Yesterday, I continued my Media Buying 101 series of posts talking about finding a good offer to promote besides a rebill (which have had a lot of trouble recently). With media buying, one of the most important things to keep in mind is your acquisition cost. This is pretty self explanatory, but sometimes overlooked by affiliates.

The acquisition cost to your media buy, is the amount you spend before receiving a conversion. Sometimes ad networks will abbreviate this as CPA (cost per acquisition). This is often tracked by placing a pixel on your offer provided by the ad network. It is completely normally to start off with a high acquisition cost as it takes some time to optimize out the sites that are spending but not converting. It’s very rare to have a campaign meet your CPA goal right off the bat.

This all plays a very important role when selecting your offer for your media buy. Believe it or not, I’ve known people that absolutely blow up email/zip submit offers on pay-per-click (a must before even thinking about a media buy) and are soon disappointed when it doesn’t work with a media buy. This boils down to the acquisition cost. Most ad networks/exchanges and sites are going to charge a CPM average anywhere $0.80 – $3.00 sometimes even more. Therefore a low paying offer to work (generally less than $5) you’re going to have to have one heck of a CTR (click through rate).

In conclusion, when selecting which winning offer (that’s already running successfully on PPC) to do a media buy with, keep the following in mind:

* How much does the offer pay?

* What is the CPM you’re paying for traffic?

* Given the conversion rate on your PPC campaign, what CTR is it going to take to work on a media buy?

* What is your acquisition goal (how much you’d like to spend before seeing a conversion)?

Once you are able to successfuly access these points, you’ll be well on your way to a successful media buy. Good luck!

For those of you that have been following our blog for the past few months, you have probably read at least one of my posts in my ‘Media Buying 101‘ series. First, I gave a basic introduction to media buying, second, I talked about finding sites that convert, and my last post talked about mastering your campaigns on a pay-per-click platform before taking them to a media buy.

During this installment, I want to talk about what kind of offers to promote using a media buy. While Richard and I were at Affiliate Summit West in Las Vegas, many people were griping that with the recent problems in the rebill niche, that they were completely lost on what to do with their media buys. I’m not going to lie, the Acai/Colon offers were very aggressive (which is a must to work on a media buy) and were pretty easy to turn profitable. However, they are not the only affiliate offer that can be promoted successfully via media buying.

Once you have a winning campaign on your pay-per-click platform of choice, you can evaluate it to see if it’s eligible for a media buy. Let me use a real-life example. About a year or so ago the IQ Quiz became a really hot offer in the affiliate world. First, Google Adwords became covered with these ads. Facebook followed. Eventually affiliates were pushing tons of volume with media buys. While they eventually died down (there is still volume out there, but not like before) the ‘IQ Quiz’ was smoking hot, thus it provided a lot of affiliates with a good amount of revenue.

The ‘key factor’ in this was it was a new offer, it appealed to a large audience (I personally knew one lawyer and one medical doctor that took the BS quiz), and it converted like crazy. As the months past buy and regulations came (with displaying the price where people could actually read it) the conversions died down a good bit. However during this ‘buzz’ affiliates cashed in.

What is making a buzz right now in February? Valentines day is on the 14th, tax season is quickly coming up.  Where is the next winning media buy campaign for you? While I cannot provide a simple answer (as things vary from traffic quality to creatives), I can tell you the only way you’re going to find out is start testing! Get some offers converting like crazy on our pay-per-click platforms and see if it has potential for a media buy.

Unfortunately I have to cut this post a little short (I’m out of town with my grandmother in the hospital).  Feel free to ask any questions you have below, and I’ll try to answer them as quickly as I can.  Stay tuned to Super Affiliate Twins as I plan on expanding this series a lot more and will be covering many more aspects of choosing a winning offer! Good luck!

Last month before the Holidays I began my Media Buying 101 Series.  My first post gave a very basic introduction to promoting affiliate offers by purchasing inventory on websites by the CPM (cost per one-thousand impressions).  My second post went on to talk about how to find sites that convert.  Over the last few week’s we’ve had some questions/comments come in that I want to address during this installment.

Before you can begin a media buy for a campaign you need to make sure it works on a CPC (cost per click/pay-per-click) platform.  If you cannot make money purchasing traffic by the click, there is NO WAY you’re going to make money paying by the impression. Don’t even waste your money on a media buy test if you haven’t successfully mastered your offer on a pay-per-click platform.  Paying for traffic by the click is a direct-response marketer’s dream.  You’re paying for traffic that has shown an interest in your advertisement and is now making their way to your landing page to further investigate.  With media buying you’re only paying for the impression, so even if they don’t click, you are responsible for the traffic.  While you can make a lot more money media buying you can also lose a lot if you do not first test paying by the click.

Many affiliate marketers have came to me and asked what CPC platform they should use to test their campaign.  They complain that Google, Yahoo, MSN, Pulse 360, and many others have either became too competitive or too strict to get their offers up and running.  While this maybe true, these are still not your only option.  Those are the ones that are best known but have you tried the following:

* facebook.com
* plentyoffish.com
* abcsearch.com
* 7search.com
* findology.com
* miva.com
* looksmart.com
* searchfeed.com
* marchex.com
* search123.com
* findit-quick.com
* pageseeker.com
* xoole.com
* bigclique.com

I could go on-and-on with more sites.  There are hundreds if not thousands of pay-per-click platforms out there, but if you’re not willing to put the grunt work in to find them, you’re going to be left behind.  It is also important to note, if you’re paying for traffic by the click on websites, take note of those, as you may have better luck doing a media buy on those sites direct.  Once you get your campaign profitable on two or three pay-per-click platforms you are then ready to make your way over to media buying.  Media buying can take your affiliate marketing campaigns to the next level, but your first level must be achieve at a PPC level.

In my next installment, I’m going to begin talking about serving your advertisements and how you need to go into a campaign ready to optimize, optimize, optimize!  If you haven’t already, please subscribe to our RSS feed as I’m going to share some techniques that will benefit even the most experienced affiliate marketer!

Last week I introduced a popular affiliate marketing technique called media buying, also referred to as display advertising. This technique is when you approach an individual website, network of websites, or ad exchange and purchase banner inventory by CPM (cost per one-thousand impressions). Now that I covered the very basics I want to talk about how to find the properties that convert to begin your successful media buying campaign.

While there are many different techniques to finding sites to purchase inventory, I’m going to discuss some of the easier ones.

* Use Google To Your Advantage
- The first technique I began using was searching Google (or Yahoo, MSN/other search engines). A few years ago, promoting ringtones was VERY popular and provided many affiliate marketers will tons of revenue. I utilized media buying to gain a competitive advantage on my competitors promoting ringtones.

First, I would figure out a popular search term such as ‘free ringtones’. Most all ringtone offers didn’t allow the word ‘free’ so I couldn’t bid on this keyword or use this in my creative. I could, however, search Google for ‘free ringtones’ and purchase banner inventory on the top 20 – 50 sites. Using the same method I mentioned last week, I contacted many webmasters who were happy to sell me direct inventory to their sites. I would place ads all over their sites that said ‘Send Ringtones To Your Phone In 3 Easy Steps’.

I never mentioned the word ‘free’ but was able to get several hundred leads a day at a fraction of the price if I would have been bidding on keywords (not to mention I couldn’t even bid on ‘free ringtones’). From ‘50 Cent Ringtones’ to ‘NBA Ringtones’ there wasn’t a term I didn’t try to buy inventory on. I also did a lot of SEO (which I will talk about later on this blog) to my advantage.

* Quantcast.com
- Quantcast.com is a website that collects demographic information on United States websites around the Internet. While their information is not 100% accurate, it provides a great starting point when deciding to media buy. The excellent thing about Quantcast.com is it even includes ad exchanges and networks. The other advantage is that this information is 100% free. Simply sign up for a free account, click ‘planner’ at the top, enter your target demographics, and begin buying inventory on the results. As I said, the data will even return ad networks/exchanges that match your demographics.

* Google Ad Planner
- I like to use Google Ad Planner along with Quantcast.com. I feel by using both of these tools together, I can quickly determine which sites match my demographics and are more likely to convert for my offers. The great thing about Google Ad Planner is you can even do a search by keywords or other sites visited. These can both be two powerful features especially when used with Quantcast.com. Google Ad Planner is also free!

* Compete.com
- Compete.com includes a lot of data on many websites such as unique visitors, page views, average stay, visits per person, search analytics, and more. The downfall is you must have a paid subscription to view most of this information. If you’re going to become a serious media buyer, I suggest making the $200+ a month investment to view this data. My personal favorite part about Compete.com is using the ‘compete referral analytics.’ Utilizing this tool, I’m able to type in a competitors URL and quickly discover where they’re buying their traffic from. This can get VERY interesting!

As I mentioned above, these are just some of the most popular tools online to use. Everyone has their own method, but these will give you a competitive advantage against your competitors to find cheap, converting traffic. Feel free to ask questions below, I’ll answer them as quickly as I can. Good luck!

With quality score becoming stricter and stricter it seems that affiliates are turning to media buying to drive targeted traffic to their offers.  Media buying, also referred to as Display Advertising, occurs when you purchase banner inventory on a site, network of sites, or an Ad Exchange (ie: AdBrite). Media buying is a very powerful resource that has the potential to generate almost an unlimited amount of traffic to your offers.  I’ve personally been involved in media buying for over ten years now; both as an advertiser and as a publisher.

Since 1999 I’ve owned websites where my primary business model was to sell as much banner inventory as I could at a high CPM (cost per one thousand impressions).  Throughout the years, I’ve been very successful doing this, making hundreds of thousands of dollars.  I can remember the days before “pop-ups” where you could sell 468×60 US inventory for $4 CPM with an unlimited cap.  Nowadays this is very rare.  Sites not only sell 468×60 inventory, but they’ve expanded their sizes to 728×90 leaderboards, 300×250 boxes, 120×600 skyscrapers, 160×600 wide skyscrapers, and pop-ups/pop-unders.  This provides affiliates with many more options at a lot lower prices!

All of this sounds great, but to even the most experienced SEM (search engine marketing) affiliate, media buying can be a daunting task getting started.  I’ve talked to several affiliates at conferences that think since they’re purchasing traffic from Pulse 360 and/or AOL Sponsored Listings that they’re media buying.  While you are buying media on a particular network of sites, you’re still purchasing your traffic by-the-click, so I still consider this a PPC (pay-per-click) campaign.  Media buying is when you actually approach a website, network of sites, or an ad exchange, agree on the amount of inventory at a particular CPM, sign an Insertion Order, and proceed to run your campaign.

Let me explain further using a real-life example…

Let’s say I have my offers/landing pages/tracking software ready to go.  I use my research (I’m going to write a post on media buying research very soon) I decide I want to advertise on WrestlingNewsWorld.com (this is a site I own, so I’m using it as an example).  According to my research, this site seems to match the exact demographic s for my offer and I strongly feel I can generate a ROI (return on investment).  I contact the webmaster of the site via email.  A sample email could look like the following:

To Whom It May Concern:

I’m interested in purchasing banner inventory on your website, WrestlingNewsWorld.com.  I own a direct response marketing company based in the United States, and according to our research, your site matches the demographics to one of our latest campaigns.  We’re very flexible and would love to begin a relationship that would be mutually beneficial.  If you could, please email me back with your media kit and rate card at your earliest convenience.    If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me at (XXX) XXX-XXXX.

Thank you very much for your time, I greatly anticipate your response.

Sincerely,

Ryan Gray
SuperAffiliateTwins.com

Feel free to use my email as a template, just remember who helped you out;).  Most-likely the site owner will contact you back with their advertising information.  Once you decide how much money you’re willing to invest on this particular campaign, you tell the site owner how much inventory you want to purchase.  They’ll then draft up an Insertion Order.  This is a formal document that displays the amount of inventory you’re buying, the price you’re paying, and the terms you agree to pay on. If you’re a new media buyer, chances are, you’re going to have to pre-pay this webmaster to gain their trust.

I recommend starting with a low amount (an amount you don’t care burning if things don’t work out).  This could be an amount as low as $100.  You don’t have to purchase a ton of inventory to become a successful media buyer.  Start small and expand as you become more confident in your skills.

All Insertion Orders carry an outclause.  These range from 24 hours until a week.  If you’re new to media buying I suggest negotiating no more than 48 hours, so if the buy doesn’t work out, you can stop without any further financial commitment.

Once you start your buy be sure to track, optimize, track, optimize, track, optimize, etc.  If you think your campaign is optimized, you better optimize some more.  By completing these steps, you have the potential to take your affiliate campaigns to a whole new level.  In the coming week’s I’m going to be conducting a series of posts titled “The Newbie’s Guide To Media Buying.”  If you’re a newbie or expert affiliate, you’re not going to want to miss the tips I give to aide your campaigns, so be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed!

Good luck!