Affiliate Marketing Media Buying 101

Media buying is a delicate art, and it’s essential to know its dos and don’ts to succeed in affiliate marketing. That’s why it was time to have another knowledge-sharing session with our Senior Advertiser Managers, Jimmy Dewerdt and Keijo Suurkivi. Their extensive knowledge of affiliate marketing will help you identify right from wrong. Discover what media buyers should know to stay ahead of the competition in 2023.

 

#1 Ad Formats

We offer multiple ad format options to find success in your campaign. Our publishers most often choose between Pop-Under and Interstitial ads. But they seldom use both placements simultaneously as it may be too intrusive for the users unless they opt for Autotag, which automatically rotates Pop-Under, Interstitial and In-Page Push ads. We highlight these, not single them out, as all our ad formats are important for running and testing your campaign. Thus, advertisers should create different campaigns using all formats to cover a broader inventory and attract more traffic opportunities.

 

#2 Precise Targeting

Having the correct targeting is key to succeeding with affiliate marketing. Adcash has many different targeting options and an ocean of opportunities for advertisers. There are various ways how you can approach targeting depending on what you want to achieve with affiliate marketing. We suggest approaching the traffic by targeting different angles to get the most out of your campaigns. So, to have the most efficient ad setup, create different test campaigns for the same offer. That will help you discover how to reach your target audience best.

Website Category Targeting 

Let’s say you sell footballs and know they would sell best on a sports site, then target those kinds of websites! If you want your well-matching offer to be one of the firsts shown on that site, you also need to have a high bid for that to happen.

User Interest Targeting 

The user interest database finds excellent matches for your campaigns, so you need to bid with full power to get the best results. We recommend bidding at an average CPM bid or actual CPA Target goal (e.g., $2).

Run Across All Other Sources 

With this third step, you run your campaign across all other sources you haven’t covered before; it blacklists everything mentioned earlier. To lower risks, run them at 75% of the actual CPA Target goal (e.g., $1.50) because the traffic is convertible, but this step is for finding additional converting sources that are a little further from the core targeting. 

The idea is to run at full power on the core targeting (e.g., website category, user interest) while being cautious when going further from the core targeting (e.g., running across all sources). Also, remember to keep your campaigns separate, one for desktop and another for the mobile web.

#3 Don’t Buy The Same Traffic Twice 

With the Adcash campaign setup, you can exclude or include traffic segments through targeting options. Logically, you wouldn’t want to display your offer to the same users across test campaigns with different ad setups. 

To buy the impression at a competitive price and avoid buying the same traffic twice, we recommend blacklisting the details that you whitelist in your other campaigns. Here’s a gambling example:

Campaign A	Whitelist the website category “gambling”
Campaign B	Whitelist the user interest “gambling”
Campaign C	Blacklist both the website category “gambling” and the user interest “gambling”

That way, you only buy the traffic once at a competitive price. Plus, have a killer affiliate marketing strategy at the same time!

#4 Manage Budget Spending On Big Sources

Do big sources often eat up all of your campaign budgets? Our zone capping tool gives you control over the incoming traffic and lets you limit the maximum number of impressions per source. 

You have the possibility to use zone capping to explore the traffic, especially when having a broad CPM Pop-Under campaign. Basically, your campaign will receive a maximum of X impressions per traffic source within 24 hours. This means you will hit a maximum number of traffic sources without spending most of your budget on large-volume websites. In addition, it will give you plenty of time to optimize your affiliate marketing campaign along the way. You should balance your daily budget and zone capping (1,000 impressions is the minimum).

#5 Inventory Forecast Tool

You might wonder how big Adcash’s ad volumes are with specific targeting options. Well, the inventory forecast tool will tell you that! Simply insert your targeting options, and our tool will calculate the volumes for you. Then you can see if you need to modify your ad settings to get the desired result. This tool also shows whether all the settings are in sync or conflict and limiting your reach. We always try to create tools to make affiliate marketing easier for our clients. 

An advertiser might wonder, what are the volumes for Pop-Under ads on Android traffic in Brazil? By using the inventory forecast, we find out that the answer is 324,471 impressions. According to your targeting, this figure is always based on the previous day’s data. In this case, Brazil + Pop-Under + Android. Please note that the sky’s the limit! It’s possible to get more traffic from our SSPs via programmatic, depending on your CPM bid. The inventory forecast tool is available for all targeting options except URL keyword targeting.

#6 Stand Out From The Crowd

Avoid using generic ad creatives that blend into the background. The same goes for landing pages that are used by the majority of players in the market. Think about the ad or landing page that recently caught your eye. What was so special about it? Approach your target audience like you would like to be approached! Combine smart writing with cool imagery so your clients know instantly why they’d want to buy your product or use your service. Attract more users with your uniqueness.

 

We hope these affiliate marketing tips were useful for you and gave you a better understanding of the Adcash platform. If you haven’t read our previous media buying blog, check it out here. 

Now, off you go to create these wildly successful ad campaigns! Cheerio.