The One Secret to Banking HARD From Sweeps (30)
I've been friends with Emil Alexandru aka @blackemil for a while now.
We "met" through affiliate marketing, but most of what we talk about isn't AM-related. We mostly talk about life and stuff.
But the other day, our conversation touched on AM - and he casually mentioned that he was "killing it" in the sweeps vertical, and proceeded to share a bit of details.
Keeping in mind that this is one of the lowest-profile, most humble and down-to-earth affiliates I know, that got my attention.
I knew that a lot of you could really benefit from his experience, so I asked whether he'd be down for doing an interview that I could then write into a forum post.
Being the extremely kind and generous guy (not to mention amazing friend) that he is, he said yes.
Below was our conversation - where he revealed how he's been (and continues to) clean up with sweeps offers.
(I tried to ask questions that ranged from noob to vet for everyone's benefit. If you still have questions please feel free to ask them below!)
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Emil: People think sweepstakes are dead. But if you promote the legit way, you can can still bank hard.
The secret is to build custom offers. Things that people never see. Not Walmart, iphone, and PS5.
Custom offers in niches nobody else thinks of.
Look at what I promote. And this is a bad day cause of the weekend.
(Note from Amy: Sorry can't expose the guy's niches - gotta leave him with something right? 
)
(Another note from Amy: This screenshot was sent a couple of days before our "official" interview - thus the difference in dates.)
Amy: Impressive! Sweeps have such broad appeal. You can apply the same psychology to practically any niche. The sky's the limit really!
I wonder what the ROI is like?
Emil: F*ck those gurus that say it's easy to make 10-20k a day. It's not. Times have changed.
It's easy to make revenue. But profit is another story.
I also do [some niche] on google. 500k revenue a week. Guess how much is profit? 30-40k max.
If you show people revenue stats they think "wow!"
But not everything that has big revenues = big profits.
Amy: So true. It's been like that for a while now - lots of campaigns to drive volume at low ROI.
Emil: Yeah. Cause traffic is expensive.
And you can't go aggressive due to regulations and account bans.
Amy: Speaking of traffic: What traffic types are best for promoting sweeps right now?
Emil: In terms of quality I can say Facebook is the best for promoting sweeps offers.
It's my main traffic source and the advertisers are always happy with the quality.
I run also some push but only internal databases. I think the public sources are spammed.
Amy: Internal databases means not the ones available on push networks right? As in people's private push subscribers lists?
Emil: I mean it's a database collected by me in time.
You can use onesignal and add a collect button on your landers. The opt-in rate is like 10%.
So for every 1000 users that visit my landing pages I get around 100 subscribers in my list. It's a decent way to make more ROI.
Amy: Excellent! So you run FB traffic to these landers and collect push subscribers at the same time right?
Emil: Yes, with only one trick.
You need a redirect code inside your landers to force user to leave FB and open the website in chrome.
You can't collect directly from the FB browser.
Amy: Does FB have a problem with this?
And is this redirect code just the usual code or some super secret code you invented?
Emil: Not if you use the code on the second step on the landers.
The code you can find it on google. It's not a secret. I just saw some other affiliates collecting push subscribers like this and borrowed their method.
Amy: Second step meaning AFTER the initial visitor interaction, right? Like after the visitor has clicked the landing page?
Emil: Exactly, like if you use a survey lander, after he answers the first question.
Amy: How much additional ROI or profit margin does your push database generate for you? In addition to the original campaigns?
Emil: Around 20-30% additional ROI on a monthly basis.
Amy: Wow nice!
Next: How to get accounts? Farmed or bought or rented? How long do accounts last?
Emil: We have our own farm. We create them from scratch and we farm them for like 5-6 months to make them strong.
It's not an easy operation but it's a MUST with facebook moods these days.
Regarding the longevity it all depends. I have accounts running for more then 1 year now with over 150k in spend during this time.
I would say my accounts are averaging 40-50k in adspend before I lose them.
Amy: Oh wow!! Those are really solid accounts!
Emil: One secret trick is we also farm them on mobile devices.
Amy: You mean actual physical mobile devices? Like buy a bunch of used phones?
Emil: Yes we have 30 mobile phones that we rotate in order to make the accounts trustworthy.
So would they appear " REAL" for facebook bots.
Imagine their AI which is very intelligent. What user doesn't log in on a mobile device in 2021?
Amy: So when you're farming using 20 phones - do you get a data plan for each? And never connect to wifi to avoid the IP footprint?
Emil: Yes It's cheap here. Like $5 a month for 60 GB. So it cost me like $100-200 a month for data. And I never use wifi.
Amy: Any other tips on farming that can make accounts last so long?
Emil: Be as real as possible. Play games, watch videos, read news. Try not to have a pattern. Act like a real user. We have 2 people hired that only farm accounts.
Amy: Do you use software like multi-login app?
Emil: Yes. I would say its a must.
The process is like this: We create the accounts on mobile devices -> after 1 week we log into MLA. Then they are farmed randomly on phones and MLA for 4-6 months. Before activating the ad accounts we use them primarily on mobile.
Amy: Another factor to making accounts last: How do you avoid getting account banned early?
Emil: Start with low budgets - $20-30, always warm up the page with $100-150, doing micro campaigns to get likes.
And wait for every payment when you scale.
Scale 20% max after every payment. Once the account has 5-6k in spend you can go wild. Not before that.
I know it's slow but in the long run it's worth it.
Amy: Any tips on creatives? Angles, landing page styles...both to get good conversion rates AND not get banned fast?
Emil: Don't be aggressive.
Don't use blackhat angles. I'm using angles like "secret shoppers" or "customer club".
I am not implying the user has WON. Be more vague. Like "Secret shoppers wanted for groceries".
You imply in their mind they're up for a reward but you don't say "win a walmart voucher". If you are aggressive users will report your ads with anger and get you shut down fast!
As creatives use general pictures with the stores.
Don't try to put a $1000 voucher picture. That's a sure BAN!
Amy: Oh yeah that reminds me: What are some of the "DO NOT DOs"?
Emil: DO NOT CLOAK. FB got amazing good at detecting cloakers. SO you better use softer landers than to cloak and get banned fast.
Amy: Let's talk about offers! We talked about the importance of having custom and exclusive offers set up.
Emil: Yes. It's a must to have custom offers. These days having a competitive advantage can be a gold mine.
Most people only promote iphone, samsung and walmart. You need a really good advertiser these days to make profits and also must be willing to build you custom pages.
I would recommend Fluent for UK and USA (top of the game) since I am focusing on english countries the most. They will also open Australia in few weeks.
Amy: We're talking about lead gen offers of course? Not CC submits? I don't imagine those can be run on FB...
Do you promote CC submits to your push subscribers though?
Emil: From time to time, but the best CR rates are still on leadgen offers.
Let me tell you a story. Some months ago I saw an ad on my girlfriend phone. Was promoting [some product] from [some company].
A lightbulb went off in my head and I reached out to my AM from Fluent and had him build me a custom [some company] offer. That offer made me 300k profits in 1 year. Cause nobody was promoting such an offer.
Amy: That's mind-blowing. Basically sweeps offers can be built for ANY product for ANY audience. And yet everyone is so caught up with iphones.
Emil: Exactly. People don't want to leave the comfort zone.
Amy: In your opinion though can affiliates still make profits by promoting "public" non-exclusive offers like iphone offers?
Emil: Yes they still can bank but it's harder. And why would I compete with another 1000 guys when I can build my own exclusive deals and be a sole warrior in the field?
Amy: Makes a lot of sense! I'm assuming you'd target niche audiences for niche "prizes"?
Emil: Yes. For example I was in London for a business meeting, and saw hair straighteners called GHD were all the rage with women.
I had Fluent build me an offer for that product. Guess what? It made 300% ROI for a couple of months until the audience burned out.
Amy: And you didn't care about burning out an audience - because there are a million other audiences to target - with new exclusive offers.
Emil: Exactly.
Amy: Oh and do the respective brand companies ever have a problem with these offers?
Emil: I never got a complain. Fluent can build any prize that costs less than $1000 due to legal requirements.
Amy: So Fluent doesn't care what the prize is, and whether it's relevant/related to the 10 deals they have on the backend that they use to monetize the offer?
Like for example with the hair straighteners - you'd be attracting women mostly - but the 10 deals in the backend could be for a male audience.
Emil: Their flow is amazing. They have hundreds of deals. And every offer they build, they match the front end to our niche audience to obtain the best EPCs for us.
Amy: OK this is probably a better question for Fluent but I want to hear what you think: How can a new affiliate get to the stage where Fluent will build them custom offers?
Emil: Well - I would ask them for their top 30 offers based on revenue. And try to promote products that are not that visible for the competition.
Then once you hit xxx per day you can ask them to build custom offers. Don't ask for 10 offers at once. Pick a niche test it and then ask for more.
Once you deliver traffic. They are pretty flexible with helping new affiliates even though they are direct advertisers that own the offers.
Amy: That sounds very doable! I hope lots of newbies will accept the challenge and try this. I don't think there's better advice than this out there....
Emil: Well it's a big market that many people ignore.
Amy: Indeed! Any tips on how to find these niches?
Emil: Its easy.
Just go to amazon, see the best selling items, and go for it.
Amy: Do you ever run into issues with quality? I know FB is already the best quality traffic out there (with the exception of search traffic).
Emil: Not really because I always ask Fluent what age group works the best for them.
SO they tell me and I just adapt the targeting. I get even $1 EPC's for $3 payout offers. SO the quality is amazing for them.
Amy: That's impressive! I didn't know you could promote something with such low payouts on FB.
Another thing: If you use an FB account to promote an offer, after that account gets banned, can you use another account to promote the same offer url?
Would that be an automatic account ban?
Emil: You can promote the same offer url if you use landers that you host on your own domains.
Amy: I'm also thinking of the masses of affiliates that are ALL promoting the same offer url (public non-exclusive offers).
So as long as they're using their own landers they should be OK right?
Emil: Exactly!
Fluent also offers you custom domains, if you are a big player.
Amy: Are you using the same landing page styles as for pop/push?
The survey style you mentioned - is that the best-performing? Or do you also use the spinning wheel / gift boxes?
Anything you custom-design from scratch that isn't a popular style?
Emil: I use survey style but not as aggressive as the ones used in pop/push.
And I also add like 8 questions, to filter out the bad traffic.
Amy: Nice! Pre-qualify. Thus the high EPC.
Emil: Exactly.
The leads are more expensive to get, but quality is superior.
Amy: Easier to get pay bumps with higher quality.
Any tips on campaign optimization / scaling?
Emil: In terms of scaling I usually scale to more accounts.
And if I want to scale on a single account , I always duplicate the campaign on new audiences. I don't usually raise the budgets since I noticed this kills my ROI.
Amy: This tip is super valuable not just for sweeps, but for running campaigns on FB in general.
Emil: I run sweeps as my main focus but also running other whitehat leadgen stuff. It applies everywhere.
Amy: When you scale to more accounts - do you target the same audience? Would that create more competition?
Emil: I use similar audiences. I use the same only if the original campaign has a low budget. Like $50 a day.
Amy: And you're finding that by scaling to other accounts, you get better results than by raising the budget on the original account from $50 to $100 for example?
Emil: Yes in most of the cases. ROI drops when spend goes up on FB.
Amy: It's probably because FB always tries to send you the best quality visitors first. And when you increase the budget, FB is 'forced' to send you people that are second-best.
Emil: Yes and for more traffic you need a higher bid so cost goes up.
Amy: Another question: How do you know what amount to set the budget to?
Emil: It's all about testing , experience and account age. I usually start with $50 but If I know the campaign is doing well and I have strong accounts I start with $500.
Amy: Do you ever just increase the budget on the existing campaign or account, until the ROI starts to drop, and then stop?
Emil: Sometimes I do that. If the ROI drops, I drop the budget by 20%. It usually helps.
Amy: Lastly: Care to share some juicy stats for motivation?
Emil: Sure! let me grab the stats from fluent for past 6 months
Here are the total stats:
Looks like Louis Vuitton bags are the winner for the past 6 months!
And here are the top 3 for 2020 on Fluent:
Emil: As a side note I also run european geos with GPM and leadxchange.
Amy: Oh nice! Which geos would you recommend?
Emil: Germany and Netherlands/Belgium.
Amy: Don't know how to thank you Emil! Really. It's so hard to find someone who's willing to share so generously!
I'm hoping covid will be over and we'll meet somewhere and I can buy you a drink or dinner or something.
Emil: I would love that! Glad I can help Amy!
Just want to add: I'm not looking to get referrals for Fluent with this interview. If members want to sign up they must speak with Fluent reps directly.
Amy: Will make a note of that thank you!
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Lastly: For those of you that wish to sign up to Fluent you can do so here. I've already posted a skype contact in my sweeps 101 guide here. (Disclaimer: STM does not endorse any networks - please join at your discretion.)
That's all for now! If you'd take the above information and run with it, do some testing of your own, you too could make this work!
If you have further questions, please post them below, and I'll see if I could get some answers. 
Amy
P.S. For some basic info on the sweeps vertical, check out my sweeps 101 guide here.
This is one of those interviews no one should miss! Thinking and doing things outside the box always pays off!
Thank you Amy!
Thank you Amy,
for amazing post.
Amazing interview, wow!
Took a ton of notes, thanks so much for sharing.
Thanks for the great post @vortex - We are now open in Canada as well! Feel free to reach out if you're interested in learning more about our Rewards / Sweeps / Paid to Survey & Jobs products.
Thats awesome. Huge numbers. Thank you Amy!!
Let's bump this 
yesss Emil is very helpful and clever. great interview!
Originally Posted by blackemil
If anyone has any questions - now would be the time to ask!
Amy
Sent from my iPhone using STM Forums
Hello, so what kind of ads are we doing? not video ad right, simple picture with text and button for a quiz? Targeting android/PC mostly?
I am doing normal picture ads. As for devices i target only mobile. Both ios and android
Fluent is such a great network and I am jealous of anyone who is able to consistently crack their offers.
On top of that, the tips on how to run camps and scale on FB in there are amazing and... I shall steal every. single. one.
Great interview!
@blackemil - First of all huge thanks for this amazing interview... I have read all the way through it like five times now... thank you @vortex too!
If you're still seeing this thread and answering questions, I would love to bounce a couple off of you...
1) Do you always use survey landers with the Fluent Sweeps offers or do you ever direct link to them? And if always landers, is that because the overall epc/cvr is consistently higher that way? Or because it provides the chance to build the push list at the same time and increase the revenue in that regard? Or both?
2) Do you only monetize the push list with manually? Or do you ever use a service like Monetizer that does it automatically?
3) With the sweeps offers, would you say the biggest lever to success is trying lots of different offers to see what pops? Or testing lots of different ads/angles on a few of them and continually iterating/improving the epc?
Again thank you a TON for this interview/thread! Hugely inspiring/informative!
Awesome interview and some pretty valuable insights in there. Thanks @vortex for sharing this. Also after renewing my membership today, I just went on a reading spree to some equally if not more awesome threads just by following the link trail from your forum signature links that I hadn't read/missed previously.
Hey @blackemil , thanks for the interview, a lot of great information here.
Would you mind to tell me what proxy supplier you use when you login to BM's on your pc?
Seems hard to keep accounts alive to spend decent amount, keep getting bans. Do you verify your BMs?
Thanks
Originally Posted by regjoe
Thank you for your encouragement!I'm not sure how long you've been away from the forums, but our weekly newsletter has captured some of the very best threads over the previous months/years. You can find all the back issues here:
https://stmforum.com/blog
Thanks again and have fun!
Amy
Originally Posted by vortex
Originally Posted by regjoe
Amy
Originally Posted by jack_l
If you're still seeing this thread and answering questions, I would love to bounce a couple off of you...
1) Do you always use survey landers with the Fluent Sweeps offers or do you ever direct link to them? And if always landers, is that because the overall epc/cvr is consistently higher that way? Or because it provides the chance to build the push list at the same time and increase the revenue in that regard? Or both?
2) Do you only monetize the push list with manually? Or do you ever use a service like Monetizer that does it automatically?
3) With the sweeps offers, would you say the biggest lever to success is trying lots of different offers to see what pops? Or testing lots of different ads/angles on a few of them and continually iterating/improving the epc?
Again thank you a TON for this interview/thread! Hugely inspiring/informative!
2- I monetize myself. Those services tend to spam the list and kill it fast.
3- First find a good angle , then just try offers to see what sticks
Awesome interview!!! And big congrats to Emil for killing it! So pump reading the whole thing!
@blackemil Are you going straight for offer conversions with your pixel or do you optimize when they leave the funnel? Thanks a bunch!!!!
Originally Posted by larsometer
- - - Updated - - -
I go for offer conversion.
Originally Posted by kokofai
Originally Posted by blackemil
How much of the value would you say is coming from the push signups vs the conversions?
Like if you were to attribute an amount to each push opt-in based on their expected lifetime value, would it be like $0.10? $1.00? $3.00? etc
Also in that vein, if you don't mind me asking, how many push notifications does each subscriber typically get before unsubscribing? Is it like 10? 100? 1000?
Anyway thank you a TON for all this incredible info!
I signed up with Fluent based on this thread and have been having some success with them, and once I get the volume up a bit more I'm gonna do a mini-case study on here myself about running their stuff on native
So yeah, again, thanks a ton!!!!
Awesome interview, thanks @blackemil and @vortex for putting it together.
I am new to push. Is there training somewere where I can learn how to create my own push list and monetize it?
Originally Posted by rpatrocinio
Amy
Thanks Amy
where can i find this redirect code?
<a href="intent://domain.com/#Intent;scheme=https;action=android.intent.action. VIEW;end;">HERE</a> Here is the redirect code !
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