What traffic sources to use for certain verticals and offers is probably the most pressing question for every affiliate marketer. If you don’t want to send your budget down the drain, that is. With the right combination, there are thousands of dollars to be made, while the wrong one will have you deep in the red.
There is hardly a single protocol to follow that will bring in guaranteed results. It’s all in testing and optimizing. In our experience, however, certain traffic sources do outstrip others and give you some advantage from the start.
When it comes to nutra CPA offers, such traffic sources are:
Native
Facebook
Instagram
Search
SEO
NATIVE ADVERTISING
We have already covered native ads in a blog post and little has changed since then. Native is still going strong, with more platforms popping up on a regular basis (we’ll review the most popular ones in the future). The key to success of native advertising is the lack of interruption, which is taken favorably by users.
Shock and curiosity are the two strong emotions used in headlines for such ads. It is also recommended to use numbers (7 Ways to Lose Weight), definitive statements (You will look perfect for the bikini season!) and trigger excitement.
Since the majority of traffic is sent to prelanders, it is recommended to use on-exit popups that will prevent users from leaving before purchasing.
These can be in the form of a “You might also like…” widget leading to a couple of other prelanders. You can then test which ones have the best click-through rates and drop those that underperform.
In some instances, such on-exit campaigns outperform the main one in terms of conversions and ultimately profits.
FACEBOOK
There is no doubt that Facebook is a major traffic source for many verticals, and it works especially well for health and beauty CPA offers, with certain limits. Generally, there are a few ways to use Facebook for this vertical:
Getting organic followers by building your own profile and then referring traffic to offers
Posting in relevant groups with a good reach
Using Facebook ads
Ads are the trickiest in terms of preparation. Facebook has its guidelines concerning the offers you can and cannot promote. More aggressive ad message and image will get more clicks but are more likely to get you banned (even if they were approved in the first place). Milder versions will achieve quite the opposite. You can’t possibly get approved with diet before-after images and similar creatives that otherwise work quite well.
And then there is cloaking. Cloaking is showing one landing page to a reviewer and a different one to actual visitors (based on IP addresses, countries, etc.). Facebook cloakers are numerous and come at various (mostly high) monthly subscription rates. There is no doubt that affiliates do use cloaking quite often, but if you do choose this option over a more a white-hat technique, be ready for a ban at ANY moment.
Sometimes, to increase their overall credibility, marketers launch ads that promote quality informational content along with those that send traffic to prelanders (as you know, direct linking an affiliate offer to your ad is a sure way to get banned).
INSTAGRAM
Health and beauty is a rather visual niche, which is why Instagram performs well for its purposes. There are three ways to promote offers on this social medium:
Building an organic following for your profile and then referring traffic (by placing a clickable link in your bio)
Getting shoutouts, which is an endorsement from another popular profile
Using Instagram ads
The image is 70% of your ad’s success, so be sure to choose a good one and then test and optimize your ads continuously. Again, the ad can’t be linked directly to an affiliate offer. Usually, click through rates of Instagram ads are twice as high as Facebook’s.
SEARCH ADS
With appropriate targeting, search ads can bring and are bringing A LOT of traffic to nutra offers. Mind the restrictions though – sometimes advertisers don’t permit bidding on branded keywords. Being less popular and thus less competitive, Bing seems to be the most appropriate choice for those who are just starting out. The same goes for unpopular geos, e.g. LATAM, Asia, etc., where bids will naturally be lower.
A profitable scheme that allows to not only send traffic but also build your own email list looks like this:
(1) A search ad – (2) A lead magnet page promising a giveaway – (3) An email sent to the address you’ve captured leading to the – (4) Actual offer page.
It does incorporate two techniques, which is only natural if you want to succeed in affiliate marketing.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Optimizing your health website or blog and climbing up the SERP page is a major long-term investment if you want to take a more solid approach. It is bound to bring results if you reach the top and choose the right offers to promote. Besides, the audience you’ll build will be highly targeted and thus likely to convert.
And while you are working on it, you can get intermediate profit with other, less labor-consuming techniques.
There are no sure-fire ways to succeed. It all hinges on details – the creative you use, the headline you write, the time you run your ad and so on.
The above five traffic sources, however, have worked better than the others for many affiliates. Which means by using them, you won’t be stepping off the beaten (and a rather successful) track. Good luck!
There is hardly a single protocol to follow that will bring in guaranteed results. It’s all in testing and optimizing. In our experience, however, certain traffic sources do outstrip others and give you some advantage from the start.
When it comes to nutra CPA offers, such traffic sources are:
Native
Search
SEO
NATIVE ADVERTISING
We have already covered native ads in a blog post and little has changed since then. Native is still going strong, with more platforms popping up on a regular basis (we’ll review the most popular ones in the future). The key to success of native advertising is the lack of interruption, which is taken favorably by users.
Shock and curiosity are the two strong emotions used in headlines for such ads. It is also recommended to use numbers (7 Ways to Lose Weight), definitive statements (You will look perfect for the bikini season!) and trigger excitement.
Since the majority of traffic is sent to prelanders, it is recommended to use on-exit popups that will prevent users from leaving before purchasing.
These can be in the form of a “You might also like…” widget leading to a couple of other prelanders. You can then test which ones have the best click-through rates and drop those that underperform.
In some instances, such on-exit campaigns outperform the main one in terms of conversions and ultimately profits.
There is no doubt that Facebook is a major traffic source for many verticals, and it works especially well for health and beauty CPA offers, with certain limits. Generally, there are a few ways to use Facebook for this vertical:
Getting organic followers by building your own profile and then referring traffic to offers
Posting in relevant groups with a good reach
Using Facebook ads
Ads are the trickiest in terms of preparation. Facebook has its guidelines concerning the offers you can and cannot promote. More aggressive ad message and image will get more clicks but are more likely to get you banned (even if they were approved in the first place). Milder versions will achieve quite the opposite. You can’t possibly get approved with diet before-after images and similar creatives that otherwise work quite well.
And then there is cloaking. Cloaking is showing one landing page to a reviewer and a different one to actual visitors (based on IP addresses, countries, etc.). Facebook cloakers are numerous and come at various (mostly high) monthly subscription rates. There is no doubt that affiliates do use cloaking quite often, but if you do choose this option over a more a white-hat technique, be ready for a ban at ANY moment.
Sometimes, to increase their overall credibility, marketers launch ads that promote quality informational content along with those that send traffic to prelanders (as you know, direct linking an affiliate offer to your ad is a sure way to get banned).
Health and beauty is a rather visual niche, which is why Instagram performs well for its purposes. There are three ways to promote offers on this social medium:
Building an organic following for your profile and then referring traffic (by placing a clickable link in your bio)
Getting shoutouts, which is an endorsement from another popular profile
Using Instagram ads
The image is 70% of your ad’s success, so be sure to choose a good one and then test and optimize your ads continuously. Again, the ad can’t be linked directly to an affiliate offer. Usually, click through rates of Instagram ads are twice as high as Facebook’s.
SEARCH ADS
With appropriate targeting, search ads can bring and are bringing A LOT of traffic to nutra offers. Mind the restrictions though – sometimes advertisers don’t permit bidding on branded keywords. Being less popular and thus less competitive, Bing seems to be the most appropriate choice for those who are just starting out. The same goes for unpopular geos, e.g. LATAM, Asia, etc., where bids will naturally be lower.
A profitable scheme that allows to not only send traffic but also build your own email list looks like this:
(1) A search ad – (2) A lead magnet page promising a giveaway – (3) An email sent to the address you’ve captured leading to the – (4) Actual offer page.
It does incorporate two techniques, which is only natural if you want to succeed in affiliate marketing.
SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION
Optimizing your health website or blog and climbing up the SERP page is a major long-term investment if you want to take a more solid approach. It is bound to bring results if you reach the top and choose the right offers to promote. Besides, the audience you’ll build will be highly targeted and thus likely to convert.
And while you are working on it, you can get intermediate profit with other, less labor-consuming techniques.
There are no sure-fire ways to succeed. It all hinges on details – the creative you use, the headline you write, the time you run your ad and so on.
The above five traffic sources, however, have worked better than the others for many affiliates. Which means by using them, you won’t be stepping off the beaten (and a rather successful) track. Good luck!
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