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EXPLANATION
Up to now, you've only been running offers from 3 affiliate networks (Mobipium, Haka, and Zeydoo), and traffic from 2 traffic networks (PropellerAds and Popads). These are fine networks and please feel free to stick with them exclusively for a bit, but I would strongly recommend that you start applying to more of both kinds of networks, for the reasons below.
But first - an important disclaimer:
Disclaimer: STM does not endorse any affiliate network or traffic network. Please apply to and work with networks at your sole discretion.
Affiliate Networks:
The more affiliate networks you have accounts with, the more offers you have access to.
Different affiliate networks are strong in different verticals / offer types / geos. So a single affiliate network may not be sufficient to serve your needs.
Also: I have it on good authority (and also based on personal experience) that some networks out there will shave leads as a standard practice. This means that some of the conversions are automatically kept from showing up in our stats (on both the aff network and our tracker), so that they can pay us less. Another common practice is scrubbing, which is when the affiliate network or advertiser (i.e. offer owner) considers some or all of our conversions to be either fraudulent or of low quality, such that they can't monetize them as well as they were expecting to, and as a result decide not to pay us for the conversions.
Different networks will shave/scrub at different rates. Plus, different networks have different technology, such as hosting and software, that will affect how quickly they can send visitors to offers for example. All these reasons will affect how well their offers can convert.
Often, you will find the exact same offer on multiple affiliate networks, and you should split-test all of them. Why? Because they may convert VERY differently, due to all the reasons listed above and maybe more. I've tested the SAME offer (same landing page same final url) that were available at two different affiliate networks, and one converted TWICE as well as the other! So treat them as different offers and split-test!
Having said all that, I wouldn't suggest for you to start applying to every affiliate network you come across. If you're still new to paid traffic campaigns (which I'm assuming you are if you're going through this tutorial), chances are you haven't decided on a vertical to focus on. If you join too many networks, you'll get hit up by lots of affiliate managers all being helpful by urging you to run their hottest offers - which can be terribly distracting (and stressful!) to a newbie.
Also, when affiliate managers find that you're not sending traffic, they may decide to ignore you in the future when you do decide to run their offers. (I'm not saying that all networks or all affiliate managers are like that, but affiliate networks ARE in this business to make money, and affiliate managers are under stress to meet sales quota, or earn enough in commissions to make a living, which would make sense for them to spend their time with affiliates that are bringing the most revenue.)
I would suggest to start by applying to a few big networks that have a variety of offer types, such as Zeydoo (if you haven't gotten approved before, try again after you've generated some revenue with other networks) and/or Clickdealer. That should give you a variety of different types of offers to work with. Once you have a better idea on what kinds of offers / verticals you want to zoom in on, you can google or ask around for networks that have those particular types of offers, and sign up to them as needed.
Traffic Networks:
The more networks you have accounts on, the more traffic inventory and therefore volume you have access to. This will be invaluable when it comes time to scaling profitable campaigns. Don't wait until you have a profitable campaign before seeking out new networks, because pop camps don't stay profitable for very long.
Another good reason for having accounts on multiple networks, is that the competition levels on each network is different. The bigger networks tend to be more well-known, so competition tends to be heavier. Whereas the smaller networks tend to have lighter competition. This is just a generalization of course, but overall speaking it would be a good idea for smaller affiliates to seek out the less-popular, smaller networks, where you can potentially get higher ROI more easily.
Another potential benefit to running on smaller networks is that campaign performance tends to be more consistent, which makes it easier to optimize campaigns, and profitable campaigns tend to stay green for longer. The flipside of course is that there may not be a lot of volume - but this is one reason why the bigger affiliates are not bothering to run on smaller networks.
One important thing to note, is that different traffic networks offer different targeting options, different bidding models, and different campaign settings/features such as auto-optimization. Note: Some traffic networks can work their magic in the backend to target what you normally can't via their normal user interface - it wouldn't hurt to send a support ticket to ask whether they would let you access any extra targeting options, or assign a dedicated account manager that would create campaigns on your behalf. (For the latter, you'd typically need to be spending a larger budget with the traffic source before they would consider that option. But it wouldn't hurt to ask!)
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ACTION
Applying to More Affiliate Networks:
As was mentioned above, you don't need to join that many affiliate networks in the beginning - just a few would do.
STM has created a tool to make it really easy to apply to multiple affiliate networks at once - make sure you're logged into your STM account when accessing the tool. This post has the instructions:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...shing-1-button
There's also the Affiliate Contacts Directory that contains direct contacts on some of the networks that have accounts on STM, as well as basic info on what types of offers they have. Feel free to check it out here:
https://stmforum.com/affiliate-directory/
Lastly: You can browse through the Affiliate Offers & Traffic Opportunities subforum where many affiliate and traffic networks have posted information on their networks and offers.
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...-Opportunities
To get in touch with reps from a network you're interested in: Many have included contact information in their forum signatures, which can be found at the bottom of all their posts, as well as in their forum profile. Failing that, try looking up the STM Affiliate Contacts Directory for contact info. You can also send them a forum PM, and/or go directly to the network's website to get in touch there.
A word on payment threshold: Different affiliate networks have different minimum payment thresholds. If you don't have a lot of cash to float, try not to run with too many affiliate networks in the beginning. Ask each network what their minimum payment threshold is - they won't pay out until your revenue reaches that amount. Last thing you want to happen, is run into cashflow issues because all your revenue is spread out across various affiliate networks, waiting to reach payout threshold.
Applying to More Pop Traffic Networks:
Many members have asked for pop network recommendations in the past, and in response a lot of recommendations were made. Here are some of the threads where you can find pop network recommendations:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...34601-Need-pop
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...Traffic-Source
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...77-Looking-for
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...82-Biggest-POP
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...41-Pop-Traffic
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...26870-What-Pop
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...519-Can-anyone
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...2-Mobile-Adult
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...le-POPRedirect
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...101-Mobile-pop
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...28230-Any-Good
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...t-POP-traffic!
Feel free to sign up for any/all sources at your discretion. The only exception I could think of, where you may want to wait a few months before signing up to, is Zeropark. They want advertisers that have experience running paid traffic, so if you've spent a couple of thousand dollars elsewhere first before applying to them, you'd stand a much better chance at being accepted.
You don't need to make a deposit on all sources right away. That can wait until you have a profitable campaign you want to scale to other sources. Reminder: Before making a deposit, make sure the traffic source has the targeting options you need, and also enough traffic volume for those targeting options. For example, if you're running mobile carrier traffic, you'd want to make sure that the traffic source allows targeting by carrier, AND has more than a tiny bit of traffic for your carrier. If you're not sure, email/skype their support to ask before making a deposit.
Most of the traffic networks recommended in the threads I've linked to above, are the more popular networks. If you want to explore the less-known networks, here's what you can do:
-Make a list of several hundred pop sources (by googling "ad network review sites", "popunder/popup traffic networks" etc.). Start an excel spreadsheet or similar to keep track of which sites you've applied to, which sites have accepted you, targeting options, minimum deposit amount, etc. (Don't get lazy with the tracking - trust me, you'll lose track after the 10th network. I got lazy and dropped the ball occasionally - and as a result I would sometimes sign up to a "new" network only to find I already have an account there, and sometimes even money I've deposited and never used.)
-Write a form message to ask questions to vet out the traffic sources - e.g. sample volumes of top 10 geos or carriers, minimum initial deposit, questions about targeting options such as whether they allow targeting by carrier.
-Send this form message to all sources, either by email or via the contact forms on their site.
-Narrow down your list of sources: The ones that don't respond within 5-7 days you can forget about - either support is bad or the network is no longer in operation. Networks that don't have enough volume to be worth your time, don't even bother with them. Basically weed out sources you don't feel good about for one reason or other.
-Networks that require large initial deposits, you can try to negotiate a smaller amount (only do this when you actually have some profitable campaigns to scale there). Tell them that because you're testing lots of traffic sources, you're aiming to limit your test budget per traffic source. Don't be afraid to suggest small amounts of even $100-200 when the original requested amount is $1-5k - I've had some traffic sources say yes. The worst that could happen is you get a no - grow some thick skin and you'll be OK. Give them the impression that you're planning to spend big bucks with them as long as their traffic quality meets with your approval, and they'll go the extra mile to try to earn your business.
You don't need to do this type of negotiations right away if you don't have a lot of test budget. Wait until you can generate profits consistently, AND when you have a few profitable campaigns to scale, and THEN negotiate to get the lowest minimum initial deposit possible, and start testing.
Keep in mind that you can stand to lose all of that initial deposit - some traffic sources just have shitty traffic that doesn't convert. But if you want to expand your business, then you'll need to be prepared to factor that risk into your plans.
-After weeding out sources that are unresponsive / no longer in operation, or have tiny volumes, you'll be left with a list of traffic sources to test. Next time you have a profitable campaign, you'll be able to make the minimum initial deposits on these sources and scale to them for a test. Different sources are strong in different geos, so even if the results of your first campaign there aren't stellar, you may want to give it another try by setting up a 2nd or 3rd campaign there for other geos.
Another way to evaluate the traffic quality of new traffic sources, is by doing a test on their worldwide traffic using either a low-payout offer (or a smart link of low-payout offers) that target all/many geos worldwide. Ask your affiliate networks for these, and test them on your go-to traffic source to find one that converts pretty well. Then use that to test new traffic sources - that way you'd find out which geos are strong on the new networks, as well as how the traffic quality compares.
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READING & RESOURCES
Pay specific attention to Mistake #12 on how to avoid shady affiliate/traffic networks:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...n-avoid-part-2
Ruby Tunes has great tips on how to get approved by affiliate networks more easily:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...-first-network
As mentioned above, we have an Affiliate Networks Application Tool that will let you submit one application to multiple affiliate networks to save time:
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...shing-1-button
Also mentioned above is the Affiliate Contacts Directory that contains contact info for affiliate networks, traffic networks, and other affiliate marketing related products/services:
https://stmforum.com/affiliate-directory/
Here's a step-by-step on how to make any affiliate network work withVoluum (please skip if you're using another tracker):
https://stmforum.com/forum/showthrea...by-Step-Voluum
The Affiliate Offers & Traffic Opportunities subforum is where you can find affiliate and traffic networks posting about their offers and traffic:
https://stmforum.com/forum/forumdisp...-Opportunities
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The next lesson will be on scaling - it will also be the last lesson in the tutorial. See the light at the end of the tunnel yet?
Amy
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