I know there are a lot of people viewing these threads that are learning about CPA marketing but don’t really understand how everything fits together, how the whole process works. Maybe you know bits or pieces of the puzzle, but don’t know how to actually put a campaign together.
To be a CPA Millionaire, you must first be a CPA Hundredaire and Thousandaire
As you know, CPA marketing is very lucrative and building a good campaign can make you a boatload of cash. But of course, you need to start somewhere. My goal here is to give you a general bird’s view of CPA marketing.
Step 1: GETTING ACCEPTED
The first thing you will need to do is belong to at least one CPA network. These networks will provide you with the offers you can promote and your affiliate links to get credit for your conversions. To get accepted you will need to visit the network site and go through the application process.
Now they will ask for a web site that you plan on promoting with. Here you can either put your web site, build a web site and then put the domain here, or put in something like www.willdiscussinphoneinterview.com. Your next step is to IMMEDIATELY call the network. Here you will want to explain that you just submitted an application but you want to start promoting one of their offers so you want to see if there is a way to fast track the application process. They will probably review your application right there on the spot. As they ask you questions, be honest with them. If you don’t have a website and put the aforementioned WillDiscuss.com - Discuss Anything! :: Index domain in the web site space, here you will want to explain that you are doing PPC and will build specific landing pages around the offer you are promoting.
So, just be honest, and there are some great threads on this forum to help with this process.
There are also hundreds of networks, so if you don’t get accepted right away, don’t worry.
Step 2: PICKING AN OFFER
You will notice on the site that there are a ton of different offers. Some are short forms, some long, some email submits, some free trials. Now your best bet here is to give your affiliate manager a call and explain to him how you plan on promoting and he will give you some good offers that the network carries. This is a good place to start.
If you are searching for a specific type of offer or in a specific niche but don’t know what network it is carried on, then go to the following two sites.
1. Offervault.com
2. Affspy.com
You can also normally search on each network and it will give you the offers that convert the best on the network, have the highest EPC (earning per click), network wide earnings etc. This is a good place to start if you have no idea what to promote or how you are going to promote.
Step 3: FINDING TRAFFIC
This is the heart of any campaign. Without traffic, an offer is worthless. Here are some common traffic types. When you are newer to CPA, I would strongly suggest sticking with cheap and free promotion methods. If you go with paid traffic, it can get very expensive really quickly.
Here are two things a lot of newbies start out with.
Articles: People write articles and then plug their CPA offer or put in a hyperlink to their web site which then has their CPA offer on it. You submit these articles to directories and hope they get picked up and ranked high. The key here ISNT creating remarkable articles. The key here is building your articles around good keywords that can rank high. Then of course there is the art of writing the article to get visitors warmed up and ready to fulfill your action when they click through.
Niche Sites: Either using wordpress or simple sites, you can build small sites that focus around a cpa offer niche. Then drive traffic to that site via simple seo (search engine optimization) or all other traffic sources.
Here are some other traffic sources you can use.
-video portals
-classifieds
-organic traffic
-PPV pay per view
-PPC per per click
-media buys
Step 4: YOUR HOME BASE
For most of CPA marketing tactics, you will need to set up some sort of web site or at least web page to drive traffic to. Then on this site, this is where you try and convert visitors.
Many people use wordpress to create sites. This is fairly easy and you can create very nice sites with free templates. Other people use simple web sites based on templates. One thing that is popular is creating review sites. Essentially you have a few cpa offers and then compare them on your site and give them ranking. People will then click on your affiliate link and be direted to the actual offer.
As a general tip, you need to keep two things in mind when creating sites.
1. Remember what traffic you are using and you may have to design your site around that. For example, if you are getting traffic from search engines, it probably wouldn’t make sense to create a one page site. You won’t get a good quality score and thus your clicks will be very expensive.
2. Secondly, remember that your ultimate goal is converting the visitor and getting them to fulfill your cpa offer. Too many people try and create these great web sites that look really pretty and have all kinds of content. Ultimately, the visitor has soo much to look at and browse that they never end up fulfilling the offer. When I create a site, every single decision I make is linked back to my main objective, converting the visitor. The way I design the site funnels people to the “action”. The graphics, the lines, the feel, everything is directed at my action. No matter where my visitor first looks on my landing page, they will ultimately end up at my action. I call it a Funnel Page.
Some of general Concepts.
Lifetime Value: Your ultimate goal is capture the lifetime value of every customer. Without sounding too bad, your goal is to milk each visitor for as much as possible. You can do this via listbuilding so you can sell to them over and over again. You can do this via upselling so you offer them another CPA offer after they fulfill the first. Sometimes this means taking a hit up front. For example, one popular thing I’ve done is created email submit campaigns with squeeze page. Now you can direct your visitor straight to the cpa offer and maybe earn $.30 on each visitor. But after that one sale, the visitor is lost forever. If you create a squeeze page, your overall conversion will decrease because it’s a distraction and many people don’t want to opt in to lists. So maybe you only earn $.10 per visitor on the front end. But, now you have their email address and can keep sending them more offers. Maybe with email marketing you make $.30 per person on your list. So, at the end of the day, you are making $.40 ($.10 on front end and $.30 on back end). Doesnt sound like much but remember that you can be driving thousands of people to your offer per day.
Copy Cat: There are many affiliates out there spending insane amounts of money on optimizing and testing campaigns. Take a look at them, at your competitors, and use the same ideas they are. Their ideas work, that’s why they are still up and running. No sense spending money yourself on all that testing.
CPA Thinking: You need to think like a marketer to get ahead in CPA. Whatever you do, wherever you go, whomever you meet, always be analyzing everything in your life and relating it to CPA. Maybe you see a commercial on tv that sparks an idea. Bam, write it down and test it.
Failing: You will likely fail in most things you do. If you create a PPC campaign, statistically most will be absolute duds. If you make videos, most wont get many views. If you write articles, most won’t pick up much traffic. But you are ultimately looking for that one article, video, site, or campaign that hits it. You need to go through the process of failing in order to find that one thing that will make you $500 per day. Its part of the process, we all go through it. So, be prepared to fail. Take action and eventually you will find your winner. Then ramp up, scale, rinse and repeat, do whatever it takes to turn that sparkle of hope into a gem and best yet…a wad of cash in your account. Most things I do are failures to. Shrug your shoulders and move on.
Ok guys, I hope some people found all this rambling useful. Its pretty basic stuff but we all need to start somewhere.
~CPA is AWESOME. Keep Rocking It Guys~
To be a CPA Millionaire, you must first be a CPA Hundredaire and Thousandaire
As you know, CPA marketing is very lucrative and building a good campaign can make you a boatload of cash. But of course, you need to start somewhere. My goal here is to give you a general bird’s view of CPA marketing.
Step 1: GETTING ACCEPTED
The first thing you will need to do is belong to at least one CPA network. These networks will provide you with the offers you can promote and your affiliate links to get credit for your conversions. To get accepted you will need to visit the network site and go through the application process.
Now they will ask for a web site that you plan on promoting with. Here you can either put your web site, build a web site and then put the domain here, or put in something like www.willdiscussinphoneinterview.com. Your next step is to IMMEDIATELY call the network. Here you will want to explain that you just submitted an application but you want to start promoting one of their offers so you want to see if there is a way to fast track the application process. They will probably review your application right there on the spot. As they ask you questions, be honest with them. If you don’t have a website and put the aforementioned WillDiscuss.com - Discuss Anything! :: Index domain in the web site space, here you will want to explain that you are doing PPC and will build specific landing pages around the offer you are promoting.
So, just be honest, and there are some great threads on this forum to help with this process.
There are also hundreds of networks, so if you don’t get accepted right away, don’t worry.
Step 2: PICKING AN OFFER
You will notice on the site that there are a ton of different offers. Some are short forms, some long, some email submits, some free trials. Now your best bet here is to give your affiliate manager a call and explain to him how you plan on promoting and he will give you some good offers that the network carries. This is a good place to start.
If you are searching for a specific type of offer or in a specific niche but don’t know what network it is carried on, then go to the following two sites.
1. Offervault.com
2. Affspy.com
You can also normally search on each network and it will give you the offers that convert the best on the network, have the highest EPC (earning per click), network wide earnings etc. This is a good place to start if you have no idea what to promote or how you are going to promote.
Step 3: FINDING TRAFFIC
This is the heart of any campaign. Without traffic, an offer is worthless. Here are some common traffic types. When you are newer to CPA, I would strongly suggest sticking with cheap and free promotion methods. If you go with paid traffic, it can get very expensive really quickly.
Here are two things a lot of newbies start out with.
Articles: People write articles and then plug their CPA offer or put in a hyperlink to their web site which then has their CPA offer on it. You submit these articles to directories and hope they get picked up and ranked high. The key here ISNT creating remarkable articles. The key here is building your articles around good keywords that can rank high. Then of course there is the art of writing the article to get visitors warmed up and ready to fulfill your action when they click through.
Niche Sites: Either using wordpress or simple sites, you can build small sites that focus around a cpa offer niche. Then drive traffic to that site via simple seo (search engine optimization) or all other traffic sources.
Here are some other traffic sources you can use.
-video portals
-classifieds
-organic traffic
-PPV pay per view
-PPC per per click
-media buys
Step 4: YOUR HOME BASE
For most of CPA marketing tactics, you will need to set up some sort of web site or at least web page to drive traffic to. Then on this site, this is where you try and convert visitors.
Many people use wordpress to create sites. This is fairly easy and you can create very nice sites with free templates. Other people use simple web sites based on templates. One thing that is popular is creating review sites. Essentially you have a few cpa offers and then compare them on your site and give them ranking. People will then click on your affiliate link and be direted to the actual offer.
As a general tip, you need to keep two things in mind when creating sites.
1. Remember what traffic you are using and you may have to design your site around that. For example, if you are getting traffic from search engines, it probably wouldn’t make sense to create a one page site. You won’t get a good quality score and thus your clicks will be very expensive.
2. Secondly, remember that your ultimate goal is converting the visitor and getting them to fulfill your cpa offer. Too many people try and create these great web sites that look really pretty and have all kinds of content. Ultimately, the visitor has soo much to look at and browse that they never end up fulfilling the offer. When I create a site, every single decision I make is linked back to my main objective, converting the visitor. The way I design the site funnels people to the “action”. The graphics, the lines, the feel, everything is directed at my action. No matter where my visitor first looks on my landing page, they will ultimately end up at my action. I call it a Funnel Page.
Some of general Concepts.
Lifetime Value: Your ultimate goal is capture the lifetime value of every customer. Without sounding too bad, your goal is to milk each visitor for as much as possible. You can do this via listbuilding so you can sell to them over and over again. You can do this via upselling so you offer them another CPA offer after they fulfill the first. Sometimes this means taking a hit up front. For example, one popular thing I’ve done is created email submit campaigns with squeeze page. Now you can direct your visitor straight to the cpa offer and maybe earn $.30 on each visitor. But after that one sale, the visitor is lost forever. If you create a squeeze page, your overall conversion will decrease because it’s a distraction and many people don’t want to opt in to lists. So maybe you only earn $.10 per visitor on the front end. But, now you have their email address and can keep sending them more offers. Maybe with email marketing you make $.30 per person on your list. So, at the end of the day, you are making $.40 ($.10 on front end and $.30 on back end). Doesnt sound like much but remember that you can be driving thousands of people to your offer per day.
Copy Cat: There are many affiliates out there spending insane amounts of money on optimizing and testing campaigns. Take a look at them, at your competitors, and use the same ideas they are. Their ideas work, that’s why they are still up and running. No sense spending money yourself on all that testing.
CPA Thinking: You need to think like a marketer to get ahead in CPA. Whatever you do, wherever you go, whomever you meet, always be analyzing everything in your life and relating it to CPA. Maybe you see a commercial on tv that sparks an idea. Bam, write it down and test it.
Failing: You will likely fail in most things you do. If you create a PPC campaign, statistically most will be absolute duds. If you make videos, most wont get many views. If you write articles, most won’t pick up much traffic. But you are ultimately looking for that one article, video, site, or campaign that hits it. You need to go through the process of failing in order to find that one thing that will make you $500 per day. Its part of the process, we all go through it. So, be prepared to fail. Take action and eventually you will find your winner. Then ramp up, scale, rinse and repeat, do whatever it takes to turn that sparkle of hope into a gem and best yet…a wad of cash in your account. Most things I do are failures to. Shrug your shoulders and move on.
Ok guys, I hope some people found all this rambling useful. Its pretty basic stuff but we all need to start somewhere.
~CPA is AWESOME. Keep Rocking It Guys~