Marketing’s Hidden Beast: CPA Traffic

Briefly, some site news. You NO LONGER HAVE TO REGISTER TO POST. Yahoo is deferring my server’s e-mails, and I’m refusing to deal with it.







Now, The Article!


Ever had a site you just couldn’t monetize? Users just don’t have credit cards, or won’t buy? Adsense isn’t the only way to swing a sale. CPA offers (Cost per Action) are the most constantly underappreciated type of internet promotion ever. I personally have made around $600 from them one day while I did my laundry(using a technique I will not share here). However, I will share some tactics to help you promote using CPA. Bear in mind for all of these, kids and teens are the best audience.






First, Where can I find a good CPA Program?


Right Here. They accept most webmasters(which some don’t), give you a manager who is always on AIM(aol instant messenger) ready to talk to you or help you out, have high payouts, and don’t ban affiliates easily. Also, they support can-spam compliant e-mail promotion. Definitely the best, in my opinion. I reccomend y’all sign up.






Second, What is CPA?


CPA consists mostly of pay-per-signup offers. Normally no exchange of money between the user and the offer are needed. Some only require a zip code, some only require an e-mail address, some require those, plus a name/address. Typical payout for a E-mail/Zip submit is $1.00-3.50. For easy traffic you can’t do jack with, that’s a lot of money.


Offers are typically “Win a free expensive product here” or “Which is better? ThingX or ThingY”






This whole thing is going to be kind of basic, but a lot of people have not at all heard of CPA, or never tried it, so consider it a primer.






Now, onto marketing ideas, and general tips.


How to Promote(The Basics):






Selling software? Put it on the installer set to show while the app is installing. Leave it at that though. Most places will not accept spyware/adware traffic.


Got an opt-in e-mail list? Append a link to the offer on the bottom. Many offers can be e-mailed. Be careful though, you don’t want to bring complaints.


Got a message board? Ads on message boards convert like ass. Put a banner on the side, and you’ll get a hell of a lot more probably. Target your offer to your audience, not the payout.


Run a download site? Put them up as a nag screen before the person can download the software. You’ll get a surprising return.


Build a seperate cloaking site, then chuck the users over to the CPA with some bullshit article too. This works veryyyy nice.


PPC Offers! This is the most common method, and works well. Use a variety of PPC places. Google works great, but bids are high. Check out ask jeeves and the like. Buy up long tail keywords RELATED to your topic. Let’s say you have one asking “Should OJ Simpson’s Book be Published?” Buy up keywords related to victims, participants, lawyers, quotes, questions, things most people have no interest in bidding on.


Tips






Read #5. This details how to select your keywords


TARGETTING IS EVERYTHING. Don’t buy junk traffic.


Don’t be misleading. You’re paying for this traffic, so you want it to be quality. You need a high CTR.


Assume to start a 1:10 sign-up ratio for people going to your offer. Try and break even at first, then adjust your totals later.


There’s lot’s of CPA programs out there, but this one is my favorite.