell because we are experienced with them and we test our path with our own traffic, on display, RTB, etc… with our team!
• We have a 100% legal business in each country while being 100% GDPR compliant
• We are corona resistant, even fluctuating there will always be a demand of leads because our clients depend on new prospects that we provide them!
Yes, stability is definitely an important factor when we want to work with a network.
There´s nothing worse than sending high volume to a new and unknown network that just disappears when it comes to payment.
And having your own offers is also something that sets you apart from many (or most) other networks.
Last question, do you have an appetizer like an exclusive bonus for new affiliates that are hungry to test your offers?
If you sign up within the next 30 days – mention STM+15 on your sign up.
You will get for for the following 90 days:
• +15% of payout on each offer
• weekly payments available immediately
Wow, this is really generous.
Thank you very much
And also thank you very much for the interview in general.
Was great to get some insight from you, I hope many users will listen to your advices
And I really hope we get the chance to meet again this year.
Ok guys and gals, when you have any questions just reply here.
To sign up to BigBangAds click >>> HERE <<<
What a comprehensive interview! Lots of actionable insight revealed, and the bonus is pretty generous! Mega thanks to @twinaxe and Vincent!
Vincent also contributed to the sweeps guide I wrote a year ago. Here it is for those that are interested:
Vertical Guides: Sweepstakes 101
https://stmforum.com/forum/forum.php?id=288
Amy
Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums
Yup, good and long answers and very informative.
Glad when you like it
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