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EXPLANATION
Today we will start learning about Landing Pages.
Usually we execute the "ACTION" section first, then read the "EXPLANATION" section. But today I want to reverse the order - because I want to provide an introduction to landing pages before we take action.
What is a Landing Page?
A landing page - also referred to as a bridge page, a pre-landing page, or simply a lander or pre-lander for short - is a page that we show to visitors first, before sending them to the offer page.
The Great Caurmen's introduction to landing pages can't be beat - so please go read that now:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...A-Landing-Page
Why Can't We Continue to Direct-Link to Offers?
You can. But pop traffic has gotten so competitive in the last while, that you can't expect to be making consistent profits using half-assed effort.
You'll need to use every trick in the book to gain an edge over the competition - and using a landing page is definitely one of the most value-adding tricks.
Another very important reason for learning to use landers, is that some types of offers simply will not convert (or at least not convert WELL) without adequate pre-selling.
And this is true for other types of traffic as well, not just for pop.
Many people have asked, "wouldn't it save money if I direct-linked to a bunch of offers first, to see which ones convert the best, and only THEN put in the effort of testing landers?"
I'm all for taking shortcuts and being more efficient, but this is one case where it's not a good idea. If an offer requires pre-selling in order to convert well, then you'll need to test landers from the very start.
So how would you know what types of offers require using landers, and which can be direct-linked?
Here are some tips to help you decide whether you should test the offer using landing pages from the very start - or at LEAST split-test between direct-linking and landing pages:
1)Look at how simple/complicated the conversion flow is. What action(s) does the visitor need to take in order to convert? Does it take very little effort or lots of effort?
Offers that require very little effort and look interesting/attractive, stand a chance with direct-linking.
As examples: Sweeps and Antivirus usually need landers to convert / convert well, because they typically require the visitor to fill out multiple fields. Whereas 1/2-click carrier billing offers will usually convert with direct-linking - especially entertainment type offers like gaming or video subscriptions.
2)Check a spy tool. If you go to a spy tool like Adplexity (we'll talk a LOT more about this tool later), do a search on your offer type (e.g. "iphone x"), and find lots of suitable landers, then that's a sign you should include landers from the start.
3)Ask! Either your AM, or in a new post here in the forum.
I can't stress enough how essential it is for you to learn to work with landing pages. This is not JUST important for pop. Basically, no matter which traffic type you decide to run in the future, you'll need to know how to pre-sell the visitors adequately using landing pages. And even if you have the resources to outsource this part of the work, you'd still need to know enough to specify exactly what elements you need the landers to include and how you want it to work.
So - DO NOT BE COMPLACENT! I know direct-linking is easy and you're comfortable with it. But please start using landers ASAP - you'll thank yourself later.
So Where Can I Get These Landing Pages From?
Typically there are several ways to get landing pages, which I'll list below.
1)Download (or "rip") them from your competition.
This can be further broken down to 3 methods:
a)Manually go to websites that are showing pop ads, and download them. I've grabbed the top placements from Zeropark for the US geo:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nm5at5f8gg...2020.xlsx?dl=0
Many of these sites are actually international sites (e.g. most torrent sites get international traffic), so there would be affiliates targeting geos other than the US, and showing their landers. All you need to do is fire up your VPN, set it to the geo you're wanting to find landers for, browse to the sites on the list and start clicking around to trigger pop ads.
When you find a lander you wish to download, you can either use a software like HTTrack to download it, or simply download from your browser (e.g. in chrome, right-click with your cursor anywhere on the page and choose "Save as...").
This method will take a long time to gather landers, because you'll be shown landers for all types of offers and verticals and not just the offer type you're wanting to rip landers for. Also, unlike Adplexity Mobile, you won't have any idea whether the landers you come across are tried and tested, i.e. have been used in lots of campaigns and/or received lots of traffic.
But if you really can't afford spy tools for now, then ripping landers this way would be an option.
Note: Many ripped landers won't work properly as-is after you download them. Some of the coding will need to be corrected in order for them to function and display as intended. Again, I will provide some guidance on how to correct these errors in a subsequent lesson.
b)Use a spy tool like Adplexity Mobile, which is constantly monitoring lots of placement sites to find and download landing pages and other associated intel, and display all the landers to you in a sortable format, so that you can download selective landers and use them.
This is a service I would strongly recommend subscribing to. If you really can't afford it, at least get it for a month and download enough landers for the next few months. STM members get a special discount:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...or-STM-Members
There are different Adplexity products - for landers from pop traffic sources, make sure to subscribe to Adplexity Mobile.
I will go into detail on how to use Adplexity in subsequent lessons.
Note: Again, many of the landers downloaded from Adplexity will not work properly before you fix up the coding.
c)Use the STM Landing Page Depository. Here you can find landers that are ripped with the coding all fixed up and ready to go. Apologies for not having added new landers to the depository for a while, but landers typically don't change that much in weeks or even months, so if you're strapped for cash and time you can give those a test. You can find the depository here.
2)Build landing pages yourself either from scratch or using a generic template.
I would actually not recommend taking this route in the beginning - even if you're an expert coder - and for this reason:
New landers (either built from scratch or using a template) are unproven. You'll have little to no idea how well the new lander, which you've so painstakingly put together, will perform. And worse, since you'll likely be running new offers you've never run before, if your campaign doesn't do well, you won't know whether it's your offer or lander that isn't good enough.
It would save you much time and effort to test ripped landers first, find the best 1 or 2 or few, then make variations of these, and/or even make landers that are completely original, and split-test them against the best-performing ripped lander.
The most popular landers you see in use must be working for at least some people, or there wouldn't be so many people running them still. Chances are if you split-test 3-5 of the more-popular landers you find on a spy tool like Adplexity, the winning lander of the batch would perform at least reasonably well. Once you have this, you can split-test any other landers against it - including the aforementioned lander variations and original landers - to potentially find ones that convert even better.
Just the same, I'm including some forum threads you can read, to learn how to build landers yourself. But as far as this tutorial goes, we'll mostly be sticking to testing ripped landers.
3)Get an expert to do it.
Below are several options...
a)Partner up with a coder. You can partner up with someone who is good enough at coding, to either fix ripped landers or build new ones.
It would be better to gain some experience first yourself. When you have a few profitable campaigns under your belt, it would be a lot easier to find someone who'd be happy to partner up with you, as you'd have more to offer in terms of skills.
To meet your prospective partner, attend industry conferences (like Affiliate World Conferences), local STM meetups, or start a thread to recruit them.
It would really help to start participating actively in the forum so that people will know who you are, and that you know your stuff. If you could at least post a follow-along for example, it would help to show your experience a lot better than if you were to just start a thread to say "hi, I'm looking to partner up with an experience coder because I suck at making landing pages".
b)Hire a coder. You can hire someone to fix up ripped landers for USD $300-500/month full-time, and less than that part-time. For your reference, please find a job posting I've used on UpWork - at the end of this lesson. Feel free to modify it to suit your needs.
Also: silvertongue's guide on this topic is a must-read:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-Pages-to-a-VA
To hire someone to build pages from scratch will require that they have more coding skills than if you only need them to fix ripped landers.
c)Use a landing page creation/modification service. If you want a lander custom-created for you, or for changes to be applied on an existing lander, here’s a service I've used that will do that for you:
http://www.bannerslanders.com (Disclaimer: AMC does not endorse any products/services, so please use at your own discretion.)
Not a cheap option for sure, but they know what they're doing, and they're fast (at least they were when I last used them a few years back).
Another service you can try is this one offered by member @eurosen. I haven't used this one personally but there are good reviews within this thread:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...Service-(BETA)
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ACTION
For the action part of this lesson, I would like to ask you to spend some time to learn how to code, if you don't already know the basics.
If you already DO know the basics, feel free to skip this step for now.
Otherwise, I would STRONGLY recommend that you spend at least a couple of days to go through 1-2 beginner's coding courses. If you don't build this foundation, you'll be completely lost when you need to edit ripped landers to fix errors.
Even if you're planning on outsourcing this part of the workflow, it would still help to know SOME coding, just so you'd be in a better position to convey your requirements to your outsourcer.
You need to learn basic HTML, CSS, Javascript and Jquery. If this sounds like a lot, don't worry - you don't need to have an in-depth knowledge of any of these languages in order to fix up ripped landers.
As a BARE MINIMUM, you should go through the beginner's tutorials at Codecademy.com:
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-html
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/learn-css
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/make-a-website
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/lea...ponsive-design
https://www.codecademy.com/learn/int...-to-javascript
Then, if you have the time, I would recommend doing the tutorials on W3Schools.com as well:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp
https://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp
https://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp
https://www.w3schools.com/jquery/default.asp
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READING
You don't have to read these threads now, but I would like to give you a list of the best threads we have on how to build landers, that you can refer to as you need them.
These threads aren't just useful for building landers from scratch, or from a template. Some of these will also teach you how to modify an existing lander, by adding lander elements such as a timer, or getting the lander to call out the visitor's location and device, etc.
For now, it would be enough for you to just briefly browse through each thread, to get a preliminary understanding on what is possible.
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...Actually-Works
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...t-Ripping-Fast
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...e-Your-Answers
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ing-Parameters
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...Make-Decisions
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-Input-Or-Time
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...e-Your-Answers
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...ts-for-landers
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...nder-Nightmare
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FURTHER INFORMATION
As promised, below is a job posting I've posted on UpWork in the past, when I was looking for someone to fix up ripped landers. Please feel free to modify this to fit your needs.
You can get someone to fix up ripped landers for USD$300-500/month full-time, and less than that part-time.
This is a full-time job that will last for one month to start, and could potentially lead to long-term employment.
Your responsibilities will include the following...
1)You will have access to a repository of advertising landing pages such as this one: http://www.example-of-a-lander.com
The advertising pages will be on a variety of categories, including sweepstakes (e.g. "You have a chance to win an iphone") and antivirus.
You will be requested to fix errors that result from downloading these ad pages from the repository, then make modifications as requested to the code. Changes can range from minor (e.g. replacing images or text) to major (e.g. replacing entire background / structural theme or adding extra functionalities).
2)In addition to downloading and modding existing pages, you will also be requested to code ad pages from scratch based on mockups and requirements.
Most of the ad pages will be displayed on mobile devices so you will need to know how to design accordingly, and make sure that the pages are responsive.
3)When not busy doing the above tasks: You will be asked to study as many ad pages as possible, to learn about the various techniques that are used to boost sales, and make a list of the code snippets that are used. e.g. Entry javascript alert popup, device vibrate, etc. etc. This will help you to become more skilled at building effective ad pages.
4)Occasionally you will be required to edit images as necessary in photoshop, for use on the ad pages.
The following skills are required for this job:
-Intermediate to advanced skills in html, php, css, javascript, jquery
-Intermediate photoshop skills
-Experience in advertising / marketing would be an asset
Ongoing project: Designer, Developer
Project Stage: Fully Specified
Programming Languages Required: HTML JavaScript
Project Type: Ongoing project
Other Skills: Adobe Photoshop CSS jQuery PHP
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That's it for now! Do spend at least 2 solid days to learn the fundamentals of coding. You won't regret it.
Amy
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